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A beautiful lotus growing in our pool
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Currently more of a pond...
Currently more of a pond…
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Mexican Roadtrip 2017 - Route
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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 4th 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 13th 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.

Photo Credit: John Curley
Jungle Journal

Jungle Jeep Rescue & a Smack in the Chops.

  • June 18, 2019June 18, 2019
  • by Beave

So our fading patience with our totally useless mechanic in Chapala has finally come to an end. It’s taken over 18 months of almost comical excuses, unbelievable lies and vacant promises to get us to this point.  We need to arrange an intervention and somehow get our vehicle away from these inept morons. We have a plan.

To get things started we will need to call the equally useless mechanic’s wife to let her know that we will be at her shop to remove our now almost mythical jungle jeep in the next two days. In order to have everything in our name, there is, of course, the inevitable Mexican process. We have the name of a fixer who has agreed to queue up at the vehicle document office in Guadalajara at 5 am the morning after we arrive. He will present all the required documents (currently with the morons in Chapala), pay all unpaid taxes that the morons have agreed to cover and offer proof of identity by presenting our very precious Temporary Resident card. This card has taken us well over a year of painful trips to immigration offices to get hold of and we are wholly nervous that it will be leaving our sight in the hands of an unknown bloke who appears drunk whenever we try and message him.

There are few other options. This is what is required if we want our sexy wheels back. There are a number of things that must happen. We MUST somehow make sure the morons do what they have agreed to do for the first time ever. They MUST deliver all the paperwork to fixer-man by end of the day tomorrow or we are stuffed. We MUST drive to meet drunk fixer-man in Guadalajara and hand over our ID card. We also MUST find ourselves a trailer or dolly to add to our van so we can tow the thing back. Despite endless assurances that the jungle jeep is mechanically sound we have absolutely zero confidence that it will be drivable with any semblance of safety. We have reviewed the situation carefully and there are a worrying amount of “musts”. Despite the very many ways this plan can go very wrong we have decided to take it on. We make the call. We leave at first light.

The drive to Guadalajara is around 2 hours through winding switchback single lane roads and then a further 2 hours on the posh new toll highway and an hour to get into the city.  We set off early with the promise of a dolly trailer that we can collect from our beloved mechanic in La Penita. The plan, if somehow successful, is to deliver our newly rescued machine and trailer to his shop in three day’s time. We contact our fixer-man to let him know we are on our way. He responds by indecipherable text messages and a few voice messages that lead us to believe he is very drunk at 11am.  

Our bee man currently lives in Chapala and has asked us to collect and deliver a Yaka tree for him. We find his tree man on the winding highway who happily loads the tree into our van … along with a further 19 trees and three huge, heavy and very ripe Jack Fruit. Over the next few hours the van develops a strange sickly Jack fruity smell. 

We contact the morons who eventually answer their phone. We say the word MUST a lot. They agree, better agree, promise and double promise to deliver the documents to the drunk fixer-man that very day.

We become aware  that we are spending much more than budgeted on the various sections of toll road. It works out that as we have another set of wheels attached to the truck the toll booth computers are automatically charging us half as much again. As usual everything is happening in its own time and space so we are behind schedule and need to meet fixer-man in an hour.  We decide it’s sorta worth it to pay the tolls to save the couple of hours of driving the alternative route would add to our day. We work out that the tolls on this section of highway alone will cost us significantly more than the average day wage here. It explains why we have the road pretty much to ourselves. There is no way most folk can afford to spend over a day’s wages to save two hours driving. It gives us hope that when they finish the highway next to us it will be equally ignored.

A rendezvous is arranged and we park up at an agreed spot in Guadalajara and contact fixer-man. He is on his way. Within ten minutes a relatively normal, cheerful and surprisingly sober bloke arrives. We are mightily relived. After some reassuring chat he takes our ID card and promises to be in touch the next day so we can meet him to collect the goods.  We let him know the morons will deliver the documents he needs later that day. He gives us a look. He has dealt with the morons before. We can tell he is not confident.

Our hotel is rather posh, surprisingly inexpensive and located directly in the middle of a city that is not set up for parking a van and trailer.  There follows quite a lot of buggering around with finding a parking lot and disconnecting the trailer and then losing our way back the hotel and failing in every way to find a place to eat. The city is packed with people and traffic and is a world away from our daily lives. We are tired and grumpy and after a few beers head back to the hotel to put this day to bed and prepare for our intervention in the morning.  We shower the deeply ingrained muck from our bodies and irretrievably change the colour of a few hotel towels.  Cleaner and exhausted we collapse on the large soft bed.  We get a text message. By some miraculous shift in the Universe the morons have delivered the paperwork. We are on!

