Our friends Sky and Mike flew back to LA on Monday.

On the way to the airport in Cancun we stopped for lunch at the Cueva del Chango. It's the restaurant connected to the nursery where I found the mysterious blue flowered vine (Petrea volubilis).

That day I didn't go into the restaurant so I was excited to see the landscaping. It's incredible!

There are waterfalls and ponds and dripping rocks and a creek that runs throughout the space.

I was most enthralled with the ferns with their roots attached to the rocks. I really want to try some of that around the pond in Merida.

They also had quite a few orchids, my new obsession. They were growing attached to beams and tree trunks and old tree stumps.

I'm hoping that I can get some to attach to the rock wall in the back. I've been spending a lot of time reading about different types and trying to figure out what will grow in which part of the house.

The orchid world is huge, and the people in it are... well, interesting. I'm not the type to get involved in showing and breeding orchids but I am impressed with how devoted so many people are to this hobby.

I've had a few orchids before, they never lived very long up in northern California. I doubt I'd want to grow them if I didn't live in an area where they can do well without a lot of special equipment.

Mainly I want to see them naturalized and growing outside, hopefully blooming too. That's the rub, getting them happy enough to bloom well.

At any rate, getting interested in orchids instead of smoking, drinking and eating has worked OK so far. I've lost another 2 kilos. I feel great, I'm optimistic that this last round of antibiotics has done the trick. Either that, or the orchids.. who knows?