Things are picking up. We can feel our departure coming soon and we're both feeling more energetic. I can't wait to be back on the road and moving again. We are also starting to look forward to our return to the US. People we love and haven't seen for 5 months and stuff we want to get fixed on the rig, all these things are making us happy to be heading north. The same thing happens in reverse by the fall, we miss people and things from Mexico and can't wait to head south. I really love that we can have it all like this. Whenever I start seriously thinking about coming off the road and getting a house and settling down, I start thinking about being stuck in one place and it looks a lot less attractive.

I got some email from readers wanting to see more pictures of our town here, Akumal. I rarely take pictures here anymore as it feels like I've posted so many that it's old news. Apparently not. So, tonight we went to meet friends for cocktails at the local beach bar and I took the camera. Above is the entrance to our closest watering hole, La Buena Vida. The first floor is a bar with sand on the floor and swings for seats as well as tables out on the beach, the second floor is a pretty nice restaurant.

It's down the beach from our place on Half Moon Bay so I took a picture looking back across the bay with our condo (the yellow arrow) and the spot we have the RV parked (the red arrow).


Bob and Claudia are 2 of our favorite people here and we hadn't gotten a chance to sit and talk with them this trip. We see Bob pretty often but hadn't seen Claudia at all. We had a lot of fun and promised that we would get together when we first come down in the fall so we can make plans to see them more often.

Mimi, Claudia and Bob later in the evening.

When we got back a gay couple from Wisconsin that we'd met while walking the dogs were on the beach and invited us to join them for another cocktail. They are nice women and we sat down there and chatted for a couple more hours so now it is late. We have a big day tomorrow, it's the only day we can get back in the condo to hang the pictures we had framed and Mimi is having a root canal in the morning. Should be fun.

Sometimes I think it is all just a soap opera but without the dramatic scenes. I'm probably depressed but I'm staying up too late on the computer and sleeping too late in the day. It's tough to get the few things done that need doing, I really just want to fire up the LD and get out of here.

It appears that moving the calendar for the condo to someone local could be made uncomfortable for them. I have no desire to cause problems for people who are my friends but this turn just makes me more angry and more stubborn. So, for now, we will hold the calendar ourselves and see how it goes. As far as I am concerned, the chances of it going back where it was got a lot slimmer with this development. I'd have to see some actual competence and even, gasp!, some remorse or an apology before that happens. Since none of those things are likely, it's not happening. Threats, even implied ones, just get my back up.

Mimi broke a tooth a few weeks ago and we finally did get into Playa to the dentist. He cleaned it up and put a temp on it and she is getting a root canal on Saturday and I guess a crown on Monday. We are planning to leave here on Tuesday.

I've been sorting through some pictures and found this one of a new soda down here. It was shown to me proudly by a small roadside store owner in Chiapas, he wanted to make sure I saw the US flag on it. If you read the Mexican papers or listen to the upper classes you get the impression that there is a huge anti-American feeling in Mexico. Actually, it's an anti-US government feeling and in that, they join the rest of the world. Personally though, there isn't any animosity towards US citizens or US culture. Quite the opposite in fact. Still, it's unusual to see the stars and stripes on a pop can. I was kind of amazed and clearly, the little store owner was too or he wouldn't have been so eager to point it out to me. I bought one, it's ok orange soda made in Puebla, Mexico.

Since I'm on politics, President Bush arrived near here yesterday in Air Force One. He flew into Cancun as did the Prime Minister of Canada and they both met Mexican Presidente Fox at the ruins in Chichen Itza. Great dramatic gesture on Fox's part, to have that dynamic backdrop for this last meeting between these 3 North American leaders. I happen to be a fan of Presidente Fox, I think he has brought a refreshing change to this country and, despite an impossible job of getting anything through the opposition controlled congress, he has had a positive impact on the country. I hope that the old guard doesn't come back into power in this next election, I think it would be a backward step. I also hope the far left candidate AMLO doesn't win, who knows though how strong his convictions will remain if he has all that power. Sanity might prevail. My guess is that most of his rhetoric is just talk, but as my friend Rodrigo says, the coin is still in the air.

