Burning Man Archives - La Colina Project

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

Dusty distractions

September 27, 2019September 27, 2019
by Beave

DIt has been said that I am nothing if I am not generous with my time. The much loved Cerveceria which is our only purveyor of pints for some distance is shutting for the season. There is beer left that it would be unwise and rude to leave in the kegs. My presence is requested to help solve this issue. It took a lot of effort and an entire night of drinking, gambling and dancing to achieve this. Our host is grateful for our efforts. We lock the door and contemplate with some sadness the loss of our “pub” and the pint free months ahead

Can never see the Ceveceria logo the same again.

There is a chink of hope that we can persuade someone to feed us and supply cold beers for the Summer season. It’s a mission as the heat is crippling, staff are hard to find and there are very few tourist dollars. It is considered wise for ones sanity to take a few months off before the season kicks in again non-stop for 8 months. For these entirely reasonable reasons August, September and October are dormant months here with very few places open. There are a handful of fine traditional places serving locals with proper Mexican delights but nothing much in terms of bars. The concept of a pub which gives the community a place to meet and talk nonsense is not so much a thing here.

There is a special bar on the beach in Lo De Marcos which is 8 miles north of us. It offers good food and a large number of yellow fizzy cold beers. The crew are fabulous and the location is outstanding. The sea is calm, tempting and yards from the bar. There is the added bonus of an onshore breeze that cools you down beautifully if you stay very still on your strategically placed bar stool. It’s worth the trouble to make the journey North. If we keep turning up they are more likely to stay open.

On one such day I am floating in the sea slightly disappointed that the temperature of the water appears warmer than the air. The large grey Pelicans fly a few feet above our heads occasionally diving close by scattering fish that collide with us in their rush to escape. I head for the shore dragging my feet through the sand. The lure of a cold yellow fizzy beer and a breeze to sit in is just too much. I’m a few yards from the beach when something hits me. Not in a good way. It feels like I have had a hot nail hammered into my foot. On further examination, it becomes apparent that I have been stung by a Manta Ray. There has been some rain which attracts them to shallow waters. One of them was irritated by being disturbed and stuck his stingy bit deep into me leaving an impressive hole.

My attempts to be a big brave boy are hampered by the blistering eye watering pain which does not get any better, even after a prescribed tequila and a few cold yellow fizzy beers. A very lovely and suitably concerned local girl tells us where there is a patch of plants near the shoreline with distinctive large green leaves. Our Australian is dispatched to collect some. They are then steeped in hot water. My foot is placed in a bowl of this slightly stinky green leaf tea. To my great relief the pain dissipates very quickly. I’m good as gold within minutes. We ask our wise new friend what the leaves are called for future reference. They are a traditional native medicine she tells us. The local name for them is Curamantaray ….. of course.

My attacker. Perhaps not entirely to scale.

Incredibly our jungle jeep is at the stage where our good mechanic is eventually happy to allow me to drive it. I only have a few days before I’m heading North so I arrange to collect the beast and test drive her for a day or two and return it for any required modifications while I am away. It’s looking pretty and immediately attracts a considerable amount of attention. There is no roll bar yet and no seat belts so I take it very easy. I get almost 10 miles before it splutters and cuts out. I am very lucky and manage to glide the thing off the highway onto a rare bit of side road. I would have had nowhere to go and been totally buggered (on one of the most dangerous roads I know) if it had cut out anywhere in the previous 3 miles.

There is much fiddling with leads and battery as I bake in the hard sun. My first mistake was not to have a hat, sun screen or sun glasses in a vehicle with no roof. Lesson learnt. The gods are with me today as I loaded a can of petrol. The petrol gauge is showing a quarter tank but I am suspicious. Sure, enough after a refill she starts up like a champion and I’m on my way to the nearby Pemex for a fill up. Second lesson learnt.

The “Spanker” at Tomatina Bar & Restaurant

I make it to the beach at Lo De Marcos and grab a drink at our new local. The beast looks the part but needs some work. There are a few too many rattles and driving it at any speed does make one feel somewhat vulnerable. It’s when I steer off the highway that things become interesting. The spring suspension has had the benefit of some hydraulic additions which have made the ride noticeably solid. The journey to La Colina is very slow and eventful. It’s a tadge bumpy. I can describe every rock and divot by feel. My bum-bone appears to be hitting the top of my head. I park near the pool and get out slowly. I’m walking funny. My spine is knotted and my arse feels bruised and sore. This thing could be the end of me. Slowly spanked to death. Modifications are indeed required.

The time has come. I’m on my way out of my hot wet jungle to hot arid Reno to prepare all the many things required to allow us to survive in the dust of the Black Rock Desert for the coming weeks ahead. My lists of things to do in the next week are long and terrifying. I am meeting Jayne in 4 days. We intend to be leaving the delights of Reno almost immediately afterwards to collect our junk filled trailer which we haven’t seen in two years and then live in it for a number of weeks in an impressively inhospitable environment. No pressure.

The Growler : Our janky old trailer stored at Pyramid Lake .

