Blog - La Colina Project

Killing Thyme with a possum.

February 3, 2021February 3, 2021
by Beave

I absolutely promise that this blog will not include any mention of the over bearing heat and humidity here and my inability to cope with it. It is clear that that theme has had the life banged out of it. So, for contrast I can report that I am currently wearing long sleeves, socks and a hoodie for the first time in 3 years. December delivered us delicious fresh air. Then unseasonal rains and for fun a few nights of proper chilliness. By New Year it was 4 degrees Celcius. That’s the coldest it has been here in this part of the Mexican tropics in living memory!

The cold nights are now the new absolute topic of every conversation. Everyone is unrecognisable and proper dodgy looking with face masks and hoodies. We are all wearing the pre-Covid outfit of the ne’re do well. When we poor souls try to gain sympathy from the rest of the world we get none. To be fair it might be that most of my Northern Hemisphere mates are shivering their blue bits off in snow and ice.

Biggest change is that we have a new jungle resident. Jake, my son, has finally given up trying to make a bearable life in the UK and has effectively moved to Mexico for the foreseeable future. He has been rudely thrown out of his world as a hugely successful cocktail guy in one of the best bars in the world. Now even trying to serve socially distanced beer and food out of a tiny brewery in the North of England is considered too dangerous. Inevitably he decided to come over here and look for opportunities. Easier said than done.

Trying to find a flight out of the UK to Mexico used to be an easy business with many sensible flight options at reasonable prices. Well that’s no more. The only flight we could find was cancelled due to the early December UK lockdown. The only flights from Europe were out of Paris or Madrid on AeroMexico. So, a plan was hatched to take an early flight out of Manchester to sit in an airport in Madrid for 14 hours then fly to Mexico City and then to Puerto Vallarta where we would meet him. We find a stand-by flight which is less than the price of a new car with the reassurance that in these times of relative insanity planes are half empty so there will be lots of availability. And relax.

The endless rock driveway project is crawling its way nearer to completion. The road now is built from the top of the hill to the bottom and one and half the highly decorative stone retaining walls for our gate are completed. The final wall will feature a small round hobbitesk person access door hinged in the middle. Our ongoing plan is to create an automatically opening/closing gate at the bottom of the hill to keep the bloody cows out. They eat everything and are covered in ticks. We spend way to much effort shouting madly while herding massive stupid cows and bulls off our land. To make things a touch funkier the artist who built Well Ed the Turtle has agreed that our cow proof gate will feature Draig-Twp a Welsh dragon we created complete with top hat and monocle. Now that will be worth waiting for.

Our latest challenge has been to keep our plants alive. The cows have been destroying everything they can chew and the ants have been stripping down everything else they can’t. The newest juiciest most delicious growth just doesn’t stand a chance. Our friend Ferdy has local knowledge of what grows and what doesn’t so has been helping us plan our gardens. We have planted vegetables, herbs and flowers. It’s anyone’s guess how many, if any, will survive or thrive. Our herb garden outside the treehouse has been an unmitigated failure. This was not entirely helped by me accidentally driving over it . We clearly have brown thumbs rather than green fingers and have managed to kill just about everything we plant there. Our basil, mint and rosemary lasts but days. Our most impressive skill seems to be killing thyme. We can’t get a healthy pre-grown plant to last more than a day! It’s sorta embarrassing. We have moved our newest batch of herbs to sunnier spots and repurposed the herb area to flowers to see how long we can keep them alive.

The email arrives within 48 hours of Jake’s flight to Madrid to let us know Spain now requires a negative Covid test within 72 hours to get into the country even for transit passengers. It looks like we will have to cancel and try again later… unless. By some miracle there is a single venue we can find in the whole of the UK that will give an adequate test result within 24 hours. It happens to be in the North of England 40 minutes from Jake. He finds himself in a car park at midnight collecting stuff to shove up his nose and posting it into a letterbox with the promise he will get a confirmation email a few hours before he is due to fly. He takes the train to Manchester and we wait.

The email confirming Jake is not currently infected arrives on his phone at the last moment and he is allowed to fly to Madrid. The poor girl in front of him in the queue is cruelly denied her flight home to Madrid because her negative test was taken 72 hours and 15 minutes ago. Wow!

Jake arrives in Spain early morning for his midnight flight to Mexico City. The airport is empty and effectively closed. No food places or bars open so his much-anticipated long Spanish lunch is cancelled. Since he left the UK Madrid has declared a no travel zone from midnight. No-one can leave or enter the city without a very good reason. Tourism is cancelled. In anticipation, there has been a mad rush to leave Madrid on the very few flights that are operating. Jake’s flight is one of them. The previous flight was oversold by 14 seats. It’s not looking good. His standby flight may not work and he will have to navigate his way into a fully locked-down city where he is being told he’s not allowed to be.

He hasn’t eaten in many hours, there are no restaurants open but he finds a vending machine. It’s all sold out apart from a few remaining sad and suspicious looking sandwiches. He buys them before someone else does. He waits the final stressful hours at the check in desk trying to flirt with the check in girls while smelling of old airport shirt and vending machine crab sandwiches. His phone loses charge 15 minutes before the flight so we are entirely unaware of his fate. Is he sitting in a cramped plane wearing a stinky crab mask or trying to blag his way into Madrid for a night wandering the streets?

12 hours later we get a message from Mexico City. He has had to recheck and repack his bags to meet new weight restrictions but theoretically he is heading for the last plane and should be with us in a few hours. Most of his excess weight allowance is cheese and tea for us so we do feel slightly guilty. We head to the airport to meet him.

What arrives after a solid 72 hours travelling is a very pale exhausted and practically suffocated version of the Jake I remember from 2 years ago. We last saw each other when he boarded the flight back to UK after his last visit all bronzed and fit and charged up. He removes his face mask for the first time in days. His bright white UK winter lockdown skin is blindingly reflective in the sun. He takes some much-needed breaths of warm air and we head to the jungle.

A fitting introduction to jungle life is a close shave accident with potentially serious consequence. It sharpens the senses. The opportunity comes about by our need to manage the trees in our life. We have been introduced to Uri who is a local guy who is famed for his fearlessness in the face of gravity. This Mexi-monkey can climb just about any tree with the aid of a two-foot length of rope wrapped around his feet. It’s bloody terrifying to watch. We employ him to work with Ferdy to help us remove large lumps of tree that are threatening to land on our solar panels.

The most worrying of these is a huge Papelillo tree which is looming at a precarious angle over our battery house. The tree is a magnificent example of what is locally known as the Gringo tree. It is such named because of its red coloured paper like bark that peels off in strips like a sunburnt gringo. It’s over 100 feet high and its massive upper branches are waiting to smash our panels as the trunk cuts our battery house in half. These trees are also famous for falling down with no notice.

Uri fires a string attached to an arrow over the highest point on the tree which we use to pull up a rope. He puts his feet into a loop at one end and we literally haul him up to the top of the tree. He stands unsecured 100 feet up on a branch. He is smiling and far too relaxed for a sane person. The rope is lowered and a chainsaw pulled up. The rope is then removed and tied around one of the largest branches and the rest thrown down to us. In order to persuade the branch from falling away from our solar panels we are instructed to climb the hill behind the tree and wrap the rope around a palm tree three times and prepare ourselves. We hold the rope nervously as the branch is removed. The air is thick with fresh sawdust from the chainsaw. There is a loud crack as the branch slowly falls but is held by the rope just long enough to swing clear of the panels. We lower the hanging lump of wood to the ground safely.

We are dropped more string to recover the rope. We need to do that again. This time we plan to remove the upper section of tree. Its high and difficult to judge the size or weight of the limb but we know it’s big. When the rope is lowered to us we climb high up the opposite hillside and find a suitable tree. We wrap the rope around it three times and three of us hold the rope tightly in anticipation. There is a familiar cracking noise and the rope gains tension. Then a larger crack followed by the high-pitched scream of a rope being pulled through the jungle at lightning speed. As the rope flies off the tree and out of our hands we thrown ourselves to the ground. The limb hits the jungle floor completely unhindered by our rope. Thankfully a few feet away from our battery house. We pick ourselves up slowly and check ourselves for injuries. The rope knot hit Ferdy who is not doing well. His ribs and arm do not look good. Jake and I have rope burns on our arms but nothing worse. We are all very lucky. That could have been a heap more serious.

We gather our senses and check out Ferdy’s arm and are concerned enough to want to get him to the hospital to be checked out. He is a tough rough Mexican bloke and is happy to continue to work but we call it a day. We realise that Uri is still 100 feet in the air with no rope. Before we can deal with our wounds we need to get him down. I am tasked with firing an arrow above him. I’m not the most experienced of archers but give it a go. I learn very quickly that I need to aim a lot higher as the first arrow hits the branch where Uri’s head was moments before. Good job he was paying attention. My second attempt was more successful and we lower him down and drive back to town. The tree is many times safer. Ferdy arm and ribs are not broken but he end up very sore for a week. We all have a few extra story scars.

Hearing the Christmas was effectively cancelled in the UK makes us epically grateful we are here and Jake made it out just before things shut down entirely. Our Christmas, for the third time, was a pot luck outside jungle gathering at the bar. This time a social distanced affair. No traditional Xmas snogs this year. Folk are due to arrive throughout the day but are avoided all morning while we prepare ourselves by ingesting large quantities of British sausages and Heinz baked beans on toast. The finest of Xmas breakfasts.

