Blog - La Colina Project

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.

New new outdoor kitchen roof ( waterproof version )

Creating proper walls and a level solid floor ( so fancy ).

There is very good news about Sasha. After leaving us for Tepic that fateful day he has had many eye watering adventures. He has swapped his spleen for a fair number of rather impressive scars. He is however very much alive and recovering slowly but well. We expect him to be back with us in the jungle very soon. He is ready.

I did not post pictures of his injuries to protect his privacy but he posted this a few days ago. It shows a before and after shot that tells a thousand words. I will try and persuade him to do a guest blog to fill in the gaps. It will be very good to see him home.

The fans are on. The frogs have literally come and gone. Cicadas are screaming. The crabs have migrated to the sea. The fire flies are on their way. The water pipes from the natural pools have dried up. The rains they are a coming.

Jungle Journal

Bees, bars, and a bloody nightmare.

June 4, 2020June 4, 2020
by Beave

Time is passing us by both slowly and quickly. The distortion of time while we navigate this new normal remains confusing. We have no idea of what day of the week it is yet we find weekends pop up more often than expected. Months, however, are deceptively drawn out. April seemed like it has 60 days in it this time around. But here we are. It’s June. The roads are dusty, the heat is rising notably and the humidity is building.

There is talk of a fresh bee swarm that needs relocating. They have taken residency in a disused RV parked close to town. We wait until dusk, gather our hive, suits and gloves and head out. The bees are behind a small plastic access door in the side of the RV which is partially hidden by a hedge. Our friend Diego and I suit up, light the smoker, grab torches and squeeze ourselves through the branches to take a look. Jayne has found her way through the RV main door on the other side and is lying on the floor inside shining light underneath the fridge towards us so we can get a better idea where the queen is hiding. We are positioned well and creating a lot of smoke which I direct through the small opening. Diego puts his arm through the smoke to see if he can feel his way toward the queen.

At this point visibility is not good. Its dark and smoky and the torch we are using is now covered in bees so not at all useful. We hear a loud angry noise and feel the distinct tapping of hundreds of unseen bees attacking our suits. I get a sting on my leg and then another. Diego is in full retreat as his suit has been compromised and he has fully pissed off bees trapped inside. We stumble backwards in the dark. I’m covering us both in smoke to get the growing stack of bees off. Rather than calming them down the smoke appears to be making them more aggressive. Wrong type of smoke maybe?!. I manage to swat my body and helmet free of bees quickly and then try and get the them out of Diego’s suit. Unbeknown to us his pants had a rip in the back side where the bees have got in. I find myself quite literally blowing smoke up his arse as he farts out the invading critters.

We decide that the only way to get at the queen is to remove the RV fridge. We could do with a propane fridge so this might be an opportunity. We retreat to fight another day and ask permission from the owner to take the RV apart.

In the state of Nayarit, we have had imposed upon us for a number of weeks now a total ban on alcohol. Beer, gin, wine and vodka have been considered unessential to life. Needs must and in the spirit of the great prohibition it is fair to say we haven’t suffered. Mainly because in practice we haven’t been without booze at all. Bootlegging is the new sexy. Cases of beer can be purchased if you know the right password. It is possible, with a little luck and guile, to avoid road blocks and drive to another state to stock up. There is even the opportunity to collect take away “free” beer given away by local establishments in exchange for a small donation to a “chicken charity”. After some weeks of this farce the governor very suddenly announced a stop to the ban. He admitted that it had been a complete failure and had given criminal gangs a great opportunity to make a small fortune. Sanity is restored.

Despite the ability to buy now essential alcohol we are completely unable to buy any unessential goods. These includes pots, pans, socks, pants, toys, sporting goods, clothes, shoes, hair dyes, electronics, household items. Pretty much anything except food and drink. So, it’s possible to get to the checkout at Costco with ten crates of beer but without pants. Bizarre.

It’s some days since we were chased away from the RV. I have two painful holes in my legs to remind me. They are by far the worst bee stings I have had. Those bees were hard buggers. Unfortunately, the RV owner did not like the idea of removing his fridge or saving bees . Hopefully the queen managed to escape before he poisons them.

I have been whinging a bit too much lately. Bee stings and spider bites have been disabling and irritating. My shoulder, neck and left arm have been sore and stiff for weeks after my last attack. On close examination of my shoulder it looks like either one spider bit me six times or he had company and they all had a go. The bites were slow to heal so Jayne investigated and pulled a fang out of one of them! Since then things are improving but my left arm is notably weaker than my right. I’ve started a little extra exercise and have hung a punch bag under the yoga deck to build up my arm strength again. Less whinging ahead.

Our gardens continue to flourish with the sun and water. Our tomatoes, pineapples and parsley are doing well. We have been advised that our squash and zucchini are out of season but the flowers keep coming. We are waiting to see what happens. No one here is an experienced gardener. We are employing a chuck it in the ground and see what happens strategy. Lots to learn.

Now much has been written about the Primavera tree and quite rightly so. This is the ugly duckling of trees. For 50 weeks of the year it is an absolutely indistinctive bunch of brown branches. Then for two short weeks of the year it blurts into life. The shot of yellow blossom reflects the sun and belts out glowing golden colour like beacons. They are stunning and clear proof that Spring has indeed sprung.

Primavera in bloom photo credit: John Curley

The colours of spring here are spectacular. It’s when the flowers are at their most vibrant and abundant. Life appearing everywhere. Bright vivid green Iguanas dash around the bush. It’s also the time here when the leaves fall. The ground is thick with them right now. As are our solar panels. I have to carry the ladder over the hill a number of times a week to keep up these days.

Our new kitchen is all but finished. I still have to make and install two doors and a few shelves. Then fit the serving counters and make some secure shutters and finish the electrics and lighting…. but apart from all that, nearly finished. We have double sinks inside and out. We bought a rather sexy six burner oven/stove which slots in perfectly. There are polished concrete counters and many shelves built in. It’s going to be outstandingly useful when I get around to those little finishing jobs.

As part of the process we have run electricity from our bar into the kitchen. In doing so the electrical box fell off the bar support. On further inspection, the bar support, which is one of three large logs of copomo wood, has seen better days. It looked a little weather worn. I took a crowbar and decided to test the rest of the structural bits. Somewhat surprisingly when given a push the supports all but exploded. Huge lumps of shattered wood. Clearly copomo is not the best choice for supporting much in the tropics. The bamboo fascia also disintegrated on touch. The whole thing went from bar to no bar in about 8 minutes. Just the two parota bar tops remain.

Shattered lumps of Copomo that was holding the bar up

Julio has been building the kitchen and generally helping us out all year. He lives close by with his wife and small daughter. He grew up here and has great local knowledge. He disappears into the jungle for a day and returns proudly with a supply of special “30 year” wood. Its dark and very heavy. It takes our largest chainsaw to go through it. This will become the new bar. The parota bar tops are installed on top of three large pieces secured with long lag bolts. Screws won’t do it. This stuff is like metal. The sharp strands of sawdust feel like swarf. Eventually the over heating chainsaw produces slices of the stuff which are lined up as fascia and concreted into the ground. It’s a rustic but good-looking result. It will almost certainly be around longer than I will.

The road block into town has finally been taken down. There is a constant police presence but no one is being stopped unless they look particularly dodgy. San Pancho beach is still, however, effectively closed. Police and military have been chasing people off, hauling a few repeat offenders away and fining others. Now there are no tourists it seems madness to prevent locals social distancing at what is effectively the safest place we have.

Lo De Marcos has the attraction of having the same sun setting just a few miles south and a far more sensible enforcement regime. We sit at the beach or swim in the sea as the sun hits the water and gives us a show. We take dinner from Tomatina’s bar which is serving take away food and add a Margarita or two for good measure. Every time we make the effort to see the day out on the beach we are reminded of our good fortune. It’s food for the soul.

Sunset has also become something of a competitive environment for the photographers amongst us. Now pretty much everyone with a phone thinks they are a photographer these days. Most people will get lucky and capture something pretty now and again but those few that really know somehow get lucky all the time! To demonstrate this there follows a series of sunset shots from the past few weeks. Hoping I have the photo credits correct. It’s hard to keep up.

Despite many areas of Mexico that are only just coming to terms with the reality of the Covid threat, other areas are now looking at loosening restrictions. Reports of up to a thousand unreported deaths a day in Mexico City is not good news for the country or its international reputation. While in the San Pancho hospital this week we talked to nurses who told us that despite the official numbers they have had many Covid cases. There is a quarantined ward in the hospital full of patients right now. Ambulance drivers tell us they don’t want to step foot in the place.

