Spring 2011
All you need is love. Love is all there is.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
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We are working on this season's inaugural issue of Yelapahora. Please share your current piece of community. Submit to yelapahora@hotmail.com.
Spanish Class
For info on Maestra Elena's Spanish Class in Yelapa
For info on Juanita's Yelapa English Spanish Studies (YESS)
For info on Juanita's Yelapa English Spanish Studies (YESS)
What You Missed
by Maestra Elena
Ever wonder what goes on in Yelapa while you are happily escaping the heat and humidity of the rainy season? Well here’s some news about what you missed.
Semana Santa, not to be confused with the Santa that arrives in December, brought us the annual two-week Easter vacation period that saw hundreds of tourists, mostly nationals, debarking from the pangas to enjoy the warm hospitality of the Yelapeños, the many beach restaurants and bars (“Where did I leave my margarita?”) and our beautiful beach (“Hey! This sand is rough!”)
In addition to the usual attractions, this year a trampoline commanded the south end of the beach, and youngsters jumped up and down for 12 hours every day accompanied by (very loud) music: Vincente Fernandez alternating with techno rock. What a treat! The people in the numerous colorful tents that sprang up like, well, tents at Easter time, must have enjoyed the music as well, and no doubt they were saddened when the trampoline and the music went dark at 10 each night.
Religious processions walked to the church with the faithful singing, guitarring and praying, stopping for inspiration along the way at flower-adorned tables “the stations of the cross”. Inspirational rockets that were fired off at all hours of the day and night for two weeks started babies and dogs howling. What fun!
Susan held an end-of season community flea market at the Café Bahía. This tianguis was an especially well-timed event for your humble author who had just been robbed of $10,000 pesos by a local burglar now doing time inside. Be careful where you leave your valuables!
MAY: The Battle of Puebla (Cinco de Mayo) was commemorated on the 5th of May as always with rockets shooting skyward and dogs howling. Did you think Yelapa was noisy only in the high season?
JUNE: El Día de la Marina (Mariners’ Day) in honor of all sailors, past and present, brought all the school children and dozens of adults to the Playita where more than a dozen pangas carried them out to sea. The boats formed a great circle with music and singing as well as inspirational and pro-environment speeches by the Queen of the Marina and other exceptional students.
At the same time, on land a huge pole was coated with lard and planted in the sand for the annual greased pole climb. There were prizes at the top, but try as they might, with lots of encouragement from their friends below, none of the contestants succeeded. They drowned their sorrows in the usual way and happily joined the huge turnout for a delicious meal and lots of music in a tent near the same beach.
June also saw the first ever motor vehicle head-on collision in Yelapa when two ATVs collided just in front of the entrance to Judy’s Yoga Studio spilling passengers and cement powder all over the trail. Witnesses buzzed the word “boracho” about one of the drivers, but who knows? Interestingly, the speed bumps that had crossed the trail in several places had just been removed the week prior to the accident allegedly because they were too high and “unnecessary”. And because they slowed down the ATVs?
Patricia aka Yelapa Patty sat down on a defective chair and fell to the ground breaking some ribs. Fortunately she is completely recovered now.
The secondary school students staged a massive cleanup of the paths around town and on both sides of the river. Good work, kids and teachers! Any chance this could be a quarterly event?
July and August: These months were fairly quiet with the restaurants Passion Flower Gardens, Yelapa Oasis, The Eclipse, Café Bahía, El Manguito and Christina’s Riverview Café all closed; but a birthday party with fireworks for Elena’s son Freddy at Angelina’s Gardens enlivened things a bit. Unfortunately heavy rains put a damper on everything.
The CFE (power company) got something mixed up and fed 220v. instead of 110v to the whole neighborhood of the point burning up computers and leaving the point without electricity for 9 days!(Per Jaime Flaco) No fans in the middle of summer, very bad luck.
This was also an ill-fated month for April, who fell on a slippery hill in Vallarta and seriously broke her hip. She needed and received a hip replacement then went north to recover. She’s up and around now and at this writing has opened her restaurant, Passion Flower Gardens, for the high season.
September: We suffered from the usual heat and humidity with, less rain than usual.
The Jalisco Department of Health came around to fumigate houses and the product they used caused severely unpleasant allergic reactions lasting more than a day in several people in El Paso and perhaps elsewhere.
October: Another ATV accident caused some minor injuries to Rodolfo and Fátima when Jose’s cuatrimoto flipped over backwards going up a steep incline. José was injured and his face battered, but at this writing seems to be recovering well. He had a beautiful black eye!
El Manguito reopened in October giving us a break from our own cooking and we are at this writing looking forward to the delicious meals awaiting us at all of our restaurants during the high season. A new restaurant, El Cerrito, held a grand opening on Sunday, November 14, that was attended by many of the fall returnees as well as some of those who weathered the summer here.
