Guest post Archives - La Colina Project

Who Flung Dung? By Linda (Jayne’s mum)

February 20, 2018
by Alan Davidson

Jayne’s Mum, Dad, Brother and Sister all came to visit La Colina in January. Here’s a guest post from Jayne’s mum Linda.

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After driving 4595 km from Calgary, we arrived at La Colina late one January afternoon, Alan and I were hoping to surprise Jayne and Beave as we were one day early. Instead, they surprised us by not being there! We set up camp.

Following closely on our heels, were Sam and Taryn, the motorcycling duo from Australia. We had hosted them in Calgary as couchsurfers last July. (rideto-theend.com)

Our daughter, Heather, and a Romanian from Switzerland, Andrei, were already here. Then Philip, Kelly and SnakeJaguar flew in three days later, so now we were nine camper/volunteer workers enjoying a reunion with each other and Jayne and Beave in the jungle.

Lots to do and we all sweated the days away woodworking, plumbing, sewing, painting/varnishing, cleaning buildings, fixing the truck and generator, and preparing for, and erecting, solar panels. The busy days were often followed tasting Mexican fare in the little town of San Pancho, or neighbouring town of Sayulita.

Mr. Fixit Philip working on Truck Brakes and Generator

Heather’s boyfriend Julian and Kelly’s sister and family joined Beave and Jayne and the whole Davidson clan for an evening out in San Pancho.

No sign of scorpions, snakes or other scary jungle creatures (except for Beave in his baggy work pants!), but there are beautiful colourful butterflies and birds in abundance at La Colina.

One of the Mexican workers caught an armadillo one night and his son brought it to show us, carrying it by its tail!

After a few days of cold, outdoor showers (which Beave assured were good for us!) Alan hooked the shower into the Bodega’s tankless hot water system and we all became instantly squeaky clean. Philip, Kelly, SJ, Alan and I, set off for town in the Razor ATV. Part way along the dirt road, we came face to face with a cow which couldn’t make up it’s mind which side of the track to allow us to pass. Finally, it chose to turn sideways, completely blocking our path! Continuing on, Philip drove through a fresh cow patty – a gift left by the obstructing cow, no doubt! The newly cleaned Razor, Kelly, and I, got completely splattered in dung. We were not amused!

La Colina Project

Deja Vu – Dad’s third blog

December 21, 2017December 25, 2017
by Alan Davidson

Hi Everyone,

Here’s my Dad’s final blog telling you all about the rest of his three week visit to us here at La Colina. We’re very grateful for all the help he gave us while he was here and the wonderful gifts. I think my favourite is the hot water in our shower!!! (Having our treehouse wired is a close second.)

Thanks Dad! Maybe he’ll start his own blog now he’s gotten a taste for it!

-Jayne

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Somehow Jayne seems to be at the right place at the right time too many times to be just a coincidence.

We had been talking on and off my whole stay about Shannon, a local San Pancho shop owner, who they had befriended. Shannon had loaned them his chain saw, and promised a generator and a sawzall. He had communicated with Jayne about a week and a half ago wanting the return of the saw, and saying he would dig out the generator and sawzall soon.

We decided to go last Sunday on a trip to find some Geocaches in the next town North of San Pancho. It is called Lo de Marcos. We travelled through this small town which is less tourist oriented than San Pancho, and on to a Geocache at the South end of the town, along a gravel/dirt road in the new Poly… Polaris RZR. As we stopped for the cache and were just out of the vehicle to walk down the road, the only vehicle we had seen since leaving town stops. It is Shannon, who lives just down the road at a great secluded beach!. He has a real estate office here and also a shop similar to the one in San Pancho.

AFTER GEOCACHING TRIP…. THE FIRST OF MANY MUDBATHS FOR POLI

Next day, we go into the shopping communities half way to Puerto Vallarta. First stop, the pool pump place which says the pool pump can’t be fixed, and quote 6500 pesos (over $400 cdn) for a new pump, of which they have a selection. Second stop is next door to the Ferreteria Gonzales, where we have been several times. I pick up a saw and a crowbar for the project. And next person in line is Frank, who we also have talked about many times as he is supplying the Solar Panel system for La Colina. With him is a pump guy who is helping Frank sort out a pump problem he has with his cistern, and they are picking up parts. Jayne chats, and soon we are following the pump guy through a few back streets to a non descript shop with almost no signage. It is a motor repair shop, who says he can fix the motor for less than a tenth of the cost quoted for a new pump. I just got a whatsapp message from Jayne saying she has picked up the motor, and it works fine.

