Ixtaczoquitlan

It's October already and after nearly 4 months in Orizaba we've managed to find a huge needy vacant home here in Ixtaczoquitlan. Its a small town just outside the city of Orizaba. The house has been vacant for over a year and is in disrepair. We'll continue to follow our same routine on this trip and stay for free, and in return fix the place up. It's a large house with 4 bedrooms and 4.5 baths! After two weeks we have the electric repaired and turned on, the water pump re-plumbed to supply the rooftop tank for pressurized water in the house, and of course a garden started. This house is pretty much all concrete and copper plumbing. Kev's getting his welding skills refreshed! Here are some pics of the house....(Click to enlarge)...

The rooftop views are fabulous (we can see Pico de Orizaba....)

 

...the town's clock-tower......

Towards the back, at the base of this mountain, is the spring Los Siphones....

We'll call it Casa Guano because of the bats living in the house when we arrived.....this one is in the kitchen!....

In the 3rd week, we now have the house fixed up pretty good with running hot water, electric, internet and a fridge! Ixtac is a mellow little town but we like what it has to offer. We have street markets on Wed and Fridays that sell pretty much all we need. It's fairly flat so we can ride our bikes around town. There are these great street vendors that pass by selling an assortment of things like tamales, homemade ice cream, fresh coconuts, bean and cactus salads, and here's a good one......fire roasted platanos (big bananas) on wheels , Delish!

Another nice feature is the fabulous walk down the lush canyon to the river where there is also a spring called Los Siphones, for swimming. Here are some pics....

Here's the spring....

 

It's very fertile here. Along the walk you can see coffee growing under Dominica bananas, growing under fruit trees....

Recently we were invited to a fiesta. Among other things, they had prepared 300 bean tamales and a huge clay cauldron of mole sauce.....you can see the ornately corn husk wrapped tamales here....they were scrumptious.....

We will be thinking of you all as we enjoy these bad-ass beet-burgers with homemade tofu mayo and oven baked french fries.....till next time.....hasta luego!!!