The shower and the toilet were in (separate) closets. Kind of strange taking a shower in the closet, but it worked. The shower had the strongest water pressure I've ever felt, too strong because the drain couldn't keep up and I was afraid it would flood into the room (there was a couple inches drop for the shower floor, but it was a lake in there with the shower on).
We ate breakfast at the hotel, which was pretty good. N. had told us that A.-Sr. and family ate breakfast there sometimes. A. ordered huevos moultenos (or moltulenos, I'm not sure which) a dish he orders at Cafe Pasqual's in Santa Fe whenever we go there, it was a stripped down version, just the eggs, sauce and a few slices of plaintains here. Z. had hotcakes again (they call pancakes the English name hotcakes in Mexico) but this time with a side of bacon. I ordered an omelet filled with calabacitas (pumpkin flowers) and cheese. The egg was very thin and there was something else inside, some kind of red sauce. It was very good. We shared a fruit platter (cantaloupe, papaya, pineapple and watermelon- everything was good except the watermelon which was tasteless so we left it) and a bread basket they brought us (which they only brought us a couple times that week for some reason). The bread basket had plain rolls and also some sweet rolls and pastries. The pastries were basically puff pastry with a glaze and some coarse sugar and were amazingly un-sweet. Something that looked similar in the US would have been considerably sweeter.
We went back up to the room to hang out till it was time for someone to pick us up. We were not sure of the plans for the day since they changed so often we mostly just listened to the time we were being picked up. A.-Sr. and L. picked us up (the three of us and R.'s parents, we were the only one's staying at the hotel, the others were staying at either Mamacita's- R., N., & J., or at A.-Sr.'s and L.'s- M. & J) and we drove to Mamacita's in Nogales. She lives about a half a block from the main street and a half a block from the train tracks (so R., N., and J. had to get used to freight trains going by and whistling every couple of hours all night and in the early morning the people from the mountains screaming out "tamales" or whatever it was they were selling- barking dogs seemed much easier to deal with). Beyond the train tracks were more houses and then the mountain, on the other side there were mountains close by also.
We didn't stay there long but met Mamacita's youngest brother Ri. who had been traveling to get there (I can't remember where he is from), Mamacita's 93 year old mother, and maybe some other women who I could never get straight (aunts? cousins? friends? or maybe we met them a different time, it's a blur).
We all piled in the vans again and went out to N.'s father's ranch. They called it a ranch, but it really had the feel of a state park in the US. Her father rents it out for weddings and events and on weekends charges a few pesos for people to come in and picnic. The views of the mountains around it were gorgeous. There was lots of land and we walked some of it, with streams of water coming down from the volcanoes. There were nut trees and pomegranate trees and all kinds of interesting flowers and plants to look at along the way.
We walked some very narrow walkways over water, including some narrow footbridges (there were those kind that are strung together and move and solid ones like the one above). This was the adults, the kids were off doing their own thing, I'm not sure exactly where they walked but at one point we all met up and walked to the section of the ranch that N.'s father had given to her brother A.-Sr. He and L. had done some things like building a pool that used the water from the volcanoes, and planting lots of fruit trees and other edible plants and herbs.
Z. and J. and even A. (I just realized there are two A.'s, I mean Z.'s father) tried the various zip lines that were on the property. They had a blast but the kids in particular were covered in grease, in fact Z. got a big blob in her hair. We got it out with hand gel and she made sure to wash her hair extra well that night. While the kids went on and off the zip lines we had a snack outside at a picnic table, soda, beer and chips (there was a habanero flavored potato chip that was really good!) Then the grownups went inside of N.'s father's little cabin to relax (he doesn't live there but goes there to relax and as a home base for keeping track of the various workers on the property). J. and Z. were outside playing songs on their whistles from the pyramids (they had at least two holes and the kids got an amazing range of notes with them). The skies looked ominous and sure enough, soon it was raining hard.
A bit later on Mamacita, an aunt and Mamacita's cook (and N.'s, now Mamacita's dog Fergie- pronounced like the "g" in gee whiz) came to the ranch with pots of hot food. There were three dishes, all meant to be eaten in corn tortillas like tacos. One was shredded pork, another was a sausage and cheese thing (I know I am forgetting the other ingredients, it was A.-Sr.'s recipe but not made by him) and the third was poblano peppers, green beans and cream (that one was the spiciest but very good). I had one of each and was pretty stuffed but then N. put a piece of cake (vanilla bakery cake) and while I know I would have passed if I had to go up and get the cake, having it in front of me made me lose all resolve and I ate the whole piece. Oh well. I got Z. to eat one of the pork tacos and she was hungry enough not to complain.
I think we (meaning us Americans) were all ready for a siesta but L. and N. had other plans so we piled into the van for a bit of a tour of Orizaba. First we went to the Municipal building to look at a mural painted in the stairway there.
Then we walked (in the light drizzle) to a coffee shop. It was an interesting building, all made of metal in the art nouveau style, that Orizaba won in a raffle from Belgium (it was shipped in pieces and put together in Orizaba) years ago. The coffee shop had a European feel also. We sat on the covered porch and ordered coffees and cappuccino's and J. and Z. ordered ice cream. They even had decaf cappuccino so I was all set! After leaving there we stopped at a building that had an exhibit of old photos and old typewriters and then stopped at a liquor store. Some of the others bought some things (tequila mostly) but A. and I didn't, I hung out close to the street (it was an open air shop, no real walls) with the two kids who weren't supposed to be in there so they sat on the step of the shop off the sidewalk. It seemed to take forever, later R. said the clerks were extremely slow.
So we were dropped off at the hotel and when we got back to the room we had a little Pokemon surprise waiting for us from housekeeping. Z. really wanted to go swimming so A. brought her down. The water was ice cold, no heat in the pool and it had been cool and overcast and rainy all day. She was determined anyway and stayed in for an hour. I stayed in the room and laid on my heating pad.
We were picked up at 9pm to go to N.'s cousin's house for dinner. They live in a new section of town (and for the life of me I don't know which town) with new housing and was a "gated" community. As we drove up first we passed over the railroad tracks, which have no gates (none of the RR crossings do as far as I could tell) and right beyond was a gate. We pulled up and they told the guy standing there who we were visiting and he lifted it (by hand, it was not electric). We drove by buildings in various states of completion (or non-completion depending on how you looked at it) to the far end where her cousin lived. It was a small but very nice, modern house, something similar to a townhouse or condo in the US. We all piled in and tried to have a conversation with varying degrees of success. They had a boy J. and Z's age and there were also three other cousin's (someone else's kids) there, two twin girls and a boy. The kids had an absolute blast playing together. J. had been playing with them for 3 weeks, but Z. jumped right in there and was one of them right away. N. was lamenting that the cousin's were speaking English though, she had wanted J. and Z. to have to speak Spanish. Oh well.
So sometime after 10pm dinner was served, it was a light meal of gornachas (I have no idea if I am spelling that right, but what they all said sounded like that) which were these small tacos that were fried in oil. They had shredded beef, potatoes and tomato sauce inside and were good. Eventually some beans came out too. There were these gigantic 3.33 liter bottles of fruit flavored sodas that took two people to pour, one to hold the bottle and one to hold the glass as it needed to be poured in the air. For dessert was this very yummy concoction of cookies (probably a biscuit type of cookie) softened in a mixture of sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and lime juice and baked. It kind of had a flavor reminiscent of key lime pie. Right before we were ready to leave J. and Z. showed up to eat, J. ate a gornacha or two, Z. took a bite but didn't like it and ate a piece of dessert instead.
We were back in the hotel and in bed by midnight.
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