What's For Dinner?

If you guessed iguana, you'd be correct.

I live on a stretch of the coastal road that is relatively straight for a mile or so AND has no speed bumps in that stretch to slow people down. Consequently, cars, especially taxis, speed by here at an incredibly fast pace.

I am surprised that we don't see more accidents or even deaths on this road.

So yesterday my curiousity was peaked when I kept seeing golf carts and scooters stop in the road to look at something. When I saw the cameras coming out, I knew I had to grab mine and take a look see. Glad I did.

Somebody had hit some unfortunate iguana and plastered it all over the road. But the amazing part was that this brown snake came out of the nearby bushes and was having himself a quick meal.



He was mouthing a piece and then would roll over and over to break it off. I had no idea that snakes were scavengers like that. He disappeared back into the brush with his prize and then momentarily later would reappear to twist off another piece. I watched until traffic became too crowded and then went home.



I can't count how many times I had locals tell me that there are no snakes on the island. Readers of this blog know as well as I do that that is not true. We for sure have boa constrictors in the wild. Seeing this brown snake yesterday makes four different kinds that I have seen over the years here.

I wonder what kind it is?

These Should Keem 'Em Warm

I got a call the other day from one of my readers. He was calling to tell me that he had brought a donation of sweaters to donate to Project Warm Hearts.

Below is the proof that at least seven more people will be keeping warm and toasty in the mountains of Veracruz this winter.



A huge thank you to Bill and Michelle Jones for this donation. And....they win the prize for having brought donations the furthest! They carried these heavy sweaters all the way from Alaska with them! (I wonder if they can see Russia from there?)

With this donation, we are now officially swamped with clothing items to give to the children - and adults - of Xixo, Veracruz. If you want to still donate to the charity, which I highly encourage, I would suggest you do it in one of these ways:

1. Donate toys and/or school items

2. Bring cash with you to the island and give it to me to hand carry to Veracruz this fall.

3. Use the PAYPAL button on John's blog to make a cash donation.

All cash donations will be used to buy toys and food items for the big Christmas party we hope to give the children again this year.

Thank you all again from the depths of my heart. You all continue to amaze and fortify me!

From A Reader

I recently received an email from one of my readers. He or She enclosed some photos taken recently of a sea turtle laying her eggs here on the Island. I can only assume and hope that the person who sent me these was volunteering for the turtle farm. Otherwise, one should never get that close to the turtles while laying their eggs.

I would like to publicly thank this person for sending me those very interesting photos. Unfortunately there was no name anywhere on the email. Only the email address. Which I am not going to repeat here!

So whoever you are, thank you so much for sharing with all of us.

So, for your enjoyment:

She layed 124 eggs that night




Collecting the eggs




Resting before she heads back to sea





Sizing her up

A New Hat

As faithful readers know, I spend a lot of time knitting stocking caps for the charity Project Warm Hearts. Where we provide hats, mittens, scarves, warm clothing and a Christmas present to the children of the village of Xico in Veracruz.

I decided that the 29th hat that I knit this year was going to be for Isal. She deserves to have a warm head this winter too!

She was thrilled and I got two cheek kisses as a thank you! Now that made it all worthwhile!





Can you tell yet that I am totally enthralled and smitten by this little bundle of joy?

Stupidity Revisted

I have preached more often than I can remember about the danger here on the island of standing next to the edge of the cliffs. They are massively undereroded and pieces of them are constantly following off into the sea below.

For awhile, there were even signs posted along the coastal roads warning tourists to stay away from the edges. Of course, they were made of paper and lasted about one week.

So, even though they have built a new edging wall along the cliffs at South Point, I guess I was not totally surprised to see this act of stupidity.




See that blue and red sign on the right of the picture? Guess what it says in two languages? They were not the only ones to ignore all the warning signs that afternoon. After I photographed this act of stupidity (she even got closer to the edge so she could get some kind of princess in paradise picture), I decided to only take "after" pictures and then sell them to our local newspaper.

They love to publish pictures of gruesome and bloody dead people.

South Point Revisited

Since we were out and about anyway the other day, we decided to proceed from lunch out to South Point. We thought maybe we would splurge and get one of those expensive ice creams on a stick they sell there. Plus I wanted to see how it was progressing with the modernization project and Carlos had not been out there for three years!

The first thing I did upon debarking from the Tracker was have a good laugh. Little Isal grabbed my hand, looked up into my face and in all seriousness asked, "What ARE we doing at this place?" After I regained my composure, I told her we were here to see the iguanas. I could tell that she thought it was an incredibly stupid idea. Iquanas are everywhere to be seen in the Yucatan where she is from. I could just see her mentally scratching her head, trying to figure out this one more mystery about Gringos.

