A wacky week of fun on Isla Mujeres – something for everyone

Hanging out with family and friends

It’s February in paradise, the high season for tourism, and there is fun for everyone.  

You can buy beautiful crafts, listen to Nashville performers, go deep-sea fishing, hang out with friends, or have a visit with a free-roaming crocodile. 

On Monday night, the Mexican Artesian Pavilion was officially opened by local dignitaries. This national exhibition is here on Isla until February 21^st.  

Beautiful crafts from all of Mexico City photo

The big white tent in centro houses an assortment of beautifully handmade items from several different Mexican states, featuring a tasteful assortment of pottery, hats, jewelry, and clothing.  

It’s a fun place to do a little shopping in the afternoon, especially earlier in the week when an unexpected downpour put a one-hour hold on many of the other activities, such as the Island Time Music Fest.

Hidalgo Avenue, after 20 minute down-pour

Now in their 7^th year, the Island Time Music Fest – and Island Time Fishing Tournament started rocking the island with music and Nashville singers on Monday, February 15^th.  

Originally a smaller, two-venue event it has grown to include a variety of restaurants and bars scattered around the island.  And for the diehards, there is still the exciting fishing component of the event – sailfish, marlin, wahoo, Dorado, and tuna.  

All proceeds from the week-long extravaganza go to funding the Little Yellow School House on Isla Mujeres.

Island Time Music Fest photo

For us, we have had a more personal, but very fun time with family members, first-time-to-Mexico cousins, and an assortment of Canadian friends.  

We ate, drank, napped, ate, drank, and napped our way through two laughter-filled weeks.  

If the fun doesn’t end soon, we will have to buy our clothes at Jones Tents & Awnings. 

Richard, Scott & Judy, Lynda, Linda, Lawrie

The margaritas at the Soggy Peso are now on the “that's-never-gonna-cross-my-lips-again” list for a number of our friends.  Something to do with memory loss, I think.

As for the visit with the free-roaming crocodile, Lawrie’s cousin Scott and I were driving back from taking the two pooches out for their morning swim, and I spotted a local woman standing beside the pond near the new hospital.  

“Ah ha, I bet she is taking a picture of the croc.”  

Smile - say Tequila!

I did a U-turn and we parked alongside the pond. Yep! There was a crocodile stretched out and sunning on a mat of vegetation.  

The crocodile didn’t seem at all concerned at the attention, just continued to sun itself, although I think it was keeping a hopeful eye on the two dogs. Perhaps it was hoping a little morning snack would just happen to come its way.

Just another fun week in paradise!

Hasta Luego

Lawrie, Lynda, Sparky, and Thomas the Cat

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What do Nashville entertainers and migrating sailfish have in common?

The 7^th annual Island Time Music and Fishing Fest.  This fun event features world-class catch-and-release sail fishing and top-notch entertainment from Nashville, Tennessee. It all happens here in paradise.

Almost seven years ago, the Island Time Fishing Tournament and Country Music Concert held its first event featuring an intimate evening with Nashville artist Phil Vassar, who has a personal connection with Isla Mujeres. He was joined by entertainers and songwriters Tim Nichols, Tim Johnson, James Dean Hicks, Jon Stone, and Nick Norman.  Recently renamed the Island Time Music and Fishing Fest, it has now burgeoned into a large music festival, with the added attraction of great fishing. 

Margarita Madness at the Soggy Peso 

In past years, we have enjoyed the tequila-fueled entertainment of Jon Stone, Nick Norman, and Lewis Brice during the wild Margarita Madness at the Soggy Peso Bar & Grill. This outrageously fun event has been relocated to a larger venue featuring six artists, including the original three very popular guys. Jax Bar & Grill was the original host restaurant for several years, offering intimate concerts with the performers, and auctions of crazy items such as Reba McIntyre’s teeny-tiny autographed jeans. 

The bigger festival has necessitated a move to larger venues and an increase in ticket prices. Because this is a charity event with the proceeds earmarked to help the local school for developmentally challenged children, the organizers are trying to keep the costs to a bare minimum. The Little Yellow School House on Isla Mujeres began with one room, six students, and a really big dream. The school now has six classrooms, full-time teachers, and over 50 students, with fifteen more on a waiting list.

