We’ve had two batches of houseguests over the last several weeks, and I thought you might be interested in some of the fun things we did.

First to arrive was my sister and her husband. She’d been here several times but this was his first time. First, as you can see in the photo collage at the top of the post, we had fun at the beach. We went to Stone Island for the day. We went to La Corriente for an afternoon. We went to Surf’s Up for breakfast. After breakfast at Surf’s Up we went for a nature walk at Estero de Yugo. And of course, we played lots of dominoes in the evenings. My sister and I also had fun at a cooking class at Water’s Edge, just go back to my previous post to read about it!

One day we went for a tour of the Los Osuna distillery. I’d made contact with them through their website and after many texts and calls we arranged on a time. Most of the tours of their place come through tour operators like King David but they were happy to accommodate us. We had a great tour and learned a lot – for example that they play classical music to their fermenting vats and that you throw back a shot of bad tequila but that good tequila should be sipped, and preferably from a brandy snifter. After the tour we drove to La Noria and had an excellent lunch in a little outdoor restaurant (El Sazón de la Abuela Tina) with live entertainment. And by live entertainment I mean a big ol’ turkey and a flock of chickens!

The next visitors to come were Jess and Lourdes. We did some of the same things with them like going to Stone Island, beers at Puerto Viejo, and drinks or dinner in the Plazuela Machado. But with them we also walked down to the botanical gardens on Stone Island and toured downtown looking for street art to photograph. We even had an enjoyable afternoon watching a playreading of Edward Albee’s The Occupant put on by Mazatlán Film & Theater.

One of the highlights while Jess and Lourdes were here was a trip to Las Labradas and experiencing the equinox celebration. We had a wonderful time although we wished we had been there some years ago before it became so popular – 3,000 people is about 2,500 too many in our opinions. But still we were glad we went. A delightful comida at El Mesón de los Laureanos in El Quelite finished off that day quite nicely.

We did lots of other fun stuff including walks on the malecon, touring/shopping downtown at all our favorite little places, grilling on our new barbeque and endless games of dominoes. I hope our guests had as much fun as I did… but now we have a break as the city is starting to fill up for Semana Santa. We have more guests in April and I’m already looking into what fun we’ll arrange for their visits!