Just when we think things could not get much stranger our world takes an highly unexpected turn that entirely resets our priorities.

It’s a new normal day. Jayne is working from her bed office. The boys are fixing a lump of polished parota to a concrete plinth to make an alter on the yoga deck. I have just finished a sweaty ouchy work out on the punch bag and am surprised to see Sasha home. He is working three days a week at the bar delivering food “to go”. His chain is loose on his motorbike and it has come off a few times. We decide if the jungle jeep starts first time he will take that and at the same time drop it in at the mechanics to get the headlight wires replaced. The jungle jeep does, remarkably, start first time.

A fairly productive day ends with a rare homemade dinner and a movie. It’s 11 pm and we are both slow and dozy when our phones ring. It’s Sasha but no voice. A distinctive beep noise and some guttural noises. We both assume his pocket has dialled us. I send a message to check all is well. Some minutes later we get a one word message: hospital.

We are dressed and on our way to town in moments. We are more curious than nervous until we get to the Pemex gas station and see the jungle jeep smashed up on a flatbed parked outside. We stop and run over but the recovery vehicle cab is empty. The jungle jeep’s heavy duty front bull bars are smashed, there is mud in the engine, the windscreen is mostly missing and the steering wheel looks like a rosette. Now we are scared.

As we arrive at the hospital in town we are met by a policeman and the recovery vehicle driver. The story they tell us is that they found Sasha by the side of the road unconscious at around 10 pm. They tell us they think he will be OK. This is a massive relief. We mask up and let ourselves into the ward to find him. There is little or no security at 11.30pm on a Wednesday night. Covid restrictions are not obvious.

Sasha is on a bed looking battered. The heart monitor in the bed next to him bleeps loudly. He has one of the most impressive black eyes I’ve ever seen. The swelling covers his right eye entirely. His “good” eye is almost closed and crested by a long line of stitches. A nurse is completing a further long line of stitches on his leg where there is a substantial wound. His general appearance is bloody and swollen.

He is somewhat lucid and in his usual good humour despite everything. He tells us that he didn’t make it to the mechanic so drove home after work in daylight around 8.30pm On a bend in the road he oversteered and the jeep flipped in the air. His last memory was curling up small and not considering this a good thing. He woke up in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Thankfully he had his phone and managed to get messages out.

We muck in and clean some of the blood off him. We find another hole in his ear and get that stitched too. He is hurting but breathing OK and is very keen not to spend much time in the hospital. We wheel him to get X-rays. By some miracle they don’t find any cracks to his skull. They do however find a displaced fracture in his foot.

We point out further holes in him that need attention. They have not removed his blood-soaked shirt or his shorts so have missed a few. After a short assessment, it is decided that because they haven’t found a skull fracture he is good to go. He is certainly not good but we do as we are told and prepare to wheel him into our truck. They write us a prescription for pain medication and antibiotics which we can’t fill till 9 am. It’s 2 am. He needs to go 7 hours without meds?

Our good friend Narciso has arrived. He is local and knows the working of the hospital and checks that we have not been overcharged. The whole bill is around $200US. If this was North of the border it would likely have been at least $20 000US so we happily pay. Narciso and Jayne both make sure that the doctors really do want to release him. He has a displaced fracture in his foot but apparently, they don’t have the materials to treat it so give us the name of a doctor 30 miles away to call in the morning. Sasha staying the night for observation is not an option apparently so we load him from the wheel chair in to our truck.

The travel home is slow. The Sub is smooth but every bump is greeted with a gurgle and a groan. We park the truck as close to the jungle cabin as possible. Sasha is in a heap of pain. His chest, arms, broken foot, head and most places in-between. I’m trying to hold him up but it’s not working. We shout to our friend Pato who is quarantining with us for a few weeks. He wakes up and comes over to help. We are trying to prevent his broken foot from taking any weight but it’s just not working. We are half way there and he runs out of energy. We manage to get a chair under him before he collapses. Bizarrely Pato has vanished. I find him doubled up on the ground. He is dizzy and nauseous . He crawls away and starts throwing up.

It’s 2.30 am in a pitch black jungle. One friend is broken to bits in a chair and another throwing up. At this point we notice the ants. The jungle floor is alive with them. Large black biting ants sense our weakness and decide to attack. I race to the bodega and return with the anti-ant poison and spray it around the chair. They are already climbing all over Sasha. Pato retreats home to recover and avoid being eaten. If I thought I wouldn’t have made things a lot worse I would have carried Sasha the rest of the way but it just wasn’t possible. Another big painful effort and we made it to his cabin. No.22. Sasha lies flat on his back and does not look well. I wipe blood from his nose and ears and return quickly with all the pain killers we can find. His eyes are now both swollen shut. His face looks like someone has taken a cricket bat to a baboon arse. It’s not good.

I check on him through the night and am waiting outside the pharmacy at 9 am to stock up on painkillers and antibiotics. Sasha’s wife Molly has arrived from Lo De Marcos and stays with him. He hasn’t slept much at all and is complaining that he can’t breathe well. He is in a world of pain. We are unsure if this is due to seat belt bruising or something more serious. He has shoulder pain and shortness of breath which are both indicators of internal bleeding. Things are not OK. We want him to be checked out so try our best to move him but it’s not possible. He is in way too much pain. When he tries to sit up he can’t breathe. We call our local doctor to see if we can get her to come out. She’s not answering.

Pato and I race the Razor back into town and go straight to the hospital. We need a doctor and an ambulance or both. I insist that Sasha can’t be moved, he is in extreme pain, unable to breathe and showing signs of internal bleeding and needs help now. Four girls are on reception and could not be less bothered. They tell us that if he was released from hospital he will be fine and they will not trouble a doctor and they don’t have an ambulance. There is an ambulance parked outside the door in plain sight. We are told to go and find help elsewhere!! I am fucking furious but realise we are getting nowhere with these idiots.

Narciso is in town and we meet up to make a plan. He calls his contacts in the hospital. They confirm that they don’t have an ambulance ready. We call 911 and they tell us they do have an ambulance but no drivers. We get a message from Molly that Sasha is getting worse and is prepared to try and move into the Razor so I can drive him to a hospital that will take him seriously. We get back to No.22 as fast as I can drive.

Although it is clearly a great idea to get out of the jungle it just isn’t happening. Despite every effort Sasha cannot move. We have the option of a private ambulance from 30 miles away that will come for about $1000 US. He has no insurance so private health care is completely out of his budget. We are just about to make the call to spend the money when Pato finds another private ambulance with paramedics from nearby Sayulita who only want 1500 pesos! That’s $70US! Result. We jump in the Razor and again rally drive to the Pemex gas station to meet the ambulance so they can follow us in.

We are there in no time and are entirely grateful to see the flashing lights on the highway. The ambulance is new, modern, huge and has a Bay Watch logo on the side. The jungle road is a challenge but they follow us slowly. We get to the last dry river bed when the sirens go off and they stop. The driver won’t go any further. He has lost his exhaust and doesn’t want to inflict any further damage. We load a gurney and a fully equipped paramedic into the Razor and arrive outside No.22 in a cloud of dust.

While the paramedic checks out Sasha (while at the same time selling the services of his hospital in Sayulita) we call a friend who has a Toyota forerunner SUV that can take the gurney in the back. He arrives in 10 minutes flat. We carry Sasha very carefully strapped to the gurney into the Toyota and all meet up at the riverbed to transfer him and Molly to the stricken ambulance.

The Sayulita hospital requires a deposit of $4000US dollars so we head back to San Pancho hospital. The chief paramedic has rung his friend in the hospital who are now taking the situation very seriously. I follow the ambulance to the hospital where Pato, Narciso and myself wait outside. We are not allowed in. Covid rules now apply. We pay the paramedic his 1500 pesos and a further 3500 pesos for a new exhaust. We catch snippets of information through the emergency room door. They are talking about operating immediately as they suspect a liver bleed. He is not breathing well and his blood oxygenation is dropping. They are talking about intubating him. They are asking about his blood type. No one knows.

There is now a competent doctor and paramedic with Sasha. I can’t be directly helpful right now so decide to make my way back home where Jayne has been madly ringing around hospitals and trying to find a doctor while being on the phone managing meetings in Canada all morning. We are both deeply worried and exhausted. I’ve drank about a dozen diet cokes and have the caffeine shakes.

