Day 5 of Mike and Janet's visit

We started day 5 of our adventures with Mike and Janet at our favorite palapa on the beach, Loco Lupes for breakfast. Our good friends, Dick and Jan, joined us. It happened to be Dick's birthday and after a few incidents with the waiters, photos too "R"rated to post, Dick had his favorite, french toast. Janet ordered the french toast too and loved it.

After breakfast we decided to take a trip to the historic small town of La Noria 30 minutes northeast of Mazatlan. This is the only place in the area where saddles, huaraches and belts are made 100% by hand. Below are a few photos of this town.

La Noria translates to "well", for the shape it takes. This water fountain, located in the center of town, is significant of this well. When the rains come, the two nearby rivers pour into it. Please don't quote me on that explanation it might not be accurate. I can't quite remember what they said but it was something like that.

Church of San Antonio

The day we were at the leather factory nobody was working the huaraches.
Scraps of leather cutouts.

Forms for different sizes.

Huaraches drying in the sun.

Making of leather saddle seat covers.

Handmade leather belts made here. This is one of those belts

that holds the tequila and shot glasses.


Many interesting leather masks sold here.

Janet models the one we purchased for our mask collection.

Here is where it ended up in our condo.

When we left La Noria, we stopped at the "Los Osuna" tequila factory located about 1 hour from Mazatlan. It's surrounded by fields of blue agave which is the main ingredient in producing high-quality tequila. Los Osuna is a working factory and a tourist attraction.

This is the very interesting fence lining the property. Made of cactus.

Blue agave fields are both sides as you drive in.

The 19th-century hacienda is something of a museum, with ancient machinery and artifacts such as antique tequila bottles on display.

Even though its tequila is definitely the real thing, Los Osuna can't use the word "Tequila" on its bottle labels since the state of Jalisco owns copyright to the name. Consequently, Los Osuna calls its tequila "Distilado 100% Agave Azul."

The property is just lush with beautiful bougainvillea plants of every color.

And papaya trees.

These are roots of the blue agave plant that is used to

make tequila.

Fermentation of the agave.

Our tour guide explained that many years ago these bottles were used to carry the tequila after it was processed. The wrapping was to protect the glass. You've probably seen old pictures of donkey's carrying these bottles at their sides.

Greg and Dick smell the process. Starting to smell like

tequila now but not time to taste test.

Bottling machinery

Now comes the taste testing.

Some of us guzzled the tequila......

Some of us just weren't sure.......

Some of us sipped it......

But we all came to the consensus that it was a very "smooth" tequila.

By the way, on the same property as the tequila factory, you can find zip lining. Here is a website. Unfortunately, it looks like it's only in Spanish but there are some great photos. None of us were daring enough to try it but I guess it's pretty cool.
http://www.huanacoa.com/

Stay tuned for more adventures of day 5.