The Black Rock Desert is a thousand square miles and sits at 4000 feet. The playa is a lake for many months of the year but when the heat starts to get very silly it dries up to a salt flat. This is one of the few places where land speed records are attempted as it is so level and featureless. It’s tough to avoid the effects of altitude and severe dehydration on the body as the salt in the air draws moisture away from the skin and breath. I don’t sweat out there. It’s zero humidity. That said the temperatures often reach well over 100ºF during the day and can dip below freezing once the sun sets. Dust storms are a normal occurrence, and in whiteout conditions, winds often reach around 70mph. There are few living things out there on the playa. No birds in the sky, no plant life to speak of and if there are some poor unfortunate bugs or creatures found they are usually imported from visiting vehicles or reluctantly blown in on the wind. .

All the temperature and non of the humidity

For reasons best left to myth and mystery this is the chosen venue for the Burning Man event. A temporary commerce free city is created for a population of around 70 000 for one week. Money is not a thing in Black Rock City as the only things you can buy are ice at two places and in one location coffee. It’s a gift economy. Bring everything you need and give away what you can . It’s the 4^th biggest city in Nevada for one week of the year and attracts a stunning concentration of art alongside extraordinarily diverse creativity. After the event participants are required to take everything they brought with them back with them. When the legendary playa restoration teams are finished there is no sign that anyone was there. A true “leave no trace” event.

This is the 13^th time I have been involved with Burning Man in Nevada. My “burn-mitzvah”. This is a clear indicator that the event still holds enough of an attraction to me that I am prepared to invest the considerable amounts of time, resources and gut lining required to be there. It is an environment that tests and refines ones physical & mental stamina. Why I chose to put myself through this is a long story. Years of unique experiences are hard to summarise. How does one explain the unexplainable? I will, however, try and give you a flavour of what captured me in the first place and inspired me enough to keep at it. The photos show art pieces from this year.

I first heard about Burning Man around a campfire at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset UK in 2004. Glastonbury is the largest greenfield music and arts festival in the world. I have been there 27 times so it perhaps suggests I’m a festival junkie of some kind. That year my kids won an O’Neill competition to allow them to surf with pro-surfers in Cornwall the same week as the festival. I was committed to go but I wasn’t going to miss a surf with pros. I arranged to hitch out of the event early morning, join my family on an idyllic Cornish beach and then hitch straight back again.

Later that night I sat in a yurt sauna with my mates discussing highlights of the week. Muse, Oasis, James Brown, Joss Stone, Toots and the Maytals, Franz Ferdinand, Scissor Sisters, Black Eyed Peas and Sister Sledge were memorable enough but for me didn’t beat our day catching clean waves. This woke me up to make a pact with myself to open up to broader experiences rather than being a habitual Glastonbury junkie. Two guys had joined us and heard me babbling on. They agreed , suggested I do things differently and try out Burning Man. It sounded interesting enough but at that time I suspected that it was something I would never do.

The *Head Maze* houses 18 extraordinarily connected art rooms
Artist: Matthew Schultz

The very next year I found myself at Glastonbury again but soon after I took a surf trip in California. The water was cold, the waves sparse and the attitude of my fellow paddlers was aloof and exclusive. Not what I imagined. At my hostel, I received an entirely unexpected and random call from Reno Nevada. A complete stranger called Fred had heard about me from someone I had briefly met the week before in a bar in San Diego. Fred had somehow decided that I was to come to Burning Man. I needed to get to Reno and he would sort out the rest. I remember after the call being marginally more intrigued than confused. Of course, I was going.

Our friend and neighbour in Mexico and his unbelievable art car
*El Pulpo Mecanico* Artist : Duane Flatmo
Photo Credit : Stephane Lanoux

I managed to get to Reno and turned up at what I discovered was The Black Rock International Burner Hostel. A retired teacher from Reno who dedicated his time, his house and his pension to encourage and facilitate people from all over the world to come to Burning Man. I was one of them. After some quick pre-training, finding a bike, a tent, a box of trail bars and as much Gatorade and PBR (Pabs Blue Ribbon) as I could carry I found myself in a car with two girls from Montreal and my new Turkish friend heading out to whatever this thing was. About 4 hours later we arrive on the playa. It’s a few days before the event and the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. The stars were stunning and hypnotic.

I stood next to the car getting checked through a traffic gate with nothing else visible. My eyes were slowly becoming accustomed and caught something moving in the dark. I stared for a long time as the shape of a man running towards me took shape. As he got closer it became apparent that he was a big bloke, hairy, wearing a Viking helmet and absolutely nothing else. His eyes were locked on mine. He was coming at me at some pace and in the process of going for a high five/hug he knocks me to the ground. His face is very close to mine, his eyes wild and wide. He holds my head in his hands and slowly and clearly says to me … if this don’t change your life boy don’t come back…. He then gets up and runs on. I never saw him again.

*“Slonik”* is 23M of elephant that arrived from Moscow
Artist : Michael Tsaturyan

Within a few hours of arriving in the dark I am throwing ropes over structures and bikes on tents as a series of storms hit. I absolutely thought Burning Man was a survival exercise in keeping beer (PBR) cold while not being blown away in a dust storm. That’s certainly a part of it but it was two days later when I woke up in a stinking hot tent that I managed to see further than a few yards away.

