Akil 14

After passing by several interesting shops that sold pots, we pulled over and honked for Juan, who had evidently forgotten about our zeal for earthen ware pots, to pull over and stop also. We all crossed the street and entered the shop. But not before Juan first warned us to only get prices here. He wanted us to comparison shop since there were so many pot shops in the area.
We found several things to our liking and obtained the price for each. Heeding Juan’s warning, we thanked the woman and left. I secretly was a little perturbed. I hate to shop and just wanted to buy what we liked and be done with it. Turns out the Juan was correct though.

The next place we stopped was even bigger and actually had the area where they made the pots and decorated them open so that the public could see the whole process. It was quite interesting and there was a dizzying array of pots stacked and displayed everywhere. Pots with feet, pots for the wall, pots in the shape of animals, painted pots, unpainted pots, pots so big you had no hope of lifting them. We bought three large pots for the back terrace. We wanted to get more but could not fit them into the Jeep. This place had really reasonable prices and we felt more like they were giving the stuff away than that they were selling it.

To Maria’s amazement, we bought five plain terra cotta 8" pots. She thought they were dull. We assured her that we knew what we were doing. For her part, she bought a matching set of pots for her kitchen wall. It consisted of three pots, small, medium and large. Each was painted a brilliant shade of cobalt blue and was further decorated with bright yellow and brown sunflowers. They had a rope around the neck, making it possible to hang them from the wall at any height one desired.

Juan bought a pig. A big fat ceramic pig, white with black blotches and a slit in the middle of its’ back. He announced that he was going to use it to start saving for Lupe’s “quince anos” birthday party. This is the coming out party that they have for girls here on their 15th birthday. Let me tell you, it is quite some party and thousands of pesos are spent putting it on. It is a very serious, and highly competitive, event. Planning starts years in advance. Lupe just turned 13.

With no further delays, we arrived back at Juan’s house in Akil. After unloading our purchases, Juan announced that he had to go see his mother and invited us to go along. With nothing better to do, and because we had already met her once before on the island, we agreed to go with him. Juan wanted us to take the Jeep. After showing him how to get into the back seat, we were off. His mother lives just a few blocks away. Or, I should say, her house is just a few blocks away. She actually lives full time in Cancun but maintains a house in Akil where one of the sons and his family live full time. We had a pleasant little visit there, admiring her garden of roses and avocado trees. There were also a few orange trees. Seeing avocados growing on trees was a totally new experience for me. I had thought they grow like pumpkins or zucchini. Juan just laughed at me when I said this. While we were there, his brother, who works nights, came out of the house. He was followed by his two young sons and very shy wife. After brief introductions were made, we took our leave. Juan had other stops to make.