Polaris Archives - La Colina Project

Armadillo in the fridge & a techno handbag

January 18, 2019January 18, 2019
by Beave

The New Year is upon us all and we get to look ahead with the benefit of looking back. Making loose plans to make our lives better, happier, easier, more fulfilling Working out what is working and what can be improved. No pressure. We can all prevaricate easily for a month and if nothing changes we will be well into 2019 so can drink just as much and settle into the same comfortable bad habits guilt free.

We have identified a missing element that we have not prioritized enough in 2018 and is a game changer. There is a lack of excellent music in our lives because we haven’t invested in a reliable music device that is practical and impressive enough. We are motivated to fix this issue quickly. During a rare visit to the big city we are tempted by a huge Mexican electronic box with the promise of loud Mexican style music delivery with a microphone to further irritate the neighbours. We are seduced and buy one. The big black box of promise lasts an hour of blue-toothed tunes before picking up some random clicks, farts and whistles that don’t really add to the experience. Our $28 USD investment is perhaps not the value we were looking for.

Our mates who run the Cerveceria in town use a rather sexy single box of tricks to ply excellent quality tunes upon its customers. We identify one and return the big black box of promise and exchange it for what looks like a high tech handbag. It’s sound is amazing and we now have no excuse to trawl our endless supply of obscure and classic tracks hidden on endless devices. Over a three month period during 2017 I transformed my entire CD collection of thirty years into a tiny plastic box. This box is now delivering a frightening amount of music through my laptop to the techno-handbag and into our jungle. It’s fab.

These past days have been a rolling feast. Xmas Eve we were presented with extraordinary freshly caught fish and other white food. Our friends who have one of the most impressive homes in the town and a strong Norwegian heritage feed us their traditional white pre-Xmas fare.

The Beef Wellington Xmas day get together goes swimmingly. Great food and company till just late enough. Lots of help with tidy up in the morning. Again our free bar created considerably more booze than we started with. We again are reminded of fairly significant impracticalities when creating four Beef Wellingtons in the jungle. The most obvious of these is that the only oven we have is a treacherous hike down a very slippy hill, a jungle road, and a contortion through a cow gate to get to it. The secret to creating good food out here is mostly not dropping stuff. Our twin burner on which we cook pretty much everything has become a single burner and recently started to manufacture soot at an alarming rate.

We have succumbed to circumstances and taken a further plunge and invested in an oven for the tree house. It takes some rearranging of fridges and space to make room but somehow it all slots in. The fridge is cleaned out before moving it. The same fridge that only days before was home to an Armadillo that the neighbours were trying to keep fresh as a treat for their boss to eat. Bonus is we find some forgotten delights. Mustards and precious horseradish. The oven being so close does have the advantage of encouraging pecan pie and other delights to appear more regularly. It also means that I will not have to make four separate 20 minute missions in the dark to babysit one Beef Wellington ever again. Henry our new horno (oven) is installed. Let’s see how he works out.

There are further additions to our lives which have been coming for a long time. I have been constantly and enthusiastically informed over many many weeks that there are two things that my life cannot be complete without. I am less persuaded by the argument but have a strong desire to change the conversation so I surrender and drag two of the heaviest chairs I have ever had the joy of owning up our many stairs and somehow squeeze them into our lives. She is very happy. As is the cat that is now permanently installed in one of them.

Sad news. Hey–hey our half chewed chicken became, as predicted, eagle food. Well a snack anyway. We do miss the ugly little thug. The culprit has been identified as the large evil bugger we spotted on the chicken house. It’s a Collared Forest Falcon; the top bird predator out here. They are also called orgasm birds. At sunrise and sunset they make a distinctive high pitched sound that is often mistaken for particularly successful love making. Oooo-OOoo-OOOoooo-OOOOOoooo-AAAhhhhhhhh….. We have heard them often but didn’t associate the noise with such a beast of a bird. It’s an endangered species our remaining chickens will be pleased to know.

Collared Forrest Falcon full of chicken.

Worrying news. Pinto/Tripod (the dog that adopts us when it suit him) is AWOL. It’s been an officially worrying amount of time since we have seen him. Food on our balcony remains uneaten. No late night cacophony as he chases some beast up a tree. Our friend is missing. He is a remarkably hard arsed jungle dog and it would take a lot to bring him down so we have faith he is still around somewhere taking up a better offer. He is a tart for attention and food as known by everyone who has met him. This scruffy, stinky, battle hardened character is well loved and has an impressive international fan club. We await his return.