A couple of days previously, Jayne asks where we are going to eat, and I suggest a backstreet establishment that she has commented on several times as being a “destination for locals of San Pancho”. The only persion sitting at the bar is a good friend Catherine, who we had met earlier, and announces she was moved to come to this bar, which she also does not frequent often. We have a great chat and she decides to go with us on Sunday on our Geocaching expedition in the RZR. We had a good lunch on the beach with her on our expedition.

This last week has been a whirlwind of fixing things and picking up the new Polaris RZR. It is finally all officially purchased and ownership transferred. To transfer ownership, one needs to have the previous owner present throughout the process, which involves many steps at three different office locations. Two of the three offices have to be visited twice. The third one checks out the VIN number on the vehicle by making three copies of the VIN number which is stamped into the frame, by rubbing it with some special transfer tape that copies the number by rubbing it. In the back of the last office is a large shear. We decide this is for cutting up used license plates, not for cutting off hands of unsuspecting clients. The whole process took about five hours over two different days. Fortunately seller Jim was very co-operative and allows us to use the RZR over the weekend with his registration and insurance still in place. It probably had more dirt and back roads than in it’s whole previous existence.

The RZR with it’s new plate. This is legal to drive on roads and highways in Mexico as it has a license plate.

Since we had to bring the RZR to get it’s new plate, it was only a ten minute ride from there to the PV Airport, where I am presently waiting to board the plane.

A NOT SO TYPICAL VEHICLE SEEN ON THE WAY TO THE AIRPORT.

I have been struggling for a few days with mystery bites, mostly on my legs. All sorts of theories, are inconclusive. It has been the one downer of visiting. I awake at 3:30 am with severe itching, only to be calmed by some pain killer pills.

I keep expecting to find a tick crawling on me as Beave keeps having them removed. Jayne delights in using the credit card size tick remover I have

The card is effective, and another tick is removed. Jayne says this month is tick season. Seems strange as it is only a few weeks from the start of winter officially. I was looking forward to seeing the clouds of fireflies that Beave described in a previous blog, but alas only saw a few the first couple of days I was here and none since.

I am now on the plane, and my phone is not. I left it on the seat in the waiting lounge when I got up to board, and my smart watch confirms is is nowhere near me. A quick trip back to the lounge had no results… nothing turned in at the desk. I can only hope some honest person has picked it up and that someone will email me that it is found. I had put a new sticker on it this week with my email address.

It has no internet left on the Mexican sim card, so cannot broadcast it’s location to me as it dies.

I thought I would email Linda and Heather so they know my plight but the Westjet system is also having problems on the plane.

The other animal that is quite surprising is big spiders. I am told they do not bite, but do exude some noxious sticky substance. They extend as much as a hand spread. The local kids laugh and pick them up.

We saw at least four or more in the pump house for the pool as Beave did his magic to repair the broken valve using rubber repair sleeves I brought from Canada.

Here is one beside the small electrical panel to give a sense of size:

Cafe Arte is one of the many restaurants we have frequented in San Pancho during my stay. There is a bartender there who is a splitting image of our friend Jimmy in Calgary. He is watching over the new Geocache I have hidden there… the first in San Pancho.

The owner Ceci has not heard of Geocaching, but is very keen to host one.

Spoiler: She’s almost sitting on the Cache.

The local laundry in town has a walk up counter. Jayne walks up with our bag of laundry, tells them it is for Juana, and they tell her it will be ready tomorrow. I contribute what would be a $20 dollar load on the cruise ship, and my share of the bill is less than a tenth of that.

Down on the main street we see one of many local merchants… this one with a wheelbarrow of pineapples.

The Generator that J & B bought is 3000 watts, but only 1500 watts is available at 115V, which means that larger grinders, saws, and a portable welder that the door guy brought would not work on it. I modified the wiring quickly a few days ago to get the welder working, and then bought parts to put a permanent switch on it to choose More Power or More Voltage, which is still needed to charge Beave’s Makita batteries from a 230 volt charger brought from the UK. The wiring was a bit challenging as we could only find a separate relay and switch to install in an outboard box, with a rats-nest of interconnecting wires.

