Today we went downtown, parked and walked around for awhile. We were sort of looking for dishes, someone had given me a couple of stores to check but we never found either of them.

This tiny house caught my eye. One room wide but with so much charm.

While walking by the main square, they were setting up lots of chairs and a huge sound system for a concert. I asked a cop and he said that Alejandra Guzmán was singing tonight. I had to do a Wiki search on her but she is a Latin Grammy winner and is quite popular. The stage was set up almost in the foyer of the cathedral and the rows of seats filled 2 streets in front of it. There were lines of young people snaking around the plaza in two directions. From the volume of the sound check while we were there, we weren't tempted to return tonight.

What I am tempted to return for though is a concert by Vicente Fernandez on Feb 24th. He is the ultimate mariachi singer, the King himself. I love his singing and have many of his CDs. He is playing at the Plaza de Toros, the bull ring here in Mérida. We've been discussing driving over and staying in a hotel for the concert. It could be sort of a birthday celebration for me. We're going to stop by the bull ring and ask about tickets and seating before we leave.

I took this pic of a tower from the govt building on the main plaza. The buildings here are gorgeous and the details and stonework are incredible. Can you see why the place attracts me?

We had read a review of a taco place that had vague directions but sounded like a great place. The other night we spent about an hour looking for it. The directions went something like this.

From the glorieta with a Burger King go right. Hey! We found the glorieta with the Burger King. A glorieta is a traffic circle and so where do you go right? in fact they said nothing about where they even entered the glorieta. OK, that's only 4 directions it could be, so we tried all 4.

The next part was you will pass a rocket and you are almost there. Nope, we saw no rocket.

At the next large glorieta, Tacos Arabe is at 10pm on the circle, it kind of looks like the Flatiron building in New York. Well, being as we didn't even know which of the 4 roads was right, we didn't go very far on any of them and we never found another glorieta with a taco stand anywhere on it.

So today, while it was daylight, we decided to give it another try. It had become like a treasure hunt, we wanted to find it. We went a lot further on one of the roads and then it split without hitting a glorieta so we turned around and came back. As we were sitting at the traffic light, suddenly I realized that what I was staring at was a rocket! Woot! We turned around and went straight at the split and there was another glorieta. As I was driving around it in circles trying to decide where 10pm would be, Mimi spotted the place about a half block OFF the glorieta. From my memory it doesn't look anything like the Flatiron building in NY but it was the same shape.

We were so stoked! Lots of high fives and whoops as we felt we had won the treasure hunt. Problem was, the place was closed! Too early. We came home and had cheese sandwiches and we're hoping to get hungry enough to go back late tonight. I sure hope it is worth it.

This last pic is a detail from the top of a bank building, the nets are to keep the pigeons off - but you knew that.

We drove around some more today and then drove out to the beach at Progresso. Mérida's beach is about 20 miles away and it is the major port for the Yucatan peninsula. The Gulf is so shallow that the pier reaches a full mile out into it to get to deep enough water.

I'm not tempted by the beach towns here, the Gulf still leaves me kind of blah. It's the city that calls me. It is nice out here though and a lot of foreigners are buying up beach houses along this coast. It has a kind of old Venice Beach feel, or maybe not but it does have a feeling that I find familiar. Kind of shabby and casual and sandy.

We went into an ex-pat hangout, Buddy's, for drinks. It's owned by a Dutch guy who came over and talked to us. I ended up getting pescado ingles, english style fish and chips. Mimi had the corn chowder. The food was good, the grouper really fresh and great fries. I practiced my new stealth camera technique, the new camera has a fold out LCD that makes it fairly easy to pretend you are not taking someone's picture when you are. This could be handy if I get a little better at aiming.

Mérida, Yucatan

I have loved this city since the first time I came here. I have loved it when it is muggy, steamy, hotter than hades and when even a minute in direct sun sucks the air out of you. But this, this is not fair. This beautiful Sunday afternoon with the sun shining, puffy white clouds, 74° temperatures and humidity like Los Angeles, cool breezes catching you every few minutes...unfair!