We need to find out where the vehicle has been taken to. The recovery driver would not accept a bribe to leave it in San Pancho the night before. We discover the jeep has ended up in Guayabitos which is about 20 miles North. We are both too exhausted to drive there so decide to leave it till the next day.

We get a message from Molly. The doctors are very concerned about Sasha but don’t have the resources to deal with him in San Pancho. They are both in an ambulance on their way to the General Hospital in Tepic. Tepic is the county capital and is over 2 hours North. Tepic has a metro population of 500 000 and is known to be a Covid hotspot. There are no hotel rooms or places to stay and all restaurants are closed. The San Pancho hospital director has now heard about the situation and is angry and embarrassed. Good. It is beyond obvious that Sasha should never have been released in the first place.

We finally sleep. We receive news the next morning. Molly reports back that Tepic General hospital is, to be kind, “basic”. All medicines need to be bought from the nearby pharmacy and handed to staff. They had to spend the night trying to sleep in a hospital corridor. They suspect Sasha has a ruptured spleen and they are considering operating. They hope to get a room and be under observation for 24 hours. They will decide about operating then. Staffing levels are low so Molly is having to do a lot of the care. The hospital is under Covid restrictions so will not let anyone else in to see him.

We take a trip to La Penita where our friendly mechanic who built the jungle jeep has agreed to help us retrieve it from the authorities. We meet up with the recovery driver from the hospital and talk to the policeman who attended. On the night, our friendly policeman decided not to make a report. We were the owners of the vehicle and weren’t pressing charges, and there was no one else involved in the accident. However, now that Sasha’s condition is considered more serious he has made a retrospective report and that has caused all sorts of red tape to be released. It is now required of us to drive to Tepic and present proof that the vehicle is ours and that we are not liable for anything and then we can get a piece of paper that will release the vehicle to us. Our mechanic lives in Tepic and knows people in the Federal offices so has agreed to do it for us.

It is a constant stress that Sasha does not have the money to cover his care costs let alone his recovery costs. We are happy to write off the vehicle and recovery costs but we have no clue what the next procedures will cost. Latest from Molly is that they have a room they are sharing with 5 others and the doctors have confirmed they will operate on him in the morning.

It is decided to raise some much-needed funds. Narciso takes on the task of collecting cash from local friends so we can get that to Molly quickly. She is required to pay for medical costs up front and in cash. We take on setting up a GoFundMe page and distributing it to the many friends Sasha has around the world. There is a lot of love and generosity for this man. We surpass our ambitious target within hours. This a massive relief and removes all the financial stress from the situation. We can now apply all our energies to Sasha’s recovery. Molly confirms she has the money to cover the hospital bills and there is a fund to allow Sasha time to recover and have access to private care if required. . We are all immensely relived and grateful.

It takes a further trip to our mechanic to give him more bits of paper before he makes his second trip to Tepic to get us permission to take back our vehicle. It will be back in his care directly from the tow company as soon as we pay them an eye watering amount for pulling the thing out of the ditch. Then he can assess the damage. Make the repairs and finally sell the bloody thing.

On the way back we find the crash site. The policeman sent us all the pictures he took on his phone. The photos were taken at night and are far from clear but they show a distinctive blue chair close to the vehicle. We find the chair for reference and are stunned. The jeep was driven off a steep drop above a concrete culvert. How Sasha survived is entirely unclear. He is one lucky man.

The operation was a success. They found over two litres of blood in his abdomen so it was about time. He was effectively spatchcocked and has a scar from sternum to pubis. Molly is given a jar with most of Sasha’s spleen inside to take to the pathology lab! There is still a small portion inside him that they hope to persuade some function from. A doctor friend who trained at the Tepic hospital visited Sasha. He confirmed that despite the disorganisation, lack of cleanliness and absence of staff the hospital does give good care and the surgeons are highly skilled. While concentrating on other more pressing priorities his broken foot still hasn’t had any attention. Molly continues to care for him as well as the others in his room who have no one to help them. The stories they will tell…

Sasha is finally feeling well enough to contact us. We are communicating again which is fantastic. He is going to need many more days in Tepic before he can walk and manage his pain levels. But he is alive. He will be back. He will ride again. Thank God.

Jungle Journal

Strange New World

April 25, 2020April 25, 2020
by Beave

Our own version of this strange new world, to be absolutely honest, has changed considerably less than most. Living where we do, in a lone treehouse in a Mexican jungle has the concept of social isolation sorta kinda built in. The practice of isolation is, however, clearly a different matter.

We have been fortunate enough to create our lives here by claiming our right to choose and defining ourselves by those choices. We instinctively question any pressures to conform to other’s expectations. The removal of choice, being told what to do and being required to conform to media driven social expectations are not easy things for us to assimilate.

But needs must. No matter what view one takes of the Covid 19 pandemic and its short term and long-term implications on us all, we have to accept that it poses a real threat to life for the old and infirm. There are enough vulnerable people around us that we choose to seriously consider the restrictions the Government here throw our way. In order to stay at least as sane as we were before all this kicked off does, however, require some effort.

Our president, it has to be said, was very late to the game. Only a few weeks ago he was cuddling babies and actively encouraging the Mexican people to go out and meet friends and eat in restaurants. There were well publicized announcements that Covid 19 was a white gringo disease and poor brown people were immune.

April Supermoon : photo credit John Curley

A strongly fatalistic attitude is strongly built into the Mexican nation’s psyche. The deep-seated belief that all will be OK because of the overseeing protection of God in daily life that the Catholic church promotes. The practicalities of forcing an average size Mexican family living in very modest accommodation to stay home is virtually impossible. Worryingly there are a frightening number of families here that live day to day. They earn money daily to buy enough food daily to feed the family. Few have bank accounts and fewer have any savings. There is a dangerous mix of ignorance, bravado and fear.

Despite the challenges our little town has practically closed down. Our sizeable part-time community of retirees and “snow birds” have migrated north early. There are no tourists. There is a solid base of full time locals and expats but not enough to keep shops, bars and restaurants open even if they weren’t shut down by government decree.

There is a constant frustration that we should be doing more to help in a crisis. The crisis here is more the effects of the economic shutdown rather than the effects of the virus. There is clearly not enough testing here and under reporting of infection rates. There are, therefore, very few confirmed cases in our area but thankfully no reported deaths. Deaths are harder to hide.

Supermoon lights up the beach at midnight photo credit Josh Meister

San Pancho is home to the only hospital within a 50 mile radius. It has a Covid 19 ward ready to go but it is empty at the moment. There has been a single case of an older lady who was already unwell who was brought from outside the area. She is so far, the only confirmed person to have died with Covid 19 in San Pancho. In January and February there were surprisingly regular funerals in the town for older people who had pneumonia. These predated the official response so we can only speculate if they were viral.

Sleeping dogs at appropriate social distance apart

On the occasions when we venture out to our practically empty and fully stocked supermarkets we buy a bunch of extra food. We are amongst many that are supporting our community centre EntreAmigos by donating food to distribute to local families in real need. There are over 150 food packages delivered weekly and the local community kitchen is serving over 400 meals a day. It’s a mammoth task keeping this all going on donations alone.

Mexico is now in Phase 3 of its reaction to Covid 19. Because of its slow start there is now a period of overcompensation by officials. Here are a few of the very latest (in many cases counter-productive) measures. We are no longer allowed to have more than two people in a vehicle. This effectively pushes people to use the far riskier option of public transport. Anyone over 60 or pregnant, post-surgical or with diabetes cannot for any reason at all leave their houses in the entire state of Jalisco. We may not set foot on any beach. We cannot swim or surf. No more watching sunsets !!

There is also the issue of alcohol sales. There is evidence that the already worrying levels of domestic violence locally are made considerably worse by forcing families to spend time together and then adding alcohol. Fair point. So, in the entire state of Nayarit alcohol sales are suspended indefinitely. Beer, wine and tequila are now the new black-market currencies.

No wine liquor or beer sales until further notice

The infamous annual influx of Mexican families and “spring break” Americans to our beaches over Semana Santa has been a real worry for everyone over the past weeks. All our good intentions and actions count for naught if thousands of non-isolating drunk crazies flood our town. It’s a highly anticipated holiday that Mexican city folk and over excited American students plan for all year. It will take some dramatic actions to keep them away.

CLOSED : This Easter stay in your house please

To help the situation it has been widely published that Nayarit & Jalisco states are closed to visitors entirely. Hotels are closed down. Tens of thousands of hotel rooms are empty. Restaurants & bars closed. Alcohol sales stopped. Army and Police are stationed on beaches to keep even the most motivated surfer out the water. Anti-tourism in action.

