Back to Ticul, and don Lorenzo

We made another trip to Ticul to visit with don Lorenzo. Actually it was a different WE than the last time we went just 2.5 short weeks ago. This time it was a girl adventure (me, C, and jFr). Started out kind of crazy.

Here's the sort of long abreviated version - A whole gaggle of us had gone to friend jFr's house for a nosh and drink event with other friends visiting from Detroit on Thursday evening. jFr, C, and I firmed our departure plans for the next day to head to Santa Elena and The Pickled Onion for lunch, then to Ticul to visit don Lorenzo's taller.

Got an email early Friday am from jFr, her car had been hit during the night, actually at 4:30am cuz she heard the crash, checked the clock for time and rolled back over. The car was hit, it would still be hit in a few hours. Anyway, so the email came and I called to see if she needed pictures taken since I knew she had just recently broken her camera after an unfortunate and unexpected pool plunge, but that's another story.

Anyway, she said yes to the photos so off I went. When I arrived at her house the Policia Estatal were just arriving, as was the insurance representative. As the policeman, Fernandez, and I were approaching jFr's house from down the street the cry comes for help. A man was on the ground so off went Fernandez, next thing you know 3 police trucks come in and an ambulance shows up. An icecream vendor was on the ground, no, not struck by a car or biten by a dog, but stumbling around drunk. Ambulance guys take his bp, do a few checks, pronounce him drunk and take off to let the police deal with him. Then photographers show up and take photos of him and jFr's wrecked car, who knows what story they will come up with. Anyway, the icecream vendor was trying to buy off the police with the offer of icecream, but alas his trici-cart was empty. AND anyway the police weren't taking the offer, even before it was discovered his cart was empty. The police went and got the icecream boss, and a sober guy to drive the trici-cart back to the shop. Drunk guy really didn't want anyone driving away on his trici-cart so put up a little bit of a struggle, but was not up to the task of offering serious resistence. So to try to shorten this up - icecream boss takes drunk guy, sober guy takes trici-cart, insurance guy makes damage report, police watch everything and offer assistance, Debi takes pictures, jFr provides documents and info as required.

OK, back to the car, now at 0430 there are no other cars parked on the road as all the neighbors with cars put their cars across the street in the off street parking in front of Niplito after the store closes. The road is fairly wide here, however - at 0430 a white Nissan could not seem to miss the one car parked on the street and hit the left rear panel of jFr's subaru. It broke the light covering, but not the bulbs, and caused a bit of crumpling to the left side panel, nothing serious enough to put the vehicle out of comission. It did however push the Subaru about 3.5 meters up onto the sidewalk where the car came to rest about 20cm from the facade of jFr's house, her freshly painted house. So overall the car was ok, we got the report done, moved the car, and were able to get on with our trip as planned with only a slight delay in take off. The pictures I took I loaded off to jFr's computer and actually moved them not copy'd them so don't have any photos to post of either car or drunk guy. You may have asked, ¿How do they know it was a white Nissan? Good Question! We know because in addition to the entire right front light assembly, there were multiple pieces of white car impaled into jFr's car and scattered around on the ground. Some of these pieces actually had Nissan stamped into them. Quite a piece of detective work there!

OK, so I went home, C picked me up, we then picked up jFr, and after a stop for some moolah we were heading down the road. First stop after all this was in Santa Elena at friend Valerie's Pickled Onion restaurant. And this time I took food pictures, we each ordered something different.

jFr had avacado soup and greek salad, C had avacado soup and a meatball plate, and I had a chicken with capers plate.
ummm, ummm, good! Great food, and a lovely visit with Valerie since she wasn't too busy this day!

After lunch we were off to Ticul. We had a great time, bought a few pots, took lots of photos, and had a nice chat with don Lorenzo. He was quite enthusiastic about telling us about grafting trees, especially citrus trees. Apparently he and a son are creating grafted citrus with various combination of sour orange/lime, sweet orange/sour orange, etc.