Our new president “AMLO” has certainly showed his intentions in his first month. It’s not going to be simple or painless to change the old ways. There have been highly disruptive propane shortages due to the government not allowing price increases. Hot showers are a rare thing these days in even in hotels. There is also a National fuel (petrol) shortage, which is grinding entire states to a halt. There is a previously accepted process where 48% of Mexico’s petrol is stolen and sold back to Pemex (the National petrol stations.) AMLO decided this was not going to continue so stopped the flow. Only official outlets are supplying fuel now. The Pemex stations that were forced to buy from the black market are shut off. In Michoacán there are over 90% of petrol stations without fuel today. Thankfully we have a small stash of propane and our local Pemex is buying legitimately so we are not as affected as most. Interesting times for Mexico. We just hope and pray that AMLO gets his way and doesn’t get stopped by less democratic means.

I have been banging on about our soon to be yoga deck now for months. As with any truly yogic project it’s on its way in it’s own time and space. Breathe and relax. Don’t stress. We found the necessary stuffs to keep the jungle out of our wood and make it the required colour. I have applied it to the main beams and will slowly work my way cutting to length, sanding and treating the 120 pieces of planking. We have the necessary tools and even the hardware. So no more excuses. My piles of wood look more like a deck every day. I’m hoping it’s own time and space converges with mine in the not too distant future. But no stress right? Just breathe in the varnish fumes.

We now have deep bassey playlists in our background thanks to our techno-handbag. Mixed in with our auto-generated lists of tunes appear short excerpts from Spanish language lessons. This is not a bad thing. Most recently we had Tom Waits followed by a 5 minute Spanish lesson followed by Rage Against the Machine then George Michael then 2 minutes of past tense grammar. These sneaky Trojan horses are helping my Spanish, which needs it.

We know a universal truth. Paying guests means much laundry and thankfully we have a heap of them. The girls in town are loving the business and we are becoming aficionados at recognizing a queen sheet from a matrimonial. Skills you never knew you needed. Good to have an income and make ends meet at the end of the month for a change. It’s our first season so we have a heap to learn but so far so good. Had really cool guests from all sorts of places near and far. Very nearly everyone gets what we are doing and 5 star loves us. Long may that continue. Validation always feels good and is motivating to make things even better in a positive way. Worth the challenge of the very few needy buggers and the endless loo buckets. Metaphorically and physically dealing with other people’s shit.

Pauly our Razor Polaris ATV is unwell. There has been dodgy sounds coming from the rear CV joint for a few days. This has distracted us from the clunky steering. We try and make a slow turn near our house and the steering goes completely. We are immensely grateful we were not traveling at any speed and our only problem is having to fix the thing where it stopped in the jungle. One of our fabulous mates is going to California to see his folks for Xmas and we ensure that there is a shiny new rack & pinion under his Mum’s tree to smuggle back to us post haste. Another mule is recruited from Canada to sneak us in a tiny little CV joint axle. We are resigned to be without our beloved and exceptionally useful ATV for a number of weeks. Django our trusted and much loved big blue van is employed. We thankfully just replaced her transmission and she is running well. Limonada the pick-up is still too thirsty and unreliable and we make plans to replace her. Life certainly slows down without Pauly.

We receive news about Pinto/Tripod. Despite being enormously well fed and medicated against fleas and ticks and in generally great shape our happy dog has been “rescued”. Some white woman “gringa” randomly decided to relocate Pinto the jungle hardened pack leader and find him a new less exciting suburban home. Bloody cheek! I‘m doing some research to see if I can trace this irritating self-righteous idiot and return Pinto to his exceptional jungle life. The search is on.

New Year Eve we deal with a significant influx and exit of guests and finally and gratefully we head out to meet friends at our favorite restaurant in town. The place is packed with familiar faces filled with excellent food. The Chamorro is a thing of beauty. Whenever my body needs energy or my heart needs to sing I have a 10 hour cooked Chamorro. The boys take a whole shank of pork and cook the life into it with oranges and herbs and just the right touch of care. Carlos is the chef here. I tend to avoid the young wannabes and head to the oldest slowest ladies to cook for me here. They are magicians. They really understand how to make the simple, the spectacular. Carlos is a young pretender with epic skills and all the love. He must have the best Grandma behind him somewhere. I love the Chamorros here. A large table of happy hungry heads share the last three with hot fresh tortillas and wash it down with complimentary truffle and mushroom soup left over from the posh menu. New year arrives in a blare of excellent noise from a DJ in a tree , highly dodgy pyrotechnics, tequila and many friends. Perfect.