For the Music Fest, the list of entertainers includes Kellie Pickler, Jerrod Niemann, Blackjack Billy, Love & Theft, Kyle Jacobs, American Young, Nick Norman, Natalie Stovall, Lewis Brice, Joal Rush, Hailey Steele, Rob Hatch, and islander Ryan Rickman.  Although the artists are generously donating their time, the non-profit society is responsible for covering expenses for travel, accommodation, and meals.  Venue tickets per person for the 2016 events range from $199 for All Access Except the Opening Show to $249 for All Access Including the Opening Show at Casa Fenix. (Food and beverages not included.)

Here’s the link for tickets:   http://www.islandtimemusicfest.com/#!events/c8k2

If you want to have a great time listening to current country hits, up close and personal with some of Nashville’s best talent – head to Isla. 

Day one, the beginning

Or maybe you actually want to go fishing, getting up before the crack of dawn to head out on the bumpy ocean and put squiggly wet things on sharp hooks to catch big and hard-fighting fish. (You can probably guess, I won’t be doing that!)  In between the entertainment and the many cold beers, tournament competitors usually find time to go fishin’. Trophies and bragging rights are awarded to the boats, anglers, and junior anglers with the most releases.

Whatever your choice, it's a fun way to enjoy a week in paradise and to give something back to the community.  

We’ll be waiting for you!

Cheers, Lynda, Lawrie, Sparky, and Thomas

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It’s a wrap! Little Yellow School House fundraiser, on Isla Mujeres.

I hear y’all were at a disco dance ..."

“I hear y’all were at a disco dance before comin’ here.” She said in her husky Georgian drawl. Her grinning smile and the tone of her voice implied: a disco dance? Really?

Well, yes, most of the crowd assembled to listen to E.G. Kight’s rich voice belt out southern-fried blues had been at a disco party thirty minutes before.

E.G.’s second performance at Jax Bar & Grill was the final event in a week-long string of festivities, all aimed at raising funds for two well-known island charities.

Enjoying E.G. Kight's southern blues

The majority of the events were focused on raising money for the very significant Help a Special Child Inc. (The Little Yellow School House), while this second concert by E.G. Kight was solely to benefit the Isla Animals Society. 

Hair of the Dog - starting point at Jax

Another event, the Hair of the Dog Poker Run, organized by Paul Ricker and Brook Prinsen, was also a very successful first-time event for the Isla Animals Society.  

A group of fifty-two participants, all clad in vivid green t-shirts, met at Jax Bar & Grill on Saturday morning and set off on their adventure as a group.  

Get Down Tonight!  Ashley, Lawrie, Betty.

The bar-hopping revelry yielded over $1000.00 to help with spay and neuter clinics, or vaccinations for the many dogs and puppies being sheltered and fed by the organization.  

The final fundraising event for Help a Special Child Inc. (The Little Yellow School House) was the disco dance hosted by Brisas Restaurante.  

The proprietors, Karina and Wbeymar Maldonado, contributed fifty percent of the beverage revenue to the host charity.  

DJ Rosa Sirenas

It was a fun way for the volunteers who helped with the fishing tournament, the music festival, and the t-shirt sales to unwind, relax, and have a few laughs.  

Special guest DJ Rosa Sirenas kept everyone grooving to the music until it was time to boogie on down the road to Jax, and the final E.G. Kight concert.

And just to keep everything interesting, the annual Carnaval celebrations started on Friday, so at times the two boisterous events overlapped each other with raucous music, booming sound systems, dance troops, noisemakers and whistles competing with speeches and awards ceremonies.  

One of the colourful Carnival entries.

At one point during the disco dance, we had two separate sound systems on the street booming out salsa music for the carnival dancers, and our DJ blasting disco tunes. 

How do you dance to that?  

Is it salsa-disco, or rock-and-roll salsa? It was all good fun.

But now it’s over, wrapped up for another year; two amazing back-to-back events; the six-day long Island Time Fishing Festival intersecting the five-day Mexican carnival celebrations.  

Great Carnival band - beating on the drums  

Whew!  It’s nice to get back to a quieter routine. 

Hasta Luego          
Lynda and Lawrie
            

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It’s all for a good cause, the Island Time Fishing Festival.

Wake up!  Time to go fishin'

I slowly pried my eyes open. The clock shows 5:15 in the morning! Sighing, I quietly fumbled my way out of bed in the pre-dawn darkness, trying not to disturb my spouse, who was still slumbering.  Dressed, but with no time to wait for the coffee maker to do its thing, I snuck out the door and hailed a taxi.  

“Marina Villa Vera por favor.” 