Despite all of this there are still a contingent who will not be put off. We have had the odd Spring Breakers arrive in town who amazingly claim they are in Mexico to get away from their friends who are all sick!! We still have families from Guadalajara arriving with granny, six kids, floaties and a tent rammed into a tiny car expecting to camp out for the week. To keep them away San Pancho and Sayulita and Lo De Marcos have all set up road blocks at the entrances to their towns. Only locals with good reason are allowed to enter. No suitcases or strangers or signs of fun allowed. They are manned by local volunteers 24 hours a day. Easter comes and goes and it feels like a less hot week in October. No one around and everything shut. So much better than thousands of sweaty drunk bodies licking things and filling our space for sure.

For the good of everyone , stay in your house

There is a worrying attitude to health workers here that has raised its ugly head. Nurses in Mexico are generally under appreciated and very poorly paid. The fact that they may have be exposed to the Covid Virus is not helping. One of the road blocks turned away a nurse trying to get home after a 12-hour shift because they considered her a risk to the town. This incident attracted National press attention and the threat of 20 years in prison to the organisers of the road block for abusing an essential worker. Despite this, nurses are still getting harassed. It’s as different as can be from the appreciation given to the front-line staff in the UK. No clapping on doorsteps here.

My daughter has just re-registered as a front-line nurse for the NHS and starts her shifts very soon. Couldn’t be prouder.

This is the amazing centre of a Hibiscus flower (not a virus) … photo credit John Curley

It is becoming obvious that alcohol has been replaced as a social crutch by sugar. Everyone is baking. There are coconut macaroons exchanged for brownies, cinnamon rolls and pecan pie. So much banana bread! There is even millionaire’s shortbread doing the rounds. I’m grateful that I do not possess a sweet tooth. I would be a very much larger gentleman without my inability to handle sweetness. My svelte like ballerina body is challenged enough by my love of Guinness, cheese and steak pies.

My birthday comes and goes with our first on-screen zoom party hosted from the treehouse. It’s a strange affair but certainly a bit of different. Jayne is happily working her way through the mass of sugar based birthday treats that continue to arrive for me for some days afterwards. I’m happy for her as I concentrate my efforts depleting our stocks of tequila.

Huge black bees pollenate the morning glory flowers

The current road to Guadalajara has a famous stretch through the mountains that is single lane with endless switchbacks and hairpin bends. It is common for large trucks to overturn and block the road both ways for hours. The last one we passed after many hours of waiting in line was an apple truck. A small crew was there to pull the truck off the road and a larger crowd had appeared to kindly remove all the apples. We get a call from town. Another truck has overturned. This time there is a more interesting cargo than apples. It’s the Costco truck carrying wine to the Puerto Vallarta store. We offer to help. Our wine stocks are now filled with a number of decent bottles of Chardonnay that have literally fallen off the back of a lorry.

Time on our hands has proved good for the gardens. The streams are still running so there is water to spare for plants and time in our lives to apply it. Plants do rather well with sun and water. Who knew! We have eaten beans from our stalks and are watching our Zucchini take over! The flowers are being replaced with huge green edibles. It’s all rather splendid. We have lost one rather flakey lime tree that did not like to be moved and gained dozens of flowers and baby trees that appear to be doing well. Apart from Zucchini our gardens seem to suit beans, cilantro, chilies, sweet potatoes, pineapples, corn and ants. We are currently managing to grow things at a slightly faster rate than the ants can prune them. This may not continue so anti-ant strategies are in place.

We are absolutely blessed that after all these months the highway boys have moved on. They left with a few additional bangs of close by explosions that we watched with pans on our heads, just in case. It’s silent again. That is actually not true. The birds have returned and the insects are gearing up for their nightly Summer crescendos. It’s a mixed blessing. Although there is the sweet chorus of tropical bird song all day long our mornings are somewhat less peaceful. The Chacaluccas are mating and telling us all about it. Every morning for the past few days, just before sunrise, we are awoken to the shrill screeches of large black flirting gobshites right outside the treehouse window, above high in the copomos and way over the valley and beyond. The noise is extraordinary. The locals call them the turkey of the jungle. Apparently, they are delicious. I’m willing to find out.

Our version of isolation does allow us a considerable freedom of movement that we do not take for granted. We have ventured out a few times now and came across a previously undiscovered waterfall close by. It’s modest right now but in the rainy season it will be spectacular. We have also spent time around the new highway to be. By following the river, we find a drainage valley heading up the mountain and climb the ravine to have a nose about. In front of us looms the new highway. It’s invisible from where we are in the valley. It’s perched on top of a ginormous toweringly steep wall of earth. At its base is a corrugated metal tunnel that appears to allow water from one side to the other. It’s a water free zone right now and we are both curious enough to decide to climb through it.

The tunnel is big enough to move through but small enough to feel highly uncomfortable. At no time do you forget there are thousands of tons of earth above your head. We bash the sides with a machete to scare off any snakes or other beast that may be lurking in the dark. A few awkward minutes later and we pop out the other side. Apart from the jungle mountain continuing upwards there is nothing much to see. Behind us the other side of the steep earth mound and the highway sitting about 40 feet above us.

We return home more curious than before. I decide to make the trip to the top of the earth stack and find out what we are in for when the tarmac crews eventually arrive to finish the job. Along the river there are a number of points where some months ago water has found its way from above and left behind rock falls that are reasonably jungle free. I make my way slowly upwards trying to avoid the long tendrils of thorn covered jungle that have the knack of sneakily wrapping around your leg or neck and pulling you over when you least expect it. Not ideal when balanced on an unsecured rock. It takes some time but I manage to make my way out of the canopy and reach the wall of earth leading very steeply upwards. By kicking into the softer parts and using the machete to create hand holds I make slow progress. There are some moments of sliding backwards but nothing too dramatic. I reach the top both dirty and sweaty. It’s midday and there is no shade.

I’m not there yet. The road that I have found is small and uneven and clearly an access road to the main highway which is still 20 feet above. I follow the road for a few hundred yards and find it blocked by a very large rock fall. Probably the result of one of the explosions. The no-access road in the other direction soon runs out. Nothing ahead at all just a further earth bank descending to the valley floor that is too steep to tackle. Only one way to go. The final twenty feet upwards is harder earth with rocks to hang onto so easier to handle. Finally, I’m standing on where the new highway will be.

It’s flat and wide and stretches as far ahead and as far behind as it’s possible to see. It’s high up on the mountain and the top of the jungle canopy fills the horizon in all directions. Noise goes up not down so that’s a good thing for us. The surprise is that despite the size of the operation to construct it the road itself does not appear to be wide enough for the six-lane monster highway that was advertised. It’s possible to squeeze four lanes in at a push. Maybe two larger lanes with room either side maybe. This is a very good thing. I’m most relived to discover it’s flat. Very flat with no incline at all. This means no braking noise and particularly no air brakes. This was our worst fear. So, this underused over expensive highway shouldn’t cause us any issues when it opens. I happily get out of the sun, work my way downwards through the jungle and follow the river home to share the good news.

For the past month, we have kept the boys employed and busy building our outside kitchen. There has been considerable progress. The walls are built and rendered. There are concrete shelves and work tops appearing. Plumbing and drainage are laid for a double sink indoors and another one outside. We have “borrowed” a window and had another made to our design. There is still a floor to lay, doors to make, a serving counter to install and a secure shutter to build. We need to buy a large oven to install but the oven shop is not considered an essential service so is currently very closed.

I have been keeping myself busy by working with large lumps of parota wood for days shaping and polishing to make the serving counter. There are dozens of planks stacked against the bodega that I’ve slowly soaked in diesel fuel to repel termites and stained to look pretty. They will eventually become the doors and shutters. By the time we are allowed out on our own again we should have a fully functional and quite beautiful Corona-kitchen.

Our immediate outside world here is again changing before our eyes as the temperature rises slowly. Bats in our Bodega are numerous. We have literally dozens of the little hairy buggers hanging by one leg from the roof until disturbed. It is now normal to have a cloud of bats above my head whenever I’m trying to find a spanner or sharpen a machete.

Apart from the obvious, life has changed in a number of more unexpected ways. Bi-weekly laundry runs have slowed down considerably. Clothes have always been optional in the jungle but as we really don’t go anywhere else we are getting a good couple of extra days out of our shirts and pants. We would hardly need laundry at all if we didn’t change the sheets and towels when they get properly grotty.