It’s been another extraordinary year.

Jungle Journal

Sprung

April 26, 2018
by Beave

It is without any doubt that spring has indeed sprung. It’s everywhere. And what a movement that was…

Within but a few days the Primavera (springtime) trees around us have exploded with sudden bright golden blossom. That scrawny old tree that had hidden behind everything else has burst front stage in a flamboyant flush of yellow. This display lasts for only a week or so. The Bougainvillea are alive and throwing colours everywhere. It’s an event .

It’s dry too. The ground is transforming into fine layers of dust. The pathways release clouds of the stuff which can be blinding when the sun reflects on it. Large thick roots are revealed as the earth evaporates around them. The rains are coming and we are now experiencing the grip of mild anxiety as we imagine all the landscape flushed of content and guess what might remain.

The humidity is also upon us. It’s been a quick transition between feeling the heat on the afternoon and the heat feeling you. Gets into every crevice. By 4 pm there is little option but surrender. If I’m outside I become a damp pink bloke with melting senses. Best to give up anything mentally or physically taxing. Which leaves little else to do but stay still and indulge in early day gins and naps. The fan has had it’s first good go of the year. Moving air is altogether more acceptable than the still warm heavy damp kind.

The sun has changed altitude and the mornings and evening have extended themselves later and later. There are days when the sun and squawking of mating parrots are ignored enough to sleep late. The sunsets complete their act around 8.30 pm so nights out are no longer ending at 9 pm. The town has emptied of most of the tourists. A steady but slow stream of beach seeking gringos still remain. The snowbirds (those who spend 6 month in Mexico/ 6 months in Pacific NW) are leaving for their long journeys home. Seattle and Vancouver are filling up again for Summer. We share a few last sunsets before they leave. The humidity moves in behind them.

Our mates from SF have bought a place in Los De Marcos 20 minutes away. We go with them to see it and end up at a jazz gig with newest friends. We agree to help mange the place and transform the garden and build a roof Palapa. That should keep us busier. We celebrate with dinner under the stars at our place. We engage in a late night Tequila fuelled scorpion hunt. We have a hand held UV dark light and we prove very quickly that when it hits a scorpion it glows like a light bulb. Have tried this before in Israel and South Africa but the Mexican scorpions are the brightest I’ve seen by far.

This did not help one of our guests. She had returned to stay with us for the second time because she loves it out here. Until that is, at 6 am, when she called us to an emergency. She had been hit twice on the foot by a scorpion that we find in her bed. We fly to hospital and wait there as she is observed for allergic reaction and bagged and given an anti-venom shot. It was her first time in hospital and a bit of a drama but we were soon out having breakfast of raspberries stolen from our white witch friend who happened to be passing by. Scorpions rarely are dangerous but they do give you a “poison trip” for a day or two that can be unpleasant. After she got over it all she went straight to town and had the astrological sign for Scorpio tattooed on her scorpion bite !

There are a very few things that I have avoided since being here but Micheladas is top of my list. I’m not universally known as a shy one and am all about trying new things but the very thought of a virgin Bloody Mary with beer in the same glass just seems instinctively wrong.

Our favorite sunset bar is closing down. Their lease is up and the owners are probably looking to sell their uniquely stunning spot for a hotel or something equally crude. Our Argentinian bar staff/friends who we have seen many times every week since we arrived are moving on. This is a sad turn of affairs and must be marked with a house Michelada. I’ve seen huge glasses of the red-stuff with salads of celery and cilantro spilling from their chili crusted rims pass my head very often. At no time has this tempted me in the slightest. However, in honour of Bar La Fresona and our brief love affair I order one. It arrives showy, resplendent and larger than necessary. The salt and chili flavours are soon overcome with an icy cool flood of tomato and the aftertaste of beer. It’s not entirely revolting. Over the next 20 minutes of sipping and battling a chili flaked celery in the eye three separate friends come over in high excitement to find out why I looked like I had been kicked in the face by a mule. No matter how much care and attention I took to get this this in me without drama it was not to be. For some reason I’m covered in bright red chili salt from hairline to chin. I am in bad need of a shower and a shave. Not my finest hour and I’m in no hurry to repeat it. Farewell la Fresona, going to miss you. Micheladas… not so much.

