Travel Archives - La Colina Project

A beautiful lotus growing in our pool

Currently more of a pond…

Jungle Journal

Onwards

November 28, 2018
by Beave

We dodged a significant bullet. Hurricane Willa moved North of us 50 Km as she hit shore. The jungle here cools the air slightly and creates a diversion for big storms, which saved us. We have the benefit of 36 hours of hard rain and being stuck on our land for day or two but that is the extent of our hardship. Those up North have not faired so well. Villages that have been there for centuries are no longer. Many small towns under water. Dozens dead. Thousands displaced with nothing but the wet clothes on their backs. There have been regular convoys of donated aid. The volunteers are doing traumatic work as best they can but return shocked and dejected by the scale of the crisis. It’s going to take a long time to restore even basic human needs up there. It’s humbling.

Our newest nearest neighbours are a young couple who have been employed to caretake the nearest ranch. She is 16 and has a 10 month old boy. They talk quickly and in country Spanish which I find very tough to comprehend. They are very keen to be hospitable and share what little they have. We & some of our friends have joined them for freshly made breakfast and Palomita (choco powder & milk straight from the cow with tequila frothed up and drunk warm). It is clear to us that visitors to our place love this experience so we are arranging to add it to the list of things to do. Make a few extra pesos for them which will be greatly appreciated.

We are not the last gasp residence out here. We are beaten by half a km by our friendly old hermit who lives in a ram shackled brick structure up in the hills with his cat. He and his brother share the building to sleep in and cook on open fires outside. They use the window as access as he lost the key to the door years ago. He walks into town everyday to give himself exercise so his smoking habit doesn’t kill him. His solitude makes encountering him a longer than expected issue as he finds it quite tough to stop talking. But he is the font of great knowledge as he sees things and knows things about the land here that no one else does. He can put his hands on 20 kg of limes at any time. He can find you a snake, an armadillo or a jaguar. On our last visit to his place he showed us a very good size snake skin curing in salt & sun to make himself a belt. He also knows where the water sources are. We are particularly interested in that. Our experience of 24V water pumps remains sketchy as we find the last one we installed buggered and had to build one from the bits of the busted three. Anyway gravity is a much more reliable thing so we employ our happy hermit and his visiting brother to run us about a kilometer of water pipe from the water source to the pools down to our land. We have on our shopping list a new 2500 liter tinaco which will be spring fed as back up to our current solar powered water well solution.

The pool, which has been a constant source of attention, gets a gift from our friends. They are currently without a pool but have brought with them from Canada a brightly coloured pool robot. Eric, as we call him, is made of day-glow plastic and looks like something from an early 80’s disco. His job is to run around the bottom of the pool like a mobile vacuum sucking up all the crap and goo and dust that it can find and ingesting it until we clean him out. This would usually require quite some faffing, some pumping and removing large amounts of water with the muck. We are somewhat attached to our new time saving day glow friend. He just gets on with it. Our lives are easier.

Miracle of miracles we have an egg. An egg from one of our chickens! I would love to wallow in the result of our perseverance and patience but I can’t. Our new neighbours, as young as they are, are old hands at raising chucks. They delivered three new chickens to our chicken nunnery last night to teach our remaining two what they are for! So the relatively useless Sister Bland and Sister Bricklebank are now joined by three big fat useful birds and we have an egg. Just the one but it’s a start.

There has been the issue of the new highway being build 200 yards from us hanging over our heads for some months. The construction crews are getting closer and the thought of losing so much jungle right in front of us is not a good thing to feel into. We see surveyors and forestry folk wandering around the hills and are waiting to see what happens next. Our contacts have suggested to us that there has been a slight change in the routing and there is a chance that we might be spared the worst of it. Just the thought of being beside major construction for up to a year takes the joy out of a peaceful jungle experience for sure. The thought of losing so much habitat for birds and beasts doesn’t bear thinking about. We are preparing for much guerrilla planting of fast growing bamboo to create a noise and sight barrier as soon as possible.

I talk to my brother who tells me the news we had been waiting for. My Dad has passed. His stroke in February took him from us and it has been a long tough eight months of hospital and care home visits for my Mum and brother. It’s expected but shocking non the less. I managed to see him the week before his stroke and again during my last visit for which I am ever grateful.

We visit the next town Lo De Marcos where we meet friends in the bar. News travels fast here and it becomes a spontaneous wake for my Dad. I travel home laid out in the bed of the pick up truck watching lightening between the clouds and stars and remembering my magnificent father.