Our diet has also improved dramatically in entirely unforeseen ways. We are blessed to have at hand a contingent of professional chefs who are entirely under employed. Our Montreal French chef friend is offering one beautiful single well balanced nutritious dish every two days to be collected from her house. They are all fabulous. Some of her profits go to the food bank and she also feeds the volunteers at the road block so it’s totally healthy guilty free grub. Our happy food faces are further supplemented by Sunday morning Birria collected in our own bucket from the delightful old ladies in town. Our favorite restaurant is closed but they offer a basket of locally sourced produce that we collect every week. It’s full of all the green things we would usually skip over. So apart from the over stock of sugary stuff and alcohol we are eating rather well.

Earlier this week I took a machete to an area of over growth that has not been touched since we arrived here. I recovered a small rock wall from the bush that runs from behind the new kitchen next to the bar all the way up the hill ending next to our rock stairs. There was a large quantity of overhanging branches and vines that needed to be tamed. The process was satisfying. Our newly discovered wall now hides both the water pipes (hot and cold) leading to the kitchen , that after at least a week of prevarication, I eventually installed.

Unfortunately, sometime during the process of clearing the jungle some beast took exception to me disturbing their peaceful existence with a sharp blade and overreacted somewhat. It took a chuck out of my shoulder. Whatever this thing was left a number of holes in me and gifted me a good dose of toxin. The skin around my neck, shoulder and arm feels like it is sunburnt and my muscles ache. The wound itself is ugly and sore. Apart from the irritation of the discomfort I am feeling decidedly weak and apathetic. The consequence is that I’m now staying at home, not working and taking the time to rest. The Mexican government and a global pandemic has failed to slow me down but some poisonous tree dwelling caterpillar or spider has done a splendid job.

So as much as there is the ever-present nagging guilt to get super fit, read books, learn a language and stay productive I am focusing my now considerably reduced motivation into just being. Being here now. Wish me luck.

Staying at least as sane as we once were ….. maybe

Jungle Journal

I hit dead people ….

March 27, 2020March 27, 2020
by Beave

We are all watching the world go mad and our interaction with it change. It’s mind bending. Just a few short weeks ago things were their own version of normal. It seems like a long time ago already. Let’s go back a little.

We have replaced the roof on the outdoor kitchen that has become a rain drain. When the rains came somehow, we managed to get significantly wetter underneath the roof than in the open!? The process of rebuild involves knitting halved palm leaves together. Simple enough but the make-shift scaffold that was constructed to make this happen was something to behold. One ginger gringo throwing up huge palm leaves to two Mexicans balanced on a couple of ladders, breeze blocks and 4x4s. It was wince inducing even to look at it. Gladly no accidents and no injuries. We have a new roof.

Knitting a palm roof on a highly janky scaffold

Jayne has been working hard all year and for at least three days a week she is set up in her office bed wrangling folk in Canada from her phone and laptop. I am taking up an avoidance strategy and leave the house early to get stuff done. I return on occasions to throw tea and cake at her but have a good amount of unsupervised time. The result of this and having the boys working full time is proving productive.

The jungle has a new resident. When Pauly departed he renamed the jungle cabin No.22 after his favorite number. No.22 did not stay empty for long. Our dear friend Sasha has taken residence. He is a fine human and we all rub along very nicely so it’s a blessing.

No.22 La Colina The Jungle Nayarit Mexico

Sasha at No.22 Photo credit : John Curley

Our yoga deck has been left alone for too long. It gets some serious attention. The front area has now been tiled. The concrete roof supports have had marbles set into fine concrete work and look splendid. The pathway up to the deck is now clear of spikey things and a river rock floor has been laid. Stone walls will now direct water away from where we don’t want it and also form a small deck garden which we have planted.

We are fortunate enough to have a huge vivero (plant shop) not too far away with thousands of strange and wonderful growing things to choose from. It’s crazy cheap to fill up the Sub and fill up our beds. The gardens are looking impressive.

Another otherwise neglected area is coming alive. In front of the Mariposa cabaña is a strip of clay earth where we have failed to grow much. It was held up by the wooden block centers from the palm trees we used to build. Over time these have disintegrated and it started to look pretty ropey. The boys came to the rescue. Using cement and blocks spare from the kitchen build to create a retaining wall. This allowed the space to back fill with good earth from the river to create a fertile spot. We planted with pretty things and added water. In less than a week the pineapples that had stubbornly failed to fruit burst into life. We now have eight of them all competing with each other. Pineapples are certainly in our future.

New retaining wall ready for some artwork

The people have spoken. We are nagged into arranging another of our jungle dinners. Our French chef agrees and I begin taking stock of the things we need. It has been sometime since we last did this and inevitably we have lost a few things. We need more plates, more glasses, more cutlery. The rains have destroyed some things we unwisely left outside. We need more chairs for sure. I spend my unsupervised days restocking. I buy a load of cheap raw wood and wicker chairs and soak them in diesel to repel the termites before staining and waterproofing them.

We lay the huge tables, set up the chairs. Jayne is arranging fresh flowers when she gets a message that stops her in her tracks. Jayne’s best UK friend Katherine has committed suicide. We have known that Kat has been struggling for some time and have been encouraging her to come and spend time with us here but she didn’t make it. It’s the worse news. She was such a truly lovey person. I met Jayne and Kat together five years ago in the deserts of Aragon in Spain. Jayne is in shock and absolutely distraught.

Despite the news we prepare ourselves as best we can and with a lot of help from fabulous friends the dinner is done and a very good evening it was too. All our usual guests were present. 22 long term residents of San Pancho. Many of these fine folks are older than most. As it turns out this would be their last authorised socializing for a while.

The morning after the dinner Jayne flies to Toronto to wrangle folk face to face for two weeks. She hasn’t slept and is struggling with grief. Jayne, as always, doesn’t want to leave the jungle but on the plus side it does give me a whole two weeks unsupervised. It takes me the entire day to clean up after the dinner. I have never washed and polished so many glasses. Jayne finally arrives in Toronto late and exhausted and kindly sends me a picture from her bath eating takeaway Thai food. She is fully aware that those are two things I miss madly.

Tomatina bar hosts an afternoon of music in Lo De Marcos a short trip up the highway. We are blessed to have a large number of excellent proper talented local musicians. A bunch of them have formed a band. An extraordinary girl with a stunning voice is backed up by sax, guitar, keyboard, drums and trumpet. It’s a very fine afternoon of food , music and margaritas by the beach. The place is packed with a large contingent from San Pancho and retired Canadians from the adjoining trailer park. It ends well and just after sunset I’m given a lift back to the Pemex petrol station in San Pancho where I have left my car. It’s a short drive back to the jungle from there avoiding any real roads.

It may not be a complete surprise to know that I have had some very embarrassing moments in my life. What happens next is up there as one of the most painful. In my defense, the one thing we learned about our beloved Toyota Cruiser Sub is that it is almost impossible to reverse safely. The spare wheel obscures the rear window and the width of the thing make the side mirrors next to useless. Every owner we have spoken to tell us stories of reversing into things regularly. To mitigate this issue, we installed a reverse camera and a screen to help make things less dangerous.

Aware of the difficulties I slowly reverse out of the parking spot. It’s dark and my vision through the camera screen is partially blocked by a tent shade right next to me. There is a sudden jolt and it’s clear that I have hit something. I jump out the sub and am confronted with a terrifying sight. I have somehow managed to smash into the back of a hearse. Around the hearse are a collection of distraught mourners. All of them are glowering at me in horror and wailing that I have hit their dead mother!!! I am in shock. I almost can’t believe it. I start to apologise profusely to everyone, including the corpse, crossing myself and holding my hands together in shameful prayer. One of the sons takes pity on me. Hands me the wheel cover that has fallen off and allows me to remove myself from the scene. I have never been more grateful. I leave as quickly and carefully as I can.

Now this situation may be bad enough but somehow things get worse. I reverse myself around the hearse and at that very moment an invisible milk truck parks behind me and I hit the side of it. I jump out of the Sub again. The milk guys jump out of their cab and we meet up to examine the damage. It’s only a slight dent but I throw 500 pesos at them which they happily accept as recompense. This further deeply awkward nightmare is watched by the mourners who have all gathered to gawk at me. They are deciding amongst themselves if I am drunk or high or just a complete bloody moron. I accept that I am indeed a moron and drive home slightly traumatised and in absolute shame.