  

Songwriter and ITFF Director Jeff Outlaw

It’s opening day for the 2013 Island Time Fishing Festival, and I promised to take photos of the boats as they head out for day number one of fishing. The things we agree to do when sharing a bottle of wine with friends. All of the proceeds from this multi-day event go to support the island-based non-profit organization Help a Special Child Inc. (The Little Yellow School House), so yes, this is all for a very good cause.

Nick Norman, Lewis Brice and Jon Stone

This year, the entertainment line-up was as interesting and as talented as in previous years. Nightly concerts featured different entertainers upstairs at Jax Bar & Grill: Rivers Rutherford, Wynn Varble and David Lee, or Craig Wiseman and Rodney Clawson.  

On Wednesday night, E.G. Kight, a good friend of Jackie Walker and Michael LeFiles, presented a fabulous dinner concert.  She had so much fun, she has offered to do a second concert on Sunday evening, admission by donation, to assist the Isla Animals Society. 

Such a lot of really talented and generous people who are donating their time and talents.

How much am I bid for Nick's sweaty shirt?

We unfortunately missed the E.G. Kight concert due to the after-effects of the annual Margarita Madness on Wednesday at the Soggy Peso Bar & Grill.

Returning favourites Nick Norman and Jon Stone, with the addition this year of Lewis Brice, rocked the Soggy Peso with their original compositions and old favourites.  

Margarita Madness at the Soggy Peso

The party rolled on from two until five in the afternoon, culminating with the auction of Nick Norman’s t-shirt; reportedly fetching a whopping amount of money. 

This great group of guys will also wind up the Island Time Fishing Festival on Saturday night at the Awards Presentation. It’s a sold-out concert, but occasionally the fishermen are too worn out by a week of fun to attend. So, if you are really, really lucky, you might be able to snap up a spare ticket late Saturday afternoon. Check with the staff at Jax.

Carnivore and Relax - heading out fishin'

And this year there are even more events to keep fishermen, their friends, and locals entertained. The Hair of the Dog Poker Run, organized by the Isla Animals Society, happens on Saturday afternoon.  

Then there is a wind-up Disco Party hosted by Brisas Restaurante and the Disco Queen herself, Deb C, from four until seven on Sunday afternoon. The disco dancers can then disco right on down the street to the E.G. Kight benefit concert at Jax Bar & Grill, starting at seven-thirty in the evening.  

As the Island Time Fishing Festival website says: The Fishing is Legendary, and the Party Never Ends.

John & Betty Raimondo and friends.

In between the entertainment, the great dinners, and the many cold beers, the competitors always find time to go fishin’.  This is a catch-and-release tournament for trophies and bragging rights. Trophies are given to boats, anglers, and junior anglers with the most releases.  And since it is a fishing tournament, in the middle of a music festival, our Texan friends cajoled me into taking photos of the sport fishing boats as they departed at dawn.

As I got in the taxi at 5:45 in the morning, I realized I was wearing one green sock and one blue sock with my sneakers. That’s what happens when I dress in the dark. It’s all for a good cause, a really good cause; Help a Special Child Inc., the Little Yellow School House.

Hasta luego, Lynda & Lawrie

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"Oh the noise, noise, noise: Carnaval, Island Time Fishing Festival, and a Pitbull concert!



Local cutie in parade

Carnaval is over! Finished for another year.  Damn, we miss it already. The loud music, whistles, honking horns, laughter and traffic-stopping parades created havoc for the five days, and we loved it. As the third annual Island Time Fishing Festival and country music acts were winding up, Carnaval was revving up.

There were events for everyone to enjoy.  You could watch the coronations of several kings and queens, starting at pre-school age, working up to seniors, culminating with the celebrity king and queen. Several dance competitions were held on various evenings at the municipal plaza.

 Or you could take your pick of three different parade nights, if you were patient and didn't mind the confusion of start times or start locations. 

Rio-style whistles, drums, horns



We decided to watch the first parade on Saturday night, before Lawrie and I headed into Cancun to see a concert.  We picked out a good viewing spot along the Malecón and settled in with friends to wait for the parade. One side of the Malecón was blocked to traffic to allow for a staging area. However, the driver of the Corona bus apparently didn't get the memo and tried to enter the parade line-up from the wrong end. Part of the problem was that the bus was too tall to move under the electrical wires. These wires were scheduled, last year, to be rerouted underground as part of the new road work project. Instead, a Corona employee was stationed on the metal roof of the bus with a long piece of wood, assigned to lift the electrical wires up while the bus moved along the road.  