I took a walk with one of the Canadian girls and finally understood the scale of where I was. Our little storm blown camp of mainly Kiwis, Brits, Irish and Ozzies was but a tiny part. We walked to an elaborate temple structure. We sat and took stock of the beauty of the building and the overwhelming vastness of the place in which we found ourselves. An older man with a white beard came and sat next to us. He asked us to look into ourselves and find something that would make our hearts sing and ask for it .. out loud. Mine was easy. My surf trip hadn’t really materialised well and I wanted to surf. “Good luck with that” he said…” but you never know.. this place may just surprise you. “

One of my favourite pieces this year made up of slivers of perfectly stacked plywood.
*Mariposita* Artist: Chris Carnabuci

We slowly walked towards where we thought our camp might be. We were lost pretty soon after leaving but lost was a good place to be. We saw it coming from a long way away. An immense wall of dust covering the entire sky to what we guessed was the South. We were armed with already well used scarfs and goggles. When it hit us we could see nothing, we held hands so we didn’t lose each other. The wind was strong but we kept walking very slowly. After a few minutes, a shape emerged and we found a guy on a tricycle who handed us cold PBR . We sat together in that spot in the dust storm until the beers ran out. The air cleared and we noticed the trike was towing a small trailer. On the trailer was a long board on springs. Our new dust storm friend was riding around offering to tow people on a surfboard! We both got to surf the playa gobsmacked.

When you cover 100 steel statues in wax and chuck in a match
*The Mans Army* Artist: Michael Ciulla & The Rave Knights

It would take me a full dissertation to continue this story. Maybe I’ll write it one day but it’s not for now. These first few days at Burning Man truly captured my imagination and led me into a world of endless possibilities. I did listen to my naked viking friends words and have now returned a dozen more times. The very many other strange, humble, skilled, inclusive and magnificent folks I met in 2005 and since have been responsible for seeming constant further adventures. We have, together, created amazing projects large & small in all corners of the world and helped hundreds of curious travellers to experience what would have otherwise have passed them by. For this I am grateful beyond measure.

When a bunch of black powder meets an anvil
Photo credit : John Curley

This year Jayne & I somehow have become staff at the event and have been persuaded to build a media centre and deck, then take it down again and store it in a container. It was hard work but a relatively straight forward project with a good crew which turns out to be fun & drama free. I did manage somehow to stupidly throw a lump of wood through the back window of the truck I was borrowing but I was forgiven. Eventually.

The 38 foot long *Flux Capacitor* Artist: Henry Chang
We were gifted this art car to play with for a fabulous few days and nights.

We camp in our janky trailer next to far better organised friends who are building a very large-scale metal hand that blows propane from fingers that are articulated so they form different hand signals. There was a moment when I was inside the metal forearm during a deafening pyrotechnic show using pulleys to move giant fingers. During a very hot afternoon we had to task of diverting the Bunny March (a herd of hundreds of over excited lunatics dressed as rabbits) away from our crew loading a truck of highly explosive fireworks. Not something that happens to a chap every day.

*I.L.Y* Artist: Dan Mountain and his sexy rock star crew

Of all the many unique moments in 2019 there was one that will stay with me. I visited the Temple this year to leave a message for my Dad. The process of leaving messages and tributes that will burn and be released is one that is a tradition here and in my experience very helpful to very many. . This year the structure was a series of portals in Japanese style. The inside is covered with photos of people who have died along with thousands of messages of love, hope and forgiveness. . I find a bench that has some space left on it and leave my Dad a message. I take along a few slugs of decent single malt Scotch. I take a drink in his honour and pour the rest on the message and leave the bottle for him. It’s emotional as hell but cathartic. I apologise to him that I couldn’t get the 10-year-old Laphroaig Cask Condition Scotch that we always drink together but under the circumstances I’m sure he won’t mind.

The attention to detail on this piece was stunning. Carpentry porn on every wall with dioramas hidden behind pictures . The Folly represents an imaginary shantytown of funky climbable towers and old western storefronts, cobbled together from salvaged and reclaimed lumber.
The Folly Artist: Dave Keane & his epic crew of warriors

A truly gorgeous burn.
Photo Credit: John Curley

We then head off for a treat we have waited for a whole week for. A shower. There is an area called the Wet Spot where hot showers are available for staff. We were given a couple of passes and have saved them for this moment. A shower after a week in the dust is transformative in so many ways. 15 minutes of water has shifted all the muck and for a short time restores the feeling of not being stuck to your pants.

I am lying in the sun drying off when the girl next to me says my name. She recognises me from an event in Wales some years ago and knows many of my mates. We offer her a lift back to her camp in our truck. She is a volunteer doctor from UK who is not licensed to work in Nevada so has been learning to repair bicycles at a free repair shop. She is also an active whisky club aficionado. When she gets back to her camp she appears with a Viking horn and a sample. It’s a full bottle of 10-year-old Laphroaig Cask Conditioned ……..

*The Temple of Direction* flames creating a fire dragon.
Artist :Geordie Van Der Bosch & Temple Crew

Some days after everything has officially finished and all the propane has been burned off we leave a large crew of hard core lunatics restoring the playa to its former unremarkable glory. We store the trailer and make it back to Reno. We have three baths and three showers back to back. We try and find out how many of the hotel towels we can wreck. Jayne takes her flight back to Toronto. I stay on for a day or two to mend the truck window and fill myself with sushi and steaks. It takes a number of zombie days in a Reno Casino to recover enough to fly home.

I’m glad to be in the jungle again. My buddies have looked after the place (and the cats) and everyone has survived. Jayne is expected to be home and in loin cloths again as soon as November so that’s something to look forward to.

I’m back just a few days and my body has entirely changed shape again. I was feeling skinny there for a moment but like a ginger pot noodle have swollen to an acceptable size again by just adding water.