This was further complicated by my by redesigning the wiring diagram on the fly. After dark yesterday the wiring was complete, but my brain said it still was not correct. On sleeping on it, the problem clarified itself and I rewired it again for an hour and a half… the half hour looking for a dropped black screw… to have it burst into life and work properly in both modes. I left Beave and Jayne to sort out the loose wire that stops the generator from stopping with the on off switch. Meanwhile we were to be 30 km away meeting Jim to transfer ownership of the RZR… and Jayne phoned and texted with our apologies. Why is it there are always these last minute crises?

Washrooms when out travelling are a mixed bag. The most certain are that each government owned service station PEMEX have good washrooms. Only difference from what we expect in Canada is that in many the toilet paper dispenser is in a separate one outside the door to the whole washroom, or in the common area of the washroom. Many others in more private establishments may be completely missing paper or toilet seats.

For those plumbing oriented, the Mexican solution to a trap under the sink is interesting. Most all I have seen are a corrugated bit of plastic in various forms of a loop jammed into a rubber gasket at each end. To clean, you just easily remove one end. The corrugations collect any particles thrown down the sink, and keep the drain downstream cleaner. I like it.

Also it is interesting that houses are only serviced by a small half inch line to each house. This runs to a large plastic tank on the roof which has a float valve to stop the water when full. The house pressure is minimal. One sees a similar system in the older houses in England.

Wiring to houses and multi family dwellings have many electrical meters. Apparently the electricity is on a sliding scale, and if you use a lot the charges are very high to encourage people to conserve. I see lots of LED lights available here, so the energy saving is considerable. It is amazing that we have installed very good lighting in the Treehouse at La Colina that in total with all lights on is barely 100 watts… the power of one light bulb only a few years ago. I looked at a narrow but fairly high fridge in the Mega store and it is rated at only 120 watts. Jayne is to buy an even more efficient one once the solar panels are installed. It will be interesting to see how well the solar panel copes. The biggest load will be the swimming pool pump at about 8 times the power of a fridge… so it will have to be on a timer than allows it to run only an hour or so a day, so that all the pool water flows through the filter at least once a day. The pool has been fairly clean looking without the pump, with a bit of jungle junk at the bottom of the deep end. Beave fished a mouse out of the pool a couple of days ago… it was hanging on the side at one end trying to get out of the pool. Fell in, and swam under water the length of the pool. It surfaced, and Beave picked it out with the pool net, and it survived to tell about it… or did it. Read Beave’s blog. Jayne tests the water in the pool regularly and maintains the chlorine level and pH.

The first day of having the RZR, now called poli (Editor’s note: we are spelling it “Pauly”), I had it parked in front of the cabin. The local children from the next farm came over (the oldest works with Dad Rogelio) and looked all round the ATV. I had a mission that day to install the first of the direction signs I had brought at an intersection that is easily missed along the road to La Colina. I took the two with me with great smiles (unfortunately no photo) and installed the sign. There we picked up a large garbage bag of trash, and later went back with Jayne and Beave and picked up another bag full to clean up the area.

The correct direction takes one to a ford through an arroyo (creek), one of five along the route from the highway to the property.

Later on we came upon three of the neighbours riding along the road…

Our last evening before I came back to Calgary we had a great meal with a couple of locals Sharon and Paul. I had a Pina Colada (sin alcohol). We were entertained by a street performer dancing with a light bar and a ring of fire.

On the plane I was abruptly aware that I had left my phone in the waiting area of the airport. The stewardess let me go back to the desk to check, but it could not be found. I invested in internet on the plane to let Linda and Jayne know what had happened.

Several days later at home, and phone calls by me and later by Jayne from Mexico, we could not determine if the phone was at the airport. Saturday Jayne had to go to the airport, and did find out that the phone is there in lost and found, but could not pick it up for me until I send identity information and she comes back on a weekday. Jayne will pick it up, and I’ll see it when we get back to Mexico. Heather saves the day by loaning me an old phone of hers that works.

