All By Myself . . . .
So I booked this room through Airbnb and it seemed nice enough. Laundry and wi-fi on site, a small swimming pool and a shared kitchen.
The room is fine, have my own toilet and shower and that’s good. And my room is clean.
However, the wi-fi goes out for hours or days whenever we have an earthquake – and we’ve had 2 in less than a week. I’m just 5 minutes up the coast from where you were, Jocey, and where I’ve been all the other times I’ve been here, so I don’t know what is going on since I never had that happen before. Another friend suggested that perhaps they’ve started fracking in the mountains. I’ll have to find out.
The kitchen is shared by the whole house, which is currently Alex the owner, who is separated from Jenni the co-owner, and a father/son team who are working the tourist season here. Let’s just say that their ideas and mine of kitchen cleanliness vary wildly – and I’m no Suzy Homemaker! I’ve bought my own detergent and stuff and keep a set of dishes in my room so I know that they’re clean when I need to use them. I haven’t cooked at all yet, just eating fruit, cheese, cereal, yoghurt and chocolate. Part of the problem is that the kitchen hasn’t been cleaned for so long that it is stuffed with bottles and jars full of dribs and drabs of jam or sauces from guests long since departed. So there is not much space to put anything. I’m working on it .
Then the father/son team left and the kitchen just got worse. Alex had friends and relatives in many nights and they took up the only two burners that worked on the 6 burner stove for hours making fish stews and whatever. And then a new ‘tenant’ came who, along with his friend, made off with my saved-for-supper pizza, some of my tonic water and cheese, and most of my apples.
The “swimming pool” – and I use quotes advisedly – is what I call the ce-ment swamp. (Those of you old enough to know why I hyphenated ‘cement’, let me know) No filtering or circulation at all. Algae abounds. Mosquitos breed. The birds come to drink and bathe in it twice a day, and this gorgeous iguana lives in one of the trees overhanging the swamp and crawls out on a branch to poop in the water. I would not swim in that stewing soup of bacteria for all the tea in China!! (OH! And I found a new Twinings tea here, black tea with four red fruits. Yummy!)
The saving grace is that I can sit for 2 or 3 hours in the morning and the same in the evening and birdwatch without leaving the house. It’s pretty amazing! I’ll post some bird and iguana pictures now, but don’t have names yet for most of them.
Actually having a good time doing nothing but birdwatch, read, eat and catch up on e-mails a year or more old that I hadn’t gotten around to.
So, enjoy – and please post comments on here so all can share and I’ll know where to come to answer you if you have questions.
And I had a pet, which I was sorry to leave behind when I moved. This cockroach that was about the size of an adult city house-mouse. I named him Dave, after Stuart McLean’s main character.
But, move I did. I came here for the warmth and also for the therapy of swimming. Since swimming was not going to happen where I was, I decided I’d have to move. So my cheap vacation was going to turn out much more expensive.
I did find a nice place. Busy and really noisy on the weekends, with kids’ birthday parties and family groups checking in, it’s quite quiet during the week. The pool is lovely. The Anglo food at the restaurant here is really awful, so I do what I can to eat in my room with no kettle or fridge and go out to eat when I can’t. Too bad I can’t eat most Mexican food as they seem to do that very well, but allergies to most spices make that a no-no.
I’m still not doing much. And I love it. Enjoying the fruits and juices, reading, swimming, sitting in the shade and contemplating life.
I have found 3 really good new restaurants though, Mercader and La Terraza, both in Sta Cruz, and Grillos Marineros which is in Crucecita, and is only new to me as it has been around for quite a while. All have excellent meals at a reasonable cost.
I also have a new pet. Señor Javier, the sort-of hotel cat, likes me very much, since I bring him treats of fish and steak when I go out to eat. He was mad curious to get into the room and I was wary because I didn’t want fleas in my stuff if he had them, but did let him in one evening and it was hilarious. The exploration was epic. Then his curiosity led him into the shower stall, so I shut the doors on him and turned on the water, figuring he really needed a bath. Have you ever seen a cat clinging to a sheer tile wall? The minute I turned the water on, he was up on the wall. So fast he didn’t get one drop of water on him. Never seen anything like it and laughed till I fell down.