I’m writing this in the treehouse while Hurricane Lorena swings by. It’s a CAT 1 and the eye is off shore so thankfully we are getting no winds to deal with but it’s been raining hard now for a large number of hours. It’s so good to be damp again.

Jungle Journal

Change is in our nature

August 5, 2019August 5, 2019
by Beave

My ability to capture our lives in this blog has been somewhat scuttled due to a number of reasonable excuses of late so there is a bit of catching up to do. First and foremost, not having a laptop has been a fairly demotivating factor. My newly purchased tablet has been bloody useful and reconnected me with the wider world but is a compete pain in the bum to type on. The frustration of insanely programmed predictive text and a randomly functional narky touch screen rather than a key board has been frankly too annoying to face.

The days after we were burgled were very strange. There was gratitude for what we had left and acceptance of what we had lost. The process of gathering police reports and evidence for the insurance company is never a joyous process but the Mexican way beggars’ belief. Convoluted requests for notional paperwork mixed with conflicting advice of how to get them combined with almost fictional bureaucratic madness combine to send the sanest of us completely bonkers.

This tarot card was the first thing we picked up from the pile of random mess we found in the treehouse after the robbery.

At one point, we are asked to return to the police station 10 miles away to request that all the paperwork they gave us is reprinted and stamped with an official stamp. The admin girl there is stern and officious but Jayne has melted her stony heart and they get along fine. The paper work is redone and stamped and we are presented with a bill that must be paid and certified. It’s a total of 30 pesos. Less than 2$US. We happily try to pay the girl but police stations are not allowed to take cash. In order to achieve what we need we are instructed to drive to the official payment office and return with the receipt to be authorized. The payment office is 50 miles away. That’s a 100-mile round trip to pay 2US$. We look at each other in disbelief. Even Madame Admins expressionless face cracks a little as we ask her to explain this to us a few more times very slowly as we frankly don’t believe it. As it happens her love for Jayne manifests in a dodgy side deal that makes the process easier but we did indeed have to travel 50 miles to pay for the photocopying.

I will be kind and save you the many further tales of extraordinary pedantic police administration we witnessed and endured. I am happy to report that some weeks later we have been paid for one insurance claim. When someone eventually admits to understanding the system that they are employed to manage and lets us know how they want us to invoice in the correct way we should presumably get paid for the other. Without Jaynes excellent Spanish, our endless patience, perseverance and our thick sweaty pasty skin this would have been impossible. Insurance companies here make themselves safe from any poor unfortunates that may actually need any money from them by constructing seemingly endless levels of increasingly nonsensical administration. Maybe it’s a universal business model. Bastards.

It’s a few days after we get back and we are busy re-sorting our lives and taking stock. We are anticipating the rains arriving soon and it’s already hotter than is absolutely necessary. Not expecting any guests any time soon. We are interested what life will throw at us next. Then we find out. Jayne gets an email from Toronto.

In one of her former lives Jayne has been a significant player in the world of transit. Getting people from one place to the other. The fact that in London anyone can get on a tube, train or bus by waving a credit card at a bleepy box is down to Jayne and her team. The heady days of long sweaty queues juggling change at counters or machines to work out what ticket you may need are no more. Toronto want to move from sweaty queues to bleepy boxes so need Jayne to make it happen. They need her enough to offer a short-ish term contract at very sexy money. So there is a decision to make.

We don’t need the money even though it would change our lives short term. Jayne does not have to leave her beloved jungle home. The cash is the temptress. It would allow us not to be beholden to chasing Airbnb 5-star rating from guests. It would allow us to build more infrastructure, spend more time on our own projects and attract heaps of art. We as a couple have not spent much time apart so that in itself would be a fairly dramatic new dynamic. The contract does offer the potential in the near future to find ourselves in a position where we both live in Mexico and Jayne remote works a few days a month and we would be entirely self-sustainable. That is the real golden goose. It takes a lot of soul searching but it has been decided upon. Jayne has accepted the contract and is required to start in Toronto in about a week.

In what seems no time at all the treehouse is in bits again as everything we own is dragged out and half of it imported into our remaining luggage. Friends offer to lend Jayne all the essentials she is missing for her new temporary city existence. There is quite a lot missing. Silly little things such as clothes and shoes. We have one night out in Puerto Vallarta and then very early Jayne flies out to a posh hotel for a few days while she looks for an apartment to rent and I am left alone in the jungle with the cats. This is a huge change and it has happened so quickly. These last weeks have all been something of a blur.

Our treehouse is a modest 6M x 6M but now there is so much less stuff and only the three of us it seems somewhat larger. The jungle seems to have expanded too. All this space all to myself. It’s been a while since I’ve had this much time for just me. It takes a short while to readjust and settle in. It’s a good few days before I find myself leaving the jungle or talking to anyone. I spend the time digging drainage trenches , building furniture, rearranging my new living space for one and preparing all the many thing for the coming downpours. It’s exhausting and distracting.