I also have been plagued for several days with itching from the bites on my legs, which has only recently become tolerable. Sure would like to know what sort of bug bit me, so I can be better prepared next trip. Life goes on.

We have just figured out on Google Maps that our proposed road trip in the new year to La Colina and then Sugar Land Texas, near Houston, and back to Calgary is calculated as 95 hours and 9526 km. Should be an adventure.

Alan

Jungle Journal

Guest Post #2 – Dad’s Jungle Adventures

December 2, 2017
by Jayne

Hello everyone,

My dad’s back with another post about his visit to us here in the Mexican jungle. I hope you like it!

– Jayne

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Woke up early this morning and it is already December and I am to go home in 5 days. Jeannie let the cat out of the bag and revealed that I did find my camera after a couple of days… fallen between the seats of the Toyota truck. On it was the picture above of the beach scene at sunset, which we have seen only a couple of times.

The trip has turned out to be days of helping Jayne and Beave with many projects, the biggest being wiring the tree house for power, in anticipation of the Solar System arriving in a few weeks. They are on a mission, to which they are very dedicated, to recover the infrastructure created by the previous owner on this land, and putting it to good use. The plan is to get an income from renting out small apartments in the jungle. The balance is to create comfortable living spaces without costing a fortune, and not provide all “mod cons”, but enough to be comfortable.

San Pancho is a great tourist beach town. An active beach, getting busier all the time, and a main and side streets filled with many small restaurants that spill onto the street offering many kinds of food. We have eaten at quite a few different places… from low end to medium. All meals have been very well priced… many close to half what I would pay for the same meal in Calgary…. and yummy food.

Service is generally great. Most servers speak some English, but being with Jayne who spouts quite good Spanish, and Beave who is learning fast, most of the banter is in Spanish. My Spanish is still pitiful, but I can follow the drift of the conversation at times. Uno Masse… means another when it comes to drinks. Fresh Limonada made with local limes for about 2 Canadian Dollars.

We stop in a nearby town to order wood for Jayne’s composting toilets, and Beave’s window frames for the apartment above the workshop. Heather will go crazy looking at all the woodworking marvels in this shop, made from many hardwood trees that we only dream of. The yard is full of stacks of wood from large trees waiting to be made into furniture, etc. To order.

The road to the La Colina Jungle is a rough one. Five creeks to cross. Large rocks and holes. Some local houses in various states of repair and construction, from simple one room shacks to multi room houses. Two nights ago, the locals were congregated at one farm playing music on their guitars… there is music everywhere in town, with both musicians doing sets in many restaurants, and other itinerant groups travelling from restaurant to restaurant for tips. We saw even more in the neighbouring town of Sayalita, about 5 km down the highway.

This prompted a discussion about renting out a 4 seater ATV to guests, and we went on a mission to look at one that a contact had found for Jayne. It is a Polaris RZR 800. It was bought by it’s owner, a part time resident from Toronto, and he now wants to upgrade to a new one. This has had little off road use and looks like new.

We negotiate a price, and agree to buy it. Since I am investing in this machine, and will get to use it while here, I have to convince Linda to approve the purchase. After some discussion, she reluctantly agrees to my mad purchase. We pick it up today.

My home away from home “Dad’s House”, as Jayne calls it, is serving me well. I only come down here at night and it has been comfortable. The nights got colder and Jayne has provided a comfy duvet which makes getting out of bed into the cold plus 17 degree celcius air more of a challenge. Last I looked Calgary is in a warm spell around minus 2.

We went to a local “garage sale” in Puerto Vallarta and picked up a mirror for it…. along with deck chairs for the pool, light fittings, etc.

The only light I have in the accommodation is provided by the LED lantern I brought for Jayne and Beave as a housewarming gift. Once the solar panels are in, and wiring done, it won’t be needed here.

The jungle does offer lots of bugs of all sizes. One in the house is spiders. The flat ones don’t bite, so I am told.

On the trip to Puerto Vallarta I got to show Jayne and Beave a tower that we had found on our previous trip here a few years ago while geocaching.

It is right in the middle of town, and one would not know it was there if we had not been looking for the cache.

Great views of the city.

