February 5th and 6th

Gorditas

The lady on the square in front of the cathedral was making gorditas, a gordita being a stuffed tortilla. The whole process, from watching her make them, figuring out what she was putting in them, and finally eating them, was really fun. As my sister, Susie, exclaimed when we drove through the wrought iron gates of LaCaille in Salt Lake City for brunch once,”Oh, I see. It’s not the meal, it’s the experience!”

The gordita lady had a large, bowl-shaped griddle, possibly made from a steel drum and fueled by propane, set up next to a card table, which held all her ingredients. Each gordita was made to order. First, she would take a small fistful of tortilla dough roll it into a ball, and then flatten it in her tortilla press. Then she picked the newly-made tortilla up in her hand and piled whatever fillings you wanted on it. The choices were champillons (a chopped onion and mushroom mixture), chicarones (pork cracklings), chorizo (spicy sausage), minced veal, and requeson, which appeared to be a soft, ricotta-like cheese mixed with cilantro. After the fillings were in place, she brought the edges of the tortilla up and around to seal them all in, then re-flattened the whole thing in the tortilla press before putting it on the griddle to cook. When it was done on both sides, she served it up with shredded cabbage, a little mayo, and some salsa on a plastic plate. You ate it right there, sitting on the chairs she had set up, then handed the plate back to her husband, who wiped it off and put it back on the stack to re-use. All this for 150 pesos ($1.50 American) apiece. And they were delicious!

Swimming with Sea Lions

Yesterday, we took the boat tour around Espiritu Santo, which is the large island four miles out from Playa El Tecolote, where we are staying. There are over 900 islands in the Gulf of California, most of them protected, with limited access, and this is one of them. We went out in a panga with six other people—an Italian couple, a French couple, and a Mexican couple. Our capitan, Jesus, didn’t speak much English, but the Mexican guy, Rene Alejandro, spoke excellent English, which he said he learned growing up in Tijuana and watching American TV and reading comic books, and he translated for us. The island is very wild and desolate, and is uninhabited except for one little area where fisherman live and fish. The highlight of the trip was visiting the sea lion colony on the far side of the island, donning our snorkeling gear, and getting into the water to swim with them. It was a little scary at first, especially when the big males swam by—they are HUGE! They didn’t seem to pay us much notice, but the pups (born last May/June) were very curious. They would swim around and around us, right side up and upside down to view us from all angles, then dart off after a buddy, come back, and repeat the whole process again. After our swim, we motored over to a beautiful little cove for lunch and sunbathing. Lunch was another adventure in eating for us—two kinds of ceviche (fish and shrimp) and pickled marlin. There were also ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread for the timid, but Steve and I both went for the more exotic. It was great!

Today we are just hanging out on our beach, relaxing. We’ve been here a week now, and will probably move on, still heading south, to Los Barilles, tomorrow.