It’s Dia de los Muertos in a few days and friends are creating a shrine for loved ones to be remembered. It’s a noble tradition to give one day a year to remember and honor loved ones who are no longer with us. Far from the spectacular scenes at the start of a certain 007 movie dia de los muertos is a time of reflection and a private family day. Graves are laden with flowers and families gather. If your ancestor was a musician music is played, if a dancer then there is much dancing, if a gambler then much is lost and won, if a drinker… you get the idea. For those of us wishing to participate without a graveside, alters are constructed with flowers and photographs, salt and earth and candles. There is a gathering in the town square and as children run around collecting sweets like Halloween I stand beside the picture of my Dad in the middle of the alter with a bottle of tequila and toast his life with everyone I meet. Friends and strangers. It’s a very cathartic experience.

It’s a strange thing that funerals in the UK are around two weeks or more after someone dies. In Mexico you are buried within 24 hours. It must be a whirlwind shock for the family to arrange everything and come to terms with the grief all at once. It’s a more drawn out process in UK with deaths having to be registered and formalities and booking churches and crematoriums weeks in advance. This does, however, allow us time to arrange caretakers for the land and arrangements for the properties we help manage and find flights.

It also allows us time to coordinate selling our beloved house in Darlington. It has been with me for 25 years and helped me raise two kids, a business and a sack full of much valued memories. I love that house but it’s time to let go again. Neither my son nor daughter wants to move back to Darlington and I have realised that I don’t either so it’s time. My kids’ inheritance is moving to Mexico and will soon be transformed into a yoga deck and many other sexy structures. It does mean flying to the UK for a week to say goodbye to my Dad and my house. A challenge.

It all starts rather well. Wales give us the great gift of beating Australia in the Rugby for the first time in 18 years the weekend before the funeral. Dad just loved his rugby and wherever we were in the world we spoke after every International. At full time, after a few brace of Guinness, my brother and I treat the pub to a loud rendition of Guide me O thou Great Redeemer (Cym Rhondda). Everyone gets an earful – Bread of Heaven at full volume. Lucky buggers.

The funeral in the idyllic rural village of Folkingham in Lincolnshire has been beautifully arranged and is very well attended. My brother and I stand next to the coffin and do a joint eulogy and say out load how we feel about the magnificent bugger . As emotional as it gets but we both got through it. There are Welsh hymns to get all the feels going including a more tuneful version of Cym Rhonnda . My son helps carry him, my daughter does a poignant reading and my niece sings an aria like an angel. Not a dry eye in the house. Just my brother and I rode with him to the crematorium. He tells me that he considers the wicker coffin looks more like a bread basket which lightens the mood. The girls have smuggled in a few cans of Guinness into the funeral car. We toast our Dad , Derek “Taff” Beaverstock. One last belt out of Cym Rhonnda sung by Welsh male voice choir and we are taken to the pub. Our journey is made all the more memorable by the appearance of the strongest and most spectacular rainbow spanning the Lincolnshire fields guiding our way. I appreciate all the support and love from everyone. I am left with the feeling that my Dad is far from gone but with me always.

We bid Lincolnshire and family farewell and travel to Darlington to meet a lovely chap who used to live in our house. He called us out of the blue and asked to meet up. He arrives in a tweed suit carrying photos and flowers. He has done very well for himself over the years but had humble beginnings in a couple of rented rooms in my house around the 1940s. We saw the place where they hid from the bombs during the war and the room where he was born and slept in a sock drawer as a baby. It was great to be so nostalgic with him sharing memories of the spaces we all shared at one point in our lives.

So onwards to our solicitor to sign it all away. Then back the house to donate the last of the furniture and tools (too big to fly with) to charity. Much lifting stuff into vans and saying farewell to empty rooms.

Our good Greek friend and super-chef opens his restaurant in Darlington to us to feed us magnificently and welcome friends who have helped us so much selling the house. A thank you and further wake awash with organic Greek red wine. Then to friends in Manchester via the apple store where our genius sees what Mexican humidity can do to technology. We reload on tech and good food and good company and fly home. Something of an emotional blur.

We return to find the highway chainsaw crews have already arrived and started taking down the 6m corridor of jungle where the road is going to be built. They have been working everyday we have been away and are now well advanced in their destruction. We look from every angle of the land and can’t see any change. This is a good thing. We have workers coming to us for water and to borrow tools. They tell us that although their vehicles are parked next to our gate they walk over 2km before they start work. It looks like the highway is 2000m away not 200m away. You can’t see it and there is a hill in between. This affects the value of our land (not that we are wanting to sell it) and our future plans significantly. It’s not for certain yet but this is potentially the best news we could get after a tough week.