Still on the mission to get internet from the town. We climb to the highest spot on the property and find an even better view of the hill with the house in town that we hope will provide a link spot. It is on the left of the right hand hill in the photo. Folks from the house arrive this weekend… so may possibly hear from them before I leave on Tuesday, but if not the negotiation will continue with Jayne and Beave.

All over the property are mystery pipes. In the ground. On the ground. Broken ends… where do they go? Some we have traced. Most are unusable as are so old that they break when water is added. We used a piece from one yesterday to provide a piece to hopefully fix a broken valve on the swimming pool.

Jayne and Beave keep mentioning Tinacos… these are water storage tanks that hold about 3000 litres each. There are five of them on the property, and are/will be refilled from either the waterfall water or the well. A solar powered water pump is somewhere in transit, and the water system is such that water will be pumped from one tank to another further up the hill.

Moving this has come to be done by the local Mexican family living next door and working for Jayne and Beave most days, along with Beave’s assistance. The tanks are now in place, but what a challenge moving them, and Beave acquired several ticks on his body in the process. Somehow he picks them up almost daily, yet I search and haven’t found one on my body yet. Just mystery bites on my legs… not sure what has bitten them but they itch from time to time.

Mousetrappe cat is a real joy… very active in the house and takes an interest in everything. The younger Mexican son Rogelio was playing with it during the Tinaco moving. A few minutes later I see a streak of a cat running at full tilt down the hill as a plastic tinaco swings on the hill from a tree… apparently a planned move by the tinaco movers, but not a planned thing for poor Mousetrappe. Beave removed half a jungle from it’s fur later on, and the cat is still in good form.

I finish with the story of my fall. Not fall from glory… just tripped on the bottom step of the first part of the stairs at the tree house when I was walking down to turn off the generator under the house. Landed flat on my side after stopping my crash with my right hand, creating a 3/4 inch long surface gash. Nurse Philip in Vancouver is consulted.

The major drama was that I just missed a fairly large rock by an inch that could have created serious damage to my hip bones. Close call. (My hip was where my shoe is in the photo)

We picked up the Polaris RZR today…. did part of the paperwork, rest happens Monday. Four different offices to visit. It ran well on the trip home and is great on the Jungle roads. More next blog.

Alan

La Colina Project

Guest Post: First Week in the Jungle

November 25, 2017
by Jayne

My Dad, Alan, has come to visit us in the jungle for three weeks. He’s been reading my blogs since I started blogging in 2012 and decided a couple of days ago to write one for La Colina Project. I hope you enjoy the new perspective of my Dad’s very first blog.

– Jayne

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I decided to come to Mexico to check out what Jayne and Beave are really doing here…as it sounded like quite an adventurous project, and indeed it is and then some.

I packed a picnic cooler with 20 kg of goodies for them including light bulbs, a soldering gun, a watt meter with a whole bunch of wires, plastic cards for direction signs, and a can of shingle nails to nail them up, and two quart jars of special fix-it lube for their truck to solve it’s transmission and differential problems (plus other tools, etc.). I was concerned all the way down on Westjet that somehow some security person seeing this on an xray machine may think this is suspicious. We left Calgary ok and on time, and landed early. The cooler was there… but I couldn’t find the carry on bag that I graciously let Westjet put underneath, as the plane was full and they asked for volunteers to put carry-ons under to free up overhead bin space. Turns out that a guy at the end of the belt in the airport was just taking off random bags including mine to save room on the belt, and it was hidden in with other luggage.

Customs then asked me where I was going, and then said push the red button. Turns out this button is a lottery to decide if your luggage will be searched by xray and hand, or give you a green light to walk out. Mine was green, so the cooler made it through without a hand search.

Then they asked me for the cart holding all my stuff before I got out to the main lobby, meaning dragging the other two cases as I struggled with the cooler… just around the corner, I thought there would be Jayne and Beave to assist… but not to be. Traffic from home had delayed them, and they showed up ten minutes later, all big smiles.

Their blue and white van was just across the street in the parking lot, and Jayne had the parking ticket for exit in her hand as they helped me load my luggage in the back, and gave me the seat of honour in the front. We get to the exit of the parking lot, and the ticket has disappeared. After some discussion with the parking attendant by an overheated looking daughter, he says he will not lower the price of what appears enormous in Pesos, but is only about twenty times the parking rate. Jayne backs up the van, and the search is on for the ticket. After 5 minutes, the ticket magically appears by my luggage, but now the machine beeps and won’t let us out. Turns out too long was taken looking for the ticket, and an additional charge is due for more parking time. Frustrating.