It would certainly be a coup for Fox if he could get the US to enact some kind of reasonable policy for immigrant workers. It would be a coup for old W too, and he is needing some good news these days. It's clear we need the workers in the US, it's also clear that they will get there with or without our permission and it only makes sense to me for it to be legitimized and controlled. If you remove the honest laborers from the mix by giving them a legal path to the jobs, then you can come down hard on the drug and people smugglers. Why criminalize those who just want to work? Also, having a legal worker program implies that there will be limits and a specified return to their country of origin. This would be good for the US and Mexico. There are too many towns in Mexico that survive on the money sent home from workers in the US. When it is so dangerous and so expensive to cross the border, the fathers and husbands don't return often. They generally start second families in the US and the cycles of poverty and absent fathers continues, it is the women who suffer the most. The communities suffer as well though and it would be much better if these workers returned to their towns regularly, got involved in the local community as more than a sender of checks and also, got involved in the mainstream of Mexican politics. If they came home with the money instead of sending it, they would be more likely to start businesses and invest in things that bring added jobs and prosperity to the town. Currently, if anything the money goes to build a house or open a small store that the wife can run. None of that adds jobs or a future to the town.

Climbing off my soapbox now and going to bed.

Well, I spoke too soon about being happy the conversation with management was over. That very night, Mimi went up to take a shower and there were people in the condo in bed! Apparently, the list they gave us of the dates it was rented, which clearly read 3/25 to 4/1, were wrong and the real date was 3/23! Oh, of course Oreja Peluda that has done all this lied again and said he had told us about it. In a sense it was funny, my friend who is this guys boss didn't want to believe it was his employee screwing this all up but this was a pretty clear example. Since I'd been up earlier taking a shower and we had some stuff laying around the condo, Mimi had to go up the next day and explain to them what happened and get our stuff back. I am going to be very happy not to have him booking our condo.

Yesterday our oldest friend here, Teri, came over with her son Diego. She and her husband Joelito are moving to Kansas soon after we leave. We will miss her.

We're really tired of being here, we are ready to head north and get back on the road. We have to wait for some pictures I'm having framed and for that one day window when we can get in the condo again and put them up. If the curtains aren't done in time, I think we'll leave anyway.

With all the wind we've been having, I guess it isn't surprising that we spotted this waterspout just offshore the other day. One did come ashore here a few years ago and did some damage. Luckily, this one eventually just faded away.

We've been mainly just hanging out and getting a few things done. I've got the fabric I bought in Guatemala along with some I picked out here being made into curtains for all the rooms of the condo, some material I got in Chiapas being made into a bedspread and a lot of things I got in both places are at the frame shop. Hopefully all this will be done for the one day (April 1st, not a good sign) that we can get into the condo and put them up. We have a couple days right now that it is empty but all we've done is go up for showers.

Mimi spent last weekend volunteering at a free vet clinic put on in a local town nearby. It was rewarding work and they treated over 150 dogs and a few cats. All the vets are Mexican and it is supported by the municipal government, that's a change from the usual gringo volunteer clinics and shows a lot more support and involvement by locals. Always a good thing. She didn't have the camera but I'm hoping to get some pictures from other volunteers.

I finally had 'the talk' with the condo management. We've agreed on some changes and I'm hoping to have the rentals handled elsewhere. I've got to go and talk to the local guy I want to do it to see if he will. That's next, mainly I'm just glad the big conversation is over.

We are getting so used to the ride across the bottom of the Yucatan peninsula, from Palenque to Chetumal, that we're starting to feel the same way about it we used to feel about I-5 from SF to LA.

We did the meat-in-the-cooler thing again for the Tabasco/Campeche border. They haven't looked the last couple times but this time they did. Whew! Really hate to smuggle those steaks across 2 national borders and lose them to a state border.

Bobby and Patti were heading for Lake Bacalar for the night, we wanted to see Kathe and Colleen so we were going in to Chetumal. We stopped to call them as we came into town and I noticed a lot of water running out from under our step. At first we couldn't find where it was coming from, the pipes under the sink were dry. Finally we pulled all the pots and pans out from the very bottom and found it. My beloved pressure cooker, which has a sharp lip to connect to the lid, has spent the last 5 years and 79k miles with the lip rubbing against the brass fitting that leads to the outside shower. Somewhere in the last 30 miles, it had worn through and water was spraying into all the pots down there. We'd only lost less than a third of a tank of water so it hadn't been long.