Our entirely unnecessary but rather special Xmas breakfast.

Our new Covid-kitchen is soon christened. The sinks and oven are fully employed. Heating and serving and cleaning up all in one spot which makes things considerably easier. It turns out this is an opportunity for our mates to show off . We have further obscene amounts of outstandingly good food offerings delivered.

Our French restaurateur friend sets the pace by heading out to sea early morning to catch a huge dorado fish from which he creates the very freshest sashimi, ceviche & herb infused BBQ lumps of deliciousness.

Our friends from Atlanta bring the entire kit to deep fry a turkey. Deep fried turkey has so far only been a thing that Southern boys have told me about. My first taste was a few weeks earlier when we were invited to the American version of Thanksgiving Day. 45 minutes in a bucket of bubbling hot oil and what comes out is extraordinary. The skin is crisped up and tastes almost like bacon. The meat has cooked quickly at very high heat in its own juice. Untraditionally our Xmas turkey is neither boring nor dry.

A good-sized ham arrives and we add our contribution of a lamb leg. There appears a number of Xmas lasagnas (I’ve never heard of those before) and acres of creative side dishes. Our new neighbours engage in a competetive won-ton off… A Korean girl and a Chinese boy each creating their own version. We encourage such nonsense.

Notable by absence was my Mum’s Xmas cake and mince pies with chunks of strong cheddar cheese washed down with port. In truth, I didn’t much bother with them when they were piled up on our UK Christmas table but sorta kinda miss them now.

It was a proper feast and a great way to share Christmas. Throughout the day we must have fed over 40 visitors. It does not escape us how lucky we are to be able to host people in this way. Someone from my own family in the UK told me recently she hasn’t had human contact since March. That’s heartbreaking.

Jake’s birthday a few days later was a great excuse to take up an offer from our new friends in Sayulita to go sailing and whale watching. They have a 45-foot classic sail boat moored close by. We meet up and set sail in perfect conditions. Much as it’s always exciting to see whales breaching from the shore, from the bow of a sail boat it provokes a different level of adrenalin rush. They are truly magnificent creatures and big. Very big.

We spend the day, under instruction from our captain, celebrating Jake’s 26^th year by pulling the right ropes at the right times and manoeuvring this very beautiful piece of art across the ocean through pods of dolphins while spotting humpbacks tails waving and sinking on the horizon. Perfect antidote to the awkward gap between Xmas and New Year.

We have decided that we need to be better bee parents. Our termite rotten hives that were rejected by the last swarm are done for so we make the jump and commit to a couple of brand new hives. They will arrive with swarms installed and queens pre-coronated. A better class of apiary is in our future.

Our favorite beach bar in Lo De Marcos s going through some changes. A brand-new bar area is being constructed beach side which will effectively be Sasha’s new home for almost all of his awake time and there is much to do. They plan to open on New Year’s Eve. We have been tasked to make grotty lumps of Parota wood into serving trays and table tops to class up the place. Our first efforts to create sexy serving pizza and burger trays hits a few snags. After much sanding, my enthusiasm to varnish proves unhelpful. The ridiculous cold snap colliding with the high humidity is making the lovely clear varnish dry milky and a heap less beautiful. We spend days re-sanding and varnishing those trays endlessly. We deliver a few but quarantine others due to my incompetence. They are well received as they make the pizzas and burgers look well posh. Tables next.

Our treehouse is a fabulous place to be. It’s set in the most perfect altitude to watch birds and see the shimmer of the vast palm leaves as the jungle breezes skip along the tree line. It is decorated with some of our favorite things that have somehow followed us here. It is, however, a small space. It’s a lofty 20 feet square which is plenty of space for two large folk and one and a half cats to coexist but no more.

We do, however, have a frequent visitor that is testing our tiny boundaries. He lets himself in at all times of the day and night uninvited. He regularly interrupts our sleep by eating lemons remarkably loudly and wrestling with our pans. He is known to smash the odd glass and is stubbornly reluctant to leave. We have a possum squatter.

My attempts to scare the little twat with my aggressive nakedness throughout the night has been totally ineffective. I have acquired and mined the place with moth balls which we are told will dissuade him. They do not. He is sneaky and quick. We make a plan to borrow a trap from the local animal sanctuary. He will have to go.

Our new bee guests arrive. Each of the three swarms has been preinstalled into a hive which we set up. They are trapped inside by gauze for now. We place the hives carefully to allow the right amount of sun and shade then leave them for a few days. When they have recovered from their journey and are more settled we will need to remove the gauze, build the hives and feed them with sugar water.

The Possum trap arrives. Big long thing with a pressure pad that closes the door at one end. We load it with pineapple and lemons which we know the wee bugger loves and prepare for the catch. It is not long before we catch a cat. Twice. Two nights in and no fruit left, no sleep and no possum. The cat has finally learnt that it’s not the place for her but frustratingly the long-nosed freak is outsmarting us.

Our bees have been settling in long enough and need to be freed. Our co-apiarist Diego and I suit up and take on the task of building the hives. Each of the three boxes are packed with bees who are lively enough but do not appear aggressive. We have both been on the wrong end of a few too many wild bees so are mighty relived. I douse the area and the swarms with sugar water which seemed to go down well. We removed the retaining mesh on each box to release the bees who are now in sugar subdued and set up a second story on each. We install extra bags of syrup then pile rocks on the lids to prevent attack from greedy honey hunting Tahones (coatis.) We return to the treehouse in confident mood without a single sting. We now have three happy hives.

The Possum trap has been installed for over a week and so far, we have managed to feed the $%&# half a dozen lemons and a pineapple and yet we have caught no possum. The noisy long nosed %&*@ is being well fed while carefully avoiding the metal trigger plate on the cage floor. We get creative with the bait positioning but can hear him at 4am sniggering at us gratefully and loudly crunching mouth-fulls of pineapple.

Our new throwing axes and knives need an outing. It has been suggested to me very strongly that I must create a safe space before I get carried away and perhaps impale something or someone that may not be so keen to be impaled. I’m absolutely on board with avoiding non-consensual impaling so devise a plan. There is a perfect spot beside our Bodega which provides the right throwing distance and a huge wall to prevent any over throws. We have installed fabricated metal shutters onto our Corona-kitchen which has freed up a load of wood I had put aside to build wooden ones. This is now re-purposed and we create a target board and hang it on the Bodega wall. It’s perfect. So far after chucking very sharp metal things many times no one has yet been impaled.

I have lost patience with the possum. It’s 3 am and I have been awoken too many times. He’s taken to stealing cat food, he sounds like he’s chewing on gravel. It’s driving us insane. I take another long look at the trap. I stick celery sticks into peanut butter and stick them through the bars. I take a pad of paper and rest it on the trigger plate so theoretically it will make it more sensitive and have a larger area of effectiveness. I return to sleep.

Its 6 am and I am woken by the wondrous noise of a trap door shutting. One fat cocky possum all mine. We leave him in the cage to sulk till midday then I take him to the outskirts of town and let him go. There is a large field where he can bother no one. He leaps from the cage, doubles back on me and runs into a small roadside kitchen. There is a loud scream and I last see him being attacked by a shocked woman with a broom. No longer my problem.

New Year arrives at last. We’ve all been waiting for this one since March. Tomatina’s bar in Lo De Marcos starts the night off with social distanced live music played from the top of a bus. We then meet up with friends outside on the top of the hill overlooking the town and end up on the roof of other friend’s large house overlooking the beach. It was good to avoid the inevitable crowds in town.

Life throws in another spanner. My very good friend in New Zealand, Dave Lawrence (aka Hi Dive), takes his daughter and her friends to a roller disco. He is almost certainly showing off his most fabulous moves when he drops dead of a heart attack. He was my age but a heap fitter and more athletic. I attend my first, and hopefully last ever, zoom funeral. Dave was a good man and we have had far more fun that is strictly necessary in many parts of the world together. Travel well brother. The final kick in the balls from 2020.

Jungle Journal

Santa, Spiders & Fluffy Balls

November 26, 2020November 26, 2020
by Beave

It’s been a while since my last blog. I have a number of great excuses. Technical issues and our site being hacked are amongst the most useful. At one point we thought we had lost our site and all our blogs into the dark mysterious unexplainable void of the hacker’s delete button. Thanks to considerably smarter people than us we are resurrected and spending much overdue retrospective efforts backing up our backups with backups.

Excuses aside, in truth I have been cooked. The baking humidity has poached me in its moistness and rendered me stupid. My ability to move, think or function productively escaped me entirely. The last few weeks of October were bloody awful.

It is with considerable relief that I can report that on the night of Halloween the weather finally broke. The humidity vanished. No more rain. Dry season is upon us. We have delicious fresh, dry air in our lungs. I am not constantly dripping on things and leaving damp patches behind me. The ceiling fan has been turned off and there are blankets on the bed. The best thing about this exceptional turn of events is that I have stopped banging on about how unbearably hot it is. Finally.

