Bucerias is a town not far from La Cruz, and is a little larger and better known. It has a bank and a small downtown area, and some seafood restaurants on the beach. To get to Bucerias it takes only a few minutes on the bus, but it is also possible to walk there in a couple of hours along a beautiful beach.

One day Eric and I took a walk there with our friends from "Mandy". It turned out to be the morning of the Blessing of the Fleet day. (It's best to do one's walking here in the morning before the sun gets fierce.) We reached Bucerias just as the fleet of lavishly decorated fisherman's pangas arrived from La Cruz.

The boats were dressed up with balloons, cut flowers and paper trinkets in beautiful and wild color combinations. The largest one carried a cross and a priest, another a band in orange and white uniforms, others had family members and friends. The boats lined up in a more or less orderly manner along the beach, facing into a mob of excited spectators. There was laughter, music and general chaos, and above all, over the heads of the crowd, homemade fireworks we constantly being set off with deafening bangs.

Eventually, the boats of the fleet, one by one, revved their engines and made a run straight onto the beach. The goal seemed to be to come up as far as possible onto the sand, land their party dry, and not ruin their outboard motors. Some boats did very well and received wild applause from the crowd. Others who were more cowardly or timed their run poorly in respect to the surf came to a stop several feet in the water and were appropriately booed. The "passengers" then had to be carried on the backs of strong and willing men to the beach. The band, for one, was carefully picked up from one of the less successful pangas, instruments, shiny shoes and all. Meanwhile, four or five guys were frantically trying to steer the rowdy crowd into making room for the advancing pangas. It was a riot. We recorded a few short videos of this on our camera, and hopefully, we'll be able to post them on the blog.