The kiln was being unloaded while we were there, which was cool to see how they pack it and all. And one of the workers was mixing up big batches of clay; it was really interesting to see and hear about how they process the hard rock clay they gather; breaking down the hard rock clay, soaking, mixing with the really fine polvo/sand, and then mixing by hand into big balls for working into the pots.

Check out this link to more pictures at don Lorenzo's taller and the pots he sells. There are pictures here from our first visit, and shots from yesterdays visit. http://picasaweb.google.com/TomnDebi/DonLorenzoOfTicul

We had a good day, got to chat, learn a little more about each other, laugh, and bond.

We were rolling into Merida about 1730, and as C&G had cocktail hour scheduled at their house with same Detroit group as night before at jFr's house we all trooped over there for another visit. Got home about 2030, hot, tired, a little tipsy, and needing rest. Had a dip in the pool, fed kitties, answered emails, watched TV for an hour, read a bit, and off to bed by 2300. It was a very good day. - well better for C and me, than jFr; but only because it was her car.

Maestro don Lorenzo

Don't you just love a road trip!

I had read recently about a week long street fair in Ticul, actually I thought it was in Muna until a few days before departure. An error was made in the original advertising and luckily I read about the error before the big adventure. Anyway, Ticul is known for its pottery, mostly barro(terracotta) pots and statuary. From small to gigantic, plain and painted they have a huge selection of nice pots and statues. They are also becoming known for their ceramics.
And of course they make shoes, LOTS of shoes.

On the appointed day friends C&G arrived; they had just 2 days prior returned from a week long bus trip through Chiapas, and were amazingly up for another road trip.

Of we went - after a few stops, and some purchases we arrived at the decision point, straight to Ticul, or detour for lunch first; one thing I love about C&G, always ready to go do something, and always ready to eat! So, we headed off to Santa Elena to have lunch at friend Valerie's restaurant, The Pickled Onion. Read Valerie's interview on YucatanLiving here.
What a lunch, so amazing to find such wonderful food in such an out of the way place. Three of us had the fish special which was a bass fillette with a creamy cilantro sauce, mashed chayote, rice, steamed veggies, one of us ordered lomitas de cerdo yucateca, also ordered were hummus, avocado soup, garden salad, and a pitcher of jamaica, oops, don't forget one order of fresh cheesecake with berries. All that, plus a generous tip for less than 600mn. Wowee, wow, wow!
Valerie looked wonderful, is enjoying her life, and is truely a 'part' of her community.

Now, fully sated we should have hit the hammocks but instead headed to Ticul. We headed straight for Centro for the street fair. We were actually disappointed, they were really only selling shoes, cheap jewelry, and cheesy T-shirts. No pottery, no ceramics.

After a walk about, and a few small purchases we decided to head out and stop at the pottery stores - we walked through a bunch of them but just didn't find anything we couldn't live without. At the last store, which is actually the first heading in to Ticul, we spied an old guy in a workshop making pots.
We strolled over and I asked permission to enter which he granted. My spanish is quite limited, which he seemed to sense and so spoke slowly and clearly for me. His name is Lorenzo. don Lorenzo has been making pots for 58years. He explained all the secret places where he gathers the clay he uses, it is special clay, pure without a lot of impurities. He and his family have been gathering the clay in the same places and in the same ways or generations.


As we stood there talking he continued at his work, stopping occassionaly to point out something or get up to show us something. It was one of those really great experiences - I tried to translate as best as possible, but my translations leave out a lot of the flavor and texture of his spoken words.

Of don Lorenzo's five children, four continue in the pottery business in Ticul.

He is a maestro, and it was incredibly fascinating to speak with him, and to watch him as he created pots, using rudimentary tools before our eyes.

C&G actually purchased one of don Lorenzo's pots, a beautiful, simple, fluid vase shaped urn about 55cm high, soft curves, and amazingly symetric.