The season in terms of visitors has changed equally suddenly. We have had full occupancy these last few weeks and spent our days cleaning sheets and floors and greeting folk. I have done the tour of the land many many times. Same questions and similar answers every time. I have discussed this with bar and social hosts many times. How do you deal with being asked the same questions over and over again ? It’s not quite automatic for me but I can feel it getting a bit like that. Our story told in 20 minutes changes and evolves in the many tellings and as time passes. I have to keep an eye on keeping it authentic.

Right now we have no one on the land but us. It’s good. We have the odd enquiry and the very odd booking now and again. We have had a Welshman in a hammock for a few days and a couple of great friends bearing gifts of a new well pump, sheets, towels, car parts, jubilee clips, sewing machine oil and cheese. (Oh how I miss the joy of real proper, bites your tongue and makes you sweat cheese.)

The extra time we have now is a welcome distraction. We have had the space to start the process of planting. Much shifting of earth is required. We move pick up loads of real black earth from a river bed 1 km away to our piles of palms left over from the building. Earth on top and the placement of large river rocks and we have our “hugelkultur herb spiral”. It’s planted with all the seeds. Many herbs, chilies and marigold we smuggled in. Our well is still wet & the new well pump works okay after a repair or two so we may even have enough water for the plants and us.

A day is spent collecting good growing dirt. I remove 4 years of anthill & bat poo that has filled our pool pump house with a carpet of it a few feet thick. Back breaking but we now have sacks of the stuff. We mix this with rotting palm wood and a full load from the river bed. We ninja raid a local stable and make off with a bag of horse shit. This all meets in a single pile under the shade of the solar panels. We are assisted by our hermit neighbor from even further up the hill. He has propagated Bougainvillea for many years. He told us that he spent months growing them locally and then cows ate them all in one day. So we collect the cuttings from a local snowbird on her way home to BC. We create the perfect grow bags from mixing all our offerings together. Good dirt and ant and bat and horse and palm. We dip the snipped ends into white power growth hormone and then each is planted, released and watered. Left to fend for themselves and get big and strong. We now have more than 100 future Bougainvillea of all colours under our solar panels protected from cows. They will one day make the most beautiful and dangerously thorny borders for the fence lines.

It occurs to us that we don’t currently have a single Irishman on our land… it’s been some time.

Our Polaris front tires blew out again for the umpteenth time and the fourth time in a week. It’s now our No.1 expense. We have a crap bald second hand tire on one side but that is so much better than the teabag that is the other. Can’t keep air in it no matter what we do. Even inner tube blew out. So we are saving our pennies to buy new tires and for now Pauly Razor is on chocks. Thank the stars we have a friend here who has been fiddling (in a good way) with Limonada Toyota for the past week. Brakes work and accelerator pedal is reattached and wheel bearing renewed.

Armadillos are noisy buggers. Must be mating season coz they are everywhere at the moment. Didn’t see one for months then all the big ones turn up digging loudly and proudly around the tree house at 2 am. Even spotted one in front of our balcony in daylight. Maybe walk of shame from night before.

We are well on our way to putting our house on the market in Darlington. When that goes through we will be funded for our next phase of creating. Until then it’s the farmer’s diet of tacos and tequila for us. We are living simply and saving costs and keeping busy. There are still small opportunities to make a few quid (pesos) here now and then and we are keeping ourselves up for it.

An unexpected opportunity has somehow appeared on our horizon. We meet new friends in town. They have been retired here for many years and split their time between an amazing house here and an equally stunning property near Seattle. They generously gift us herbs, flower cuttings, curtains and tequila. They and their visiting daughter end up at our place and we produce a makeshift feed at the open outside kitchen in the jungle. We use the oven to roast chicken and we overcook (burn) spuds & vegetables in the fire. Despite this they have waxed lyrical to their friends about us and now we have been invited to invite “them all” out here to a dinner. We have the great and good of San Pancho at our place for dinner in a few days!! They want to pay us for the privilege and take photos for the local news-rag to promote us. This could become a thing.

