The Fox's in Mexico: Thursday, February 16, 2012

We had a ‘rip tailed snorter’ of a thunder storm last night, that knocked out the hydro for an hour, so we weren’t sure what to expect this morning weather wise. It was mainly cloudy, but the sun was trying to break through.

We headed to the beach in anticipation of a marching band from the middle school performing by the ocean. When that didn’t materialize, we walked to the south end of the beach. Robert spent his time sharpening his photography skills by taking lots of photos of birds and dogs. He also looked for treasures to add to the beach shrine, a creative effort by many people. Milla wandered aimlessly about, as Sue frolicked in the waves looking for shells and watching the crabs scurry over the rocks.

We spent part of the morning at Entre Amigos doing yesterday’s blog, and shopping at the thrift store which is located at the back of the library. We returned to our casa for egg-salad sandwiches, and prepared for our ‘Orchid Tour’ which started at 1:30 p.m. from the community centre. Just before we took off to find the elusive orchid farm, we ran into Recia and Libby. They invited us for dinner on Sunday. They are renting a room down at the north end of San Pancho beach in the Taj Mahal white hotel called, “Villa Paradise”.

The librarian took attendance and the ten of us flower fiends loaded into the big van and headed north about 5 kms to Las Lomas where the botanical garden was located. We left the highway and bumped our way along a pot-holed pathway called a road for another 3 kms passing thick Tarzan-like jungle to the entrance of Alejandro’s orchid sanctuary. I must introduce all of the bizarre characters who were waiting to greet us.

Alejandro was a retired 60 year old Mexican movie star/bar owner; Virgilio another 60 year old retired seminary graduate who had pictures on his phone of a wild jaguar and himself cuddling; Fernando, the part time yoga instructor/ library van driver; Pedro was the foreman of the sanctuary who looked like the Cisco Kid’s partner Pancho; Sandra was about 30 carrying a 1 year old, and she came up with the idea of creating this 8 hectare orchid sanctuary seven years ago; there was the Margaret Barr lookalike from the real San Francisco who taught 2 types of yoga who left her husband back in the U.S. at a “silence retreat”; the lady from Ottawa Canada who was the president of Canadian Universities and her husband Phil who made sure all the women didnt slip on the rocks.

We must emphasize here that this orchid sanctuary was like the garden of Eden. We learned about orchids; higuera rojo trees that had love affairs with giant palm trees; and that once you turn 50, life deserves you.

The tour took about 2 hours and the orchid sanctuary was very deep in the jungle with the Pacific Ocean in the distance. There was a house on the premises and a large green house filled with beautiful flowers. We were all given free beer and or Fresca.

We returned to San Pancho around 5 p.m. and had spaghetti for dinner before we headed to see the sunset at the beach. We are now cozy at Casa Tequilla reading books like “The Forgotten Garden” and “Catastrophe” and “Push”.

Alejandra is the retired movie star and now owner of the sanctuary