Mexico: Stuck for Six Weeks in Valle de Juarez, Jalisco, MX

Valle de Juarez is a small town (population 4,000) located south of Guadalajara, and Lake Chapala, and about 5 miles east of Mazamitla, a Mexican “Pueblo Magico”.  Chema owns the campground site on which sits a lovely restaurant, only five years old, a flat mowed field with hookups, and a tiny shelter for the exquisite little horse that resides here.

Our lovely little resident horse.

It is an interesting little town like no other we’ve known in Mexico.  There are many very nice homes of Mexican style — built between two high-slab (often) common walls.  It seems that many of the men commute to Chicago for the summer to work.  They all have “green cards” which can take two to five years after application to obtain. I'm told it is much the same in other small towns; one they all go to Utah, another Washington state, etc.

New home showing slab wall.  Wall built by pouring
foundation and installing re-bar uprights for columns.
 Then a brick wall is built between wires, add two boards
inside and outside, pour concrete to make columns,
 then a concrete beam a across the top. Then add next
"floor".  This becomes the common wall.

They work in the trades there (I’m sure many take their families with them) and return home in the winter. They then spend much of the winter working on their homes.  It seems that taking a loan out for your business or for building is unheard of in Mexico.  This is why one sees many unfinished buildings everywhere — the owners are waiting until their next available money.

Love this front of this house.

House of many gables.

Everyone in town seems to be related to one another.  And indeed there are virtually only three family names in town.  Our “angels,” that came to our rescue after the accident with the pickup, are part of the Contreras family.  Sal’s mother was born here, actually in the corner of a room, which is now the dining room of a restaurant owned by a cousin.

Barb, on the other hand, is American.  They met over 40 years ago and he spent his career with the Chicago Transit Authority for over 25 years.  Now in their retirement, they have built a lovely American-style home here.  They owned and ran a successful near-by campground for 8 years, before selling out.  It is now, sadly, vacant — heard many stories about what great campground hosts they were.

"Valle” has many small tiendas about town, and we have been able to get almost everything we need.  On Friday and Saturdays, Chema fires up his big kettle of pork for carnitas in front of his other restaurant that is in town.  He serves the carnitas on the street to passers-by and in the restaurant, if you wish to sit down.

Contreras original family home

Chema stirring a kettle of carnitas
in front of his restaurant.

Another restaurant, La Cosinita has an interesting array of main dish entrees on their blackboard for breakfast and lunch.  Most seem to be meat-laden soups and stews, always served with hot fresh hand-made tortillas.  

However, one may order a more normal breakfast plate, consisting of eggs, bacon, refried beans, and chiliquiles, accompanied by a chunk of queso fresca, the fresh hand-made tortillas, and of course, a piquante salsa.  In addition you can get fresh squeezed orange juice and a cup of “cafe olla” — a strong hot coffee sweetened with poloncilla (a cone of brown sugar) and cinnamon sticks.  All for a price of $8 US.

The bakery here is like the one in Villa Corona — a large horno, round-top oven with a fire off to one side.  A very long handled “peel” (8 feet) is used to slide well-floured rolls over the bottom of  the oven.  A sort of shaking motion is used to get the rolls off, and back and again on to the peel when baked. When the last rolls are put in, the first are ready to come out! Chemitas, a local favorite — an ever-so-slightly-sweet roll  are a speciality of this area.

Making fresh tortillas at La Cosinita

Dough on the end of the "peel" to be
slid into the horno

The 8-ft "peel" used in putting in
and removing buns from the oven

This is a large dairy area; hundreds of holstein cows dot the pastures which are all surrounded by stacked rock (no mortar) walls.  Corn fields abound, and now in the winter, they are covered with hundreds of corn shocks (teepees of cut, dried cornstalks).  A man with a tractor and portable grinder, moves from field to field with a crew that hand feeds the corn and stalks into the grinder.  This is bagged and either used either to feed
ones own dairy cows, or sold to

the granary in town.  

One of the most charming activities is the morning milking of one man at a near-by roadside.  He brings out one to two cows at a time.  Ties them, gives them their ground feed, ties their back legs to keep them from “kicking
the bucket”, (pun intended) and
proceeds to milk them.  

Then people begin arriving to get their fresh milk to take home.  In addition, on his tailgate, he has plastic cups, instant coffee, cocoa powder and get this:  grain alcohol!  Any or all can be stirred into your cup of milk, straight from the cow. 

We stopped to take pictures and had a delightful conversation with one extremely handsome young man who spoke shy English.  He said on the weekend, as many as 30 to 50 may stop by to get milk. Of course, during the week, the extra milk is sold to the local milk plant.

Mike reaching for his first-ever
cup of fresh milk!

Look!  I can still milk a cow!

Gorgeous, huh!

With the abundance of milk in the area, it is no wonder the area is well known for its cheese (primarily queso fresca and panela) and rompope production. Rompope is bottled drink that is custard based (like egg-nog) with added grain alcohol and flavorings. Our favorites are amaretto and pecan.  They are wonderful served ice cold as a “shot”, or over a dessert of pudding or pound cake. 

The nearby town of Mazamitla is one of about 100 small towns in Mexico designated as particularly scenic and historical.  Of course, they become tourist sites, in this case for those from Guadalajara seeking respite from the heat on day trips, — or for the summer.  ATV’s can be rented to tour the El Tigre mountains to the south side of this valley. We drove this road with the Tracker and it is quite wild and pretty, with elevations there going up to 8,000 feet.  The elevations of the valley?  Mazamitla is about 7,000 feet, Cd. Juarez; around 6,400 feet. Temperatures in the winter here are wonderful.  Very cool mornings and exquisite days. 

For some reason, the blog won’t allow me to add captions to the above three pictures.  Top, the bride has an immensely long train and I love her practical tennis shoes.  Middle, a man and his donkey with firewood, and bottom -- the name of the used car dealer:  “semi-new” cars.

Obviously, our time here has not been without it’s trials — waiting, waiting, waiting.  And everyone knows I’m so good at that!  

The pickup had to be towed off and repaired, the refrigerator quit and we now buy bags of ice for it every day, I lost my iPhone, Mike had some ear problems and now I have a tooth bothering. . . .  The truck parts finally came in after two weeks, then they found they needed something additional. And even the Tracker needed a bit of work when it lost power. It's now been nearly six weeks.  And we’re still waiting . . .waiting. . .  .