The ride up to La Colina was an interesting one, through a big city, country towns, and finally some two lane paved road with just trees, and massive traffic on the road. We then arrived in San Francisco, which the locals call San Pancho, and decide to go in and eat before it gets dark. We then sat in a bar on the beach and saw the last of the sunset, and a main street lined with many restaurants and other small tourist trap shops. Jayne sorts me out with a Mexican SIM for my phone that costs one quarter of what Rogers roaming would cost me for my stay here, and top-ups of internet are cheaper too.

Jayne and her Dad reunited in San Pancho

The road to La Colina is from that point a real adventure in itself, and of course at night is just a tunnel of folliage and ragged barbed wire fencing with very rough dirt road with some larger stones, and four or five fords across various bits of creeks. There are a couple of random street lights in the middle of nowhere near the end of the power lines, just over half way, and several houses in the distance with the odd light. We arrive at the bottom of the property, and I am escorted into my new home for the next three weeks, which looks like an old Gypsy trailer from the outside, and a well worn, freshly painted RV on the inside with a double bed, and a table and benches that can eventually become a single bed once some cushions are fabricated. I am told the stairs to the yellow door have just been fabricated Rustico in my honour. Look like chain saw cut logs. The accommodation is quite comfy, and I am glad I brought my newly bought Red Lantern.

The whole of the land is on the side of a hill, with part of it then wrapping over top of a ridge. A small bit is sort of a clearing, which a couple of days later magically gets cleared using machetes to make a large open area where the solar panels on order will be located. There are trees everywhere, with small clearings around the buildings.

Since the whole place has been unused for 4 years, and subject to vandals removing anything of perceived value, and leaving large messes, and a jungle doing its best to reclaim what used to be nice buildings and walking paths through it… and even the area around the buildings, great amounts of brush clearing have happened by the three Mexicans hired from down the road who have accomplished an amazing amount in five weeks….along with a lot of work by Jayne and Beave.

Amazingly, not everything of value has been removed, and some of the infrastructure still remains hidden, like a giant puzzle. I have already been following mystery pipes and wires using a dowsing pipe, and will be doing more in subsequent days.

The Treehouse that Jayne and Beave are living in is majestically up on the side of a steep hill, with the swimming pool some 15 meters down and 50 meters away, near the edge of the property. The pool is in amazingly good shape, but needs some more troubleshooting to fix some piping before the pool pump will run and filter water. The water is amazingly clear, but cool.

The Treehouse is a single large room with the magnificent homemade bed with mosquito net screening like a sultan. They have given me similar netting in the Gypsy cottage, but the mozzies are not very vicious at the moment and only appear occasionally.

Jayne and Beave’s Parota Four Poster Bed

The main deficiency is that there are no permanent lights, and J&B have been living like the middle ages with candle light and flashlight head lamps, and tiny fairy lights left over from some past burning man festival. They brought some solar lights that do not work. They marvelled at the amount of light from the Coleman lantern.

We immediately started talking of putting in electric lighting… and I bring out my package of a dozen LED light bulbs I bought for 50 cents each at Rona, as they were subsidized by the Alberta Government last month to the tune of $3 per bulb. I am told that wiring is a priority while I am here, and we subsequently spend three hours of our Saturday afternoon at an Electrical parts supplier deciphering Mexican ways of wiring, and come up with enough bits to wire to almost Canadian standards, which is higher than the Mexicans… I marvel as I walk along the town streets and see many electrical cables and boxes that are totally installed to be practical but not up to our Canadian standards.

We now have a plan, and hopefully in a couple of days will have some permanent lights in the Treehouse, which will be for now powered by the generator, but later on by the solar panels.

We lucked out and the Electrical supplier had a 10 percent sale on everything for Revolution Day weekend, and also had some additional specials on some neat little hot water demand heaters at about $70 Canadian dollars each. Jayne is thrilled, cause she wants hot water showers. So in the end, three are purchased… two for La Colina, and one for me to take home to put in the garage, or at the Scout Camp. Once the required bits to pipe one in are in hand, the Treehouse may have hot water later this week.