The pool party that was cancelled due to rainstorm at the end of January is rescheduled and after some weeks of effort our pool is looking clean and ready for anything. Some credit must be given to our newest investment that we had smuggled into the country. Hagrid is our new pool robot. Sexy looking thing which trawls the pool collecting debris and climbs the walls giving them a scrubbing on the way. The crew from Tomatina beach bar have wanted to come out and see where we live for a long time. Sasha is the bar manager there. They close up and head junglewards. We BBQ and swim in the pool and enjoy the silence. The construction machines have stopped for the public holiday. It’s a welcome break.

And then the world changes. We no longer all meet up for sunset. The pub closes. Tomatina closes. The tourists all leave. Trump finally wakes up a bit. Boris is doing his best Winston Churchill impressions. Italy loses staggering amounts of its people every day. It is now without doubt that Miley Cyrus (coronavirus) is a serious thing. How many ventilators are there in Nayarit? There are a disproportionate number of vulnerable retirees here to add to the large indigenous elderly population.

Jayne’s time in Toronto is not as she expected. She is there to interview dozens of companies at her Toronto office. Within days of arriving all meetings are cancelled; the office is shut down and she is working from her phone and laptop in her hotel room. Her employer’s absolute resolve to discourage her working from home has not worked out well for them. Everyone is now working from home. Except Jayne who is now far from home. She is making the best of it.

We rearrange her flight as soon as we can to get her home. It’s not till midweek. Jayne makes the best of it and meets her very good friend Isabelle who visits her for the weekend from Quebec. In order to make this visit Isabelle has to agree to work from home for two weeks on her return. They have a strange few days being the only ones in many restaurants and wandering the deserted streets of ghost town Toronto. Things are getting very real very quickly.

Jayne arrives at the almost entirely empty airport in Toronto for her flight home. The flight is not cancelled despite it being the first direct flight all week to Mexico having a total of six passengers. The crew tell her that the flight is overbooked on the way back with escaping Canadians so thankfully they have to go. I pick her up at the airport. We are both mightily relieved she got home under the wire as airlines are grounded and borders closed. We head to the posh supermarket on the way home and buy all the things we need for 14 days quarantine in the treehouse. We send pictures of the mountains of pasta, rice and toilet paper we have here to our jealous friends around the world. Mexico is way behind the curve in preparing for the crisis ahead but all shops are fully stocked, there is no panic buying.

We are now in quarantine in our treehouse listening the falling copomo nuts loudly smashing into the roof and balcony. We are together and so far, healthy and wanting for nothing. We are immensely grateful for our good fortune as we watch the world shut down and life as we know it change. We are look forward to sharing again when we all meet up on the other side of this. However that may look.

This is the eulogy that Jayne wrote for our dear friend Katherine.

Last week one of my best friends, Katherine Stewart, died. ?

It has hit me very hard, and reminds me how important it is to be grateful for every day and to take care of each other.

Kat and I met as two young, single ladies seeking our fortune in the big, lonely metropolis that is London. We soon discovered that we were kindred spirits and became great friends and had many adventures over those years in London.

We travelled… We went to Paris, Berlin, Italy, Thailand, Spain, Turkey and more. Katherine was one of the rare and precious people who I could travel well with for long periods of time.

We played Ultimate Frisbee, we skied, we windsurfed, we camped, we danced, we drank wine, we cooked & baked! We shared a love of food and cake and cheese and often cooked for each other.

She celebrated my 25th birthday with me, and then helped plan the lavish masquerade ball I held for my 30th. She and I loved dressing up, costumes, bright colours, funky shoes…

Kat lived with me for a few months in Greenwich when she was buying her flat, and then decorating it with her incredible unique style.

We witnessed each other’s love lives, acted as wing women, cheerleaders and shoulders to cry on. We were there for each other. We joked that it was a shame we weren’t lesbians because then we could just marry each other and live happily ever after.

I moved away to ride the Americas on my motorbike, but we stayed in touch, and when I came back to visit London I always stayed with Katherine and we always fell right back into our effortless friendship as though we had never been apart.

We went to Spain to Nowhere, the European Burning Man, together. Katherine is my only friend who was there with me when I met Beave.

It wasn’t only me who moved away… Most of our London friends left London, fell in love, had children… And Katherine started, very slowly, to become consumed by darkness – it was just a bit harder to cope with the stresses and get back up when life knocked her down. Mediation helped, as did cake and chatting to friends, but the darkness was there in the background creeping in.

Katherine stayed in London’s gloom, working at unfulfilling, stressful jobs and searching for, and not finding, the right partner to share the highs and lows of life with.

Kat recognised the mental health issues she was facing and she sought help. Counselling, anti-depressants, therapy, CBT and other therapies all were tried. She did everything right. Just like so many other diseases, sometimes the treatment doesn’t cure you.

We saw each other when we could, going to occasional festivals or events together and spending a few days together at my house or her flat – we even went to a cottage in Norfolk for a few days together.

I moved to Mexico and over the past few years Katherine’s mental health gradually declined – the darkness settled in. Kat kept fighting though. Each time I asked Katherine told me that she “wasn’t recovering but she had high hopes for the next few months” or that although she couldn’t see the path to being well again, her therapist could.

I kept trying to convince her to come to the jungle, to get out of the isolation of being alone in a huge city – to spend some time with people who love her, in nature and sunshine. She said over and over that she would come, but couldn’t yet. I offered to buy her plane ticket, to make all the arrangements, but the darkness had taken hold, and she couldn’t even contemplate getting to the airport, never mind all the way to Mexico. But she kept fighting, kept trying new therapists, kept trying to find her lost mojo, to stop feeling so very tired.

Last week Katherine sent me a message out of the blue; “Sending love to sunny Mexico x” I replied but did not get another message in return.

It was the last I ever heard from her, her goodbye message to me. Shortly afterwards that darkness that she had been fighting for so long won and took her from us all.

It is nearly inconceivable that my Katherine, the strong, independent, capable, bright, laughing, dancing whirlwind whom I love so dearly could get to such a low, dark, terrible place where to go on living was no longer an option for her.

I certainly did not think that she was in that place. I naively still believed that she would be well enough to come to Mexico soon. To come to heal, to laugh.

I keep telling myself that she is now at peace, and no longer hurting or fighting the darkness or trying to be strong.

In 2018 Katherine’s school friend Liz committed suicide and Kat sent me this message about it:

“The celebrant at Liz’s funeral said it was just her body that was gone and she would live on in our hearts and minds. We are just all trying to make sense of it happening and inevitably trying to think how we could have prevented it. Pointless of course, it happened and we have to accept it. So very very sad and final.”

I am trying to take some kind of solace in that message, to do as Kat said we must, and not feel that I should have prevented it, to find some way to “accept it”.

Katherine will, of course, always live on in my (broken) heart and my mind as my dear friend, the strong, vibrant, independent, active, clever, funny, loyal, beautiful woman she was. I shall never forget her. In fact, at the moment I don’t know how I will get through the grief and shock of losing her. But get through it I will. The tears will dry, the pain will fade to a dull ache, Katherine will take up residence in my heart, and life will go on.

Mental illness is no joke my friends. Take it seriously and be kind to yourself and others. Visit your friends who are struggling – they may not be capable of coming to you.

I love you and I am here for you. ❤️

Jayne

Jungle Journal

Bees, Bribes and a touch of Silence

February 20, 2020February 20, 2020
by Beave

It’s been some months since our bees were scared away by a particularly impressive lightning storm. We have had our feelers out ever since to attract a queen to our newly refurbished bee homes. There is talk of a swarm causing some issues in a large mansion on top of the highest hill in San Pancho. There is further talk of destroying them so we decide to intervene. It has been agreed that we go along and attempt to save the swarm by relocating the queen to the jungle. We arrive as the sun goes down when the bees gather together for the night and are relatively calm.

The mansion is huge with very high ceilings and unfeasibly large glass windows. A British guy and his 2-year-old daughter are renting the place. They breakfast outside every morning and have bees falling out the light fittings above their heads constantly. We find a ladder, set fire to the smoker and suit up. The swarm is hidden from sight in the upper eves of the house and the only access we can find is via the tiled roof. Its precarious and somewhat hilarious. We are fully suited up with limited mobility and very poor visibility. We find ourselves in the dark, inelegantly balanced on loose roof tiles on top of the highest house in the town. What could possibly go wrong?

We hold onto each other for a modicum of safety as we lay flat on the sloped roof so as not to break the clay tiles or slip off and end up at the bottom of the hill some hundred feet below. The swarm is large and only accessible by pushing a gloved hand through a hole in the wall into the mass of bee bodies in an attempt to locate the queen. It’s during this process that the bees sense something is not quite right and start taking an unwelcome interest in us.