We drove down to the centro and walked around for a couple of hours. We ate great street food, elote entero con crema, queso y chile + tamales + churros, all the streets around the catedral were pedestrian only, we people watched and just ambled around. Traffic was minimal, it was Sunday, and afterwards we drove around to look at some colonias I had been reading about. Really nice, wide streets with trees and the occasional small park. We stopped at CostCo and instead of getting shoved and jammed with carts, people actually smiled and let others by. I think I fell through the looking glass again.

There are house tours on Wednesdays, I may go on one. This city has always pulled me, kind of like San Francisco did when I first saw it. I don't have another 30 years to give a city though and I'm not sure I could ever be faithful to one city again. I'm definitely tempted though.

We had a nice drive over to Mérida, we came on the free road, from Tulum to Valladolid to Mérida. It's been cool, there is a norte blowing cooler air from the north. We got here around 3pm and set up the dishes. This is a nice location and a nice spot. It's looks like a park but it is very close to the city center on the road to Progresso. It won't be here long I'm sure, there is a big Liverpool department store next door and development is coming. It's more than I like to pay, $250 pesos a night, but location is almost everything and security is the rest. I just wish they had better electricity. The voltage is very high, around 138v, and our Surge Guard cuts us off at around 134v. So, we're not recharging the batteries under this grey gloom. We have some alternatives to try, I'm thinking if we try a plug at the end of the park's run it may have lower voltage and/or if we add our long extension cord it may provide enough resistance to lower the voltage. If not, we'll run the generator.

It's cool in Mérida, in the 70°s! That is amazing in this city known for its hot climate. It even rained last night cooling it off even more, I had to get another throw for the bed and I wished I had gotten my hot water bottle for my cold feet. It's very humid though, and that is not so great whether it is hot or cold. Now, it is cold and damp, not good. The mosquitoes love this gray weather, no sun to fry them so they are out all day. Mimi got eaten pretty good last night hooking us up and she has slept most of the day on benadryl for the itching. I'm going to wake her up soon though so we can go out and eat and hang out a bit.

Mimi got her hair braided a couple weeks ago, this is what it looked like when she took the braids out. Big hair!

We found an estetica or hair salon, across from the dentist's office in Playa. I got the best haircut I've had in years and Mimi got her hair trimmed and braided. I was looking for a place to get my hair cut since some of you may remember that my last haircut down here was the mohawk from hell. I used to use the salon in the big grocery store, there's everything in the big groceries down here, but my last cut before we went north, the girl was busy describing her latest fight with her boyfriend to the other stylist and butchered my hair. So, I wasn't going back there.

This new place is a great find, less than $5 for my haircut and less than $15 for Mimi's braids. What she really liked about the braid job is that she put a lightning bolt on top.

I get asked a lot what someone who is not old, or is without funds to retire, could do to live down here. One of the more clever jobs that someone has created is our friend Redbeard. He's a procurer of legal things that ex-pats feel they can't live without. Most of his business is bringing cars down for people who don't want to drive the distance or who want a car with Mexican plates that they don't ever have to return to the border. But he will also bring you a really big screen tv, your grandmothers silver, a ride on lawn mower, anything you want that is legal and that you have shipped to his drop address in Texas, he will bring it down for you.

He's a great guy and Mimi calls him her brother because of the red hair/Irish thing. He has a small place here and he is in and out so much that you never know for sure where he is. I'm guessing he must make that drive from the US at least a dozen times a year, maybe more. It's not easy work but it keeps him in beer and tacos and he has a really good time. He also will drive people down or back to the US in their car with them along. He's got some memorable stories of those trips. He's a wealth of info on the best routes and the current road conditions. We bought our little Toyota trucklet from him, he brought it down and got it nationalized with all the plates and paperwork done already. It's a definite 'find a need and fill it' job.

We're off to Merida tomorrow for a week. Our friends Noel and Jackie are staying in our condo. We're busy hauling stuff to the RV and getting settled there. We'll have dinner with them tonight, hand off the keys and head to Merida in the morning.

No pain this morning! It took 1½ vicodin, a couple of dolac, warm salt water, quite a few kahlua and milks, a call to the family doctor in Cal (Country) and a hot water bottle on my face over the course of the evening but I will say when I finally got rid of the pain...I sure slept well!