This was a big problem as we couldn't turn the water pump back on until we figured out how to fix or bypass the cut. Deciding we wanted electricity as we had to blow dry the whole area, we went to the RV park in Calderitas. Kathe showed up a little later and we did get to chat, Colleen was sick. Mimi took it apart and we figured out that the part was probably something we'd never find in Mexico. We weren't too happy at the idea of going all the way back to the US without water but that was certainly a possibility.

We took off for the mall (don't ya love it, when in doubt go to the mall!) and rooted arond in the hardware section of the huge superstore there. Mimi found some kind of silicon liquid weld, you squirt stuff from the 2 tubes on a plate, mix them together and then quickly apply them. She got the area dry, not easy as we had to drain the rest of the water out of the pipes. Applied some to the cut, put a piece of plastic bag over that and pressed it in and then put more of the stuff on top. She added another layer a little later. We left all the fans we had on to dry the wood and went to bed. The next morning, with fingers crossed, we turned on the water pump... no leaks! Whooo weeeee! We have water again!

Here's a picture of it fixed, during all the trauma I forgot to take pictures of it leaking. The pot rubbed a slice about a 1/4 inch deep across the brass 90° angle fitting.

We headed up the coast and ran into Bobby and Patti again in Tulum. We pulled into Akumal, unhooked the jeep and drove down to tell them to pull back the brush they use to disguise our parking place.

There's no good way for me to say this, they have done it again and rented our condo when we were very specific not to rent it. This is the second time they've done this. Here we are with Bobby and Patti intending to spend a week in the condo before leaving and Mimi and I intending to stay until the end of the month. We have pictures to hang, curtains to have made and installed and a million other things we had intended to do. Now they tell us we can only get in it for a few days 2 times this month. We are not happy. We are deciding what we want to do about it.

Bobby and Patti left after the weekend and headed north. We are staying in our RV on the lot next door trying to get things done without being able to get in. It's really a drag.

While I love the Caribbean, if I wanted to be parked on a beach in my RV there are better beaches. Personally, I prefer the Pacific with sand not rocks and waves to play in. On top of it all, the wind started blowing as we were driving up the coast and blew at about 30 mph for 3 days. We mainly stayed inside the RV, going through bins and reorganizing stuff. It was good to get that done as we need to find room for the stuff we are bringing north.

This is a picture out our salt encrusted window at the palm tree blowing in these fierce winds.

We left Comitan around 9:30 and got to Amatenango del Valle by 10:30. This is the town famous for its pottery, especially for large painted chickens and jaguars, we had spent some time and money here a few months ago. We had intended to spend the night here as they have a big pullout for parking but the demonstration slowed us down. We stopped and shopped a little and got the stuff we looked at last time but didn't buy. Patti got a huge jaguar pot like the one I got but larger. They are 3D and really gorgeous. I got 4 large candle pots, they have holes in them for the light to shine out and they protect the candle from the wind. They are also safer as the flame can't get to anything outside the pot. They are for the deck at the condo, perhaps one for Country's patio table if we can figure out a place to carry it in the RV.

Back on the road we turned east just outside of San Cristóbal, heading for Palenque. As we were winding down the mountain road, Patti yelled on the walkie-talkie "pull over, pull over". We got around the corner and saw Bevin and Jenelle's van parked at a handicraft shop. There was barely room for Bobby to get the 5th wheel off the road and for us to pull in behind but we got parked and found them inside. What a great coincidence to run into friends along this road! We stood around and talked for about an hour but they were headed up the mountain and we were going down.

We spent the night parked at the Nututun Hotel where we had stayed after going to Yaxchilan.

Leaving Lake Atitlan was tough. It's one of the most gorgeous spots I've ever been. The days were warm and the nights were cool, the weather was just perfect while we were there. I would imagine that it is much the same all year except that it rains in the summer and the hills turn green.