It’s too early but we get ourselves moving, retrieve the van and trailer and head to a much recommended spot close by.  Tonola has all the things we buy locally and in PV for a fraction of the price. It’s particularly famous for cheap ceramics and tiles. We spend the hours awaiting the call from fixer-man by loading up on metal hardware, an oversize ceramic BBQ, a few ceramic mirrors and water dispensers. There are a heap of shops selling plaster statues for very few pesos. We have an idea of spray painting random animals, skulls and angels and hiding them in the jungle. May have got slightly carried away. Our van is now full of trees, stinky fruit, a huge BBQ, boxes of random ceramics, a number of plaster giraffes, a large jaguar, six Buddha’s, five skulls and an oversize cherub.

We get the call. Fixer-man has our stuff ! Good news. He now needs morons to transfer him the taxes he paid and his fee and we are good to go. The fun starts.  We call moron to let her know we will be with her within the hour and she needs to send the money she agreed to pay. And so it begins. Tales of woe. Tales of hardship and toil. Tales of misery and starving children. In short she has spent all our money and is skint. She may be able to do something in the morning when she is expecting a payment.  This was not an unexpected turn of events but non the less a touch frustrating. We decide to go and collect the jungle jeep. The time has come. No one is going to stop us. I haven’t shaved in a while and am somehow back to my  usual mucky self so I’m not looking very civilized . We think this might help.

Onwards to Chapala which we remember as a quiet and picturesque place. We head straight to the shop and spot our very distinctive black and red machine parked on the road. Moron wife greets us and immediately starts talking. She keeps on talking and doesn’t take a breath. We listen to her endless apologies, excuses, poor me stories and promises of money in the morning. In the 20 months she has had our Jungle Jeep they haven’t done a thing to it. It’s exactly as we left it all that time ago… just with more dust and rust.

We get out of there as quickly as we can and head to see some friendly faces and some cold beers. I drive the beast following the van. This is a short but bum clenching journey. A few hundred yards down the road I’m scared. There is a huge amount of power for such a light weight chassis and the brakes aren’t up to controlling it. The back tyres lock up and I’m skidding and sliding along behind the van. It is with much relief that we arrive at our great friends who kindly agree to house the thing overnight. Good job we brought the dolly trailer. 

We depart in the van to find our bee man and get rid of the stinky load.  Our van is gratefully unloaded. He is living next door to his ex-wife who offers us a very cheap apartment room for the night. We are ready for sleep. It does not, however, take long to realize that we are not alone. Now we have all had a few mosquitos in our room before but nothing like this. There are hundreds of the little bastards. I hide pointlessly under the thin sheet and continue to get eaten as Jayne becomes frenzied with the buzzing in her ear holes.  She leaps around the room smacking at them with her hands and swearing.  She kills dozens of them but it makes little difference. It’s a miserable night compounded by the fact there is no water in the taps or shower or loo. We make our exhausted escape early to meet friends for breakfast.

Mexican driving licenses require you to declare your blood type.  Neither of us have a clue what our blood types are. Enquiries to family doesn’t help either. We need a test. Chapala has a very high contingent of gringos of retirement age. One of the best places to retire in the world apparently. They have Goldilocks weather most of the year. Not too hot. Not too cold. One of the features of a town full of retirees is that there are health testing labs everywhere. We take advantage and donate some blood for testing. I am A+. Sounds like the best one to me.

After the blood distraction, we walk along the Malecon next to the lake. We stop for a bite in a fish restaurant overlooking the lake that serves the most amount of seafood for the least amount of pesos.  While taking on the mound of fish we resign ourselves to the fact that there is no way moron will come up with any cash and that we need to pay the taxes. It’s not unexpected and we have decided to consider it a life tax. At least we get the jungle jeep home. We spend an age sending cash to fixer-man via the till system in a pharmacy and then head to confront the moron one last time. I’m full of fish and secretly quite enjoying the fact that I don’t have any need for the morons from this moment onwards so can dispense some honesty and not have to listen to any more of their bollocks.  I find her and let her know in no uncertain terms my displeasure. I have developed a strategy so she is not off the hook. I have claimed to have borrowed the money for the taxes from a friend and that she now owes him the money. This lovely bloke happens to live close by, is well known to the morons and in a position to further damage the shop’s reputation in the town. He is well up for it. We may never see a peso of what she owes but we have removed the morons from our lives and that feels like a bargain.

Our friends load us into their car and take us into Guadalajara to meet fixer-man. Thankfully the traffic angels were with us and we manage to get in and out again with all our officialness completed and ID returned within  4 hours. Time for beers and burritos and an early turn in at another friends casita.  

The quiet reputation of Chapala, however, is in serious doubt. The church fireworks start early and send shockwaves throughout the night. They annoyingly mark a random saint or virgin or event that no one can tell us about. Rumours abound that the church folk are bored and just like setting off fireworks and don’t need a reason anymore. To add to the night’s festivities at 3 am a full Mariachi band kicks off! At 4 am they start up again. Why??? It pays to have hearing loss in Chapala we have discovered.