The rains have stopped. We swim in the ocean and see whales passing by from the beach. We have good friends staying with us and we all have been invited to our first US Thanksgiving Dinner. The jungle is now considerably cooler and less humid even in the short time we have been away. The cash from the sale of the house is on it’s way to fund our next stage of creation. There is a lot to do.

It’s good to be home.

Jungle Journal

The Cake Distraction

August 7, 2018
by Beave

The thunderstorms when they arrive are extraordinary. We are floating in the pool watching large drops of rain falling and landing painfully on our faces. We retreat to the house as the dark sets in and the weather gets serious. The sky flashes constantly with sheet lightening. Then the fork lightening hits very close just behind deafening thunder that shakes the house and moves the air around us. Everything lights up bright as day. This lasts for a number of hours without a break. We hide in the tree house and watch the show. A vast amount of water is dumped on the jungle that happily sucks it up.

The fireflies are here in force now the water has turned up. When the moon is waning and the nights are darkest it is pretty much impossible to tell where the stars stop and the fireflies begin. It’s stunning.

My Dad is unwell and we arrange to return to the UK to see him and clear out our house to make it more saleable. It’s tough to leave this place emotionally and logistically. We have our man guarding the land & have cancelled a booking or two. We have acquired standby flights, which saves us a large chunk of cash. We pack light and accept a lift to the airport.

We are arriving in the UK about the same time as Trump. London is rammed with protesters. Only the Brits can come up with such spectacularly abusive banners and be encouraged by the London mayor to wield them in public. My daughter is front and center in Trafalgar Square under the Trump blimp balloon. Very proud Dad.

Aircraft seating is designed for humans of different dimensions to me. My shoulders are wider than any seat on any plane. My legs are long enough to jam in front of me if my knees touch my nose. It’s not pretty. Sleep is impossible. 11 hours of numbing contortions later we land in London. We are collected and taken for a quick lunch by Jayne’s Uncle and then head to Lincolnshire on the train loaded with newspapers & cake. The jet lag kicks in properly. The words on the page are blurred and the cake remains uneaten. I watch the countryside pass by baked by unfamiliar sunshine. Everyone we meet bangs on about the heat wave. The UK has a single week of sun and there is such a drama and hose pipe bans as standard. It’s been sunny here now for months and the population is going nuts. World Cup football and no rain. Doesn’t get better than this.

We finally arrive and my Mum collects us from the station. We have arrived in a state of hallucinogenic fatigue with stale clothes stuck to us holding newspapers and cake. We spend a few hours struggling hard to stay awake until dark when we have planned to give in. I am fully jet lagged. My brain is effectively useless. I realise how useless when I set about unpacking. My backpack has our two laptops, a tablet, kindle, all my most important paperwork and pretty much everything of any value that we own. It’s not there. It’s not anywhere. It’s vanished. I’m gripped with slow gut gripping panic. I have a clear memory of moving uneaten cake from next to my backpack as we left the train. It must have been on my back. The car is searched a dozen times as is every inch of the house. No mistake our lives in a bag is missing. We are in the car driving the 30 minutes back to the train station. The rising level of stupid mixed with anxiety and the growing realization of the many many consequences of losing ALL our most important things does not make for a good driving state. We somehow arrive at Grantham station without an incident.

At this point our angels conspire to save us from our imbecilic selves. Grantham customer services happily confirm that I am indeed an idiot. I was distracted by cake and left the bag on the train. It has been found at the next station 20 minutes drive away. We manage to avoid collisions and police speed traps and arrive at Newark Northgate station customer services. The boys there recognize a moron when they see one and give me an appropriate amount of banter. The bag is returned. I can’t remember being as grateful. I get back to the car and realize I am without my wallet. I return to Newark North Gate station customer services to prove beyond any doubt what a complete fool I have become. They look at me with almost disbelief as they remind me I put my wallet in my newly returned bag. I thank them once again and invite them all to Mexico. They clearly never want to see me again. Bloody cake.

Darlington in the sun. We have rented a van and arrive at my house which we emptied in a massive hurry 10 short months ago so we could rent it out. It’s currently for sale as we intend to move our kids inheritance to Mexico (with their permission). We very cleverly created three hidden spaces in the house where we have stashed all the things we didn’t throw out or sell. We are here to clear these spaces. One is an entire cellar and the others are attic spaces. Memory is a strange thing. We have very generously been gifted a storage area at a friends house which is more than adequate for the few boxes of stuff we need to move. Three days of hard graft later our friends now hate us. Their house is now home to a full size Elvis, two mannequin wives and four rammed van loads of our ever expanding stuff.

