UMARELA 2015 Heroes of Christmas Cheer

 

Here are my shots of last night's Umarela, the annual Christmas celebration for our university, UMAR Huatulco.  It was a wonderful time with great music and costumes, exactly what everyone needed this year as a recent tragedy at our university brought home the importance of celebrating life and friendships.   

 

I don't have as many pictures as I would have liked.  Most were too dark and blurry to be of any use until the Christmas tree on the left showed me how to adjust my camera a little better. 

 

Fortunately, the video turned out much better and I think I captured almost everyone.  If you were there, you'll probably find yourself if you look hard enough.

Ms. Marvel, Cruella De Ville, and Hawkeye

You have to respect the ingenuity of this man's costume.  His shield was made from the cage of a broken fan.

Here comes Manny the mammoth again.

I just love these well designed snowwoman costumes.  The matching hats were made from recycled cardboard.  Very clever.  The snowgirl on the left was the talented designer.

Lots of happy elves, the best kind.

It was great to see some of our graduates turn up for the event.  Sure, they're blurry but I'd recognize them anywhere.

I confess I got a bit lazy with the camera after the parade arrived at Parque Ruffino Tamayo.  I was too busy talking to cool people I haven't seen in a while.  Sometimes you  have to put the camera down and just enjoy the experience.

UMARELA 2015 Countdown Featuring Manny the Woolly Mammoth

UMARELA 2015 starts in about 2 hours, giving me just enough time to post a few pics of some of the preparations earlier today.  It may be hard to believe but this may be even better than years past.  Excitement is very high and nothing makes Umarela more successful than high spirits. 
  

 

This year the engineers, the men who really make UMAR operational, have outdone themselves with their mobile structure of Manny from the Ice Age movies.  The details are incredible.

 

Here are some of the team members in front of the construction. 

 

 

It's entirely made with the inner skin of coconut shells, perfect for the shaggy woolly mammoth  look.  The natural color was preserved with an alcohol based wood lacquer.  The children are going to go wild for this when it rolls downtown tonight.

 

  

 

Yay.  It's the annual Christmas lunch.  I'm one of the early birds.

 

The food was great as always.  Everybody left happy and satisfied and well fortified for the event coming up in less than an hour from now.  I have three cameras packed so I should be able to capture a lot of the fun.  Away I go.

 

 







The Maiden Voyage of Boogie Bike to La Bocana, Huatulco

Sunday, I took the boogie board bicycle rack out for the first excursion to La Bocana.  It worked like a charm.  The board didn't shake at all and, once I was on the saddle, it didn't feel like I was carrying any extra burden.  I learned that, when mounting the bike, the rack side pedal has to be down so I can adjust my foot to pedal from the heel with the first thrust.

First portage from taking the shortcut the sector of empty streets for future residential development.  People can enter by the Fonatur recycling depot but all other exits are blocked, which probably saves a lot of unnecessary accidents from commuters racing the clock and trying to avoid traffic lights.

 

 

Next obstacle was at the top of the hill descending to Tangolunda.  Traffic had been diverted to an older 2 lane road half a kilometer back that I hoped to avoid because of my extra width and the blind turns plus increased traffic.  I just kept going and hoped for the best.  Sometimes a bicycle can squeeze through where normal traffic can't.

 

Approaching the moment of truth.

 

 

Whee.  No problem.

 





 

This video is clearly staged.  I saw Marbella waving to me from EcoSpa as I cruised through Tangolunda so I spun around and asked her to capture Boogie Bike in motion to show it off better.  That's the name for the contraption from here on in courtesy of Francisco.  It works for me.

 

                    

 

Random photo from the journey.

 

 

 

La Bocana just ahead at the bottom of the next hill.  I didn't even notice at the time that the front pipe had been shaken free.  It was the one spot I hadn't glued because the reduction sleeve had been jammed in so tightly, I couldn't free it.  I thought if it was that tight, it wouldn't need glue anyways.  No problem when I pushed it back in but it freed itself one more time before I made it home.  Maybe it was the constant vibrations of the tarmac that worked it out.  It's glued tightly now and it won't happen again.  

 



Ta-dah.  Beautiful Bocana.  I caught a few little waves and had some fun.  Mostly it was a fishing day.  An enormous school of fish had landed and fishermen and seagulls were everywhere.  People were taking home buckets of fish.  I grabbed my space in the water whenever a fishermen carried his haul back to shore and made room again when he returned.