Happy Birthday to our 3 wonderful dogs! No, we didn't have a party or cake or silly hats. They did each get a couple of good bones after dinner.

Of course, their birthday is a guess. When we rescued the first 2, Chica is on the left and Hombre in the middle, the vet estimated their age at about 9 months from their teeth. Counting back that put their birthday sometime in mid March. Well, St Patrick's day was an obvious choice! When we found Cuba this fall, the vet estimated her age at about 6 months and that put her birthday somewhere in March as well. So, we've assigned them all St. Paddy's day and a fine day it is for a birthday. Chica and Hombre (who are brother and sister by the way) are 5 years old today. Cuba is 1 year old. They also share their birthday with one of Mexico's great presidents, Benito Juarez. So, their birthday is always a holiday.

You know how when you live somewhere you never get around to going to all the places that it is famous for? Like, if I hadn't had to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge every day for 20+ years I probably wouldn't have seen it very often. When guests come it is a great time to show off your best places and to get yourself to them as well.


So, yesterday, we put the dogs in the truck and our friends in the jeep and headed south on the Boca Paila road from Tulum looking for a deserted beach. It was an early birthday present for the dogs, Yay! We get to ride in the back of a hot truck and smell new stuff and go to a different beach and eat dead stuff!

We were pretty optimistic since it was a Sunday, the only day off most Mexicans have in the week, and it was Palm Sunday and the beginning of Semana Santa. Easter week is when everyone in Mexico City leaves and goes somewhere, preferably a beach. Since Mexico has a lot of beaches it isn't as bad as it could be but it is pretty darn crowded. Oh, I forgot to add that the whole rest of the country does the same thing.

Also! For me, the highlight of the day was that I talked us through the checkpoint for the Biosphere Preserve, completely in Spanish!

Usually when we've driven down there, like last October maybe, there isn't anyone at the checkpoint and I just ignore the big signs that say No Perros! But, this time an official came out, he even had a clipboard, and when I told him my friend and my dogs were in the truck behind me he pointed to the No Dogs! sign. I was smooth, internet, suave!!

He went back and looked at the 3 slobbering faces and came back and told me they looked aggressive and he didn't want anyone getting bit. I assured him we would not go anywhere there were people and I may have even agreed that we wouldn't stop at any beaches but go straight to Punta Allen and return. He let us go through. I was soooo proud!

The first few beaches where there was room to pull over were full of families, Mexican families who spoke Spanish and could rat me out to my new best friend at the checkpoint. I didn't care so much about gringo tourists as I figure they couldn't complain and probably wouldn't know dogs were not allowed. Of course, the Mexicans by nature would be unlikely to complain, it's not their business, but I didn't want to worry about the dogs scaring their kids. So, we kept driving.

If you've ever been down the Boca Paila road to Punta Allen, it is the Neverending Road. You think that around every corner will be ... something. Instead, around every corner is another stretch of road and another corner. We were on a search for good beachcombing and shells so when we found a point with lots of waves and debris thrown up and, most important, no one around, we stopped.

It was perfect, we found lots of stuff to look at and some shells and some of these seeds we call Hamburgers. They float up everywhere, I have no idea what they are or where they come from - they do look like little 1" hamburgers. We went swimming, the dogs ran themselves into exhaustion and then laid around and ate dead crabs. I took lots of pictures of waves breaking and tidepools.

Eventually, we started thinking about cold beer. Since we'd driven forever on the Neverending Road, I thought we must be close to Punta Allen. No, not really but after a dozen more identical corners we were there.

On the way back, which always seems shorter... why is that?, it started to rain a little and the skies were moody.

We spotted a pair of Osprey on their nest. If you click the picture (or any of them for that matter) it gets bigger and you can see a tiny white spot around the middle of the one on the nest, that's junior!

We kept stopping at the now deserted beaches and it was dark when we finally got to Tulum and a wonderful dinner at Don Cafetos.

It was a long but great day. Did I mention that I was so smooth in Spanish that I got us into Sian Kian with our dogs? Heh! I rule!