Jungle Journal

Bromeliads from heaven….

December 31, 2017December 31, 2017
by Beave

The end of another year. Thank you for all your support with donations and adopting trees, bats and bee hives. It’s a considerable help to us and we appreciate it greatly. As do the bees and the trees and the bats.

Strange days continue to happen. It’s Monday and I’m at Oxxo, which is the Mexican 24 hour chain store that appears at every petrol station, and elsewhere. Oxxo do a half decent coffee from a gurgly machine and are useful for milk and ice. The rest of the store seems to be shelf after shelf of biscuits and cookies. It is also where everyone tries to top up their phone on a dodgy touch screen till. It is often a long process followed by disappointment. This makes the queue last enough time for coffee to go cold and ice to melt.

“Juan Juan The Slow Concrete Man“ is not there for his 8am arranged Oxxo pick up. I drink my coffee and wait a while. A guy walks over to me making direct eye contact and talks in a slow drawl of Spanish. I pick up the words for floor and concrete and practically nothing else. I later find out that no one much understands what he says most of the time. We have an odd gesture based conversation and I agree to take him to look at where our concrete floor should have been 3 days ago. I give up on JJTSCM with the idea that maybe he has sent this guy in his place. We arrive and our man is already there and greets this new guy as a good friend. I am confused. They look at me expectantly. I have not a clue what’s going on. I practically drag translator Jayne out of bed to make some sense of it all.

First development is that JJTSCM texts to tell us he is feeling unwell and is hospitalized with chronic apathy. We are thankful we don’t have to fire him. The new guy is a friend of our man’s who we met briefly at a bus stop waiting for our solar frame to arrive. Someone mentioned the floor to him then. He recognised me at the Oxxo while he was on his way to another job for a local dentist. Well the dentist hadn’t paid him so he chanced his arm, sacked off the dentist’s job and jumped in with us. He agrees to return the next day with a crew and skill and enthusiasm and have the floor and tiling done by the end of the week for a fixed price.

We take a breath and recognise that JJTSCM effectively fired himself today and has been replaced with a much better option without us consciously doing a thing. All by 9.30am. We retreat for tea.

Our friend has arrived from Reno and we set out to show him Sayulita and meet up with our favorite Yoga/Pilates instructor who we met on the bamboo course. She meets us and a few tequila based refreshers. Later we go look at the surf. Our Reno friend tried surfing for the first time today and hasn’t quite got the hang of it yet. He blames the board which makes him sound like he’s been at it for years.

We watch too many people not catching waves as the sun sets. It is a glorious evening. I hear my name shouted. It’s definitely my name. I am confronted by an excited guy in hippy pants & sunglasses that I recognise as a friend that I met first in New Zealand, then Israel, then USA, then Spain, then South Africa. He is in Sayulita with his wife who has extended family who have been here since it was a village and own extraordinary seafront property on the hills around us. Sayulita is 10 times the size on San Pancho and packed with tourists so this chance meeting is very random. This day is getting weirder. We arrange to meet him and his wife later for dinner and take an adventure tour around some secret places we are introduced to.

The next morning starts early getting the new concrete crew set up and away. They are strong and fast and have already surpassed JJTSCM’s efforts in the first few hours. Good news.

Today we have a constant stream of visitors. I collect our newly found friends from their stunningly luxurious buildings above the Sayulita sea. We remove them from luxury and add more Rustico. Our favorite friend who smuggled us in shoes and my water pump from Colorado joins us. He brings 5 of his 6 kids, his wife and their St Bernard puppy, which is 9 months old, and the size of me. They bring cocktails and a good touch of disruptive enthusiasm that only a bunch of kids with machetes can do. We manage to remove the machetes from the kids, check them for obvious wounds and off they go exploring. I escape and head to town to capture our Texan friend who owns a restaurant near the beach. She has wanted to come out and see us for months and we have promised her own area of garden to nurture. In the process I collect a very welcome gift of accurate, proper and perfectly simple tequila glasses from dear friends.

We leave for dinner in town as the sun drops to discuss gardens and concrete and friends lost and found. We return to a dark tree house and try out the glasses. They work a treat!

Things calm down a touch but there is a welcome development. We have received our first rent. Our Reno friend has contributed to proceedings in appreciation of the place (and our loveliness clearly). It’s a strange and welcome thing to have a “money in” section in our books. And so it begins.