With the passing of the rains comes the passing of the fireflies. They hatch around September and live for around two months. For some weeks, we have been parking next to our front gate on our way home. We turn off the headlights and watch as many thousands of firefly bums flash in ever changing but certainly synchronised patterns. At intervals they somehow all turn off for a moment of dark and a fraction of a second later throw their tiny lights around in mesmerising fashion . They line the river banks and tree branches; the fields are thick with them. Yesterday we tried the same trick and saw only two tiny flashing critters who are most likely mightily confused where all their mates have gone.

Day of the Dead passed us by with no celebrations, pomp nor ceremony. Even the cemeteries, where families are used to spending the night with their dead, were closed this year. This was a purely political action too far for many. The Mexican traditions of honouring your dead run deep. Extraordinary alters of photographs, candles and marigolds usually fill the town square. This year there were none. We make up an alter on our balcony with traditional flowers and non traditional symbols to honour our own lost friends and family. It’s a gesture but lacks the unique communal mix of celebration and grief that this day is here to represent.

Canadian Thanksgiving came and went. Canadians wanting to drive their huge RVs down to Mexico for 6 months on a beach are unable to cross the Canada/US border as this is not considered essential travel. The result is that the usual influx of snow birds is not a thing this year. Almost all of them have cancelled their wintering in Mexico. Despite there being considerably less Canadians here than at any other time it’s still hard to avoid them.

A gathering was arranged and for some days a truly obscene amount of food was prepared. When we finally got to the point where we could start the feast the heavens opened and it properly rained. The carefully constructed and decorated outside eating area was dismantled in moments. We made a good effort to eat as much as we could, squeezed into a considerably smaller and drier makeshift covered area. A splendid effort with enough left-over grub to keep us stuffed for days.

Halloween was also allegedly cancelled this year. There was, however, a mini revolution from parents refusing to further disappoint their bored lockdown kids. The whole of the town was packed with the usual gangs of parents dragging around over excited sugar fuelled kids dressed as ninja turtles, spider men, batmen or devils. They paraded up and down the main street as normal. In anticipation, we dressed up and took a huge bag of high sugar Mexican candy with which to dose the little buggers. I wore my theatrical gorilla mask which was perhaps misjudged for my audience. Terrified children scattered when I got close ironically throwing candy at me to keep me away. Best intentions and all that.

Inexplicably the kids didn’t exactly warm to my efforts.

Thankfully our productivity levels have risen considerably and notably as the humidity has fallen. We have serviced all our vehicles, kept the jungle fairly under control and rescued vast areas of wood from ravenous termites. We have also persisted with our river rock driveway. Despite the torturous heat the boys have worked the entire time dragging huge rocks and tonnes of hand mixed concrete up our hill. Along with our substantial road that will last for centuries they have created two splendid rather beautiful rock retaining walls. Just this week in far more optimal conditions “we” laid a further 12m of rocks. It’s all happening even if the pace is often glacial.

The fluffy ball season has started again. The Copomo trees are shitting endless quantities of these seed balls constantly everywhere. They make a proper racket bouncing loudly off our house and car roofs. If we didn’t know better we would be convinced it was raining again. I’m sweeping a full coating of fluffy balls from our balconies every morning.

It is also spider season. Although we get spiders all year around we are currently blessed with Nephila. The females are big. Their bodies around an inch and half (4cm) with legs spanning about 6 inches (12cm). They produce highly impressive webs that shine like gold in the sun. They are often called Golden Orb Weavers. The golden coloured threads they produce are very long and also surprisingly strong. When we are making our way through the jungle paths we often clothes-line ourselves by walking straight into a cross thread that just doesn’t break. We end up with a squashed nose and a slightly panicked hunt for the spider which could easily could be on the back of our head. They are poisonous with a neuro-toxin similar to a black widow so best to pay attention.

Gold spider thread gets wrapped around your head if you don’t pay attention.

A friend of ours has just returned back here after a few months away. He visited his new girlfriend’s place in the UK and then returned via his house in the USA. He very kindly and very foolishly offered to bring us things that we were having problems finding down here. We have taken full advantage. Actually, taken the piss to be honest. Our new best friend (or Santa as we now call him) drove his rather large truck over the border stuffed with our new things.

So Christmas came early for us. Our wish list to Santa included: Full set of heavy pans, large stocks of batteries, a dozen pairs of reading specs, many sets of cotton sheets, Branston Pickle, Yorkshire Gold Tea, Marmite, Paxo Chicken stuffing, Cadburys Fruit & Nut chocolate, a dart board and darts, decking screws, a backgammon set, pan hanging brackets, meat thermometer, random kitchen stuff, food processor, some earphones, two speakers, throwing knives and throwing axes. Remarkably the Mexican customs reluctantly let him through without charging any duty fees as they were extremely disappointed that they couldn’t find any drugs underneath all our stuff. Bless them.

The boy toys will be an interesting addition. We have plans to create wooden targets so we can become proficient at chucking sharp things around the jungle. What could possibly go wrong?

We have news of more bees. This time they have been recovered from the top of building in Puerto Vallarta and are looking for a new home. We agree to be that home. We awake early to find that a box of bees has been delivered to our new kitchen overnight. Our hives are looking a bit grotty as they have been sitting empty for over a year now. We clean them up as best we can and suit up. Our new technique for calming the swarm is to spray sugar water on them. They are distracted by licking sugar so have less time and motivation to sting me. I approve. It appears more effective than the smoke. “We” carry the box to the renovated hives and manage to get the queen and her sugar high swarm relocated. We leave with only a few stings (somehow a couple of less sugary bees managed to find their way up my trouser leg.)

The roof in our treehouse has seen better days. At some point, we will move out for a month and have it replaced. Maybe not top of our list for now. Some time ago we were wise enough to cover the whole roof in plastic to stop the leaks and then tied palm leaves together and placed them on top to keep an authentic aesthetic. These purely decorative palm leaves have been soaked and dried one too many times recently and are now covered in a good layer of fluffy balls. Inevitably gravity has taken effect and huge sections of it have fallen off. I can attest that hearing the sound of large lumps of palm leaves unexpectedly sliding off your roof and crashing onto the balcony is a touch terrifying. Thankfully the loads have so far landed where we were not.

There are some very reassuring signs from nature that our beautiful autumn days are back. Whip lizards dart about in our peripheral vision. Huge inelegantly oversized white butterflies are thrown about by breezes. Flocks of brightly coloured birds feed noisily high in the trees. Some stunningly large hairy spiders wake you right up when you uncover one. Bright green lizards hide motionless; perfectly camouflaged by the river plants. Whales are appearing close to shore. Whale watching season is just starting up again. It’s the best excuse to stare at the ocean for a few hours.

We returned to our bee hives to welcome in our new arrivals to find that they have all buggered off. It appears that the accommodation was not up to their standards and they have gone to find a better class of hive. We don’t really blame them. It is decided that we will invest in new hives and provide refuge to a couple of homeless queens. Despite our ineptitude we remain aspiring apiarists.

San Pancho Sunset Photo credit: Larry Drogett

The sunsets continue to stun. The water has far less poo in it now the rains have stopped so oyster season is back. My son is due to arrive here in a week’s time. We have plans to drink less tequila, eat more oysters, kayak, surf and go fishing. Now the heat apathy is no longer an excuse there is an outside chance this may actually happen. Maybe.

Jungle Journal

Flats, Anty Pants & Mud

September 19, 2020September 19, 2020
by Beave

Our short break in Puerto Vallarta was well deserved but was perhaps not the healthiest of evenings. Sasha and I are both somehow feeling a touch grotty the morning after. Our mood does not improve when we are reminded that we at some point the previous evening “enthusiastically” agreed to find our friend’s car and mend her punctured tire. She had left it in a car park that we are tasked to find.

It’s 10 am and we are abandoned by the girls who have booked various highly important procedures involving coffee, nail polish and hair removal. We are to mend the car and then deliver it to their newly polished selves at the spa. We agree never to drink again.

It’s a hot old morning so we are thankful it’s a short walk to find the car in the almost empty multi-story concrete oven of a carpark. We are both sweaty messes so set ourselves the challenge of changing the wheel in record time. It does not start well. The car is a tiny toy version of a real car. How both of us will fit in this thing is a mystery? The miniature spare wheel is the size of a Frisbee. We find the wheel nut spanner, jack up the sill and prepare to remove the flat. After much confusion and more sweating, we discover that the provided spanner is designed for nuts a few sizes smaller so is effectively useless. We are buggered.

Thankfully a car arrives with a large family inside. We wait for them to park then approach slowly to practice our Spanish by requesting a loan of a more useful spanner. The family take a few steps backwards as we approach them. We catch our reflection in their window and completely understand why. We both look like entirely dodgy sweat soaked crack head tramps. The father of the family takes control and very quickly passes us his spanner in a clear attempt to get us away from his beloved family as quickly as possible. He watches us nervously as we swear and fumble with a now considerably oversized tool and give up. We return the spanner with as much gratitude as we can muster. The family leaves as promptly as they can after making sure their car is locked and they haven’t left anything we might steal.

Our solution to our predicament is not making us any more approachable. We take the undersized spanner and position it over the nuts. We have found a threaded metal eye bolt that was securing the spare Frisbee to the boot of the toy car. We take aim and smash the bolt into the spanner and force it onto the nut. It’s not subtle and for some time not effective either but we have decided that this is our only option so we get it done. After 20 minutes of loud echoey bashing the wheel is off and the Frisbee is on.