A logistics nightmare!

Then some floats, or pick-up trucks stuffed with dancers and celebrants, formed up at the head of the line, blocking the float for the carnival king and queen. The celebrity floats were then moved from the back of the line to the front, but someone forgot to tell the participants about the location change.  So, we waited, and waited, and waited for the parade to start. Eventually, the celebrities found their floats and the parade began. The enthusiasm of the dancers was contagious. The crowd joined in, yelling, whistling, clapping and cheering with great vigour. With the late start, we had to leave before the parade was over to catch the water taxi to Cancun. We had tickets to see Pitbull, a high-energy hip-hop Cuban-American singer. Lawrie's choice!

More Carnival parade participants

We checked into the Ibis Hotel in the business district of Cancun and had a tasty dinner at their in-house Italian restaurant.  Then we were off to the concert, scheduled to start at nine in the evening.  We got to the football stadium around 8:45, and hiked to the end of the extremely long line-up. Doing the ten-step shuffle for forty-five minutes, we arrived within a hundred feet of the gates - just as they were slammed shut. That side of the stadium was full, and everyone now had to run around to the other side and line up again. It's quite entertaining to watch young women run in skin-tight jeans and five-inch tall stiletto heels.

Amazing Carnival costumes

We found a good spot in the general seating section, costing around $25.00 as opposed to the floor seats, starting at $150.00, finishing up at $500.00. Then, yes, we waited, waited. Waited. Around 11:00 p.m., a warm-up act started, then another, and another and finally the main attraction, Pitbull, deigned to start his act at midnight. 

It was a fun and lively performance. And we had fun people-watching. In the expensive section, the seats were white leather sofas, with waiters attending to the needs of the audience. Several long-legged women strutted their stuff in sequined shorts or mini-skirts. We watched one couple take a tour of the stadium in the field every hour, showing off her sparkly shorts and long legs.

The final events of Carnaval wrapped up on Tuesday with the burning of Juan de Carnaval (in effigy) after the late-night mass service. We, on the other hand, couldn't stay up that late, opting instead to attend the very successful annual PEACE Mardi Gras fundraising event held at La Luna nightclub in Centro. 



Last night of Carnaval -wrapping up in Centro



Today we are back to normal. 

Quiet. Eating at home. Reading.  

 

Hasta luego,

Lynda & Lawrie



(We didn't take a camera with us to the Pitbull concert, thinking it might be confiscated at the gate.)

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Great music and deep sea fishing, Isla Mujeres Mexico!



 782 photos later, I think I got it! 

Nick Norman and Jon Stone at Soggy Peso

I think I captured the essence of the Soggy Peso country music event on Wednesday, February 15th. 

As part of the third annual Island Time Fishing Festival, which includes a fishing tournament and a fabulous line-up of country music stars, the Soggy Peso Bar and Grill once again hosted a fun-filled afternoon of music and laughter. It's a great way to raise money to help support the Little Yellow School House charity.  www.Islandtimefishingfestival.com

Mal Richards introducing singer Danielle Braund

The afternoon started off with a thirty-minute performance by singer-songwriter Danielle Braund.  

She had an opportunity to showcase her gorgeous voice and original material, singing just before Nick Norman and Jon Stone arrived to perform. Danielle is originally from Ontario, Canada. She and her friend Kristi Kirik both worked with Lawrie at Hillside Estate Winery in the Okanagan Valley, BC.  http://www.daniellebraund.com/



Nick Norman and Jon Stone performing at Soggy Peso



The two guys were fabulous - entertaining, joking with the crowd while singing non-stop. Nick's a South Carolina Southern Baptist boy who dreamed of playing his guitar instead of attending Sunday school. His killer smile and bluesy, raspy voice are beautiful compliments to the smooth guitar notes. He calls his music country rock.   Check out Nick's website for more information about his music.  http://www.nicknormanband.com/    

Jon Stone of The Jon Stone Band is a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based artist who performs tributes to country music outlaws of the '60s and 70s. He pays homage to artists such as Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and David Allan Coe. These two guys played together last year at the Soggy Peso, wowing the crowd with their music and humour.

http://www.jonstonemusic.com/home.cfm

Enjoying Danielle Braund's music at the Soggy Peso Bar

And tonight, Friday, February 17th, the annual Carnival festivities rev up. 

One festival is ending, and the other is just beginning! 



Thank you! Sally and Mal Richards, Soggy Peso Bar & Grill

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