He’s got a funny meow too. Doesn’t sound much like our cats at home. Much more croaky and a short and sharp “OW”. The purr is the same though.
Anyway, I have to come home in 4 days now and am kind of sad to be leaving. It’s been a lovely break.
And I will post this if I can ever figure out how to get the photo program to work.
2016 – Finally Patrick’s turn
And now I’m all done – all the grandkids have had their turn to go to Mexico with me, so now I can do something just for me next year maybe.
But it’s been fun having the kids to myself, one at a time, over the years. I have some great memories, and I hope they have too.
A few differences this year – Patrick was older than most of the grandkids when they went, so he wanted to do different things. For instance we went one night to a dance club. Haven’t been in one since 1970, but not much has changed. A few differences here though – you can buy a set-up (a bottle of liquor, a bucket of ice and glasses) which I don’t think you can do in Canada. You can still smoke inside. Everyone dances beside their tables – there isn’t really a dance floor. And there was this tank with 3 windows behind the bar where a young lady swam underwater back and forth for a while.
La Papaya Dance Club
And something else I noticed this time, and I don’t even know how to describe it. You know when the moon waxes and wanes and it becomes a sliver on one side or the other? In Mexico the sliver is at the bottom or top, not at the sides. This fascinated me for some reason, but I didn’t get a good picture.
Waxing moon
Patrick and I got to the hotel and immediately went for a swim. He was ecstatic because he is old enough to drink legally in Mexico *sigh*.
Hitting the bar – legally.
-35 (with wind chill) to +34 in 5 hours. It was LOVELY.
We alternated days between something more active, like snorkelling or surfing and days shopping for souvenirs for friends and seeing the town, or just lazing around the hotel a couple days and not doing much of anything.
I’ll do a slideshow here as most of the photos are self-explanatory. Click on the largest photo to get it started.
*** There are several videos of beaches, Patrick surfing and snorkelling and so on that can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsIthqA8dWdIH7f9IFbXAIg
And a couple odd things:
Bought a pair of earrings at Gabriel’s where I always end up, got them home and to my surprise found the earrings had different types of hangars on them. Bummer!! Somewhere there’s a pair exactly like this pair, I expect.
Gabriel’s kids goofed up.
And this strange set-up in a washroom at the hotel. You need really long arms to get at this toiler paper! It was pretty awful. Strange thing was, the other two stalls in the bathroom had the paper dispensers on the side, as usual.
You need LOOONG arms!!!
And I think that’s about it. Thankfully the weather has been much milder since We came back than it was before we left. Looking forward to spring.
Pinky and Ze Brain in Mexico
(ALL PHOTOS ARE CLICKABLE TO SEE THE LARGE VERSION. )
So this year I got to take the ‘baby’ on a winter break. Mind you, the baby is now 11. Where does the time go?
Since she likes to swim so much, despite the liberal applications of sun screen she went to supper most nights with a pink face and shoulders, hence the nickname Pinky. And since I’m still smarter – well, you can guess the rest.
The first day there we slept in a bit and then decided to get some of the shopping for gifts out of the way and make time for me to investigate a couple condos in the Sta Cruz area since I’d like to come down here for 2 or 3 months next year.
We browsed a market in Sta Cruz and stopped to have a lemonade. All the restaurants make lemonade from scratch, though you get different versions in each place – but it’s usually really good and refreshing. At this restaurant it tasted like it was made with Sprite or something and it was too sweet for me but the sprout seemed to like it OK.
There was a showing of a local artist’s work and I was intrigued by the piece hanging behind Pinky so I wandered around to see the rest and really liked them. I didn’t get the name but I expect it shouldn’t be too hard to find out.
We didn’t find anything we particularly wanted to went on into La Crucecita to see if we could find a silver chain for Pinky’s mom. We found a nice one, but then Pinky got entranced by the many rings, which are her favourite and I wondered if we would get out by suppertime. We sat in the lovely zocalo and watched people for a bit, then went and had some lunch and another, different lemonade.