We somehow slide our damp smelly sorry selves into the tiny car and head off into town to meet up with the newly painted, buffed and fragrant girls. Surprisingly they are not as sympathetic to our plight as we might have expected. How very rude.

The heat scale is now officially ridiculous and still rising. Even our Mexican friends have been seen to sweat and that’s unheard of. Some days it’s like being wrapped in warm soggy bread but less comforting. Pretty much the only greeting I get these days is when I’m spotted dragging myself around like a full welly boot. Some smart bugger will shout: Mucha Calor (very hot) Beave !! They are not remarking on my sexiness. I reply with a weak wet smile from a pink soggy face. Good to communicate.

This time last year I was in the jungle solo, dealing with no water and seriously worried by the lack of rain. The roads were good and the rivers dry. This year there has been rain most days since July, the rivers are raging and we have practically no roads passable without a good 4×4. Some of the recent rains have been impressive by any standards. A few are blamed on tropical storms or hurricanes passing by. Others are just extraordinary downpours for many hours sent to remind us not to relax too much. Nature is an effective social isolator.

Despite the fun of it all the boys have been plodding away at our new road. We now have three sections completed. We don’t make life easy for ourselves sometimes. It has been decided upon that only the biggest, heaviest and most improbable to move rocks are suitable for the construction. The process of traversing the swollen rivers to dig out the remarkably heavy lumps of mountain and transport them up our hill is torturous. It’s a hard labor punishment from an unlikely prison movie. But we plod on. When I say we… I have a fairly constant low-level guilt that I’m not shifting rocks every moment of the day but quite frankly it would kill me.

There is the need to breathe. We agree that it’s important to take a break from the soupy air for the sake of our minds and bodies. San Sebastien de Oeste is an old mountain town founded in 1605 and a delicious 5000 feet above sea level. It’s only a few hours away from us. We recruit a small band of escapees and book a large house just out of the center. It’s delightful. I get to wear a shirt for more than an hour… no sweating. Our lungs are filled with fresh clean mountain air. We are surrounded by rolling hills and valleys. Grass. Butterflies. Long trousers. Sleeves. Socks. Shoes. Babbling brooks. Good food. Porcelain toilets. Blissful.

Specialty of the town is Raicilla. We hike by the river amongst a variety of giant agave plants which are the source of this unique liquor. Tequila is popular worldwide and Mezcal is becoming better known but Raicilla is the secret cousin of the agave family. We take full advantage to support the local economy.

Waking up in the mountains was healing and relaxing and exactly the change we needed. I am, however, once again reminded that my life and the natural world co-exist these days. A pre-hike breakfast is being created in the kitchen below our room so I eagerly grab my cargo shorts and attempt to jump into them. Bad idea. My legs are covered in thousands of what look like bloated rice grains. I quickly deduce that a fair-sized colony of ants has chosen my shorts to create a nest and lay eggs. Each of these little white lumps are protected by a grumpy warrior ant that is conflicted by its desire to protect its egg or bite me. Many of them commit to making a run for it but at least as many drop their load and attack me. It’s not a lot of fun. I make my own escape and return armed with a broom. I spend the next hour avoiding bites from highly dedicated ants carrying their precious eggs to safer places. These places include our bed, the curtains, our clothes and shoes. Eventually they are all forcefully and uncooperatively swept down the stairs to the outside courtyard. I have earned my breakfast in my pants.

We return to San Pancho refreshed with a restored love for our jungle home. A love that is forever tested but remains strong.

Burning Man is cancelled like everything else this year. Jayne is very much missing the whole process that we know so well. That month every year has been part of our lives for so long. It’s certainly strange to not have to give it any thought or energy this year and have no feelings of missing out. We decide to mark the day of “the burn” with our own mini-jungle event. We invite people to join us for a pool day and an early evening of shared nonsense. I found a few broken chairs in an overgrown wood pile and constructed a simple wooden fella and set him on a few larger logs. It’s been raining constantly for days and everything is soaked. We apply wax from candles to give it half a chance of burning.

As the sun went down and the fire flies started their dance in the trees we soaked the base in petrol and attempted to burn our damp man. It was perhaps less spectacular than it might have been but eventually, after a heap more petrol encouragement, the soggy bloke fell just before the rains came again.

Not for the first time, nor the last, our roads become rivers. Most folk manage to get out before the rivers rose too much. Everyone, except one, who parked his Toyota Hilux pick-up truck outside our gate. Despite the size and power of the truck it turned out to be not the best move. When morning came and the rivers relaxed to normal pace his wheels were deep in what had become the river bed. The rains appear to be bringing mud down from the highway construction up in the hills. It took a good amount of time and three snapped tow ropes before the sub pulled him out. That river mud is sticky!

With all the varying restrictions worldwide we are often asked if we consider ourselves irresponsible that we don’t take social isolating more seriously. We absolutely understand the seriousness of Covid 19 and the threat to our vulnerable. We respect everyone’s ability to stay sane amongst all the sensible and some more stupid restrictions. Our circumstances here are unusual. We meet our friends in our social bubble outside. It is true that we have a rather large bubble but it is very rare that we congregate indoors. In fact, it almost never happens. Restaurants and bars here are usually outside but we still have to have our temperature taken before we can cross the threshold. Masks are compulsory inside all shops. We do make a point of keeping an eye on each other and respecting everyone’s differing boundaries. We don’t hug each other like we used to which is a real shame. Human contact is essential to a healthy life.

This week we tested our luck without even knowing it. We had a late afternoon run down to Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco which is about an hour South. We found oysters on the beach and picked up some non-essentials that we can’t buy this week because of an unexplained surprise ban on alcohol sales in the state of Nayarit. Independence Day & Jayne’s Birthday are both on the 16th September and we suspect the government wants to take the fun out of it.

We leave for home just after 10 pm. Flashes of lightening are becoming more frequent out to sea and in the mountains. We are halfway home when the sky opens. It’s almost impossible to see out of the windscreen even with all three of the Sub’s wipers going at full welly. We are pretty sure if this keeps up we will be trapped in town for the night and start making contingency plans. We keep going and manage to leave the rain behind us but suspect it is following close by. We are highly relieved to find the rivers passable and arrive home safely just as the storm catches us up. I open the back of the Sub to collect a few things and make it to the treehouse in record time. Dispute my impressively athletic speed I’m absolutely soaked to the bone.

It rains. It really rains. Hard, strong and long. We hunker down and accept our fate. The rivers will be full and impassable for some time. It could be worse. And for our neighbours that proves to be true.

The morning brings news of landslides and mud slides on the road we passed last night. San Ignacio was inundated within half an hour of us passing it. Large trucks were completely blocked in by mud. The road behind it closed due to landslides.

San Ignacio Mud slide on the highway we just missed

Slight issue with the highway thanks to the construction taking all the trees down

By mid-morning it’s still drizzling but the worst has past. The boys haven’t shown up for work which is unusual so we call them. They are confused that we don’t understand they can’t get to us. I put on my boots and jump in the Razor to explore. The road to the first small shallow river is fairly intact but the water trenches we dug are now a few feet deep and best avoided. Our small river is no longer a small or shallow river and the Razor falls into it with a surprising splash before the wheels find traction. I make my way to our gate. The rivers that have replaced the roads for the night have dragged down a bed of massive rocks as far as I can see up into the jungle. The road is gone.

I take the Razor and head to town to find out why the boys can’t make it out. A few hundred yards later I see clear why. The road-rivers have removed all the earth leaving nothing but piles of huge rocks and deep ravines. In low 4×4 I can just pass by in the Razor slowly rock hopping . It’s a superb machine but it’s on its limits and there are some bum twitching moments. I make it to the “big” river. I am stuck. Not a chance I can drive through it. It’s fast and very wide. The banks on both sides have vanished. There is nowhere to go.

On our side of the big river is Rogelio’s house that he built when he constructed our cabanas. I can’t reach him as there is a smaller but equally fast-moving feeder river between us. He and his wife and his teenage son live in the three-room structure. They are out front with a bunch of guys with shovels and things do not look normal. We shout at each other above the noise of the water in Spanish. He has had some problems I don’t fully understand so I carefully drive home, collect a shovel and walk back to see if I can help.

I manage to jump a few deep holes and wade across the feeder river leaning on my shovel for stability. I get to his house and see piles of furniture and clothes soaked and covered in thick glue-like mud. The banks of the feeder river above the organic farm opposite broke in the early hours and a wall of mud and water poured down the hill. It took out all the tobacco crop, fences and chicken houses before colliding with the river and pouring into Rogelio’s place. Every room in his house is under a few inches of wet mud and the area around it has up to a few feet of mud. He has lost pretty much everything he has. It’s a disaster.

Everyone is out to help. The organic farm is storing everything that can be saved and a large tractor and trailer is brought in to cross the big river. A large earth moving machines starts shifting the worst of the outside mud and we take it in shifts to dig out the rooms inside. It’s hard, hot work. It’s amazing how relaxed Rogelio and his family are. There is just a fatalistic acceptance that shit happens. No one was hurt. All will be better tomorrow, maybe.

Our issues with the road are certainly put into perspective. Some days later we manage to get a machine out to help us and we now have a very impressive flat wide, rock free road. We have never had one of those before. We don’t exactly want to encourage people to come up and bother us but it’s sort of bad form to have half a mile of rocks discouraging them.