I was really impressed how they have cleaned the place up and actually have made it a nice place to visit. The views from out there have always mesmerized me anyway. The new palapa building and sidewalks are now complete.




They have even put their foot down and made all of the vendors locate in one spot.




They have even constructed an amphitheater of sorts. I would imagine that it is mostly used for sunrise viewing. This is the place where the first sunrise over Mexico occurs every day.




While we were there, it grew progressively dark and the water really started to churn. Time to head back to the safety of the Tracker!



But first a picture of Isal with the iquanas. I told her to act like she was afraid of them. I don't think she really knows the meaning of being frightened by anything.

And then, of course, big sister had to step in and tell her really how to pose for a picture. I absolutely hate that they make little girls pose like this. Remember, she is only 6 years old and already being taught to pose like this.

In thinking about it, maybe I should just not post any pictures posed like this if they upset me so much. Or better yet, refuse to take them. What do you all think?

Lunch With My New Friend

I have a new girlfriend. She is vivacious, outgoing, fearless and knowledgeable on all things. I absolutely adore her. The only problem (for me) is, she already has a boyfriend in her hometown of Izamal. I have chosen to honor that relationship, yet spoil her as much as possible while she is on the island. As such, I took her to lunch here:





It is Playa Lancheros. Renown here on the island for their rendition of Tikinxic. (tee kan sheek) What you see here is the kitchen, housed separately from the dining area.

I drove her in the Tracker. We opened the roof so that the breeze could blow through her hair, still damp from her shower.






The dining area is enormous and holds a ton of people.







So, you want to see a picture of my new love? That's her below, on the right in the picture.






Her name is Isal and she is six years old but acts more like twelve. Or 32. She is the youngest sister of my just married friend's wife. She is here visiting the newlyweds until she gets tired of them. Or they get tired of her! She is a non-stop talker. Believe me on that!



The fabled Tikinxic. Always served on a platter with a side of rice, beans and tortillas. It is covered with achiote paste and cooked over an open fire. Delicious.





A view to the water from our table.

I had promised Isal that there would be a shark at lunch and she waited patiently for us to take her out to the dock to see it.

(NOTE: I think these next two pictures clearly reflect one of the big cultural differences between Americans and Mexicans. We want children to be children, not little sex bombs.)

Here is Isal as I had her pose.

And here she is after her sister told her to "pose pretty".

From the shark tank, looking back at the dining area.

Here is the main reason that the beach is not more crowded here. It is overcrowded with Sargasso weed.

Many boats, included huge ones full of tourists, dock here.

Just down the coast is a private club which caters to boatloads of tourists from Cancun over for the day. Notice the giant water slide.

Right next door is the new Isla Palace. Very private and very elite. (yuk)

On to the shark! Actually there were three of them in the pen. Papa, Mama and Baby. This is Mama.

A few facts for the visitor about nurse sharks.

Here is Isal happily showing us how ginormous these sharks look to her.

Before we left the dock, she plopped herself down and proclaimed to me that I was to take her picture with the shark. She wanted to prove to her Mama back home that she actually saw a shark.

When I asked her where he smile was, this is what I got.

I love this kid!

Not Much Going On

Not much to report. I guess my life is becoming a bit boring. Or I'm becoming a bit lazy. Or maybe both.



I had a house guest here for the wedding I wrote about. I don't have to tell any of you how time consuming that is. No matter how joyful the visit, it does disrupt the daily schedule. Still, nice to have a break from the same old, same old.



Then another friend, who is normally only here during the Christmas/NYE holiday, decided to come down for a summer visit. Another nice break and it was a joy to see her and spend time with her too.



There are a lot of other people visiting right now, or just left, that I know and that are blog readers. Despite the many invitations to hook up, I just never seemed to have the time or energy to do so. My loss.



That's the other thing. I don't know if it's my blood pressure meds or what, but I tire very easily these days. Just plain run out of energy. And not much interested in anything either. No, before you say it, I am not depressed. Just the blahs maybe.



On a good note, the window guy is supposed to be here tomorrow to install the new window. It will replace the one broken out during the recent burglary. And it will have bars with it! Maybe I can get a good night's sleep again. He is also installing more razor wire around the place.



We had an interesting phenomenon over the weekend. A huge migration or something of manta rays. There were hundreds of them and they were continuously jumping out of the water. It was a site to behold. The road along the beach was crowded with parked cars, motor scooters and golf carts and people stopped to stare. Nobody that I have spoken to can remember it ever happening before, nor a reason for it. Anybody know?