I'm going back a bit to cover stuff I never put on the blog. This is a picture of our dearest friend and family member, Country, walking along in Tulum with Mimi looking to buy something. We picked her up at the airport on Dec 19th and she stayed 10 days. We miss her a lot, she is so easy to live with and so much fun to be around. I wish I had taken more pics of her while she was here but the only other ones I have she would kill me if I put them up. (Heh! veiled bribery attempt here)

Country has been here before but every time we've taken off to travel in the RV and she hasn't spent more than a night or two in our condo. So, this time she had just gotten back from Thailand which was a whirlwind of tours and travel and she wanted to just kick back. Turns out, she loves this place and, while I had been wavering on whether I wanted to sell it or not, I'm now under strict instructions not to sell it! I think she's right and it helped me to clarify what I wanted.

Color! I love the riot of colors in Mexico. The land itself is full of color; the ocean, the flowers, the jungle, the dirt itself. But it doesn't stop with nature, everything man has a hand in gets lots of color and not the colors we think are "normal" NOB (that's ex-pat talk for North of the Border)

These greens for instance, I love them but they aren't colors you would normally see up north on almost anything. Even the poor have color on their houses, no paint is thrown away here as someone will take it home and add another color to their house.

One of my favorite houses here in Akumal was a similar color, that's a picture above of the front door as it used to look. It was gorgeous but it got bought by some gringos who immediately painted it beige. I thought they should be shot.

The older you get the more time - and money - you have to spend on your teeth.

I've been going to the dentist several times a week since we arrived. I'm getting some crowns and a bridge replaced. I decided to get the teeth I have whitened before they picked the color for the crowns. Today I had a deep cleaning and laser whitening. I had gotten lax and hadn't gotten them cleaned in over a year and it was painful and long. They have a bunch of cool tools one of which is a little camera about the size of a pencil that they put inside your mouth and the back side of your teeth show up on a monitor angled in front of you. Yes, I could see all the plaque but it didn't make it feel any better watching it get removed. Tonight, my gums hurt, my jaw hurts and the roots on the teeth are still complaining about the piece of metal that was inside my gums messing with them.

The whitening process was long but not painful other than having a huge grin extender in my mouth for so long. They paint something on the teeth, use some kind of laser light on it and repeat. They put special glasses on me and on themselves as well and told me to keep my eyes closed. My teeth are a lot whiter, the dentist said I went two shades lighter for the crowns. The deep cleaning and laser whitening cost $3000 pesos (about $275 US) but I have no idea what it would cost in the US. I do feel I got as good or better treatment as I would have gotten up there.

I'm taking some pain killers and going to bed.

Akumal, it's a tourist town but with remnants of funky that appeals to some people and not others. It was started by divers because there was a spanish galleon wreck off the coast that attracted them. The reef and the bay of Akumal are postcard perfect and the diving is pretty good on the reefs nearby as well.

This is the arch that it is famous for now, it's the landmark you use to direct people to anything. Left at the arch, right at the arch, just before the arch....

The history of the town isn't pretty, there was a small pueblo here when the development of this coast as a major tourist destination came down from the govt. They wanted them moved out, no chickens and children running around in dirt yards in front of stick and mud houses allowed. The govt built a town for them down the road and on the inland side of what would become the highway. It was a grid of concrete block houses, two rooms each, dirt streets and small lots, a long ways from anything. Some people took the govt up on the offer and moved, others didn't. Eventually the others moved across the highway on a small hill, closer to jobs and the road. The center of what had been the pueblo was concreted and is all that is here that remotely resembles a real Mexican or Mayan town. It's got basketball hoops on it and everyone calls it the cancha which means court, as in a basketball court.

To be really honest, no one lived here before the gringos came. Mayans don't like living on the coast, they live inland so they don't get blown away as often in hurricanes and so the salt air doesn't kill their corn. The people that lived here were here to work for the few gringos and divers that started settling here. So, it's not really surprising that there is no church and no bandstand and nothing else that most Mexican towns have. Just small concrete houses where the stick nahs used to be and the rarely used cancha.