Jayne’s birthday went rather well with a great feed on the beach in Sayulita followed by tres leches cake from the famous cake lady in the square. Mexican Independence Day was duly celebrated with the alcohol ban partially lifted at the last minute for no apparent reason so we were legally able to drink tequila with dinner and have a beer or two afterward. All rather civilised for a change.

The community is getting together to donate furniture and better stuff for Rogelio and his family. The roads work well and the rivers are passable. Only potentially a month or so of dampness left to cope with and eventually we get to dry out and smell a lot better. Can’t wait.

Jungle Journal

Masks, Tasks and Burnt Chocolate.

August 18, 2020August 18, 2020
by Beave

The weather is thick and gooey hot. Rains appear most nights to offer slight temporary relief but sets up long sweaty suffocating afternoons. Movement is ill advised. Fans are essential. Clothing optional.

The lightning storms are regular with hits around us getting closer than is strictly comfortable. The amount of rain some nights has been mad and more than enough to create rivers of mud that have covered our newly finished casita area and deposited heaps of wet earth into the outdoor kitchen and bathroom. Well it was beautiful for a day! We have cleaned up as best we can and extended a small wall entirely down the hill so that at least our kitchen is better protected from sludge.

Our pineapples were a victim of the mudslide. They are strange shaped but the right colour so we take the opportunity to pick the largest of them. To Jayne’s considerable surprise and irritation they are protected by tiny biting ants that have taken resident in their crowns. After a spot of ant-cide and bad language the fruit are cleaned up and ready. They look and taste great. Our first real batch. Only took a year. They didn’t last long.

This is the time of year where we are perma-damp. Shirts, pants and towels soaked by rain or sweat can hang on the balcony for days drinking up the humidity and somehow getting damper. The only way to make life less moist is thanks to our lovely ever suffering laundry ladies who deliver our bags of soggy horrors back to us dry and clean.

The water has woken the sleepy jungle into a constant state of growth. It is possible to watch the vines actually move as they slowly creep their way upwards and outwards. An exhausting hour of thrashing around with a razor-sharp machete offers delusional short-lived satisfaction. In a matter of hours, the vines, leaves and entire branches recover, replacing the space with thicker and stronger growth. Its humbling.

Our latest project is turning out to be a considerable feat of engineering. Our wish is to create a road up to our house from the bottom of the hill. It’s hard enough to drive up but walking up in any degree of safety is now unlikely. Despite our best efforts to channel water the road has been effectively washed out. The only thing that remains untouched are the huge exposed roots that now present a challenging obstacle to even the best efforts of the Razor and the Sub.

Road builders makeshift work & storage area.

We plan to lay about 400 m2 of river rocks. The rains have shifted tons of debris from the mountains our way already. The river beds are full of them. Finding a smart and practical method to lay rocks in such a way as to give us good traction, divert the water and, most importantly, manage to stay stuck to the hill, is, however, not straight forward. There is a lot of steel underpinning. Large retaining curbs have been hand fashioned out of rebar and anchored into the earth every 4m. The curbs are joined together with further rebar cross-members every 2m. This solid concrete frame will house the rocks which will be set in concrete. This is going to be a long job. Months of hard physical work made more difficult by the rains and the heavy heat. It has been decided that it is worth the cost and effort so we have made a start.

Concrete frame buried and anchored and awaiting rocks

My complete apathy towards the dill pickle is not shared by others. Jayne and our Californian friends in town have in fact been making large efforts to recreate dill pickles from their past. The perfect sized cucumbers, carrots, garlic and onions have been collected. Large glass jars are cleaned and prepared. A source of fresh dill discovered. We are invited to a fabulous kitchen for a pickling party. My role in all this is to create refreshments. I provide a steady flow of stiff Palomas while the act of pickling is underway. In the time it takes to drink three good sized Palomas the jars are filled and the diary marked for three weeks’ forth when the tasting can begin. We head out for a celebratory lunch but discover that the world is little more confusing than we had expected. It may have something to do with the tequila heavy Palomas – so I am blamed. We return home carefully and suitably pickled.

Our cacao tree has produced two large pods that we guess are looking ready, whatever that means. After some limited research, I collect both the pods and remove the beans. They are covered in white slime and take some cleaning. I then rest them for a few days before roasting them in the oven. I attempt a high roast which is rumoured to give deeper flavour. The nibs are removed and the hard brittle covering discarded. I employ a pestle and mortar and a lot of arm work. Eventually the ground nibs warm up a bit with the friction and what resembles a dark grainy chocolate like substance appears. After a cheeky taste, it becomes obvious that my roasting might have been a touch high. The flavour is that of burnt dark slightly grainy chocolate. I attempt to fix it with a little butter and honey. After further manic grinding to smooth the mix I find a heart shaped ice tray and fill four of the holes. After a little cooling, we now have our first La Colina chocolates! They taste of buttery burnt chocolate with a hint of honey. Green and Blacks need not worry. Room for improvement.

La Colina first “burnt honey butter ” chocolate

The roads to town have taken a thumping from the rains already. There is an influx of sticky silt washed down from the road construction which is adding to the problems. Sasha has had a series of mechanical adventures with Django and is effectively stuck in town, the van won’t make it back to us now. With Sasha absent Gargoyle has taken up residence back in the treehouse. Mausetrappe is unimpressed. We are now woken regularly to the hiss, spit and crash of two fighting cats knocking lumps out of the place and each other in between naps.

We are trying with limited success to keep the jungle from over-running the flowerbeds. We have added fresh earth and de-marked all the beds with large rocks which should stop everything from being washed away. With the regular rainfall, it is theoretically the best time of year to establish new plants. We have added an olive tree, a number of flowering vines and the odd random cuttings we have acquired. We have been gifted a couple of rather impressive flowering Peyote cactus buttons which we have planted and have so far survived.

It is with some irony that we are coping with floods of rain but our well is out of order. No well water is getting up the hill to fill our tinacos. We raise the pump from 20m down and find it wrapped with a great foxtail lump of grass which is unhelpfully isolating it from the water. It’s burnt out. The good news is that it’s wet. We have a few meters of good water in the well so we made it through with water to spare again this year. Shame we can’t pump it out. In fairness this pump lasted 6 months longer than any other pump we have had so we happily replaced it with the brand new spare that we had smuggled in from Canada and stored in anticipation.

The water pumped strongly for at least a day or two before it didn’t. We spotted that the tree mounted white switch box between solar panel and pump looked a bit different. The front panel was black and charred. On closer inspection, the LED voltage display was actually melted to the plastic. I replaced the whole thing and restored solar power but the pump just won’t pump. We suspect a lightning strike. There has been enough of it. We now need to await another unit on our next import (smuggling) run before we can pump water. We have some options next month so we should be alright.

Our Tinacos will have to make do till our next “import” adventure.

It’s butterfly season. Thousands of them have appeared to drink from the rivers and feed on what they can find. They congregate in large crowds of every colour (rabbles) and collect around the river banks. When we walk or drive through them they all take flight and swarm around us . They land on your skin attracted by the moisture and salt. Life affirming moments.

This is not a winged frog. It’s butterfly lunch.

Brian, the new generator, has been working like a champion. There have been many a cloudy day and the solar batteries have needed topping up regularly. We have provided new oil and created an exhaust from some old metal cowling that sticks out of the wall. The only thing we need to do is check the batteries and keep the fuel topped up and remember to turn him on and off.

There has been, however, a cunning plan to make our lives even easier. It is an idea hatched between Jayne and her Dad in Calgary. As we know Jayne’s Dad is something of an electronic savant. He amazingly has the motivation and skills to invent a custom-made device that automatically checks the solar batteries and turns the generator on and off automatically. Mable is created. Mable is a box with a suspicious amount of wires attached. She will literally stand out like a bomb in customs and so getting her down to us is an issue. Mexican customs are notoriously unhelpful and expensively corrupt. A creative solution is found.

Jayne, very conveniently, has a cousin working in the American Embassy in Mexico City. They have a diplomatic truck arriving from Texas every week and we are told if Mable can get to the truck the truck will certainly get to Mexico City unhindered. This is arranged and a week or so, after a long series of journeys, Mable arrives at a friend’s house on a carrier from Mexico City. All the bits arrive in good shape with an installation guide that looks like an underground map of Tokyo. Jayne is not intimidated and fully confident she can install it. She gives it a go.

After a few intensely sweaty hours Brian has been successfully taken apart and put back together. He is now forever connected to Mable. A match made in heaven (Calgary actually). Mable is now in control of Brian. All we have to do is make sure he has petrol in the tank and Mable does the rest. It’s quite an achievement. Mable now removes the need for me to ever again get up in the middle of a rainy night and fight my way to the battery house. We are very impressed with Jayne’s Dad. Nice one Alan!

We are home to a few strange and perhaps less obvious items that we are collecting for no particular reason. We talk often of strange objects being hidden in the jungle in the name of art. The latest addition to our collection is Bubba. Bubba was, until recently, a rusty old set of people-weighing scales with a measure for people-height. Bubba is now restored to nearer previous glory. It’s had a scrub up and a lick of paint anyway. Bubba can precisely highlight the additional Covid kilos that we are all developing. I’m going to measure how the next six weeks of moving very little but sweating profusely will alter my body mass.