I really hope to get out and about this week and take some pictures. It is summer here now and the foliage and water is completely different than in the winter high season. I guess I would enjoy a trip around the island at a leisurely pace. Instead of always running here and there to get things done.

La Boda - The Wedding

Saturday, the day of the wedding, did not dawn very promising. Although it spat rain off and on all day, it did clear up by afternoon in time for the ceremony and party.







Many times before leaving the island, we had been reminded by the groom that the civil ceremony was to take place at 10am sharp in the Municipal Building. I guess in his stress over everything, he forgot that we are Americans. We are always prompt and do not need constant reminding of where to be when. Since we were to be the witnesses for the Groom, I suppose he did not want to mess up and start out his married life by being yelled at!



Bear in mind now that they had already been to Izamal a few times and talked to the Justice of the Peace to arrange their marriage and all plans were set. Just read on.



But there was to be a change in plans. One of, it seemed, many. They had to take the last of their paperwork to the Justice of the Peace on Friday afternoon so that he could finish up preparing the paperwork and license for them. Imagine their dismay when he told them that they were getting married in the Yucatan, a different state from Quintana Roo, where we all live. As such, they had different requirements for the paperwork. More pointedly, for the blood work that needed to be done. It seems that he would not accept blood work results from the island and that they would have to go get blood drawn and analysed in Izamal before he would consider finishing the paperwork and marrying them.



And wouldn't you know it. He happened to know of a lab that was open late on Fridays and could rush their work. For a mere 1000 pesos ($84) more! We are talking about a couple of people here who are not rich. This represented a major financial set back to them in the wedding cost. No matter, it had to be done. But he was not quite finished with them yet.



He then announced that he really did not feel like working on Saturday, his normal day off. However, if they coughed up another 1400 pesos ($118), he would come to where the party was and marry them at 5pm sharp. Otherwise, he just couldn't see how he could work on his day off.



What a piece of lowlife. I will bet money that he has a kick back scheme with that lab also!

When the Groom told us all of this, he looked like he wanted to cry. I don't know where they came up with the extra money, but he did not ask us for any. I would have given it to him had he asked, but I was not going to offer it and act like the Rich Gringo.

So then he told us that his future sister-in-law would meet us at the hotel at 4:30pm sharp to lead us to the party location. Which she did.

And we were the first to arrive. Flowers were still be arranged, tables still being set and beer being delivered. No sign of the Bride or Groom. So we waited. And waited some more. Guests started arriving for the 5pm ceremony. And we waited. Finally the Justice of the Peace arrived at 5:30 and the Bride and Groom about ten minutes later.

Flashing forward a bit, I want to show the main table where presents and cake were set up. (I love cake!) As part of our wedding present, we paid for all of the flowers. At first I was a bit dismayed that the Bride had chosen to go with silk flowers instead of real ones. But then it dawned on me. The individual floral centerpieces from the tables are always given away by the Bride as keepsakes to guests. It would be stupid to give them fresh flowers as a keepsake. So in the end I was happy with her cleverness.




A close-up of the ceremonial cake. (I like cake) We didn't eat this one.




So the ceremony finally commenced. Since we were witnesses for the Groom, we got to sit right behind the happy couple. Well, actually, we got to stand through the whole thing while the Justice of the Peace read every line from every piece of legal document that he had. Really. Well, almost. It seemed like it anyway.




The Groom. Our best friend and sometimes surrogate son. I almost cried, I was so happy for him. And I really, really like the girl he married.




Me putting my signature to the legal documents. It took quite awhile to sign all of those papers. Six people had to sign. I could not look the man in the face. I was so disgusted by him and his maneuvers from the day before.

The happy couple.

The party was not a fancy affair at all. There were around 80 guests. The food had been prepared all day by the aunts of the Bride. And was it ever good! Pork leg (which is a fancy cut here), rice and potato salad. They were quite proud of the potato salad. It is only prepared for special events.

Much celebrating and dancing with a live DJ ensued. I didn't drink all that much but managed to have a good time. In the picture below, two friends from the island who were there, were teaching me slang (and possible filthy, dirty, vile) phrases in Spanish. I would repeat them and the whole table would howl in laughter. Thankfully, today I do not remember a single one of them!

All in all, it was an event that I will long remember and cherish. Made all the more special because our good friend included us in the wedding party. I feel honored and special to have been a part of it.

On The Road To And In Izamal

We left the island for a few days last weekend in order to attend the wedding of a very good friend. It was to take place in the hometown of the bride, Izamal.

Izamal is also known as the Gold City because of the buildings being painted an eggshell yellow and white. It is located in the state of the Yucatan and is about 39 miles from Merida. Using the toll freeway, it is about a 3.5 hour drive from the island. Just to give you an idea of the size, it has a population of 14,500.

