Ticla for a Month...

After a little bit of hopping around the coast of Michoacan, we have decided to stay in Ticla for the month of February.  It is a lovely community with some fun and challenging waves.  The family that we are renting a palapa from is very sweet and even invited us to attend some festivities at their church on the 3rd.

After an admittedly short google search, I still have no idea what we were celebrating.  It seems that this is the feastday of St. Blase, when Catholics go to mass to recieve the blessing of the throats.   But I´m pretty sure St. Blase wasn´t brought up.  As usual it seemed centered around the Virgin, with some side discussion on Christ (lots of emphasis on the Virgin here).  But the general theme was feasting, celebrating, and taking time out to be together, and we felt honored to be invited.  I even got to try my hand at making tortillas with the ladies (which indeed added a bit of comic relief to everyone´s dining experience).  I bumbled around like some of the younger girls (ages 8) who were learning as well.  It is amazing how fast some of the older women can whip out a hand made tortilla in mere seconds with perfect shape. 

A word on the food here in Ticla... It is delightfully fresh.  Almost all the other places we have been rely on the tortillerias for their tortillas.  In Morelos there were at least 4 to a town of only a couple thousand people.  While they are good, they are produced with a machine, using dry masa (or corn flour) to make the thin small tortillas.  Here, the tortillas are hand made (although many women use a hand press) and most use fresh corn. First it is soaked in water and then ground that very day into masa (there is a mill here to grind corn).  A milpa (or stone hand grinder) may be used to get a finer consistency.  Then a thin layer of lime (collected in the limestone hills around) is tossed on the pan to keep the tortillas from sticking.  The result is a large, thick corn tortilla that opens like a pita.  They are wonderful.

One morning we went out for juevos rancheros and were asked if we wanted eggs from the cook´s chicken (of course!).  Ticla is a country town, with lots of people employed by agriculture (papayas are the other main income, aside from surf tourists).  Chickens roam the streets, pigs are tied up alongside roads, and occasionally a young boy can be spotted hunting iguanas, or climbing coconut trees.  It has a very laid back feel and no one ever seems to be in a hurry.... the perfect place to hang out for a month.