Of course, if a hurricane dumps an enormous amount of rain as Stan did this past season, those hills become dangerous landslides. Slash and burn agriculture has removed the trees that used to cover them and they are now deadly. Several entire villages were destroyed, just gone without a trace under 40 feet of mud. They aren't even digging them out, just planting crosses. Parts of other towns were destroyed and the loss of lives was huge. The roads were gone and so were the bridges, everyone was cut off for many weeks. We heard a lot of stories and it was clear that the trauma was still very fresh.

This picture is of the town of Santiago Atitlan on the far shore from Panahachel. You can see that they live on the edge of what is still considered an active volcano.

One of the villages that disappeared forever was behind Santiago, higher up the slope of the volcano where the raw, brown earth of mudslides can be seen. (remember that you can click these pictures and see them larger).

We took these pictures at an overlook on our way out of the crater. We were heading for the border now and would be out of Guatemala in a few hours.

We've spent almost 4 weeks traveling here and all of us were impressed with the country and the people.

Another great thing about this trip has been traveling with Bobalito and Patilla! It's tough spending so much time with another couple but we did it with very few problems. (OK guys, I'm sorry about that last domino game!)

Bobby and Patti at the overlook.

The road to the border at La Mesilla was pretty good. Two or three times we were over 9000' and then back down to 7000'. The scenery was spectacular and after the last climb we had a long slow drop to the border at 3000'. Man, it felt good to be that low again. Oxygen! Our lovely 2001 Lazy Daze, Tortuga, turned 79,000 miles in a beautiful canyon right before the Mexican border.

The border crossing was really easy, we have heard this is a better crossing than the one farther west near Tapachula, MX. We turned in our visas and checked our vehicles out of Guatemala then pulled to the Mexican side. We still had our visas and car stickers for Mexico as we had paid a fee and gotten them stamped for double entry instead of turning them in when we crossed into Belize. So, they asked us a few questions and waved us on.

There is also a military stop a few kilometers down the road but that was no problem either. We stopped there and put our meat back in the freezer. I really didn't want to lose the remaining Mennonite beef - 4 rib eye steaks, bacon and ground beef. It's become our standard precaution to put all the meat from the freezer into a cooler along with whatever vegetables and fruits we want to keep when crossing a border. We have various ways to stash the cooler. I don't think we'll try this with the US though, we'll just have to eat everything before we get there.

A few miles into Mexico we ran into a long line of stopped traffic. Apparently there was a demonstration on the road. It's often done here, when you are mad at something the govt has done you go out and sit on the main highway stopping all traffic. After awhile, you get up and go home. Usually there are vendors walking around selling food but in this case I think we were too far back in the line. After about an hour traffic started moving again. That was good as the first word we got was that they were going to stay in the road until 6am the next morning. Our chances of going as far as we had planned were gone and we spent the night in Comitan de Dominguez, parked in a huge truckers lot with 24 hour security. Shades of Guatemala!

There are a lot of scary stories out there about problems traveling in Guatemala. I don't know if many of them are recent but I do know that most of the dire warnings I get from others are from people who have never been there. I felt safe all of the time for what that's worth. It doesn't mean it is safe there, certainly the Guatemalans don't seem to feel their country is safe or they wouldn't have armed guards everywhere. I think part of the danger is a remnant of the recent long civil war, everyone seems to have at least one gun. Perhaps the fear is also a remnant of the war.

One of the special things that happened while we were at Lake Atitlan is that we met the Garcia family.

Our friends Kathe and Colleen have known them for many years and we were carrying a letter for them. When the father, Benito, discovered we were there he brought most of the family to meet us one night.

They are very open and generous family and we really enjoyed getting to know them. They invited us to their house in a nearby town for a special meal.

It's something usually only prepared for certain feast days but Rosa, Benito's wife, made it for us. It's called Pu Lik in mayan and is a corn meal and chicken stock soup that is flavored with anchiote and served with chicken and hand made tortillas on the side.

We spent the afternoon at their houses. Benito's parents live in the house in front, Benito, Rosa, their kids and grandkids live behind it. They've even taken in a 12 yo boy that was abandoned, he lives with them too. This picture has several generations in it, Benito and Rosa holding their grandchildren and Benito's mother sitting in front.