Crucecita’s lovely zocalo
Lunch and different lemonade
The next day we had breakfast at the beach club – we had breakfast there every day and supper most days too.
Since we had the end room on our level, we had a bit of lawn beside our room. It was interesting to see the cliff where it had been hacked out for the building and to see the tree root growing despite the disturbance.
An we had a friend who came to visit and pose for us every day before he stretched out to enjoy the sun on the wall. Pinky named him Boo-Ki and we did enjoy his company.
We drove out to Copalita to see the Iguanario but it was closed and is now only open a few days a week. So we went back and had a good time to swim then went out for supper to a restaurant I had heard about and had a nice meal.
The next day we just spent limin’ and swimmin’
The following day we walked way down the beach to the place where, if you wade in the water, all the fish come looking for food. I always take a bag of fish food with me now, since otherwise you have to get something from the hotel. Bread really isn’t very good for them but they do seem to love bananas, which I find very strange! Then, of course there was more swimming at the pool and we went out for supper to Don Porfirio where I go each year. They have really good food and always do something goofy. This year the waiters did a conga line to a pop song. I don’t remember which one, but I’m sure Pinky knows since she was singing along.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHyzcd9a08E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5KGS8CtcEw
Our next day was time to go back to the Iguanario where we saw the effort of the local people to restore the numbers of iguanas to the countryside. It was fun to see all the different types of iguanas. Brown, black green and grey. Large and small and in-between.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBboxUJAbTst
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkthIJ6hGvM
And then we swam some more . . . .
This was the night where the beach club had Mexican night. While Mexican food isn’t to either of our tastes really, I had seen the show before and knew that the sprout would like it. Many Mexican folk dances, and one especially beautiful one where the women are wearing gauzy white gowns and they have candles on their heads.
We spent another couple days just lazing and going into town to finish shopping and have lunch. The weather was glorious, as usual, so it was no hardship to just sit by the pool or on the beach and do not much of anything except enjoy not shovelling snow.
For our second-last full day we had my usual taxi driver, Lazaro, take us to L’Entrega Beach which is much calmer than the beach at the hotel and many people go there to kayak or snorkel. On the way Lazaro stopped at a couple of lovely outlooks so that this sprout (He’s seen them all) could see some of the views, and the lighthouse. He also stopped at a cemetery since he knows how much I enjoy seeing the decorated cemeteries they have. There are lots of photos of those in previous entries.
Pinky wanted to try snorkeling, and when I rented the equipment for her I decided to get her proper lessons and a guide since there were jellyfish in the bay – and since I don’t swim well I couldn’t really be much use here.
We got this really wonderful teacher named Jeremy who works at the beach teaching all sorts of water sports and also takes out people in boats. He was so good with her, asking her every few minutes if she was OK. He trained her on the equipment then took her out on a float so she’d have somewhere to rest if she got tired. She said she had a wonderful time and saw lots of fish, including a school of jellyfish which were quite amazing.
We had lunch at the beach after the snorkeling session and ate for an hour and there was still this amount of food left. Wow!
I’m only going to put a link to one of the snorkeling videos here – the rest are on the same YouTube site so you can see them there.
A view of L’Entrega Beach. http://youtu.be/9FJ5fmsbg7o
And here is Miss Pinky, all dressed up for our last night’s dinner at the hotel. I’m so sad to be leaving – and I think she is too, but would be happier to stay if mommy was here as well.
Kaydo goes to Mexico
This February it was Kaydo’s turn to go with me to Huatulco. This blog won’t be as long as some of the others since we did a lot of the same things as other years.
Kaydo is, like many teenagers, hooked up 24/7 to technology so most of the photos of him will be complete with earbuds. We had fun though.
Good company A
Good company 2
We went again to the lizard breeding farm at Copalita and I don’t think Kaydo was impressed having the lizards actually on him – most of the grandkids have not been, but it was fun to see all the different kinds and ages of them and see how the eggs are incubated.