Moving myself and stuff around the Jungle is a different prospect now the Razor is elsewhere. Django (our 1982 van) is our only form of transport and is limited to where it can go and at what pace. It currently has 480 000 km on its clock. Life slows down noticeably as a result. When the rains come properly it will need to live in the town as it will get trapped out here. Our jungle buggy is getting a new suspension, seats and wheels so no sign of that for a while yet. Thankfully our stunningly generous friends, currently in the USA for a few months, lend us their jeep. Now jeeps have something of a crap reputation here. There is a romantic image many gringos from the USA have of travelling around the tropics in an open top jeep. To the obvious delight of local mechanics many do just that. Jeeps are their no.1 source of income. Despite its reputation we gratefully accept a solid 4×4 that will get me across my land. Over the week or so I used it I sorta kinda got to like her a tiny little bit. She has stiff suspension and is a bone rattler for sure but it didn’t miss a beat going up and down our hill.

I get a call from town. Our well head turtle sculpture is ready to go. Exciting stuff. The paint required to protect it from rusting away has arrived and applied in funky style. It’s now clearly a male turtle. We load him up on a truck and bring him out. In place, he looks extraordinary. He is named Wel-Ed. The day is getting ridiculously hot but there is work to be done. I prepare the area and mix concrete. A mate turns up out of the blue to deliver life saving ice cream and give me a much-needed hand. We are both soaking wet with sweat and dizzy in the heat but it is done. Wel-Ed is solidly in place and he looks magnificent. Our first commissioned art piece.

The process of getting accommodation in Toronto is proving a touch more challenge than expected. After spending many hours on line reviewing small but luxurious apartments it becomes apparent that many of the adverts are scams. We quickly learn these scams are well known and frequent in Toronto, Vancouver Seattle and many other places. Dodgy buggers armed with much cheek and gab trawl Airbnb sites for pictures of apartments and then re-post them as rentals on Craig’s list and fake websites. They ask for upfront deposits. When renters arrive at their new home they find it already occupied by the actual owner or legitimate renter. We came across a load of them. All pushing hard for deposits up front and reluctant to show you the property. Took a week before Jayne navigated her way around the unscrupulous and moved into a rather posh, if compact and overpriced, apartment not too far away from the office so she can walk to work. Let the temporary nesting begin. Bring on the gin and Tim Bits. Tim Hortons who are the ever-present coffee provider of choice in Canada also offer highly addictive boxes of small round doughnut type balls (Tim Bits) with varying levels of sugar coatings. Canadian crack.

The highway construction has been relatively quiet recently. Environmental groups have been conducting studies to see what the actual effects on the wildlife are manifesting. A group who track Jaguar have been working close by and we meet up. They are tracking about a dozen Jaguar who are all very close. One of them is over 100kg in weight so we are advised to be cautious. They have set up cameras and hung pig guts in the tress to attract them. These photos were taken just a few hundred yards from our house. Jaguar are not interested in humans as food and concentrate their attention on cattle. Their greatest danger are cattle ranchers who shoot them. To prevent this the Mexican government pays farmers a good price for any cattle the Jaguar take. The problem is that the paperwork and administration is also very Mexican and most ranchers can’t or won’t go through the compensation process so continue to shoot them. The conservation teams have jumped in and now take on the administration on the ranchers’ behalf to encourage them to keep the guns away from the Jaguar. This bit of direct smart conservation action is making a measurable difference.

The land is looking good. Drainage ditches are in place and I have stripped all the beds and prepared the place as best I can to cope with the water that is forecast very soon. I have installed tarps over the kitchen and a water repellant coating on the outside walls of the most vulnerable casitas. My dear mate from Lo De Marcos has asked to live on the land for the Summer and help out. More than anything this will allow me time away if needed. I start a plan to visit Toronto for a short while.

I am approached by a local girl who lives in the guts of the town on the main exit road where all the construction traffic passes 24 hours a day. She is looking for a more peaceful place to stay for a few months. She wants to garden and generally keep the place clean and functional during the time when we don’t have guests and do have thunderstorms every night. So that’s two self-sufficient people on our land for the Summer. Result !

An Australian friend of Jakes contacts me. She is in Columbia and heading North and interested if there is a place to stay over the next month or so. There is a ready-made small community developing with the aim of making thing better here. I have agreed for all of them to be here until November. That is the rainy season covered. Be great to have some help and keep the place alive. I am starting to realise this new situation removes my best excuse for not going to Burning Man this year.

Jaynes contract goes up to the end of December. She can leave with 10 days’ notice but potentially she won’t be back till Xmas. She is not the jaded old burner I have become so is very keen to go to Burning Man in Nevada again this year. www.burningman.com We have great friends who have recommended us to an infrastructure build so we have been offered staff passes and the ability to arrive way before the masses. It gives Jayne a much-needed break from city competence in the freedom of the desert. La Colina is now occupied so I have run out of excuses not to join in. My resistance is weak and I crack under the considerable pressure. I’m in and flights to Reno booked. Here we go again.

Dusty Desert Nonsense in Our Future Again

The rains arrive. A huge storm of tropical proportions delivers a vast amount of water in the shortest time through the night. Lightening is close and the thunder rips the sky above the treehouse. It’s been a while since I was in one of these. Spectacular. The morning shows that the water ditches were 80% successful and show what adjustments need making. I check the well. The water is back for now. It’s been a worry as we have had no well water for weeks. The source stream up in the hills that feeds all the dwellings between me and the town stopped flowing for the first time in 40 years the week before. Relief.