Handfuls of confused bees have been shoved into a black bin liner which they clearly dislike. The buzzing noise inside the suit is loud and we feel a few stings on less protected areas. It has become clear that the queen is very smart and has hidden herself deep in the cavities between the roof and the outside wall. It’s a mission impossible to be able to reach her without destroying large sections of mansion. We release the ungrateful bees from our bag and abandon our positions. We transverse the roof as quickly and cautiously as possible followed by a large number of rather pissed off bees. We smoke each other until the bees back off a bit and all arrive back on the ground thankfully safe. We need to find a better plan to encourage queeny to come out and be captured. More research required. We console ourselves with tequila and engage in a spontaneous game of ping pong in the mansion basement.

Time has overtaken us again and Pauly and Emma are heading back to the frozen UK. We are grateful for their company and their efforts. Emma’s agricultural engineering department leaves us with three newly restored garden areas. Pauly has left us a repaired and well tested jungle jeep along with kitchens doors and Yorkshire Gold tea.

After dropping them off at the airport I head home through a busy area with way too many traffic lights. Stopping at lights here is quite entertaining. There are the usual car window sellers who will try and persuade you that what you need more than anything else in the world is a large map of Mexico, bin liners or a plastic mobile phone holder. While ignoring these temptations there is often some skinny lad painted silver balancing on a rolling log with one leg while spinning a football on the other while juggling machetes with a further football on his hat and another on his chin. It’s impressive stuff. All that effort for a few pesos. The lights change and I throw coins into the silver guy’s hat while accelerating away. I notice some pretty lights behind me and it takes me a while to realise they are for my benefit. The traffic police have decided to stop me for a chat. I struggle to stop the car and surreptitiously remove all the cash from my wallet and hide it under the seat. Guests have just paid me a bunch of cash and I can’t have them see it and get any ideas.

I wind down the window and explain to the podgy face under an official looking hat that my Spanish is still in process but I will do my best to cooperate. He takes off his sunglasses and tells me that not only was I travelling way too fast but I had jumped a red light. It is clear that I did not jump a light and that it is unlikely that I was speeding. The game begins. He tells me that he needs to confiscate my driving license until I return to the local police station and pay both my fines. I ask him if he would do me a great favour and save me some time by accepting the fine from me in cash right now. He pretends to think about it. He tells me that each offence carry’s a fine of 3600 pesos. That’s a total fine of 7200 pesos please. That’s 300 quid or 400 dollars. Cheeky twat. I manage to keep a relatively straight face. He is prepared on this one occasion to accept cash from me and he will return my license. I know that the actual fines are a fraction of this and so am prepared to let him keep my license if it comes to it. I explain that I am but a poor gringo despite the Toyota and don’t have anywhere near that amount of cash with me. I show him my newly emptied wallet and the 650 pesos within. I empty it on the passenger seat and give him a “take it or leave it” look. He exchanges a knowing glance with his partner and begrudgingly throws me back my license and takes the cash.

EntreAmigos is the local community centre that is does amazing things. It’s been running for many years offering education, recycling., library and support for families and children in the area. They promote ecological consciousness within the community offering workshops and classes all year. We are all rather proud of the work they do and want to support them in any way we can. Most of the funding required to keep things happening is raised in one single evening. The great and good and naughty of San Pancho gather for this fundraising evening. We are invited to join friends seated at a table. Tickets to this event are eye wateringly expensive but we agree as it’s for a very good cause.

The whole event including all food, cooks, staffing and auction items are provided by donation, sponsorship or volunteers. I am required to help set up in the morning. The venue is an almost over the top beautiful beach front club with infinity pools and stunning heavy wood chairs and tables. It’s these hundred or so chairs and tables that it is my job to remove. It’s sweaty work but we are all in good spirits. Whales are rising off shore as they head South. We watch them as we work. The event itself is very well attended and a great success. Great food, music, and dancing. The auction raises over $10k alone. There is a satisfying community feeling of a job well done.

Despite the minor irritation of the highway construction team nearly killing our friends with their latest explosion it appears that they want to give it another go. On this occasion, they give us fair warning and install a lady with a sign at our gate to prevent anyone coming within range. This time the explosion is less of a surprise and the rocks fall a little short of us.

The engineers have assured us that they will not be on our doorstep for long. Since the New Year we have had machines smashing their way noisily through the jungle every day. Only after our complaints about them trying to kill us did they stop the night shift. It is somewhat ironic that we are disturbed by the shrill electronic scream of reversing heavy machinery. One of my first ever jobs was to introduce reverse alarms to the UK. Reverse Alarm was the first company I set up and the first product I designed and manufactured. I am responsible for the existence of tens of thousands of these bloody awful things. I’m finding it difficult to blame anyone else for our current suffering.

Two sets of guests have had to cut their stay short due to lack of sleep. It will be sometime next month that the big machines move away from us. We then get some respite from the horrible din until the next lot turn up to actually lay the highway. Maybe 6 months away we hope. When the thing is actually completed we are not expecting much intrusion at all. It will be another little used toll road which is thankfully fairly incline free so we won’t be subject to the horror which is airbrakes. When the night is still we can hear the fart of airbrakes from the hill into San Pancho. That’s near enough.

Businesses in the area have all raised their games (and prices) in the past few years to service the growing tourist market here. We are blessed with outstanding Mexican food, fresh seafood and more recently some more traditional steak & burger offerings for the well-heeled Canadians and Americans. There are a couple of missing elements. We would just about kill for a good Ruby. (Ruby Murray was a popular Irish singer in the 40s and 50s and her name is commonly used as slang for curry in certain parts of the UK. ) There has been a general lack of Asian food in the area. Jayne has even been giving cooking lessons in making Indian style curries as an attempt to fill the void. In recent weeks, our lives have been significantly improved by a couple of new restaurants we have found. One is a Thai place that can actually offer authentic versions of classic Thai dishes. The other is a Moroccan offering with extraordinary delicious babaganoush and slow cooked lamb. Both these places are in Sayulita which is usually a bit too busy for us and best avoided. This changes things. Too tempting not to make the 10-minute drive down the highway and endure 30 minutes finding a parking spot.

We have been nagged for many months to burn something on a beach again. It’s about time so we agree and set a date and forget about it for a while. Time has a way of getting away from you if you’re not paying attention and we realise that somehow it’s already February! Planning for this event has been notable by its absence. There has been talk of creating a wall …… but gringos building walls in Mexico doesn’t seem right somehow. There has been talk of constructing bridges … but gringos burning bridges may give the wrong message. We always have our trusted Coconut Lady Man symbol to fall back on. We have decided to play things by ear and allow a “design” to evolve. We start the process of collecting wood and tools while roping as many people into help as we can.

The word is out and there is good level of enthusiasm which manifests into a solid crew of helping hands. We pile up all the wood, grab some string and a few tools and open the beer cooler. We set about creating our wall/bridge/Coconut Lady Man hybrid. The following day we load up a convoy of vehicles and head for the beach. We drag huge lumps of drift wood and add it to the pyre. We balance our make shift bridge on top. We dig into the sand a series of large wooden cut out letters that spell the word JUNTOS which is Spanish for “together” . We throw up a palm wall and erect our Coconut LadyMan. Design complete. The theory is that the wall will burn down very quickly revealing our bridge and the fire will glow through the cutout letters overlooked by the Coconut LadyMan which will burn last. That’s the theory anyway.

We have had a call from the local batala samba drumming group who turn up in force and start things off. When they play the drum the people come. As the sun drops slowly in the afternoon sky people start arriving. We are at the very far North end of the beach so it’s a good walk from the town of Lo De Marcos. More people arrive. By the time the sun is hitting the water and we are ready to burn there are over 150 people of all ages. It’s a good mix of locals, gringos and a few tourists. Probably twice the number who made it last year.

We fuel up the structure perhaps a touch enthusiastically as our carefully thought out burn plan evaporates as the thing bursts immediately into flame. The walls do indeed burn quickly and reveal the letters and the bridge. Almost all the letters glow spelling out the word JUNTO which is actually a 17^th century British political faction but we assume that no one will figure that out. The bridge falls followed by our magnificent LadyMan whose coconuts burned off rather rapidly. The whole crowd watch the whole burn in absolute silence. It was a great spectacle for everyone and very emotional for some. There is magic in that silence.