Installing the hot water for The Treehouse

We discuss ways of attracting possible guests for the facilities here, and Bird watching, and Geocaching are mentioned. There are many birds here. In Canada I listen to CBC radio in the early morning. Here, it is a collage of many birds, and other creatures creating a dull hum in the night, with the occasional larger noise. There is a continuous shedding going on in the forest… with crashes of larger palm fronds, and other bits. I comment: I don’t want to be standing under one. I also think I hear small creatures wandering outside, but not sure. There are dogs on the next farm that are very loud from the Treehouse, along with the farmer yelling at his cows.

The geocaching discussion continues with thinking if our family created 81 caches in the area… one each of every possible difficulty and terrain, that some cachers would be attracted to find them all…. and perhaps stay here. Heather replies that we would have to cheat on terrain…but I don’t think so… there are many steep treacherous slopes here that could be rated 5 out of 5 with no question by any finder. In fact, J&B insisted that a rope be installed on the hill behind the Treehouse to the water tanks on top of the hill so one has something to hang onto while going up there.

We have been for several meals in San Pancho, all very tasty, and J&B are greeted many times by servers they know, or other locals they have met. It is a very friendly atmosphere, and there is no sense of threat from the Mexicans…or the tourists, of which we meet many also.

A delicious cauldron of steak and cheese

Yesterday we parked in San Pancho with the truck, just recovered from the mechanics clutches. Across the street there was a black flashy ford, with a number of Americans, turns out from Houston Texas. They have this car from a friend, and the keys have been taken swimming… the electronics in the battery operated key now scrambled enough to not start the car, but only activate flashing lights, horn, etc. to which no one in the area are even looking at. The American girl asks for a boost. Jayne gets out Jumper cables, and hails down a car, so she does not have to move the truck and lose the parking spot, which is convenient on this busy Sunday evening. The car is boosted, but the Ford does not want to burst into life. The key corruption is stopping it starting. Monday is Revolution Day, a holiday… so good luck finding someone to sort out this car soon. I noticed it is still there on Monday.

Jayne says she feels safe here… apparently in these established tourist areas, there is not much gang activity, as the whole Mexican economy depends on the tourists.

The tragedy of the day is I have lost my camera, with all of my photos. Fortunately I do have some on Beave’s computer as I gave him a copy of most of them I have taken since I have been here. Hopefully it will show up, as I took some great photos at sundown on the beach last night.

I have been in discussion for some time with Jayne about the possibility of putting in some local internet dishes to move internet from San Pancho, via an intermediate house on a hill, to here. Good news is I can see the house in question from the hill behind the tree house. We await confirmation of the rest of the plan. So the saga continues, and it is an interesting exercise. I can see why things take a while to sort out here.

Jayne and I walked the road up the back side of property to the adjacent waterfalls. Another road with fords across creeks. The waterfalls are quite magnificent and totally undeveloped, with water coming across a width of about two meters. There are a couple of hoses there that feed water to several local farms, and now parts of La Colina has water from there also. Apparently this is the only local water source that is available year round. Like many jungle areas, there are two seasons in the year: rainy, and hot and dry. We are just nicely into the hot and dry, and thus the tourists are arriving.

Today is Revolution day, and we went into town and had waffles after watching a street parade with local children doing various gymnastics… diving through a fiery hoop onto a mattress, and climbing one each other making a human pyramid. There were a few horses at the end, and a band. We came back and decided it is too hot to install electrical plugs, so I am now writing this blog, trying to help Heather in Calgary sort out her phone, and eventually make a phone call that works to Linda who is with our granddaughter Rochelle and mom Kelly in Vancouver for a week. Generally the weather has been tolerable, but it is indeed getting a bit warm in the afternoons.

I have to watch what I touch. Beave is constantly getting bites, and bits. He has had three ticks or more land on him since I have been here and the card type tick remover I brought down from MEC has worked well. We haven’t tried the tweezers with the little hooks on the end yet. I just moved a couple of pipes outside without gloves and something on the second one created a deep burning sensation on my finger. The dirt just seems to collect under fingernails from nowhere.

Anyway, we are having a great time and I have been able to help with some projects… Two more weeks in the jungle to go.