Telephone service was off and on throughout Yelapa all summer and the internet gave its usual sluggish performance when it worked at all. Telmex, is that really the best you can do?
Welcome home, everybody.
Semana Santa, not to be confused with the Santa that arrives in December, brought us the annual two-week Easter vacation period that saw hundreds of tourists, mostly nationals, debarking from the pangas to enjoy the warm hospitality of the Yelapeños, the many beach restaurants and bars (“Where did I leave my margarita?”) and our beautiful beach (“Hey! This sand is rough!”)
In addition to the usual attractions, this year a trampoline commanded the south end of the beach, and youngsters jumped up and down for 12 hours every day accompanied by (very loud) music: Vincente Fernandez alternating with techno rock. What a treat! The people in the numerous colorful tents that sprang up like, well, tents at Easter time, must have enjoyed the music as well, and no doubt they were saddened when the trampoline and the music went dark at 10 each night.
Religious processions walked to the church with the faithful singing, guitarring and praying, stopping for inspiration along the way at flower-adorned tables “the stations of the cross”. Inspirational rockets that were fired off at all hours of the day and night for two weeks started babies and dogs howling. What fun!
Susan held an end-of season community flea market at the Café Bahía. This tianguis was an especially well-timed event for your humble author who had just been robbed of $10,000 pesos by a local burglar now doing time inside. Be careful where you leave your valuables!
MAY: The Battle of Puebla (Cinco de Mayo) was commemorated on the 5th of May as always with rockets shooting skyward and dogs howling. Did you think Yelapa was noisy only in the high season?
JUNE: El Día de la Marina (Mariners’ Day) in honor of all sailors, past and present, brought all the school children and dozens of adults to the Playita where more than a dozen pangas carried them out to sea. The boats formed a great circle with music and singing as well as inspirational and pro-environment speeches by the Queen of the Marina and other exceptional students.
At the same time, on land a huge pole was coated with lard and planted in the sand for the annual greased pole climb. There were prizes at the top, but try as they might, with lots of encouragement from their friends below, none of the contestants succeeded. They drowned their sorrows in the usual way and happily joined the huge turnout for a delicious meal and lots of music in a tent near the same beach.
June also saw the first ever motor vehicle head-on collision in Yelapa when two ATVs collided just in front of the entrance to Judy’s Yoga Studio spilling passengers and cement powder all over the trail. Witnesses buzzed the word “boracho” about one of the drivers, but who knows? Interestingly, the speed bumps that had crossed the trail in several places had just been removed the week prior to the accident allegedly because they were too high and “unnecessary”. And because they slowed down the ATVs?
Patricia aka Yelapa Patty sat down on a defective chair and fell to the ground breaking some ribs. Fortunately she is completely recovered now.
The secondary school students staged a massive cleanup of the paths around town and on both sides of the river. Good work, kids and teachers! Any chance this could be a quarterly event?
July and August: These months were fairly quiet with the restaurants Passion Flower Gardens, Yelapa Oasis, The Eclipse, Café Bahía, El Manguito and Christina’s Riverview Café all closed; but a birthday party with fireworks for Elena’s son Freddy at Angelina’s Gardens enlivened things a bit. Unfortunately heavy rains put a damper on everything.
The CFE (power company) got something mixed up and fed 220v. instead of 110v to the whole neighborhood of the point burning up computers and leaving the point without electricity for 9 days!(Per Jaime Flaco) No fans in the middle of summer, very bad luck.
This was also an ill-fated month for April, who fell on a slippery hill in Vallarta and seriously broke her hip. She needed and received a hip replacement then went north to recover. She’s up and around now and at this writing has opened her restaurant, Passion Flower Gardens, for the high season.
September: We suffered from the usual heat and humidity with, less rain than usual.
The Jalisco Department of Health came around to fumigate houses and the product they used caused severely unpleasant allergic reactions lasting more than a day in several people in El Paso and perhaps elsewhere.
October: Another ATV accident caused some minor injuries to Rodolfo and Fátima when Jose’s cuatrimoto flipped over backwards going up a steep incline. José was injured and his face battered, but at this writing seems to be recovering well. He had a beautiful black eye!
El Manguito reopened in October giving us a break from our own cooking and we are at this writing looking forward to the delicious meals awaiting us at all of our restaurants during the high season. A new restaurant, El Cerrito, held a grand opening on Sunday, November 14, that was attended by many of the fall returnees as well as some of those who weathered the summer here.
Telephone service was off and on throughout Yelapa all summer and the internet gave its usual sluggish performance when it worked at all. Telmex, is that really the best you can do?
Welcome home, everybody.
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