During the past mad busy few days our man has been noisily attacking our Parota chunks under clouds and mounds of sawdust. What has appeared is very impressive. The wood is now alive with smooth texture & deep colours. Our Parota kitchen counter is ready for the beaten copper bucket/bowl that will be the sink. Our huge round slices of tree/outside tables are ready for setting on logs refined as legs. There is so much beautiful drying Parota we are spoilt for choice. We were in PV stocking up and found similar wood lumps (untreated) for sale at stingingly silly prices. We done good. It’s all going to look epic.

It rained hard again last night. The bouncy splashy wet type for many hours. We are assured this is very very unusual for December. We were caught out and much is wet that shouldn’t be. The vehicles throw films of mud over everything including us. I have a cold. I probably have a touch of ebola mixed in too. I’m being very brave.

Our new concrete man has turned out to be a right character. He is often found a hundred feet up a tree he has climbed just because. He catches huge fresh water shrimp from our streams and juggles scorpions .If he gets stung by one he tells us the cure is to eat it. He has philosophies about pretty much everything and we have a strangely comfortable bond developing. His English is worse that my Spanish and he is, I am told, still fairly incomprehensible anyway. He is a good looking young man, exactly the same age as me, half my weight and twice as strong. It’s a touch depressing.

We are getting regular visits to the land from new people we meet in town and further chance meetings with old friends. We have had South Africans arrive I haven’t seen in years and a friend who I last met ten years ago in New Zealand. She just happened to be staying in town. There seems to be a heap of people from Calgary here too. The waterfalls are becoming a popular destination walk and we are easy to find on the way out so there is a steady stream of folk that happen across us and want to know what we are up to. Our tours of the land are getting practice. It is interesting to see the place through fresh eyes and new perspective. It gives us confidence that we are creating a place and space that others will love like we do.

Plans are afoot. Now the Bodega apartment (Selva Vista) is on it’s way to being finished the BrickSHouse area is our next focus. We can get water there from the top of the hill and revive the shower and install one of our newly built composting loos. We have researched acquiring a number of large glamping style bell tents that can be located on platforms and house queen size beds. There is a contact that has a supplier in China and the budget is not too bad. The idea gains some traction when we realise that our man is offering to build us small casitas with palapa roofs from locally foraged materials for much less and very quickly. We calculate that this gives us the best chance to offer something unique and funky and make decent rent in the shortest time.

We have lost our desire for concrete gate posts and that has moved things along considerably. We now have a gate. It was a tree and now, thanks to chainsaw and skill, it’s a fabulous gate hung between wooden gate posts. This gives us a boundary and entrance to our land for the first time. It’s located at the first entry point to the South side and is a great addition to the mix. Love it.

Our orange toilet block has been bugging us. We have revised our plans to revive the shower and tile the floor. It’s a large space. Too large we think for single loo and a shower. We have, therefore, applied a touch of rethink and have created an outdoor shower on a nearby tree. It’s surrounded by a spiral of palm bark planks from downed trees around our solar array. The remaining blocks of palm will be terraced into the earth to create planting zones. Palm wood does not last long out here and disintegrates quickly into fertile planting goodness. So we will tile the floor and chuck in a few beds and boom! … the orange block becomes another resting area for weary volunteers who need a budget option. The outdoor shower is looking very sexy and set to revive the hot and sweaty by dispensing authentic jungle temperature waterfall.

Xmas eve is spent borrowing an oven to cook pumpkin pies (strange looking squash pies actually) and watching sunset at our favorite beach bar. There was a set from a jazz guitarist & drummer from the town. A professional trombonist happens to be at the bar and joins them. They improvise on John Coltrane tracks. Perfect.

Xmas day comes and goes with minimal fuss. My present is a hand drawn card and I stun Jayne with a parody version of Merry Xmas everyone by Slade on the Ukulele. “And here it is …. our first Xmas in the jungle with a cat. If you’re looking for the perfect life it’s exactly where it’s aaaah-aaaah-aaat !“ …. I’ll save you from the verses. We eat well with friends old and new in town after a particularly lazy morning catching up with family on Skype.

