The carnival invaded Bucerias. It has swallowed up the whole downtown with rides, game joints, food carts, and booths filled to the brim with clothes and trinkets.

Today was a blur. Wanda was back to her energetic self. She was hyper, but we had to wait for the washing machine guy to show up. The mid-morning appointment turned into an afternoon appointment. The appliance repairman showed up around 1 pm. That’s Mexico. We don’t complain, it goes with the easy life-style that we like so much. A small price to pay.

After the repairman fussed for two hours, he left to get some new parts promising to return in 15 minutes. He meant an hour and 15 minutes. Finally, in broken English, he mumbled something about a motherboard, the motor, and then added a couple of shrugs for good measure. This all boiled down to promising to come back on Wednesday morning at 9:30 am sharp. I smiled knowingly. There is no way that we will see this guy on Wednesday at 9:30 am.

Once the repairman left, we walked down to Taco Linda’s, a well-known and well-regarded taco joint. On our way to Taco Linda's we walked through the carnival, which has devoured the entire downtown. It was only 5:30 pm. The carnival was mostly shuttered, but it will roar to life at sundown. We continued on to Taco Linda's.

The carnival is parked in neutral waiting for showtime at dusk.

I wonder if Johnny Depp receives royalties for his image on this kiddie ride.

We arrived at Taco Linda's at 6 pm on the dot, just as it opened. Most of the tables were reserved, which I found to be amusing for a taco joint, but they found one spot just for us. An old Mexican guitar player with an electronic looper laid down some rhythms which instantly recorded. He then played riffs over the rhythm loops while singing. These were all traditional Mexican folk songs. I enjoyed it a lot. It is cool when old dogs embrace new technology.

The tacos were glorified street tacos. This meant that, like street tacos, you got a tortilla with a heap of meat on top. You are given a nice selection of sauces, onions, and peppers to add. Taco Linda’s not only had the usual beef, chicken, and chorizo (sausage) toppings, they also had mushroom tacos and plain cheese tacos. The quality and quantity of the meat is what made Taco Linda’s so sought after. I also prefer their white corn tortillas over the more typical flour tortillas. They were great and I am glad we finally tried them.

For desert, we treated ourselves to paletas from our favorite ice cream shop in the plaza.

It is hard to beat these hole-in-the-wall food shops. Street tacos are 17 to 20 pesos each. These were a little higher quality and cost 22 to 24 pesos each.

Menu: Spanish on the left column, English on the right.

My order from left to right: Beef, mushroom, chicken. The bottom item is a cheese quesadilla. Of course, I added onions, lots of green peppers, and sauces. The mushroom taco was wonderful. The grade of beef was tender and nicely spiced. Wanda got a cheese taco. It was full of high quality melted cheese.

Mixed fruit and cream paletas.

We strolled to the beach and then up and down the streets watching the little kids squeal with delight from the flashing lights and carnie rides. No, we didn’t go on any of the rides, nor did I win my baby a giant teddy bear. That ship, I am afraid, has sailed a long time ago.

I don’t know how long the carnival will run. I suspect it will last through the upcoming weekend. After Wanda’s epic sea sickness and our crazy washing machine ordeal, it was wonderful to be out and about again.

Above and Below: The setting sun over the ocean never gets old.

The carnival starts to come to life after dark.

Above: Terror. Below: Amor (love). Experience both at the Bucerias Carnival.

Virtual Reality (VR) experiences. This looked interesting as the kids would swing their arms and legs and contort their bodies as they become immersed in whatever virtual world they are in.

No carnival is complete without some shoot ‘em up game joints.

Above: Typical trinkets. Does anyone ever buy this stuff?

Below: One whole street was devoted to food carts.

I had forgot to mention that we did find an optometry shop in downtown Bucerias. As we were standing around the closed corrugated garage door in front of a tiny shop, the proprietor ran up the street towards us shouting, “I’m here, I’m here.” He is doing some remodeling as a side job just down the street. He keeps an eye on his store and sprints over anytime someone shows an interest in his shop. “Lucky for me I looked when I did,” he beamed.

The inside of his shop was bare, save a small rack of female frames and another for guys. He picked a couple that he thought Wanda would like. The first one fit the bill. For progressive sunglasses he wanted 1600 pesos ($80 US). We were tired at the time, which is a poor excuse for not haggling, but we immediately folded our cards. We usually pay $150 online for progressive shades. It would be tons more at an optometry office back home. At first glance, $80 sounded good, however, I have a sneaking suspicion that we could have done better. 

Since this was a spartan shop with the owner moonlighting as a construction laborer, I was leery. I gave him 200 pesos as a deposit. He measured Wanda’s pupils to know where to position the progressive reading lens. He would call us when the glasses came in. 

Sure enough, he left a nearly intelligible voice mail a couple of days later. This was during Wanda’s illness, so I picked them up. It was the same routine - I stood around the shop for 3 or 4 minutes and he came running up the street shouting, “I’m here, I’m here.”

I tried on the shades and immediately noticed that the reading lens part of the progressives were perfectly placed. I have ordered some progressive shades where this part was either way too low, making it difficult to use as readers, or too high so that the magnification interferes with distance sight. These were perfect. OK, I paid off the balance.

Wanda approved. They are crystal clear as one would expect, and she, too, finds the magnification part to be well-placed. That ended well. Wanda thinks I should get a pair as my progressive shades are 2 1/2 years old and have some annoying scratches. I am going to shop around. At least I have a fallback plan.

Wanda’s new shades.

Dave and Wanda

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