The pool is holding up well. It still requires effort to keep it leaf free but now we are confident enough to use solar power and a timer to run the pump that filters the water every day. If the power gets low we now have Mable to give Brian a kick and top up the batteries. Genius.

When I went to check the timer in the pump house under the pool I found a new friend. I’ve seen huge spiders, snakes, bats and iguanas taking refuge in the pump house but never a dog?! Somehow a dog had got inside the locked room and lodged himself under the pipes. He must have been caught in the huge thunderstorm two nights ago. When the lightening is striking right by you and you feel the pressure wave from the the thunder as it breaks your ear drums its hard enough to keep your pants fresh. This poor bugger must have been scared enough to force itself through the bars on the gate, hid under the pipes and got trapped. He was grateful to be let out and get some reassurance. After water and food he recovered quickly. He stayed close for a night or two then vanished again.

This chap hiding from the thunder under our pool pump

We decide to take advantage of a credit from our Airbnb account and book a short night out to Puerto Vallarta for a change of air and temperature. We find a posh seaview apartment with a huge sofa. We miss a sofa. We manage to eat very well as there are a few good places still open.

Jalisco has been threatening another lock down so everyone in the city is wearing a mask. Even the joggers, solo drivers and cyclists. There are intimidating masked armed soldiers guarding access to the beach which is closed. Every one of the many statues on the sea front is roped off and guarded.

Despite the strangely restricted atmosphere we spend a splendid day in town and a relaxed night on the apartment balcony. We watch the sunset over the sea and people watch the steady stream of visitors walking past mostly closed shops and bars on the Malecon. Very unusually we didn’t see another gringo pass by all night. No international tourists at all. That has to be a real worry for Puerto Vallarta. A lot of vendors and venues will need a lot of luck to survive.

More lounging around … we miss a good sofa

One of the few statues we could get close to

Jungle Journal

The rains, a snake and all the blues.

July 29, 2020July 29, 2020
by Beave

The rains are here. No doubt about it. In the past few weeks we have had a series of very special storms. It’s raining hard most nights and the humidity during the day has been brutal. Last year we missed most of this. It wasn’t till the very end of September that we had any rains worthy of note. Here we are in July hunkering in lockdown. I’m writing this on a Monday morning after 8 solid hours of uninterrupted thumping rain, white flashes of lightning, deafening thunder that rips the sky and fireflies. Not sure why the fireflies all decided to take refuge in our treehouse last night but it was mesmerisingly distracting watching them circle the bed all night.

There have been some little victories over the past month or so. Each of our casitas has been completely renovated. First job was cutting out water channels all around them and rendering the outside walls to prevent floods of rain from the hillside soaking through the block walls. That, we discovered, was less than ideal last season. The base of all outside walls are now circled with river rocks secured with more concrete. This is a very good look but beyond that they act as a further water barrier.

Tons of river rocks repurposed. The rains refill the arroyos with rocks constantly.

We then get to remove everything from the inside that had been there for nearly two years now, so about time. Everything gets a good clean. Bamboo beds are scrubbed and sealed. The block walls are rendered smooth. Time for a touch of colour so we carefully decide on a very particular dusty matt blue paint. I visit our local paint store and trawl through 300 choices of blue shades and hues. It takes time but I find the exact one and get it mixed. It’s a good idea and after applying a few coats on the first new walls everything is looking great. Disappointingly the colour we end up with is quite a few shades lighter than expected, but acceptable, so all good.

Mariposa Cabin: Solid floors and new blue rendered walls.

For the second set of walls it is decided to choose a much darker shade of new new blue. Closer to my original vision. I reappear at the paint store and direct them as best I can. It takes a while but everyone is confident that they have it cracked.

It’s insanely hot during the afternoon and even applying a few coats of paint to a few small walls is exhausting. I’m losing my bodyweight in sweat every day. It’s the time of year where I am damp always. I shower twice and change my shirt at least four times a day. I carry a towel with me at all times to mop up the puddles I create. It’s not a pretty sight. After an hour of chucking blue paint around I am done for. I stand back and mop my face. I compare the two casitas and realise the new shade of blue is absolutely identical to the last. It’s clean and acceptable and I’m just too buggered to care so it’s all good.

Copomo Cabin: Upgraded with entirely different similar new blue walls.

The casitas are best transformed by replacing the floors. The previous rustic gravel floors are removed. The dirt beneath repaired and levelled. Concrete mixed with the gravel and reinstalled. We now have hard smooth floors textured gently with stones. We can now walk around bare footed without painfully picking up the sharper bits of gravel on more delicate feet. That’s progress.

Cereza Cabin : Ready for guests one day maybe…

The casitas, outdoor kitchen and the entire area around have been transformed. We had three rustic casitas where you could happily integrate with and survive the jungle. Now we have three much cleaner, more robust, more comfortable casitas but importantly still rustic and jungle integrated. The paths have been re-graveled and the gardens defined by walls or river rocks. The new outdoor kitchen /roof and the tiled and painted bricksh*t house shower/bathroom finishes things off splendidly.

It’s a good feeling to finally get this all done just in time for the rains to try and wash it all away. It’s interesting to realise that no one has stayed with us this year and we have no idea when next they will. It’s an opportunity for us to look at different options for our future. Maybe with the new big kitchen next to the bar we can start offering retreats. Larger number of people staying for longer periods being looked after by retreat leaders rather than us. Photography retreats, Cooking retreats, Bird watching, Yoga, Silent retreats… If we build a wrestling ring we could offer Lucha Libre retreats! Endless possibilities.

The pool has continued to be a proper needy project but will soon become essential to life and sanity as the humidity conspires to suffocate us. Jayne did some research which suggested that with a lot of planning and learning we can keep the pool in good order without spending a fortune on chemicals and pool companies. We have unique issues with maintaining a pool. The jungle chucks all sorts of stuff into the water every day. When it’s wet its full of leaves and frogs. When its dry its full of bugs and dust. We have very limited water and power. It’s almost impossible in dry season to keep the water levels up and in wet season we don’t have the spare solar power to run a water filter. In fact, maintaining a large 55 000 litre pool in the jungle is a terrible idea. So, we decide to do it anyway.

First job was to remove the frogs. The continuing rain keeps attracting them to what is essentially our green jungle pond. I take the cleaning net and fix it to our newly salvaged extendable rod and take it upon myself to remove every frog from the pool before we start attacking the sludge with chlorine. It’s a challenge chasing frogs around the pool with a net. It’s an entertaining hunt. I start in the shallow end which is still three or four feet deep. It’s just possible to see the bottom so it makes things easier. I have successfully cleared a dozen or so jumpers before I notice a strange movement in the water in the deep end. There are large ripples appearing at the sinisterly opaque deep end.

Now I have seen some things here; amazing, fascinating, stunning and humbling things. I’m not freaked out easily but this was my “Jaws moment”. The scene from the film where Roy Schneider sees the shark, realises the danger and the world around him loses all focus.

As I’m juggling frogs in the net a huge dark snake raises its head out of the water.

It’s big.

The water level is a few feet lower than the rim but that doesn’t matter much to this feller. He glides over the water and slides gracefully and uncomfortably quickly onto the side of the pool. I get to see him as he moves away from the pool and much to my relief away into the jungle. His head moves over the raised pool edge as he manoeuvres deliberately into the jungle. Despite his head being in the leaves his tail is still in the pool way behind him. That’s well over 10 feet away. I make my way towards him cautiously. His tail thankfully follows the head. I get to the edge and see the whole of him moving quickly and silently away. He is very thick and wide. Probably full of frogs! Still wet from the pool he is jet black. Without any exaggeration, this thing is more than twice my height long. I realise our jungle pond has actually been a frog feeder for snakes. I’m also reminded that I dived into the sludge blindly to retrieve my cleaning rod a few weeks ago. I was way too distracted and hypnotised by the bugger to get any photos and have no other witnesses. So, by jungle rules, it’s just a story.

Best guess is that our frog munching intruder was an Indigo snake.

I continue to remove frogs until I’m confident we won’t kill any with chlorine or leave any to attract more snakes. We need to get this water less snake friendly.

Grotty looking jungle pool in process of repair

We are freshly motivated and agree to buy a new pump for the pool. Our existing pump is ancient, rusted, massive and totally inefficient. It can drain our batteries in no time. The sand filter we have is also ancient. The sand inside it has not been changed for at least 8 years. It might actually be making the water dirtier! We agree to change the sand. We research and google things to find the cheapest solution until we lose the will to live so give in and call our pool contact and get it done.

Our next move is to fill the pool to the brim. We need a consistent volume of water to maintain our chemical balance and allow extra water to vacuum debris away. Our little solar well pump is not going to help much. The sun is inconsistent at the moment and our well is not delivering much. We really need to bring in a “pipa” truck. These “pipe” trucks are local water carrying trucks that will deposit 10 000 litres of water wherever you can get a truck. The question is, can we get one of these huge beasts through the jungle tracks and out to our pool? We decide to find out. I am called to the petrol station in the Razor to meet the driver and guide him in.

