The Long Mexican Lunch

It's Sunday and we woke this morning to the sound of church bells and the ever-present exploding fireworks. Someone was singing.

I'm really impressed by the creativity here. The houses, the way they are squeezed into tiny sites, abutting one another, with turrets,wrought iron and rock walls, ornamented and painted glorious intense colours. Even the mortar in the walls is decorated with smaller stones. Tubs of flowers even in the humblest of dwellings.

Even so we were surprised and delighted when we came to our friends' house close to the centre of Cuernavaca. The area feels very old, stone cobbles outside and the main entrance is off a steep pedestrian-only road. The entire property is walled by a tall stone wall and they have an outside living room with leather couches, small fridge, and one of those chiminea-type fires if it gets cold. On top of this structure is an outside bathroom with loo and shower (both with doors!) and a basin open to the elements.
The swimming pool was carved out of the rock, and they found a cave underneath when they were excavating it, which they now use to store
ladders, and tools etc. In another cave is the lawn mower and another fridge.

The whole thing is on the side of a steep gully, but they have lawns and gardens on two levels. The garage is on the very bottom level, again carved out of the rock - you go into a kind of cave to get to it. Inside the cave is a natural spring. It's a wonderful place, a dream garden full of nifty nooks and crannies.


The house inside is all plaster and dark chunky wood. It was also quite 'cosy' - which Emily loved but rather dark inside, which would drive me crazy. It was beautifully restored and joins on to the neighbouring house, which is a hotel
(currently being renovated). They look out onto a tree-clad hillside, the other side of the gully actually, which is very pretty.


Lunch lasted all afternoon, we got home at 8pm, and included local dark beer and neat tequila, which is surprisingly good. It's really nice to relax and eat all afternoon. We had a barbeque, with lots of snacks and trimmings such as sticks of carrot and jicama (a mild-flavoured white root vegetable, crunchy and juicy) sprinkled with lime and salt, about half a pig-worth of pork scratchings (they sell it in big pieces here and it is used in cooking), carnitas (deep-fried shredded pork that you roll up in a tortilla to eat) and lashings of guacamole. And of course the ever-present green and red salsas - they have been on every table we have eaten at, even at breakfast, and they are good, especially the green.

Oh, and a taxi driver complimented me on my spanish this evening!!