We danced around the fire until late into the night. Thankfully everyone was incredibly respectful of the environment and took all their things back with them. The next morning there was not a single beer can or spot of trash. The official environmental assessment after the event was that we left the place in better shape than we found it. That’s a very good thing. Gives us great hope and inspiration for next time.

YOU are indeed exactly where you are supposed to be

Jungle Journal

Tarantulas, Kitchens & All the Rocks

February 10, 2020
by Beave

We eventually reappear in town after our New Year adventures. Many large Mexican families have spent many hours on buses to drag heavy coolers, kids & granny to our paradise beach for their New Year holiday in an undersized tent. The mad rains have somewhat scuppered them of any chance of fun or sleep. There are queues of buses at the end of town loading up long lines of tired, miserable and very soggy kids and grannies. Beside them is a growing pile of sodden undersized tents and discarded coolers. It’s a depressing scene.

The sun returns and restores our energy and brightens our outlook. Jayne is back at work 3 days a week and that leaves me unsupervised. It’s apparent that we need to make some plans to keep me out of trouble. We agree to get stuff done. It‘s about time.

With Jayne working we can restart investing time and resources. Two very handy local boys have just completed months of work at our friend’s new build house and are available. Julio & Jorge are now our latest crew members. Five days a week. 7 hours a day. Emma & Pauly are with us for another month too so we set ourselves some tasks.

We have a number of challenges daily. The hillside where the treefall happened is one of them. It is, to say the least, treacherous. It’s a jumble of loose block steps, rebar, roots and either dust or mud depending on the season. When we need to climb up to the solar panels or the water tinacos it’s a relief that we make it without incident. One of these days it’s not going to end well. The boys have decided to remove a great chunk of this danger from our lives. They are going to make a proper staircase up to the very top of the hill made from river rocks. It’s a good few hundred feet of steep incline. It’s a formidable task.

A friend in town, Ferdy, is also looking for work so we decide to explore the prospect of creating garden areas and actually planting things that we will look after and protect from being eaten by the ants. Emma has skills and takes on the role of “agricultural engineering lead” and works with Ferdy to clear some land and create stone ringed beds. During a banana collecting expedition to one of the corners of the land we find a hidden wall. A few hundred machete strokes later and a path is revealed that takes us to a, up to now unexplored, section of land and a new route down to the river. This is inspiring as it has opened up a large new area which we name “the secret garden”.

Days are spent collecting unfeasibly large rocks from the river to create stairs and surround beds and newly planted trees. The boys bring us seemingly endless truckloads of soil which we use to cover layers of carefully collected leaves, wood, sifted compost and branches to create hugelkulture piles. The idea is the organic waste holds moisture and breaks down delivering nutrients to the soil over time.

A few truckloads of fermenting horse shit arrive and is mixed with more soil. We cover all the beds with cardboard to discourage undergrowth and cover everything with the soil/shit mix. We take large amounts of brush away and cull many of the over hanging plants and branches which lets light into the area for the first time in many years. We also apply rings of natural diatomaceous earth This stuff is created from the crushed shells of fossilized diatoms to form a fine powder consisting of incredibly sharp edges that will penetrate an ant’s body

During our clearing and digging we uncover a number of good size tarantula spiders. They appear to be living just below the surface. We haven’t seen so many up to now. We manage to relocate them to the more remote areas. They are not so dangerous to humans but they use their hair as a weapon. They can fire out hairs from their body which causes pain, irritation and swelling. I discovered this many years ago in a coffee plantation in the Dominican Republic. My hand looked like a catcher’s mitt for a week.

It takes many hard days of preparation before we can with any confidence give anything we plant a fighting chance of survival. We have been collecting plants for weeks and months and finally comes the satisfying process of planting and relocating trees.

While we have been entirely preoccupied with the gardens the boys have slowly and steadily perfected the art of river rock staircase building. The rocks that are being lifted from the riverbed and carried up the slope are huge and unbelievably heavy. It’s back breaking work but it’s looking magnificent and it entirely practical. What used to take a death defying age to transverse is now an easy scramble.

They have also ripped out the janky rotten wood planks onto which we climbed to open the solar house door and drag out the generator. That was another task that was bound to end in tears one day. They have been replaced with the largest and heaviest stones to make a solid staircase on which we and the generator are safe from disaster.

Our upgrade from a janky termite ridden plank

We are currently living in a small cloud of melty deet. Deet is the less than lovely ingredient in the most vicious of mosquito repellents and actually melts clothing and removes paints and dyes from stuff. It does keep the tiger mosquitos away and that at the moment is all important. Dengue fever, which the little bugger is responsible for, has become very common around us in recent weeks. Many people we know have been felled. It’s not pretty. Worst headaches, no energy and achy flu symptoms. It can get worse with haemorrhaging from eyes and ears but there have been very few cases like that thankfully. Can last months. We are stocking up on papaya leaves and coconut water which blended together reduce the symptoms significantly. Despite our preparations it’s clouds of deet for us. We can live with melty shoes.

This an anatomically accurate drawing of the Dengue virus.

San Pancho has very active turtle protection programs and we find out that a release of nurtured baby turtles is happening on the beach at sunset. We head down to check it out. The sunset is particularly pretty and we gather next to five channels of sand raked smooth into what look like race lanes. Over 70 baby turtles are placed at the “start”. It’s vital that these tiny creatures make the struggle to the water without much assistance. It’s the struggle that activates the survival instinct required when they hit the ocean. Without it they don’t make it. Some race off and are gone in minutes. Some take a lot more coaxing. There are a few sneaky side bets on our favorites. Eventually the waves carry then all away. In future years the females that survive will return to this very spot to lay their eggs. We all hope that this beach survives the pressures from developers to make that possible. We are working on it.

74 turtles in a box. Photo credit: John Curley

Lane 3 the fastest : Photo credit John Curley

While gardens and stairs have been preoccupying our days Pauly has quietly and skillfully ripped out and replaced the entire kitchen in the jungle cabin that had become too rotten to live with. The scaffold and cement frame wood we rescued from our friend’s house build was recycled (sanded and treated) into a kitchen. It’s all natural wood, varnish and tiles. It’s a cracking job. Great improvement.

Jungle cabin Kitchen in fairly urgent need of an upgrade.

Not a termite in sight . Our first spanking new kitchen .

We like the idea of recycling wood so make a point of returning to our friendly building sites and claim as much raw wood as we can. We have quite a stock so make further plans. It’s about time our treehouse had some attention.

Not to be outdone by Pauly and the new jungle cabin kitchen the boys have taken on the task of ripping out the wooden outdoor kitchen at the brick sh*t house. It’s done its job but is looking a bit termite bitten and also needs an upgrade. We decide to use our boy’s local skills and create a Mexican style concrete kitchen. Worktop, walls, floor and shelves all poured and polished concrete. Looks great and lasts forever. A few weeks work but absolutely worth the effort.

Not to be outdone by fancy concrete work Pauly takes on the challenge and entirely upgrades the kitchen in the treehouse. Wood is skillfully recycled at great speed. The whole new kitchen re-model includes an entire shelving system where previously there were none. A new bespoke unit for the water jug, raw natural parota shelves on the window and a brand new medieval style internal door. There is also the addition of a set of rather splendid wooden drawers so that Jaynes infamous floor-drobe has a new home. She is beyond delighted.

Our new front door that actually closes !

Jayne’s life has had a further and significant upgrade. We have two angelic girls who visit us twice a week and clean stuff! Despite my own fastidious organizing, cleanliness and seemingly endless tidying there is still much to do. Jayne is not famous for her tidiness and cleaning is perhaps her least favorite activity ever. Our need to provide clean places to rent out and regularly change sheets has been a constant source of misery. Our own treehouse has been in need of a thorough clean most days. Humidity and apathy are not a good mix. The kitchen upgrades were actually demanded by the girls who couldn’t work out how we could be living in such disorganized chaos. Fair point.

The wonderful kitchen goddess at the Cerveceria has been called away as her pregnant daughter and her mother both have Dengue. The call to arms is sounded and Jayne answers. For a number of long nights, I am forced to sit at the bar all night “supporting” Jayne as she cooks burgers and pours pints. Everything goes very smoothly. I am obviously very good at supporting.

We have made a plan for a road trip to find the legendary 2000-year-old Petroglyphs that we have heard exist not so far from us. It’s Emma’s birthday which we take as a great excuse. There are 13 of us. We load up an old painted VW bus and the sub and head for the hills. This process takes many hours as we discover the Mexican ability to fanny about is quite extraordinary. Toilet stops, snack stops, stops for stops sake. A trip which