I've stated many times before that of all the millions of kilometers of roads I have driven in Mexico, without a doubt the most boring section is the one from Cancun to Merida on the toll road. Since we had lots of time to get to our destination last Friday, we decided to take the more scenic route and travel the free road. We knew that this would be a longer drive and full of speed bumps beyond counting. We also knew that we would be seeing areas of the Yucatan we had not yet experienced and also be traveling thorough many little villages and hamlets.

Including the time spent at McDonalds in Cancun for sausage/egg McMuffins and the hour we spent at a hacienda along the way for lunch, the total travel time was 6.5 hours. We had the top open on the Tracker and my forehead and nose are here to prove it! I didn't think I could get sunburned anymore, but I was wrong.

As we motored along, we passed many houses like this. This is a very typical home structure in the Yucatan. The houses are an oblong shape with rounded corners.



One will also see many of these along the way. In each town, they look the same and are placed in the same place in each village. The churches were built by the Spaniards when they conquered the Yucatan and are extremely old, yet still in use today.




Once arriving in Izamal, we checked into our gigantic room. We were situated directly across from one of the many lovely town square parks and just down the street from the Convent.



This is a familiar sight in the Yucatan. These tricycles are used to transport every conceivable item that can be used by humans....or animals. They have also been given the nickname of Yucatan Taxi. Here we see why!





View from our terrace to the Convent.




The city and all of the parks are immaculately clean. We saw cleaning crews constantly at work. More importantly, I never once saw a single citizen throw a piece of garbage onto the street. There appears to be a lot of civic pride here.

While resting in the park, I glanced down and this tree caught my eye. The one in the middle of the picture.




What had caught my eye was these dashes of color among the branches. Anybody want to take a guess as to what they are? They are very common in the jungle but not so much in the cities.

From our terrace, the Municipal Building.

I saw a few of these trees around also. I don't know what species they are, but I find the growth pattern of the limbs both interesting and pleasing.

Although we had visited Izamal two years ago and already toured the Convent, our house guest, who was also a wedding guest, had not. Besides, it is a very interesting structure and I had an ulterior motive for wanting to visit it. I thought that maybe my prayers for my brother would be given more priority there and I also lit two candles for him and bought a medallion of one of the saints that protects against illness. Every little bit helps.

A view to the public market from the Convent grounds.

The stairway entrance to the Convent.

Once through the archway above, you are greeted with this scene.

The covered archway rings the courtyard.

The Convent de San Antonio de Padua was in the years from 1533 to 1561. The Spaniards tore down the main Maya pyramid in the city and built this convent on top of it, using mostly the original stones from the pyramid.

We had read and been told that some of the original stones could be still be seen. We kept our eyes peeled this time. Sure enough, here and there were clearly stones from an ancient pyramid. I'm certain that they were not placed this way on purpose. Some early mason probably purposely put them in so that the former pattern showed.

There was nothing to indicate the age of these time worn frescos. My bet is that they date back to the original building of the convent.

Inside the central chapel, showcasing the Virgin of Izamal.

A closer view of the ornate altar piece.

The chapel is also lined with these nooks depicting religious events or characters.

A view from another side of the Convent, showing another one of the town parks. This one is where the carriage rides leave from. Compared to other carriage rides I have seen, these did not offend me at all. The horses had shiny coats, a little meat on their bones and appeared very well taken care of. The cost for a ride was 90 pesos ($7.56US) per hour.

From the back of the Convent, you are able to get a glimpse of the largest remaining pyramid in the city. This is one of three from the original twelve that have been restored. Somewhat. It's that flat building just to the right of the wall.

From the Convent, we took a quick walk over and mini-tour of the Kinich-Kakmo pyramid.

I struggled up that first flight of steps, above, only to be met with this:

The true top, or what was left of it, of the pyramid. I gave that climb a miss since it was jumbled stones to climb over, not really restored steps yet.

The view from the pyramid looking back downtown to the Convent.

And off to the side, another one of the typical churches in the Yucatan. This one restored.

Passing by the Convent at street level, on our way back to the hotel.

Very typical of the colonial cities in the Yucatan, are these sidewalks. I'm sure they were placed as an afterthought once traffic started to increase. They are dangerous thing to navigate and one must always be prepared and on the lookout for traffic when walking along them.

Our tour of the cities main attractions over, we retired to hotel. We were waiting for the groom to join us, go for a few congratulatory drinks and then on to his future in-laws home. We had been invited to dinner there. Evidently we were going to be treated as special guests since grandma herself had over seen the cooking all day. Good thing. I was getting hungry!