Headed South: January 2024

It's Been A Long, Long Year...and now it's over!

While sparing you the gory details, I will summarize our year as less than stellar. So, let's just move on and hope for a more groovy 2024, in spite of multiple wars, political upheaval and climate change. Stop Deirdre! It will be fine.

So, this will be a short post just to kick off the year. I must say Ajijic is a great place to spend New Years. The Mexicans really know how to enjoy a holiday. I mean in a country where the Day of the Dead is a festive event you can only imagine what New Years is like.

We began the celebration with our good friends Sally and Mike who, each year, host a Midnight In Paris Party. I offer this up to you readers of a certain age who find reaching midnight to be a bridge too far. So, with a Midnight in Paris party everyone celebrates at what would be midnight in Paris. For us in the Central Time Zone that means 5 PM. Assembling at 4 PM with wine in hand and massive appetizers we count down to champagne and toasts at five, more eating and drinking and we're home at 9:00. Perfect.

Having tucked in early we are prepared for the annual New Years Parade in the Village. This is not the Parade of Roses but it does have its charms. It is alleged that the parade originated as a method to cool hostilities between two barrios of the village. Rather than physical hostility it was decided that a healthy competition was in order.Thus they created the parade and decided a battle of the floats beat a battle of the fists. Over time the original impetus was lost and it just became another festive event.

The parade was billed to start "between noon and 1:00". We were far too experienced to fall for that. We showed up a bit before 1:00 and thus only had to wait and hour and a half more until the parade appeared. But it was not wasted time. We made new friends. That is the beauty (or one of the beauties) of this place. If you just plop yourself down somewhere odds are you will meet interesting people. So, as we sat on our concrete bench we made friends with a Canadian couple. He had been a news cameraman and had some interesting tales to tell. On Michael's side was a woman who was born in Mexico and was a professor at Carnegie Mellon. She was visiting Leon to celebrate her 60th birthday and decided to swing by Ajijc. We chatted with our new pals for over an hour and then enjoyed the parade together. It is a sweet place.

I said this would be short and it will. Mardi Gras will be rolling in soon and we will be going to Mazatlan in April to witness the total eclipse which passes directly overhead. Hopefully we'll get to do some more extensive travel as the year unwinds and we'll have more tales to share. In the interim, have a happy and healthy New Year and let us know what you are up to.