The day we were leaving Benito and Rosa came to say goodbye and they brought the one son we hadn't yet met. He works days and goes to school nights and is rarely home.

They are a great family, it was an honor to meet them.

We went to the famous market in Chichicastenango on Saturday. It's a few hours drive, up and out of the caldera the lake is in and down over another ridge. This is the front of the church with clouds of copal burning.

The market is mainly a series of street stalls filled with all kinds of weaving, embroidery, pottery, wood carvings and other artisania. Much larger than the one in Sololá, more variations of the same type of things and better prices usually. I spend a while comtemplating some antique wooden santos and paintings but never bought any.

We moved into the small aisles and started looking at fabrics and huipiles. Mainly I was looking for bedspreads, quilts and wall hangings. There is a lot to look at.

At some point we went upstairs in a small restaurant for lunch. It was great looking down over the street scene from the narrow balcony. There was a blind man with his wife singing hymns and a lot of hustle and bustle from vendors and shoppers.

As we were dawdling over the remains of our lunch, a shoeshine boy came and stood next to us staring. I'm pretty callous about street beggars having lived so long in San Francisco where you can't walk half a block without 5 people hitting you for money. I kind of waved him off thinking he wanted money. He just continued to stare at us. I took my camera out and snapped his picture which didn't seem to faze him either. Mimi is kinder than I am and perhaps she saw something I didn't because she suddenly offered him the remaining part of her hamburger. He took it eagerly and went a little ways away to eat it. When he came back we gave him the fries left on my plate and a bottle of soda and he ate those quickly too. Leaving, I realized that I would have completely missed that he was really just hungry and that the look on his face was not antagonistic. I've been thinking about that a lot since.

This is a girl that was selling trinkets in the street in Panajachel. Mimi also shared her dinner with her one night and they chatted in spanglish for a long time. Her name is Luz and she told Mimi that her mother lived in Chichicastenango and that she came to Pana on the bus alone with stuff to sell, she would stay for 3 or 4 days and then take the bus back home. We spotted her in Chichi and she took us to her mother's spot on the street, that's her mom in the background. She is one of 11 kids and she says she is 10 years old.

These are some of the huipiles sold all over Guatemala but in great quantities here in Chichicastenango. They are hand embroidered and signify the village the woman is from. The work on them is amazing and considering the time it takes to make them, the prices are almost embarrassing. That doesn't mean I don't barter! I usually offer about half of what they ask at first, sometimes less. We negotiate and I walk away if negotiations stall. If they come after me, I go back and decide.

Here's a close up picture of some of them. I actually bought only 3 during our whole time there. I bought 2 in Chichi and one in the small village of Santa Catarina on Lake Atitlan. I paid from $20 to $30 for them. Two of them are being sewn onto wood to hang on the walls in our condo here in Mexico, I'm bringing one of them home for our friend Country.

Oh! I'm so far behind. But I have some pictures to post so I have to write something as well. I've reduced the size of the pics on the blog so I can fit more in but remember they are all clickable to see a larger view.

First off, our friends who own the condo under ours in Akumal have sent pictures of Maya, the little dog we rescued in Palenque in January, at her new home outside Ottawa Canada. Her first experience with snow! I love the little booties. She does look a lot happier laying on the back of the warm couch. We are so thrilled that this sweet dog has a loving home and a bright future.

Where were we? I got busy and stopped posting to the blog during our week at Panajachel. We really enjoyed Lake Atilan, the beauty of the lake and the volcanos ringing it are hard to describe. Most of the time, it just doesn't look real. It's hard not to keep taking pictures though, I must have a hundred to choose from today. This first one is of 2 of the volcanos across the lake from our camp spot. There are 3 within sight but it is difficult to get them all in one pic.

We took this picture at dawn. The colors of the lake change all during the day and the light as well.

Although we took a lot of trips to towns nearby, we also enjoyed spending time just sitting outside our rigs and enjoying the views.

Hang gliders frequently took off from the mountains above us and landed on the beach under our camp spot.

One final pic of the lake at sunset.