Spanish Word(s) of the Day: flaco y gordo

A friend is visiting Kino and we've been exploring beaches I've not been able to get to in my Ford Econoline van. He's got a nifty new Toyota that seems to be able to climb every dune so the other day we made a trip north to the Seri village of Punta Chueca. My friend had admired a sandstone carving I have of a fish - Nemo the Seris call it - and so we were on a finding Nemo quest.

If you're going to the Seri villages of Punta Chueca or Desembuque bring items to trade. Even if you're set on buying a basket, the price will come down (but only so far) if you have stuff to trade. The Seris want mostly clothes, knives, scissors, fishing line, cups, plates. Once at the village be prepared to be descended upon by women with baskets, shell necklaces, ironwood and sandstone carvings. I know quite a few women from the village - the ones who come into Kino to trade - and so it was fun seeing familiar faces. And although I'm not fearful of going out to the villages, I do dislike being marked as a rich gringa - especially in that fancy Toyota - so I felt better knowing that these women know I'm a poor gringa who lives in an aluminum trailer.

We were looking for Josefina, whose husband is the sandstone carver. Hortensia placed a little girl, Melinda, on my lap and had her direct us to Josefina's house. Josefina's sons told us their mom was in Desembuque so our finding Nemo mission had come to a halt. They said they'd tell her we were looking for her and sure enough she and her husband and daughter showed up at my trailer the next day with a little sandstone Nemo.

After unsuccessfully bartering over baskets - and giving out scoopfuls of Halloween candy - we headed north to explore the beaches.

At our first stop we came across this dead caguama, a type of sea turtle.

But across the way we could see a large sandspit that extended way out into the Gulf of California, almost to the island of Tiburon so we struck out for that. No problema for the little Toyota that could.

We walked wayyyyyy down to the end of the spit. Not a lot of shells on this beach but the ones that were there were very interesting. Check out these starfish:

The one on the left, flaco (skinny), and the one on the right gordo (fat). The skinny and the fatty. I couldn't place a coin next to them for size comparison - all I have are pesos and that wouldn't help most of you - so I took a group shot of the starfish I gathered on that beach. The squares in the tablecloth are about 3/4 inch squares.

We ended the day watching the sunset from the porch at Jorge's.