The frogs and toads have turned up again. Raucous amphibian orgies keep me awake for another couple of wet nights. The pool has had no water for weeks and is in a sorry state. It’s now home to countless swimming beasties. There are long strings of toad spawn , water beetles and many thousands of tadpoles. There are also masses of horrible looking things that constantly swim vertically from the bottom of the pool to the surface and back again. They are a few inches long, black, a cross between a fat slug and a hairy caterpillar with fins and a large head. They look like something from a bad movie and there are hundreds of them. When there is enough water I’ll restore the pool to the humidity sanctuary that it will become for the Summer. In the meantime it will have to remain a well occupied jungle pond.

So things have rapidly shifted from jungle solitude to a full schedule of travel over the coming weeks. I let it slip that I am flying to Toronto and the word gets through to an animal sanctuary in Sayulita http://sayulitanimals.org . These lovely folk rescue animals in bad situations and get them adopted around the world. There are two puppies that have new owners in Toronto and they are desperately looking for a mule to transport them to their new owners. They bombard me with messages and calls. I am puppy mugged. It looks like that’s going to be me.

So I gather what could be considered relatively normal clothes and an empty suitcase and am collected by the animal sanctuary with two four month old puppies and head to the airport. They are by any standards cute. Even the process of checking in is hampered by adoring crowds. I am to carry these little buggers all the way through Dallas and then onto Toronto. By the time I get onto the first plane and they are squeezed under the seat in front me there is already a small dedicated crowd of puppy followers. If you would like to experience the attention usually saved for the most famous and beautiful people carry a box of puppies through an airport. I’m mobbed. It’s past midnight when I arrive in Toronto and get through the hoops and special inspections to get dogs into Canada. The new owners are waiting with great anticipation but they have to wait for Jayne who is first in the queue to greet me. Two happy new puppy families later we head in a taxi towards the city.

Its already a bit of a head twist, post-puppies, arriving in Toronto centre at night. Our rather posh apartment has a view over the city and the CN Toronto tower. It has automatic blinds, a TV the size of me , a dishwasher , ice maker, heating and air-con . It is also home to a fully automatic toilet with an electronic control panel to allow for a number of bum washing and polishing options. Bit of a change to the usual bucket in a box option. I look out into the city from our posh apartment with a glass of cold chardonnay. It absolutely feels like I have landed in a graphic novel.

More bum cleaning choices than absolutely necessary

So walking to the office with Jayne in the mornings shows that perhaps I’m not entirely city conditioned. The amount of other people is a touch overwhelming . Crowds of them at pedestrian crossings all packing the pavements heading to their offices. No one talking to each other. Half of them dodging joggers, bikes and traffic while staring at a phone. Then at 9 am peace descends on the city. Office folk are in their offices and everyone else is in a Tim Hortons. Shops don’t open till 10 am . It’s altogether a bit strange.

So as Jayne applies her genius at work I am released to Toronto. I spend far too much time in the Apple store and not quite enough time buying tools at Home Depot. We stock up with tech, shoes, clothes and cheese. It’s a very multicultural city with all the benefits to gastronomy that brings. It’s good to catch up and our week is brightened by fresh Pad Thai, home cooked chicken, a quite superb Moroccan lamb , authentic Japanese dishes, Portuguese sardines, dozens of buck-a-shuck oysters and very importantly buckets and buckets of much missed Guinness. We add culture with a trip to an interactive art exhibition and a night at the theatre. It’s all very different. I haven’t been bitten by anything for over a week.

I’m very grateful that Jayne is so well appreciated by her colleagues and that we have the money to enjoy time in what is without a doubt a very expensive place to be. As I drag my over-packed bags back to the airport Im absolutely looking forward to getting home. The luxury of well paid city life is a measure of great success for many. We can certainly appreciate it for a short while but it’s clear our basic human needs are met elsewhere. I am most grateful that we both know that and have our self created sanctuary in which to stay just the right side of sane. Jayne will be back in our world soon enough. It’s not easy to play the game when you know its not the game for you. We just have to change the game.

Arriving back after just over a week away is a shock. The whole place looks entirely different. The dust has changed to dark rich earth. The paths are overgrown with vines and covered in fallen branches. The roads have been washed thin by the flooded rivers that are now showing signs of flowing and are full of rocks after the storms . The pool is now two feet deeper. The tadpoles and black hairy swimmer things twice the size. Since I left there have been real tropical storms. Huge quantities of water and lightening.

The effects are not entirely welcome. A few days before I return the power went out. The solar system is showing fault lights and it’s tropically hot. We don’t have lights , refrigeration or more importantly fans ! I spend the next two days sweating like never before while tracing and repairing potential faults. It’s so hot I can’t think. I find myself sitting on the sharp jungle floor with a breaker box in pieces in front of me. Ants are biting my feet and my head is under constant attack from mosquitos. The heat turns me into an even more obvious moron. My over heated brain feels like its forcing it’s thoughts through warm soup. I spent half my time looking for my screwdriver with my right hand that I eventually discover in my left hand. I have been up at 7 am in order to speak to three separate solar inverter experts around the world who all give me conflicting advice. The latest is to remove the entire 40kg inverter and send it to Mexico City for repair. I can’t face the idea of that unless absolutely necessary . Even my soupy brain tells me they are all talking bollocks. I pass out and wake up a few hours later with an idea. I return to the solar inverter which I have stared at for hours and flick a few switches . Power is restored. I am saved.