The truck is worryingly massive in all dimensions but the driver seems pretty relaxed about it. Unsurprisingly he wobbles his way very slowly and clumsily behind me. He’s dragging 10 000 litres (10 tons) of water. There are some hairy moments but the driver is fully challenged by the situation and just won’t give up. Paint is transferred noisily from the truck sides to various trees. Jungle canopy is ultimately no match for a slightly bonkers pipa truck driver. It takes a while but by sheer perseverance the truck makes it to the pool and tops it up to overflowing.

The full pool has since had endless large vessels of chlorine added and been vacuumed of all unnecessary algae, leaves, beasts, flotsam and jetsam. The clear looking water has had any remaining dust & grot removed by being pumped through our fresh sand filter. It’s been a journey but finally It’s ready to go and sorta kinda worth the effort. At 4 pm when the hot moisture in the air threatens to poach us in our own juices we now have a cool blue snake free sanctuary.

Covid life here remains confusing. Authorities have lost the plot and with their inability to offer any clear common-sense guidance are being effectively ignored. There are more cases here and there are now people clearly dying from it. A local priest died last week which shook a few more people into the reality of things. The neighbouring state of Jalisco is threatening to lockdown the entire place again which has shocked people to wear masks everywhere. When we occasionally venture to a supermarket there we must wear a mask, have our temperature taken and have our trolley cleansed in front of us with disinfectant before we enter.

In our state of Nayarit the beaches are closed – yet full of people. Our town is invaded by Mexican tourists from the big cities every weekend. Alcohol can be bought from 9 am to 3 pm in shops then in bars and restaurants from 3pm to 10 pm. How this helps the situation no one knows. There are more people wearing masks now but it’s all a bit too late. Vulnerable people are still crammed into churches and encouraged to sing at each other. Some levels of outstanding irresponsibility are hard to believe. A nearby school held a well attended end of year mask free prize giving ceremony where every pupil got in line to shake hands with some minor local official. The next day he tested positive for Covid 19! We are doing our bit to stay sensible and sane and reassure the people around us. We are grateful our lives so far have been relatively unaffected and we continue to be healthy.

We appear not to be the only creatures in lockdown. Finally the June bugs have appeared… in mid-July. These small nut hard bugs usually arrive in June to fly into your head or the wall or just about anything in their way. We collect dozens of dazed semi-conscious bugs from the floor every morning. They are not smartest bugs. June bug badminton is a thing here. If you set up a strong light they are attracted in large numbers. Kids take badminton rackets and whack them back into the night as they appear. The noise of them bouncing off the racket is rather satisfying I am told. I have yet to try it.

Not so smart June Bug turning up *lockdown- late.*

A new celebrity has arrived in town. Panchito is an impressive big lump of elephant seal that has beached herself in San Pancho. There was some panic when she first arrived as there was concern that she was dying. Local environmental experts arrived to assess the situation. Apparently, it is part of the life cycle of elephant seals to beach themselves, bake in the sun and shed their skin. The process to be fair is not a dynamic one. Panchito may blink her huge eyes a few times and very occasionally yawn a little bit but she could easily be mistaken for a dying seal. She vanished a few times and reappeared and has now moved North.

A rare moment of movement showing off to tourists.

The relatively peaceful sands, waves and the sunsets at Lo De Marcos are a huge attraction for us. The beaches are home to fishermen, surfers and locals with their kids. The sea does not have the same strong undertow shore break that can smash you hard in San Pancho so is far more kid friendly. There is also a point break and old man long board wave on the far end of the rocks. It’s absolute bliss to swim out as the sun sets. The pelicans fly a few feet above your head. Fish and rays rise around you as the sea and sky changes colour. This time of year, the water is warm and the waves gentle.

Lo De Marcos sunset *Photo Credit* : John Curley

The time has come and I’m slowly motivating myself to get back into surfing. I’m old and have a longboard so the waves in Lo De Marcos are perfect. We meet friends at the bar and I set out to try and catch one of the very few waves breaking that day. The paddle out is easy and fun. I sit on my board and watch the local boys pick out the few waves expertly. They know what they are doing and exactly where to position themselves. Next to me is Oliver who is a famous local surfer who is teaching a young girl. I tag along to see what I can learn about this break. The peace is broken by loud screaming. The young girl is in serious distress. I watch as Oliver removes a jelly fish which has wrapped itself around her hand and arm. He flings it in the air and it lands with a splash next to my board. Cuidado amigo! he shouts as he points to the water around me.

I’m surrounded by what look like bubbles on the surface. Each of the bubbles has a blue circle around it and clearly visible long strings of tentacles rising and falling with the waves. The Mexican blue jelly fish is a version of the infamous box jelly fish and potentially dangerous especially to children. Priority is to get the girl back to shore. We talk to her to try and reduce her panic but she is in a lot of pain. Jellyfish have special cells along their tentacles called cnidocytes. Within these cells are harpoon-like structures full of venom, called nematocysts. The nematocysts shoot out when triggered by touch and can penetrate human skin in less time than it takes you to blink. Both quickly and very carefully, I manage to return to the beach and avoid being stung .

Few too many nematocysts for my liking ……..

Oliver has been stung on his hands when he removed the bugger but you would never know; he tells me he is used to it. Good looking, talented and brave…. not sure I like him. The girl is calming down slowly. She is given much well deserved attention and some healing ice cream. Oliver whisks her off to her Mum for further sympathy. She will be fine but probably will carry the rather cool (if hard won) scars for a while but she certainly has a good story to tell her mates. I have decided to suspended my return to surfing until further inspired.

Artist Credit: Abbie Danielle Nisbet (Abi Fantastic)

We have just completed a job we have put off for too long just before the rains came to test our efforts. There has been, for some time, a nagging concern that our treehouse might fall down. This would be less than ideal in many clearly obvious ways. Our inherited and much beloved treehouse is in fairly good nick considering it has stood alone against everything the jungle has cared to throw at it for many years. The parota parts have faired very well but some of the less hardy woods have taken a beating. One of the the balcony cantilevers has rotten through and the supporting corner post which it was attached to has been pretty much eaten away by beasts. We already added three strong supporting posts to keep the balcony from giving in to the weight of people and gravity but it doesn’t remove the stresses on the dodgy corner support. It’s a worry.

The process of disassembling the treehouse and rebuilding it with better wood has never been a temptation. We have been considering more creative solutions and finally tried one out. The amazingly robust wood that we found for the new bar grows nearby and the boys took some time out to go and find some. After a day or so they return with two 5 Metre and another 6 Metre length of tree. They had managed after much effort to chainsaw the tree into long substantial chunks and strap it to their 30 year old pick up. It makes it to bottom of the hill but no further. The three of us manoeuvre the wood lengths off of the truck . Its not easy. The plan is to somehow get this wood up the hill , cut it to length, lift it to support the corner of the treehouse, concrete it a few meters in to the ground and bolt it to the existing post. These lumps of wood are massively heavy and we realise that we are all in danger of badly hurting ourselves unless we respect the complexity of the task in hand. This is going to be fun.

It is decided to use the Razor to tow the wood lumps up the hill and make a plan from there. After roping everything together I make a run up the hill until the wheels lose grip and I’m sliding very nosily nowhere. We abandon that idea and bring on the sub. With low 4×4 and differential lock engaged for extra oomph the wood reluctantly follows the sub slowly up the hill. For our next trick I am positioned on the balcony holding pressure on a rope attached to one end of the beam. The boys with much effort manage to engage levers and more rope until the beam slowly becomes vertical and we tie her on next to the dodgy support. Much digging and sweating and worrying later concrete can be added to the foundations. The biggest beam is now holding up the corner of the treehouse and we are all confident it’s not budging.

Couple of days later this process has been repeated with two further beams supporting a fresh plank of parota beneath the staircase balcony. It is notably reassuring to know that should the treehouse ever fall these wood supports will probably be still standing . We bolt the new front support to the existing pole that still has some life left in it and reattach the cantilever for the front balcony. It’s all looking rather solid. Our chances of surviving the rains have just considerably improved.

Treehouse now considerably less likely to tumble anytime soon.

I want to take a moment to remember and honour our friend Roy. Roy was an extraordinary character. Old school crooner, world class surfer and all round good bloke. A true Lo De Marcos legend. He died after a short battle with brain cancer with his family in California. He will be missed.

Jungle Journal

Frogs, Doors, Camel & a Big Lizard

June 25, 2020June 25, 2020
by Beave

The Covid restrictions here remain confusing but there is talk of restaurants sorta kinda opening with the addition of social distancing and no menus to touch. We take a chance and go to Sayulita to see for ourselves. It’s about midday and we head to the beach. Bad idea. At every entrance to the playa there are armed marines and police with heavy weapons. Local families with kids and surfers are told to go elsewhere, anywhere, but not on the sand. There are no tourists. All the hotels are still closed. It’s a proper pointless show of force. The vast empty beach is clearly the safest place for everyone to be in fresh air and keep their distance.

We find a small empty restaurant patrolled by two guys with full face masks. Despite not being able to hear them well or being able to lip read we eventually confirm they are open, prepared to cook us food, serve it to us and allow us to eat it in front of them, at a table with a drink! This is a result. We feel a disproportionate measure of success and relief. We eat food we did not cook, we drink alcohol, we chat as best we can to the masked men.

We notice that the army and police are leaving town in a large impressive testosterone fuelled convoy. They pass by our table and head to the highway. Almost immediately we see a few heads appear, then a few surf boards and a few kids carrying large coloured floaties. There is a mad rush to the sea.