A house I really liked near the farm
Another type of lizard
Lizard guest at Copalyta
Sign for the breeding farm
On the way home we stopped at the newly opened Archeological Park. It is marvellous! Two old temples have been uncovered and there is a great indoor area with a lot of the finds in cases with explanations of what they are. It’s really worth the time to get out there and see it. I wish all the kids had been able to see it. The only problem is that, thus far, all the written information is in Spanish only.
Dios Cocijo
Dios Cocijo explanation
More information
A map of the area
A peacful rest stop
The Snake Temple
A Sacrificial Altar
Dios Dzavui
Dios Viejo
We found the new location for Los Vaquerros restaurant, which I had loved in the old location, but this new place is right at an intersection in town that is buzzing with truck traffic, so was not so pleasant. We were the only people there at lunch time, so maybe their custom is all at night now and maybe the traffic dies down then. The food is still great, but I wouldn’t go there again for lunch.
Lunch at Los Vaquerros
One other thing that we did that was new was to go on the hike to the Emerald Falls. It’s up in the mountains, so I didn’t make it all the way up, but it is a spectacularly beautiful walk and a great barbeque lunch is waiting for you when you finish the walk and come back to the lower level of the river. I don’t have pictures of the lunch though. Kaydo took a lot of the pictures on this trip but has just never gotten around to sharing them so that I can put them on the blog. A lesson learned.
Family picnic on the river
Last steps to the falls
Walk to Emerald Falls 1
Walk to Emerald Falls 2
Our intrepid guide showing us the vine bridge across the river
Setting up for lunch after the walk to the falls and back.
We also went to the herbal garden this year and now they have two birds and also have someone making tortillas the traditional way. We used to go to another woman’s place to see that.
The two birds love the tortilla dough – raw!
Woman grinding corn for tortillas
Just a couple of other interesting things. We saw some wild iguanas too, at the fruit market. I love to see them, I think they’re fascinating – but I think that about all animals. And I brought home some Oaxacan hot chocolate. They form the chocolate, sugar and spices – which vary by maker – into a ball and dry it, then you just pour hot water on it (in a cup of course) and let it dissolve, then you can add more hot water which is the Oaxacan way of drinking it, or add milk if you like. It is *really* good!
Wild Iguana
Oaxacan hot chocolate
Coming home again is always bittersweet. It’s good to see friends and family again, and nice to sleep in your own bed, but hard to leave such a lovely place only fractionally explored.
Planes home delayed
Visitor to our room
Sad to be leaving maybe?
Some links you might like: http://www.tribaltravel.info/ and http://www.travelcompanionexchange.com/
AS before, I’m having a real problem getting the photos where they are supposed to be, so I hope you can get the gist of the story and enjoy seeing a bit of our trip.
No Comment . . .
Well, no, I guess I won’t. (See last comment on previous post). Now this blinking thing won’t let me write anything *after* the photos, but insists on popping the cursor back up in front of the photos.
Anyway, our last full day there I had booked a deep-sea fishing trip for Seamus. He LOVES fishing and wanted to try that. So out we went with Valentino. It was beautiful out there, and a perfect day as they all were. Valentino and his helper scanned the waves for activity and we did see some turtles on the way out. When he found a school of bonito he handed out the rods and let Seamus have a go. It was harder work than lake fishing I think, but Seamus managed to catch several bonito and get them into the boat and one mahi-mahi which got off the hook just as they were bringing it in. It had been a real fighter so I was kind of glad to see it get off.
We didn’t go for any of the big stuff, like swordfish as Seamus just isn’t filled out enough yet to have the weight to handle anything that size. Maybe someday.
After we fished for a couple hours we went in to one of the bays where they have some restaurants and a large area marked off for snorkeling. It’s better that way as some of the snorkeling areas aren’t marked so well and boats do wander in. A collision with a boat, or wrose, its propellor, wouldn’t add anything wonderful to your underwater sightseeing.
