Woke up around 7:30AM. Laid in bed for a while. Didn’t want to get up. Finally got up and took a shower. Ate quesadillas & beans, with coffee. Yummy Mexican breakfast. Jen had beans, pico de gallo, and egg.

I took a peek around the town, and snapped a few pics of the nearly-empty streets.

Then we all climbed in the car and headed to Vicente Guerrero. We dropped Jen’s Mom Chona off at the clinic.

I got some pics at the center of the town, including the statue of Vicente Guerrero himself.

We passed through the market twice.

As we were walking along the street we bumped into Luis Gomez selling peppers out of his truck. I probably don’t remember him well because the last time I talked to him was two years ago during the Villa Insurgentes town festival, after I’d had quite a few beers.

Anyway, he had some nice peppers, so I took pictures of them.

When Chona was done at the doctor, we decided to eat lunch. The kids were left at this interesting Xbox arcade. I say interesting because it was 5 pesos for 30 minutes of play. That’s like 50 cents for half hour of Xbox play. Quite a deal by U.S. standards, but I doubt the kids of Guerrero have much money.

After lunch we stopped at a grocery store. Jen had to hold the eggs carefully on the way back to Villa Insurgentes. They don’t sell them in cartons there. They give them to you in a plain plastic bag, so keeping them intact is another story. Don’t bump into anything!

After getting groceries we came back to Villa Insurgentes, to the house. A short while later lots of people showed up to hang out.

At one point, two donkeys came wandering down the alley past the house. One of them had a bulging stomach and looked to be pregnant. Donkeys, cows, and stray dogs wandering through towns in Mexico is common. Amusing for Americans!

Dalila, Joe, Jen, and I went for a walk through the side streets up to the cemetary. On the way to the cemetary, Joe stopped off to take a leak. He came running back claiming to have seen a rattlesnake. We returned to the spot, but found no proof! Then we entered the cemetary. We found the grave of Jen’s maternal grandmother. The cemetary was interesting. Graves were packed very close, some touching. They are in a wide variety of states and quality. One was little more than a wooden cross planted in a rough patch of asphalt.

After the cemetary, we walked back through sidestreets. I got lots of photosource for game textures or whatever. We saw this funny cow watching us over the top of an adobe wall.

And a creative use of materials to make a bench: Concrete, tile, and plastic Coca-Cola cartons.

Later we ate dinner at Jen’s aunt Prieta’s house. We got a tour of their new house, which is huge by Mexican standards. It is more the size of an American house. I talked to Prieta’s husband Martin about computers. He has a decent custom PC – a rarity in rural Mexico!

Being the geek that I am, I ran back to our house to grab my laptop so I could share some photos with Martin and Prieta, and burn Martin a CD of photos from our 2004 trip. After a few slideshows, we came back to the house where relatives were still hanging out. I got introduced to some of Jen’s relatives from Chicago. They were impressed that I know Spanish.

A bit later, everyone left. We all shuffled down to a restaurant just around the corner for a late meal. I was still full from eating at Prieta’s house. But I couldn’t turn down a beer! Afterwards, we came back and went to bed.