It has occurred to me only today that I have one week to get myself ready to fly to Reno. I must not only prepare the land for leaving for the best part of a month but I must entirely prepare myself for burning man too. So I have a week to clean the pool and fix the water pipes , collect and return the jungle jeep, replace security cameras and finish this overdue blog. Then I get to pack enough stuff to leave the humid tropical heat of our jungle and spend a month in a hot dry dusty salty desert. I’m looking forward to be dehydrated in a whole new and exciting way . Lucky me.

Jungle Journal

Spider Eyes and a Chicken Nunnery

June 22, 2018
by Beave

So I’ve been banging on about the rains coming for weeks and they finally arrive early and in style. Last night was the second night of rain. We have spent a very sedate day sweating and both recovering from my man flu. We mostly watched Netflix and waited for sleep to take us. No rush. The nightly chorus of tin whistle bugs is done and at midnight we drift off. At 1 am I am awake. The jungle is in instant shadow as the whole sky lights up in flashes. It’s chucking it down. Real tropical rain. The roof is holding up well and the ground is soaking it all in (for now) so there is little to worry about. Then the frogs kick off.

Considering how dry and water free it has been up to this point it is illogical in the extreme that all of a sudden a few hours of rain can create all the frogs. Where have they all suddenly come from?? I can’t count how many but the noise is deafening. Can’t hear the rain for them. I spend the next 4 hours in my man flu misery reading and listening. Amongst many others I identify a “base cello’ frog, a “scooter with a bad battery trying to start” frog and a particularly irritating “everything is hilarious and I’ve just huffed some helium” frog. The rains reduce by 5 am and my book is finished. The frogs care not and are still having a good old sing. I pass out.

The frog orgy has left without cleaning up. The evidence is everywhere. Frog and toad spawn had filled the previously dried up jungle pond. The sight of the swimming pool is shocking. There are about two dozen large frogs in there. I manage to rescue the few survivors and then start the body count. I fish them out of the pool and arrange them on a rock for curiosity purposes. It’s carnage.

I arrange the dead frogs on a rock beside the pool and return to the tree house. We are somewhat surprised by a high pitched scream. The local pool company has turned up for a visit and the girl who is examining the pool has just discovered my frog rock display. She is loudly unimpressed. Her colleague is highly entertained.

Curiously this whole frog rave lasted only two nights. They are still out there being irritatingly loud but this is an after party crowd. They now sound like clowns with bike horns and give it their all for about 20 minutes then shut up for an hour… then start again. It’s better than it was….

We now have lots of water. The well is filling up again (just in time), we have three out of five full tinacos, the pool level has improved, all the plants and herbs are thoroughly watered and the solar panels are washed. These are all good things.

Last week we wondered why our solar batteries were low. A brief examination of the panels showed that in just over a week the entire solar array had acquired a thick coating of twigs, leaves and muck from the shedding trees. How we had any power at all was a mystery. As our ladder was being used elsewhere an enthusiastic, brave and acrobatic friend who was visiting climbed up with broom and removed all the crap. Battery power renewed in no time. It was on our list of maintenance jobs to do this regularly but now there is no need. The rains have polished them to a sunbeam friendly gleam.

It’s time for planting stuff out. We have bougainvilleas to place on the fence line. Also a spontaneous planting of sunflower seeds has produced a dozen or so competing shoots that need a home. We have collected orchids in dormant state and tied them to trees. Theoretically these will suck up the moisture in the air and flower in a month or two.

I have had a nagging request for some time. Someone wants chickens. The opportunity presents itself when we get a call informing us that a local vet-student has chickens to rehouse. Our friends are bringing her and her family over to meet us on Friday… with chickens. I spend a day building a chicken nunnery tractor. A nunnery because it will NOT be housing any bloody roosters. Sorry girls. The purpose of the tractor element is to allow the chickens to eat all the scrub and insects underneath their home and then we move it along. In this way the jungle floor is fertilized and cleaned progressively and the chickens are safe, dry, fed and producing eggs. Chicken safety out here is something we need to understand better. Pretty much everything eats chickens. Eagles, snakes, jaguar, ocelots, us. They are famously delicious. Have to see how that turns out. The process of building all day in a ginger puddle has left me exhausted. I have been fooled by a few cooling showers and protective afternoon clouds and managed to get dehydrated.

I recover with pints of homemade Jamaica (pronounced “hamica”), AKA cold hibiscus tea, which is a red plant base that we boil up to make a concentrated syrup. Added to a heap of water and ice with lime juice it is as refreshing a thing as we have found. There is an endless jug of the stuff in the fridge.

My recovery is somewhat disturbed by the sound of the cat fighting with one big fat cicada type bug. It’s the ones that make all the racket at night fall. Now they are loud enough half a mile away but having one being chewed by a cat a few feet away is deafening. I drag myself up and grab a cloth. My first attempt at rescue only manages to scare it into a limping flight with its one remaining good wing as it attaches itself to the window screen. It’s bigger than I thought. A good handful. I make my move but it’s too quick and noisily collides with my face and disappears in silence. It’s nowhere to be seen. Mausetrappe and I look at each other in confusion. I feel a scratching sensation and am then startled out my wits by a massive noise in my ear! The little sod was hiding on the back of my neck!! I grab him and throw him hard onto the floor. The cat pounces and diverts the thing under the sink. He is silent again. Not for long. The cat gets him in her mouth. The sound is unbelievable. I grab him. My whole hand is vibrating wildly as it screams. On the balcony I shake the cloth in my hand and I see him shoot directly upwards into the trees. Gone. It’s raining and very dark. Around me there are slowly moving majestic lights. The fireflies are back!!