We got home mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the day swimming and on the beach. Neither one of us wanted to have to go home the next day, but life intrudes always on these idyllic breaks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5GwhMLgRWk&list=UUsIthqA8dWdIH7f9IFbXAIg&index=5&feature=plcp
I think I forgot to post about our after noon feeding the fish. I’ll post a video where we were feeding them and then I said we should walk out a bit further while the water was calmer, as it had been really rough and the undertow was fierce. I just said that and walked out a couple steps when a big wave and the undertow took me down hard and since I was trying to hold the camera up above the water, I darn near drowned trying to get on my feet again. Seamus had to haul me out, but he did get me out without the camera getting soaked, so that’s good. (Thank you Seamus!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCXBVLbI04I&list=UUsIthqA8dWdIH7f9IFbXAIg&index=1&feature=plpp_video
Seamus and his quatromoto
Granny loves lizards too
Famous Seamus and a banana split at Blue
Another beach
More beaches
Sr Ouraca on the roof at dawn
Seamus-the-Rasta and his BBQ ribs
The Rest of The Story
Bugger this site anyway!! I’m getting more and more annoyed with the way it’s behaving and my inability to get things placed where I want. Just finished this entry once and started to post photos and had to delete a photo and the whole post deleted and wasn’t saved anywhere I could find. So, here we go again.
After going for the trip with Lazaro, we had him drop us off in Crucecita again so we could finish our gift shopping. I took Seamus to the craft museum and store, since I figured he’d like to see the bugs, plants and rocks that they use for dye for the yarn they weave. He liked that. They have now started a mezcal tasting bar there too, with a lot of good, natually flavoured mezcals and I tried a few then settled on buying two bottles of the orange flavoured drink to bring home and give to my son and son-in-law. At the bar they have a bowl of fried crickets that you can snack on. I’d tried some on my first trip down and wanted Seamus to try some this time. He wasn’t really enthusiastic, but did try them. I don’t think he found them as bad as he’d feared, but I doubt he’ll be putting them into his daily diet either. They don’t taste bad, and are nice and crunchy, but I think could use a touch of salt.
Now I’ll post some random photos of neat stuff, then get on with the tale of the deep-sea fishing expedition.
I hadn't seen this shade before and I love it.
Bread basket - made from bread!
Big bird in the bush
Beautiful butterfly
Huatulco 2012 Day 4 and 5
Sleepy guy
We were up pretty late last night, so decided to sleep in this morning. Seamus didn’t want to get up at all!
After we did get up, we went with my favourite taxi driver to Sta Maria de Huatulco, a small town inland that I like to visit with my grandkids to give them a better idea of how ‘real’ Mexicans live. it’s a nice little town with another lovely church and a great cemetery, where I love to take pictures.
Church in Sta Maria
Tomb at the cemetery. Notice the non-Christian elements?
After that, Lazaro, the taxi driver, took us to his home for a glass of Agua de Melon, which is a drink they make from the juice of a cantaloupe. It’s really lovely and refreshing – and it was great that there was a level of trust and respect that allowed him to do that. The first year we just went to the town. The second year he drove us past his home and pointed it out, and this year he invited us in. I was most honoured.
Lazaro, his wife and grandchildren.
When we got home and went to the beach, Seamus decided to try a boogie board. Another new experience for him.
Boogie boarding
Next day, we swam, got henna tattoos and I was really surprised at how much I liked my tattoo. If I was braver I’d get it done for ‘real’! We went shopping to see if we could find the rest of the gifts for his mom, dad and brother. We did get his brother a belt, but were having a really hard time finding a buckle to go with it, but on the last day I found one at a beach vendor. Beautiful! A big silver buckle with inset mother-of-pearl, and in the centre this honking big scorpion set in amber resin. I haven’t got a picture of that, but I’m going to try and get one.
My tattoo
Seamus's tattoo. Looks like him first thing in the morning.
Huatulco 2012,
OK, I’ll start here with Day 3 – and as usual, you can click on any of the thumbnails to see a full-screen picture.