Recently they built some semi-authentic looking thatch and concrete shops on it. They sell trinkets and twice a week there is a vegetable and fruit market. The other small buildings are occupied by students here to volunteer for CEA, an environmental group, a doctor, an ice cream stand, a gym and some boutiques. There are two small stores in front of the arch, one we call "why pay less" has imported food from the US and lots of t-shirts and junk, the other is more like a small tienda in any town in Mexico.

Next to 'why pay less' is an economico, with quick good meals and little ambience. That's Mimi getting ready to sit down on one of the stools, we eat breakfast/lunch there a lot.

In spite of the relaxed, almost funky air of the place, this is a big money tourist spot. Homes along the next bay, Half Moon Bay, sell in the millions and that's US dollars folks. All real estate transactions along here are in dollars not pesos. Condos rent for $200 a night from December to April except Christmas and New Years when it is more. One house rents for $10,000 US dollars a WEEK! With that kind of money at stake, it's not surprising that the casual air of the place hides some down and dirty business deals. It's the wild west on the eastern coast of Mexico. Pancho Villa would be proud, everyone else should be wary.

What's the attraction? Manicured beaches with few people on them, views out to sea that no one believes when you take a picture of them, relatively safe in this dangerous world we all live in, you and your kids can walk the streets late at night without worry. You can even stagger home roaring drunk from the beach bar where you sit on swings and the floor is sand and no one will rob you. Perhaps more important these days, you can let your kids run free and as long as they don't drown themselves they will be safe. Pancho Villa never messes with the tourists.

I spend a lot of time on the computer sitting at the dining room table in front of sliding glass doors onto the deck and the ocean. I put oatmeal on one of the pillars on the deck for the grackles. It takes them about 1 day to figure out I am back and start showing up for the free food. If I don't get it out there quick enough they sit and yell at me, I've had guests who said they woke them up in the morning yelling for oatmeal.

Grackles are funny birds, they are flock birds that are rarely seen alone. Yet, they don't get along very well at all. They fight all the time and when another one lands nearby they stick their noses in the air and pose. It's some kind of dominance thing and the males do it more than the females. If sticking your nose in the air doesn't make the others leave the food then a fight happens. It doesn't seem like they really hurt each other but it looks pretty fierce sometimes.

I'm endlessly amused by their antics. The males will all be standing on the food with their noses in the air while the females sneak around under them and eat. The females are smaller and brown not blue-black like the males. In the top picture you can see one female sneaking in for some oatmeal while the others are nose up.

Yesterday Mimi came running up from the beach to get a picture of a Mexican navy ship that was passing by. We don't know what that big thing is on the front of it, we guessed a lot. Maybe they stand on it and lower it over the drug dealer's boats, who knows? The Mexican navy spends all of its time looking for the boats from South America dropping off bales of dope. They have helicopters as well and sometimes there are army patrols that walk down the beach.

This is a picture of pelicans flying off at sunset. Beautiful, no?

When we are not here our condo is rented out, so we have some locked cabinets for stuff we value and stuff we don't want to leave out. Coming back is fun as we start opening it up and ooohing and ahhhhing over things we haven't seen for 6 months. I love my tigers, we do leave this one out as it is large and we leave it on a top shelf. My baseline on this is if it would fit in a normal suitcase and I really, really love it then we lock it up.

This little tiger we lock up, his face is so cute and his legs look too long for his body so he really looks like a baby.

We used to be rabid scuba divers, before I retired we would take off 5 or 6 times a year for someplace with warm water and good diving. Most of the time in the last few years we came here to Akumal, the diving is great and the water is warm and we loved it here. We still love it here (with more reservations though) but we don't go diving much anymore. If we go out twice a year it's more than usual. In our locked cabinets we had a lot of dive equipment so this year we pulled it all out and decided what needed to go. It's good stuff, bought when I was working and had more money, and bought when I used it a lot and wanted the best. We traded Mimi's stuff to some friends, part to a dive guide we know and part to other people she knows that will sell it. I'm going to leave my stuff for my son when he comes down here and he can decide what he wants what he doesn't. Mimi and I decided that it was just sitting and getting out of date and on the occasions we do go diving, we can rent some gear.

