We've met so many people from Vancouver Island here in Melaque, one of them is Shaer from Comox. When I took our new Chihuahua puppy to the vet he told me she was too young to be away from her mother, at the most she was only 5 weeks old. So for the past few days Shaer and I have been riding our bikes around Melaque on a quest to find goat's milk for the puppy.
The first day went around to the grocery stores asking for 'cabra de leche', every time we said it the locals would laugh, finally someone who spoke English said we were saying "Do you have any goat of the milk?", that is funny. The stores only sold goats milk cheese, so no luck with the goat of the milk.
The next day we decided we'd head out of town into the more rural areas to see if any of the farmers had goats milk. We thought there had to be goats around here somewhere, it's Mexico! We headed down the 200 highway and turned off into a little neighborhood. Most of the roads weren't paved, we rode our bikes down dirt roads with lots of potholes, it was a fun bumpy ride. On our journey we saw two little boys around 10 years old who were busy running down the street swinging machetes, and chopping up tall grass as they ran. We're definitely not in Kansas anymore. One of the boys smiled, winked, said "hayyy" then made an a-ok hand gesture to me as he ran by. I've heard some interesting catcalls around here lately but that one really made me laugh.
Ok back to the goat story...we got lucky and finally found a goat tied up in someones yard. We rode up to the house, which was humble and not much more than a shack, an older man came out, this time we said "Hola, leche de cabra?" to which he laughed and basically said in Spanish that his goat was male and it wouldn't be a good idea to try and milk him. No kidding, ouch those horns looked like they'd really do some damage. So off we went to look for a safe milkable goat. We reached a road made of really jagged rocks, I thought it may not be a good idea to ride over it, but Cher said something like ah we have mountain bikes we should be ok...nope she was wrong, a few minutes later she had a flat tire. We were in the middle of no where, a few miles outside of Melaque. Who carries a tire patch kit? not me.
The next thing we know the police are driving down the dirt road toward us, the scary police that everyone fears running into. They spoke little English but it was easy to see we needed help. They put our bikes in the back of their truck, we squeezed in on the passenger side, the big guy with the big automatic weapon got in the back with the bikes. I don't think I'll ever forget it, I thought it was so cool. They were great, they drove us to the gas station to fill up the tire, but it wouldn't hold air. Then they drove us to two different bike repair shops, both were closed. The Mexicans were sure wondering what the heck two gringo women were doing in a police truck, they were pointing and laughing as we drove around town.
When we arrived back at the RV park, we told Ron we'd been arrested by the Mexican police because we tried to milk a male goat, omg Ron's face was priceless!
So there you have it, the police weren't that scary after all, Miguel and Alfonzo saved the day. As long as you aren't carrying weapons or dealing drugs the police aren't going to bother you. In this case they we're very helpful and friendly.
We never did find any goats milk, I guess we'll keep trying, and we'll try to stay off sharp jagged rocks. :)
Adina