It’s way too early when we finaly give in, get up and head for home. As usual nothing is straight forward. The jungle jeep starts after the addition of more fuel and a spray of carb cleaner in the air-inlet.  We then discover that the GMC Jimmy 4×4 on which this thing is built won’t work with two wheels on the ground and will wreck the transmission. We can’t find a way of disconnecting the drive shaft so we have to take the whole assembly out entirely.  That takes some doing. We are finally on our way by about 10.30 am.  Just in time to meet static traffic. A lorry of apples has overturned on the switch back road and the queue goes back for miles in both directions. Further joy as we discover the tolls are now double for us with two vehicles. It takes us 8 hours to get to La Penita and off load the Jungle Jeep and the trailer at our mechanic’s shop. It takes a further tortuous hour and we are on our way back to the peace of our treehouse which we have missed so much.  We need to sleep. We are somehow contented by the very weary satisfaction of a tough job completed. In a few weeks time we will have our properly restored Jungle Jeep to play with. At last.

We park the van by the pool and I head up the hill with a gallon of oil to top up the Razor and then drive it down the hill to collect all our stuff. The plan hits a snag when I find the Razor entirely gone. In exactly the place where the Razor was there is nothing.  I head straight for the tree house. The door is locked but as soon as I open it it becomes very clear that we have been robbed. The house is a mess of papers and destruction.

This is a new experience for me. I have, mercifully, never been burgled before. My reaction was surprisingly calm. Before I could even take stock of what was missing I considered what would have happened if I had been I the house at the time. I truly believe that would have been very messy and very serious; the consequences of which I really don’t want to consider. I could be in prison, on the run or dead. So we have lost some stuff but we are ok and it’s only stuff. The cats happily continue to knock lumps out of each other and appear pleased to see us. Most of my most valued items remain. My beloved tea mug. My frog carved for me by a 7 year old Balinese boy still flies on the ceiling. All my SWAG necklaces, masks and art from my travels still hang from the walls.  For some reason they didn’t take any of my magnificent shirts ???

Jayne is also measured but clearly shocked. She rings 911 and surprise surprise no answer.  Now what do we do? We call our man who turns up for support and I take a large stick and go and check out the rest of the buildings and workshop to see what has been taken.  Thankfully nothing else has been disturbed. We have a fabulous mate in town who is very connected with police matters. She is a force and gets the local vigilante group out immediately to take a look and then goes to the next town to get the police as the San Pancho police are not home! It’s Friday night at 8 pm and when the Police show up they are just a bit too relaxed. Because we have opened the door and entered the place they are not interested. They won’t take fingerprints or DNA as the scene has been contaminated by me entering???  One of the police officers takes a statement. The education levels here are basic and frustratingly he has the writing skills of an 8 years old and the comprehension skills a few years below that. He asks us to list everything that is missing but we aren’t allowed in the house or to touch anything.  Somehow we manage to stay calm in the face of incompetence. We agree to visit the police office in the morning and make a full statement.  At least they have come out which helps with our insurance. We are told that a year ago it would take them weeks to even turn up.

At times like this there is a tendency to be paranoid and suspect people and unreasonably extrapolate any information people give you and it can drive you quite mad.  As far as we know the Razor was the target. It is one of the most identifiable vehicles in the whole of the state. There isn’t another one like it and it’s loud enough to be heard a mile away and everyone but everyone knows it belongs to us.  It’s likely the Razor was being watched and stolen to order. It’s likely out of the country or in some far off state by now. Our house was targeted to get the spare key out of our lock box. In the meantime they took a few suitcases and filled them with everything of value. Laptops, kindles, hard-drives, headphones, torches, power packs, jewellery, speakers, knives, stuff, stuff, stuff.  No idea how well our insurance will cover us but it should take some of the sting out of it financially.  The big losses for us are Jayne’s jewellery which has immeasurable sentimental value and the huge volumes of photos & data we will never recover.  We won’t be leaving the place empty again. Our mistake.

People have been exceptionally kind with their offers of help. After some careful consideration, we would like to ask for something. We would like anyone who knows us (or hasn’t met us yet) to send us photos of our time together (or not together). All the big scale art projects, family, festivals, parties, surfs and feasts photos have all gone so if you have any of those then please send us a copy.  In fact if there are any photos you know would make us smile please send them.  You can keep any you may have of cats and babies. It’s possible to survive without those ones for now. Jayne has created this link to make it easy and so we can do some curating. We very much look forward to see what we get!

We both very much appreciate the love & support chucked our way. We really are OK but with a lot less stuff.

Apologies for the lack of relevant photos but we don’t have many left. This was written on a borrowed laptop. Normal service will be resumed at some point.  In the meantime here are some random ones of our cats. 

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