The new bee location has been discovered by at least one Coatis. I saw one on these sticky pawed buggers this morning looking rather pleased with itself. These large raccoon type creatures get into anything and apparently like our honey. They have moved heavy rocks on the beehive roof and taken bites out of the honeycombs. We are repairing and securing them as best we can. The bees are unsettled and one of the smaller hives looks like its been abandoned. We are working on making the place more queen bee friendly and less a honey trap for Coatis.

We have had a very strange and shocking accident. We were in the Polaris returning back to the house from plumbing the apartment. It’s my son’s birthday and he is on face time with me following the journey from our phone. There is a sudden and startling loud crashing noise and something hits my head hard and bounces painfully off my leg. We come to a sudden stop and there are very huge chucks of wood everywhere. We check each other. We are somehow not injured. Jayne runs to a spot less likely to be fatal as I look up and around to assess what has happened. A huge branch has fallen directly onto the Polaris roof directly above my head, which was saved from being crushed by the strength and build quality of the roll cage. The bar above my head has a significant dent in it. The rest of the vehicle is bruised but in pretty good shape considering. The offending log of wood is lying in front of us covered in over a dozen quite stunning Bromeliads. It was probably the weight of them that sent it ground wards. When I’m sure nothing else is coming down at me I haul it from the road. It is very heavy and takes all my strength to move. There are smaller large logs all around us that have broken off the main branch. We look up and see where the branch started from and it’s very very high up. The chances of this happening are probably a fair bit less than being struck by lightening. Our luck being directly under this thing as it landed is questionable. Our considerable luck surviving with no injuries at all is not. We are grateful, humbled and both pretty shaken up.

My son and his friend have watched this happen. They are wondering if it was a set up just for them. We are all delighted that his birthday did not include seeing his Dad squashed flat live from the UK.

We take the rest of the day off. The sunset looks particularly pretty and the margaritas are just that extra bit delicious.

Our plumbing is done and waiting to be connected up to a tinaco and our new hot water shower looks well posh! The concrete battery house is nearly done and there is so much in the pipeline for the next few weeks. We have three new palapa roofed cabins in production and a crew from Sayulita (our first real work party) arriving after New Year to give us a full week’s work on the white house. The apartment is getting there and on track and we will be offering the “gypsy cabin” up for AirBnB as soon as the paint drys . Progress… poco a poco.

San Pancho is full of folk now. It’s in post Xmas full swing. Sayalita is unbearably busy we hear. People enquiring about renting the Polaris stopped us in the street. We are mending the bits that the tree broke and have added a “rent our Polaris” page to the website and are sorting out the web of knotted red ribbons which is Mexican commercial car insurance. It’s looking a lot more likely we will actually get a real live punter soon!

Amongst our discoveries when clearing up all the places here are filthy old note pads, drafts of books and a roll of various architectural plans for septic tanks and buildings. It is fascinating to read lists of costs and materials from 8-10 years ago that are so similar to the ones we are creating today. Amongst the bat guano stained pages are letters to guests/friends who have outstayed their welcome and hospital bills for treating Scorpion bites. This bonds us to the folk who were here before us. It reminds us that others had dreams for this place and some were realized. Locals have told us that when Richard (an ex NFL player) was building the tree house and the pool he made the whole place incredibly beautiful. All to attract his wife down to visit from California. He died here but left a strong legacy, which we greatly respect. His carpentry work that remains is outstanding.

We discovered that five years ago a girl called Mary setup a treatment retreat for recovering drug addicts here. It was based on the premise that taking a locally strong hallucinogenic called Ibogain cured addiction. There is much written in credible scientific journals about the effects of Ibogain C₂₀H₂₆N₂O (originally African in origin) to help heroin addiction. We continue to learn how that all worked out. It was a controversial venture that did not win unanimous local support or sympathy we hear.

We both are looking back at how our own lives have played out these past few days, weeks and months with some incredulity. This year we have been around the world at least once and have had some extraordinary adventures. We returned to UK in July in time for the Glastonbury Festival (my 27th time and Jayne’s first). We then decided to pack up our lives into 11 bags and a surfboard and move into a tree house in a far away jungle. This was not the plan when we woke in San Francisco, USA on New Years Day a year ago planning to build another temple at Burning Man. That feels like two lifetimes away. I have been in Mexico now for coming up to 4 months. This is the longest I have been in one place since I can remember. It’s a very good thing.

Happy New Year.

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