I edited this post to add a couple of pictures from Jen and Bart's house.

We went out into the jungle to see the house that Jen and Bart built. Jen says it is only a mile but it seems farther, winding on a tiny dirt road through brush and trees that tower over the car. The road twists and turns and since you can only see ahead and behind, it is hard to keep an image of where you are. It's truly a beautiful place, octagonal, surrounded by a wide porch and covered by a huge, 3 story palapa cone roof. They are off the grid, we saw their solar panels and inverter and bank of batteries. Yet, it is a modern house with new appliances and all the comforts of an upscale home anywhere. The woodwork is exquisite, handmade doors, frames, window frames, deck and cabinets. Many of the trees used were cut from their land. The deck is from Chichen, I was amazed at the deep burgundy of the wood, really gorgeous. Chichen is a tree that can cause an extreme poison oak type rash when fresh but once dried and varnished it is safe.

They've got a couple of small houses nearby that are used for storage and we came out with the light fixtures and some other stuff for our house in Merida. We don't need it now and it will be safer out in the jungle and away from the salt air, that's if we could have even found a place to store it in our piled up condo.

While we were sitting on the deck talking, it started to rain. Tropical rain storms are so amazing, it's been years since Mimi and I have been here in the rainy season and we forgot how much we love it. Water just pours from the sky, seriously as if someone were emptying a large bucket over you. More water than can be imagined, whole reservoirs of water, just pouring out of the sky. Scandalous amounts of water to someone from the dry reaches of Southern California, all that water just pooling on the ground and soaking quickly through the limestone. Sometimes there are enormous thunder claps and lightening, always it cools the air magically. Still it is warm, which is good since it is impossible not to get wet. Just running from cover to the car will soak you to the skin immediately.

Later I drove our truck through these buckets of water to Tulum to get gas and fish tacos (maybe I should have put that in the reverse order considering my priorities). My internal debate over who has the best fish tacos continues but right now the place in Tulum is winning, mainly because of their tamarind-chipotle sauce and the seasonings they use in the breading. Definitely more research is needed. Anyway, I could only see a few feet in front of the truck even with the wipers on crack-speed. Amazingly, most of the traffic slowed down, buses and trucks included. How odd, to slow down just because you can't see the road.

The shrimp man came down the road and our Texas born friend Paula made shrimp gumbo last night. It was the real deal, but without the damn okra which made it even better for me. So, yesterday was a culinary grand slam for me, fish tacos and shrimp gumbo, no okra. Hard to beat that.