Seamus meeting the babies
This was the day that we went to the Iguana farm. Iguanas had been becoming scarce and were being protected by the government as they are good to eat and the leathery skin is used for clothing. The locals are allowed to still kill one at a time for food though. The farm is a local initiative for breeding iguanas, and then releasing them into the wild. Unfortunately the locals did not know much about breeding so after a few generations of iguanas they ended up having quite a few birth defects in the new babies as their breeding population was small. They have now realised their mistake and are releasing more of the adults and bringing in new adult breeding stock to enlarge the gene pool.
A breeding mommy
Moving the iguana eggs
Good for Friday night movies
Seamus feeding the big guys
Handsome fellow
After the Iguana farm we spent the rest of the day just limin’ on the beach. When you only have a week to see everything, you never have enough time for that.
Just limin'
That night there was the festival, Primo Viernes (First Friday – of Lent) in Sta Cruz, and Seamus and I went to that. That was good fun. There was a miday with rides, lots of booths selling things – everythin you could think of really – food and drink, and a rodeo with bull riding.
Seamus got a Rasta tam and some dreadlocks. Lookin good!
The bull riding was the funniest thing, since as rowel spurs, burrs under the saddle blanket and ropes around the testicles are no longer allowed, and the bulls know it, they would come flying out of the chute, buck their way across to the gate where they had been brought in, then stand there waiting to go home. There is no longer any “incentive” to keep bucking after the initial shot from the cattle prod that got them out of the chute.
After that there was a dance contest where the MC would pick a guy and girl at random from the audience and they would have to compete as a couple in various Latin dance routines. Shortly after that began I could feel a change in the crowd and I told Seamus we had to get out of there (the bandstand enclosure) right away. As we left there were about a dozen police entering so they must have felt the change too. Enormous amounts of alcohol were being consumed, and it was hot, and folks were starting to get rude and testy about things. We spent another hour or so at the midway, then went on home.
Seamus had been determined to get himself a coconut, which he finally did by throwing rocks at them until one fell, and he was persistent enough to crack it open with his pencil and other found objects. Unfortunately it was dry and tough inside so not too good to eat.
Coconut disappointment
Huatulco 2012
Church interior 2
Well, Seamus finally got to go with me to Huatulco, and we had some neat fun.
The first day we didn’t do much, slept late then went into town for some lunch and to see the church there, which I never tire of. Pictures appear to be posting wherever they like this year, so sorry, but I haven’t been able to change it yet. Also, I didn’t take quite as many pictures this time as a lot of it you folks have seen before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElkWhLimXns
Blue has the best lemonade in town.
The second day we went for our ATV tour and Seamus got to drive his own ATV which was good fun for him, I think. We went to a lot of places and through the bush to some beaches we never would have seen otherwise. Seamus, of course, was busy investigating all the rocks for crabs and anything else he could find. That night we went out for dinner and Seamus got a job. <G> I also finally, with my new camera, got some good pictures of the ouraca (I think that’s how it’s spelled). (I’ve just found out that the bird world calls it a white-faced magpie jay.) I’ve been trying to get pics of him for years and never gotten a good one.
That was the night too, where I was kept awake all night by dogs barking and I thought one of the guests had smuggled in some pets and then left them lonely while they partied. It turned out that two dogs, well-kept and knew their basic commands, had fallen down the cliff behing our room and were trapped with no food or water. Seamus figured out a great way to get some water to them – I’ll try and load the video here, but if I can’t it’ll be on cybercroneca’s YouTube channel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCHReWmjLkE&list=UUsIthqA8dWdIH7f9IFbXAIg&index=8&feature=plcp
The really funny thing was that I figured out that the dogs knew their hand signals for sit and so on, so when the animal rescue came to get them out I told the guy that the animals knew English, and said “Sit” and did the hand signal, and they sat. It caused quite a bit of excitement among the workers to see that the dogs understood English. Seamus did the same thing to the second set of guys that came and got the same reaction. It was a HOOT! 
I will be closing this now and doing some more days later, hoping that the glitches here will be fixed or else that I can insert the photos appropriately if I do all the text first.
The puffer fish on the ceiling at the beach cafe.
Senor Ouraca
Seamus investigating the wild and marine life.
Granny goes to Mexico 