Since selling our house and getting rid of most of our stuff, we are a lot better at letting things go now. This was freeing. Plus, now I have all that extra room in the cabinets for new stuff!

When we found our dogs here in Akumal, there were 3 of them. They are from the same litter, 2 males and 1 female. The black male stayed here with a friend and it is a big joy to us that they not only recognize each other when we arrive but they snuggle and play as if they had never been separated. That's Chico who lives here in the middle of the couch, that was last year when we were staying in the RV on the beach. He came over every day and although we tried to make him go home at night, sometimes he didn't.

His owner didn't like it and it caused problems between us as well. At first we tried to send him home after a few hours, even walking him over there. That worked ok but then we were told that she didn't want him around us at all as it was bad for their relationship. I've tried very hard to get my head around this but it doesn't work. I'm just really sad about it and I think it is hateful to deprive all of them of spending time with their siblings. These dogs were homeless for the first 9 months of their lives and they survived together, there is a big bond between them.

I realize it is not up to me and that I have to just accept it, I've done pretty well this year. We haven't gone near her house with our dogs so that Chico won't see them and we haven't gone over there either. That was another part of it, if he saw us he would know they are in town so we couldn't see him either.

Still, I resent it and it has soured the friendship which I also miss and feel bad about. What a rotten situation this has become!

We've been here for over a month now and yesterday, Chico was at the door. The neighbors downstairs said he had been here the morning before but we weren't up and he left. My guess is that he found some of Hombre's pee mail and realized we were back. We were overjoyed to see him, and so were his siblings. We let them play and snuggle on the couch and we hugged him alot but we left the front door open and later on he left to go home. Tonight he came back, he whines at the door and our dogs jump up and run to it wagging their tails. This time he seemed to be settling in on the couch so Mimi walked him home. We had brought him a toy as a xmas present and he had a lot of fun with it here so she took it with her and left it on the doorstep.

This whole thing just makes me want to cry. We are going to be as respectful as we can but I am not willing to not love Chico or to not let him see his family. We'll take him home but I'm not going to dime him off and tell anyone that he comes here. I feel like we're the bad seeds that our friends aren't supposed to hang out with. What a mess.

I know, it's been awhile. I am just starting from today though as I am so excited about the new mural on our Tortuga. Since the day we picked her up I knew I wanted a mural on the fake windows in the front, I even knew what I wanted. A Caribbean beach with a turtle up on the sand and our macaws in the trees. I have looked at a lot of people's work and almost went for a couple but they really didn't look like what I had in my mind. I was afraid I'd never find anyone to paint it.

Last week I was at the bi-weekly fruit and veggie market here in Akumal and there was a guy selling oil paintings. I went to look and it hit me that he had exactly the look I've carried in my mind all these years. I loved his palm trees and he got the exact color and look of a Caribbean beach. I asked him about it and he said sure, no problem. That night I was talking to friends and they told me that he had done the beautiful murals on the side of their building. They said he was reliable and fast.

So, this morning at 9am Sergio showed up and started on Tortuga. I printed some pictures of our 2 macaws, Jolly and Mike and also a picture of Mimi's Severe Macaw Gertie that died a few years ago. He looks at the pictures, he paints, it looks just like our birds. It's uncanny.

He took a long lunch while I printed the bird pictures and he was done by 1pm. I don't think I can tell you what he charged, we added some to it because it was so small. Now I'm thinking of having him paint a mural on the wall of our deck, maybe the Mayan goddess Ixchel. Mimi had to stop me from having him paint a toad on our jeep and bringing the sat dishes down for him to paint as well. Hold me back!

Other than that, we've been relaxing at the beach, hanging out with friends, going into Playa for dental work, and planning a trip we're taking next week to Merida. I'm meeting with an architect to get some ideas and costs for a kitchen and bath remodel that I want to do here.

The pictures from the top: Sergio about an hour after starting, Gertie, Mike and Jolly, the whole mural up close, our friends Paula and Sandy with Mimi admiring the work, Sergio with the finished mural