We head to an empty bar on the beach and are served our compulsory post lunch Margarita by a team of waiters all with full face masks and plastic head guards. It’s impossible to hear them but we make ourselves understood by the medium of mime. We refresh ourselves slowly watching the dozen or more surfers who are already in the waves and the families setting up for the day confident they will not be shot.

The very latest Covid update from our governor is that we are going to be put into strict second lockdown this week. No businesses are allowed to open. Beaches shut. No buying socks. Even the official numbers of infected and dying are high and rising fast. There are frequent tales of folk testing positive in San Pancho. Most urgently the hospitals are now full and there is not a single bed with a ventilator in the entire state of Nayarit. Airlines have pretty much stopped coming to the once packed International airport of Puerto Vallarta till November. Our friend flew to Canada last week and there were only two flights leaving the airport that day. One to LA that she was booked on and another to Mexico City that was cancelled. She was the only person in the airport apart from staff. Guess we really are isolated more than we know right now.

The pool at our place is going to become essential soon as the warm air thickens and becomes unbearable heavy. Our water situation is not ideal. Our well still has water but not so much . A few days of cloud means we can’t pump what water we have. Our tinacos are getting nearer to empty than full. Certainly, no spare water for the pool. Knowing this the pool has had little attention by us and is now green and swampy. The frogs however seem very happy with it. A few nights of moderate rain have teased us recently which has magically rehydrated a bunch of horny frogs . They kept us awake for two nights shagging themselves to death. The pool is now equipped with a frog escape ramp which saved many of them from drowning so there are very few dead adults to retrieve this year. We are however left with sleep deprivation, large gloops of stringy spawn and thousands of tadpoles.

I am reviewing the situation and realise that the long service rod with the cleaning net attached is missing. This is the only tool we have to remove what we must from the swamp pool. There are cow prints everywhere. A large herd of large white cows have been invading our land recently. They are not subtle, eat everything and clumsily pull the electrical wires out of our house. After much screaming, whistling and obscene swearing they slowly bugger off. We deduce that these cows have been watching the frog sex and knocked the 8-foot pole into the deep end which is now an entirely opaque deep thick green goo of frog juices and algae.

I reluctantly test our theory by stripping off and diving into the unknown. I feel around the blinding sludge and thankfully find the pole and make it to the surface without ingesting anything froggy. I spend the next hour or so committing tadpole genocide with the rescued net. Our pool is now still opaque green but all evidence of frog orgies has been removed.

While tadpole fishing I am distracted by a crashing noise coming from the jungle behind the pool. I investigate. Next to an old rotting tree stump is a large lizard. A very large lizard. It spots me and crashes awkwardly in my direction at pace. Lizard legs are not the most useful. They stick out the body at an angle where to run they need to make circles in the air to somehow create forward thrust. It’s not elegant. The large lizard does not let this embarrass him too much and gets rather near. He stops for another look. Now he is close I see the size of the bugger. He is huge, with a shiny black and yellow covering and blessed with a very long tongue. He has seen enough and is clearly unimpressed by me and my pole and crashes off into the bush and disappears. I can still hear him but he’s out of sight.

Further investigation and I find out we have a Mexican bearded lizard as a neighbour. They are the biggest lizard in Mexico and one of the biggest there is. They are also one of only two lizards that are poisonous. If they take exception to you and/or your pole then they bite you, hold on for dear life and poison you for good measure! They are known to eat eggs so we leave a few out in strategic places. They all vanish but that’s not so surprising out here. All we can be sure of is that we now have less eggs.

The frogs have post-coitaly shut up but just in time for the cicadas to kick off. These lumps of insect are loud. Really bloody loud. The male of the species starts creating their racket at sunset and continues for about an hour. It’s impossible to hear anything else while they scream their love songs to some deafened mate somewhere. The body of a cicada is similar to that of a violin or a guitar, in that much of it consists of empty, air-filled spaces that act like a resonating chamber and amplifies the sound they generate. Lucky us.

New things are seasonally dropping on our heads. The copomo nuts have stopped catching me out but are now replaced by figs. The loud resonant thwang as a fig bounces off the Sub’s roof is a common way to wake up a bit at 3 am. We are lucky we don’t have mango trees producing here. The town and surrounding areas are thick with over productive mango trees shitting fruit onto people’s heads everywhere. A single mature tree can deliver 250 kg of the missiles every year. Most of them end up unpicked. Surrounding most mango trees is a layer of mango jam being devoured by a few hundred sugar crazed wasps. The good news is we have piles of delicious mangos. We have been processing them into Mango chutney which is entirely delicious with cheese and tequila.

Beautifully labelled La Colina Mango Chutney

It is the time of year where the roads are dusty and hard and the Razor tyres give out semi-regularly. In one case I had two punctures in one hour. The second only moments after repairing the first. Such is life. Our tiny toothless local tyre guru Tun-tun is always very happy to see me.

The rising heat and humidity is also a graveyard for audio speakers. I have had two sets of headphones and my two best Bluetooth speakers give up the ghost. We have just started sending on-line purchases to our friend’s proper house in Lo De Marcos so I suspect I will get some more 13 month replacements. By some design genius they always give out a month out of warranty.

There have already been two successful deliveries to Lo De Marcos of stuff we have ordered on-line. This is pretty life changing for us. Our address “La Colina. The jungle. San Pancho. Mexico” is, to say the least, unreliable. So far, we have had only two pieces of post delivered ever. One was a Xmas card delivered last year in early March. We saw our names misspelled on a black board in town and discovered this was the postal system.

The second was a black package delivered to a local restaurant a few weeks ago who have taken over all postal services for a small collection fee. They rang us one day to say we had a parcel to collect. We were very excited but equally confused. When we arrived in town and paid our 50 pesos we were given a small box covered in black plastic and a pre-printed label with my name on it and our telephone number. The label suggested it came from China via. slow boat and may have taken many many months to arrive. We were too curious and couldn’t wait to open it. Inside was no note, no invoice no paperwork at all. Just a box containing ….. a new carbon monoxide alarm. As we have no enclosed spaces on our land it is perhaps the least useful thing we now own. We, to this day, have no clue what, who, how or why??

Our first on-line delivery managed to make it to the address we specified within 10 days. This is no mean feat as there is at least one other identical address some streets away. Jayne purchased a small portable solar panel. She has attached it to two copper rods which float in our pool attached to an inflatable swan cup holder and delivers a small current to the water. It’s our new pool ionizer. The point is to discourage algae. So far it needs a stiff talking to as it’s clearly not motivated. Our pool is as green and soupy as ever.

As our test delivery worked we finally bit the bullet and ordered Brian. Brian is our brand new big blue generator. A well-researched 6300 super powerful Yamaha. He is a monster. Took two Mexicans to lift it off the truck and one Mexican and two gringos to lift the thing into the Sub. It’s epically heavy. It took a further two Mexicans and me to drag the thing strapped to a sack trolley across our land and into the battery house. It was exhausting. Brian is now home and theoretically doesn’t have to move again anytime soon. We spend a day setting him up and venting his fumes outside the building. Brian can be turned on, purr into life, go strong for hours and deliver as much power as we will ever need with the simple turn of a key. Lucky Brian.

Meet ***Brian:*** He is sooo powerful ( and heavy).

Jayne loves ***Brian*** and likes filling his batteries.

Camel is the latest addition to our tribe. Amongst the huge box of newspaper wrapped plaster casts that we spontaneously acquired from Guadalajara one day last year there are some forgotten gems. Camel was one such find. It had been many months since we had looked in that box. We somehow bought a mix dozen of skulls and Buddha heads that we occasionally paint up and display around the place. Hidden underneath these was a larger mystery parcel which we unwrapped to find Camel! Camel is a giraffe who we painted up and gifted a brand-new pipe. He is mounted on a tree overlooking the bar. Camel is our new security giraffe.

Some of our large stock of plaster Buddha heads

There has been a good amount of activity in the past month or so. I have beaten back my prevarications and completed both doors to the new kitchen. Pauly built a few when he was here so I copied his style and added a couple of my beloved round windows. Still much to do but we are getting there. Poco a Poco.

The bar and brand new sexy door to the kitchen

There are new bugs here to discover all the time. A few days ago, Jayne spotted a shape on the front gate as we pulled in. She went back to investigate and found what can only be described as a leaf with legs. It was a fair old chunk of bug. Maybe five or so inches long. Its legs were strong and armoured . Amazingly its body formed the exact shape of a three-dimensional leaf. Not only that but each side of him had the perfect markings of a leaf. Like he had actual leaves stuck to the side of him. If this thing was sitting on any branch on any tree it would be entirely invisible. I held it in my hand for a moment before it spread its leaf/wings and took flight. Incredible.

In other news, our outdoor kitchen has been thoroughly waterproofed and our cabanas are now in the process of being upgraded. We have rendered some walls outside and even painted the inside of one! We have moved tons of heavy red clay from the hill behind them to create a water channels so they don’t get flooded again. Jayne has finally got her wish. The beautifully impractical gravel floors are in the process of being levelled and have concrete added. A least one of them is now solid, raised and level with a smooth gravel finish. The outsides of all three are being landscaped with river rocks set into earth surrounding them. It’s a lot of work but slowly we are creating some seriously upgraded places that one day people will stay. One day.