Mango season is upon us. I was put off mangos by spending a lot of time in Montreal. There was a phase of putting mangos on everything. It was trendy to have eggs and bacon with a lump of mango. Bugger that! I am , however, seduced by the laden local mango trees. Each mature tree produces up to 250 kg a season. We had to consider that when looking at land with a dozen mango trees. Thats literally tons of mangoes to deal with. The little ones taste better than the big ones.

Another welcome return is that of the toilet paper butterfly. This is unlikely to be the scientific name but they can best be described as a lump of toilet paper floating around in the wind. They are bright white and huge. The wings are far too big to be efficient so they kinda flop around randomly and somehow stay in the air. Inelegant but stunning to watch.

The chickens arrive. They are an ugly bunch. Dirty brown with bare arses. Tail feathers are optional we discover. The chicken nunnery is placed outside our balcony so we can keep them under review for the first few weeks. The ground is uneven so we create a rockery around the nunnery to discourage beasts from getting in. The chickens are installed and we decide to keep them locked in for a day or two so they learn this is where they live. Not necessary. Despite the door being left open all day the chickens don’t move from their luxurious perches in the shade. We learn that organic free-range chickens are mainly conceptual. Despite acres of lovely range to be free upon most chickens prefer to stay inside and view the outside from the inside. Despite being agoraphobic & antisocial our five chickens appear happy enough. I have decided to name our nunnery inmates. Sister Kwafi, Sister Pybus, Sister Bricklebank, Sister Allenby & Sister Bland. Any comparison with anyone with similar names is entirely deliberate. Eggs are in our future.

There have been a few nights now of heavy to very heavy rains. In retrospect many things have indicated rains were coming. The lime trees started to bear fruit again and we found a heap of bananas appearing the week before the rains came. We found a tomato growing wild next to the house, the last flower on the vanilla orchid appeared and was pollinated and the roof got fixed, all the very day before the rains came.

The ground is alive with bright glowing red beetles. We spend some hours at the waterfall pools and they are everywhere. Individually they are fascinating but they have a trick. They gang together and make balls of themselves. A bright red shape the size of a golf ball. I have no idea why. It doesn’t seem an efficient love in and there is no feeding frenzy going on. See how long they last. They are harmless and very, very pretty.

There is a phenomena that I was convinced was fake news. If you shine a torch or headlight at a certain angle into the jungle thousands of tiny glowing lights reflect back at you. Every one of these lights is a spider looking back at you. Well I had these lights shown to me a few times but refused to believe the spider story. This was until the tinaco above our tree house sprang a leak and I needed to change out a fitting immediately and the sun was setting. It’s not something you would chose to do without daylight but I had no choice. On the way up the hill my headlight caught a mass of reflections, which I ignored until the tinaco was fixed. On the way down the hill in the dark I decided to explore these tiny lights close up. Unbelievably its true. I got close enough to confirm that the closest dozen lights were indeed spider eyes reflecting back at me. They were only tiny spiders but they shone like diamonds. Spooky.

And with the rain comes the crabs. It’s a famously strange and wonderful sight here in Nayarit to see hundreds of thousands of large pink crabs heading a kilometer for the sea after hibernation all year. If you are in the way it’s described as biblical. There is no avoiding them! We have avoided them as we are just far enough away from the sea. Just. The run to the ocean is over now but the bodies of those that didn’t quite make it are everywhere.

The bugs have changed again this month. We had weeks of tiny little buggers that felt like grains of sand when you caught them trying to nibble on you. More recently there is a medium sized loudly buzzing night time arrival. It’s a good job we have the nets on the bed. You hear them first and then see them head butting the fabric screen loudly. It’s impossible to sleep with these antics so I have taken to punching them off the net. They cope with this tactic rather well. Despite getting a full knuckle punch in their face they come back at you! They have heavy armor that looks like a nutshell. It can take two or three well placed punches to put off a “nut bug”. The cat is far more efficient and crunches them loudly and leaves them in a pile for me.

The Summer Solstice is upon us. The longest day. Tomorrow in the UK Christmas cards start appearing in the shops. It is also the anniversary of the burning of an effigy on Baker Beach in San Francisco over 30 years ago from which the Burning Man event evolved. One of the founders of the event died recently and there is a worldwide acknowledgement of gratitude for the connections this event created. My life would certainly be very different if those guys hadn’t decided to burn something on a beach that day. So to mark the occasion we gather with friends both new and old and knock up a “palm man”. We collect mango margaritas and head to the beach. It was all rather beautiful.

The rains have held off now for a week. What appeared to be the rainy season coming early was actually the back end of Hurricane Bud. The first of the season. The real rainy season is due soon enough. We are preparing slowly.

There is no doubt that Mexico is now a great footballing nation. It only takes a single goal but timing is everything. We watch this goal live from our friend’s restaurant packed with locals. We also endure an hour of waiting for the Germans to equalise but incredibly it doesn’t happen !! Torture to ecstasy. The place goes nuts. Moscow will be out of tequila in the morning. We have the might of glorious South Korea next. Despite the dull as ditch water England performance against Tunisia Jayne’s footballing needs are satisfied. We are, however, asking ourselves if getting up at 6 am on Sunday to watch England v Panama is worth the effort… probably.