Our great value standby tickets from London Heathrow to Mexico City require us to be at the airport for 9:30 pm to grab the first two spare seats available. This involves a long sweaty airless hour and a half tube ride from our friend’s flat in London in the heat wave. We have acquired two suitcases which are rammed with all the best 25kg of things we have rediscovered along with as much hardcore cheese and marmite as we could squeeze in. We are fully laden and exhausted and ready to fail to sleep for another 11 hours. This was not to be. We have chosen the busiest week of the year at Heathrow. First week of school holidays. Everyone wants to go to Mexico City. The flight is overbooked and we are 11^th and 12^th on the standby list. Not happening today. Maybe tomorrow. We stash our bags and return to the delights of overheated London.

Tomorrow comes. This is the busiest day of the entire year at Heathrow. No seats. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow comes. With immense relief that we don’t have to get on the suffocating tube yet again… we fly away. Thankfully we have spent two unexpected days in steaming hot London abusing hospitality, eating well, loading up on Guinness and catching up with friends. Some of which we said goodbye to 3 times. We even squeezed in a visit to the National Portrait Gallery which is entirely impressive. This was my favorite. “An angel at my table” by Miriam Escofet . A portrait of the artist’s mother.

We are relieved and delighted to be home. We unload our massive amount of cheese and marmite into the Razor and head back to the land. The rains have been regular since we left but nothing dramatic and to our surprise the arroyos (rivers) are still dry. This is unusual. Never been this dry this late in the year we are told. As we drive there are clouds of butterflies surrounding us. Many types and colours and thousands of the buggers. There are clusters of them all over the place. We disturb them walking around and are covered. It’s extraordinary.

We are straight to work. We have to get water pumping and we install our third water pump which we have brought with us from the UK. The second pump proved to be worn out. Probably was running without water in the well and stuffed the motor. Anyway our third pump is running like a champ and we are back to full tinacos in no time. The rain tends to wash out some sections of road quickly so I am deployed with pick axe to create water trenches leading the flowing water down drainage channels rather than removing our road. So far they have worked well which means I will have to create more of them. We have Hurricane John and Hurricane Ileana whipping things up out past Baja so we are expecting a huge water dump sometime soon.

In our absence the rains have taken down our devil fruit tree ( as Jayne affectionately calls it due to her deep seated loathing of all things bananary). We have rescued all the fruit we can and to Jayne’s great delight they are ripening slowly on our balcony.

We have three sets of guests arriving in the next week so we have to set about making the pool sexy and clean all the cabanas. We remove all the sheets from the beds and find half of them to contain mouse nests! With mice in residence. Mausetrappe is deployed. Everything washed and replaced and we add an electric fan next to every bed. It’s inhumane to not have a fan handy in this humidity.

Our house is in one piece but now sits in a huge mass of green foliage. It’s machete time. The boys have spent two solid days on hands and knees removing as much of the new growth as they could. It’s a losing battle these days but we keep at it. We survey the massively overgrown land. It’s only been two weeks but it’s changed so much. There are vines that you can watch grow in front of you. These vines are brutal and not just a little spooky. They have overtaken the area underneath the solar panels where my sunflowers and bougainvillea were happily getting bigger and better. The bougainvilleas are tightly wrapped in vines but I manage to save about a dozen. The sunflowers have not faired well. The vines have lifted every one of them out of their earth bags and broke them into pieces and dragged them off. I take the machete to the murdering swine. It’s a futile gesture as they immediately regroup. It’s going to be a long battle.

Mausetrappe has certainly missed us. We locked her out when we were away and constructed a temporary enclosed house that we attached to the cat flap. We couldn’t take the risk of coming home to large piles of rotting mouse bits. She has forgiven us and spends a great deal of time clingingly wrapped around our feet. The chickens remain dumb and ugly. Three have full sets of tail feathers now but Sister Bland remains stubbornly bare arsed. Despite the lack of any signs of intelligence they do have their lucky moments. The cutter ants raided their chicken coop and made off with most of their food. There was a long line of ants bearing huge loads of grain headed directly into the jungle. Exactly where all four chickens were waiting . Chicken feed with bonus ants. They scoffed the lot.

Dragon flies are appearing. Brightly coloured and often in pairs attached in a push-me-pull-you copulation flight pattern. The bright day-glo lizards have returned and dart around the bush at great speed. The dogs here are experts at catching them. It’s pretty much their go-to snack.

So life has returned to a somewhat normal state of affairs if such a thing exists here. The World Cup ended up in France of all places and won’t be coming home anytime soon. Hose pipes are banned throughout the UK and surprise surprise we are expecting more rain. The pool is our sanctuary and still worth the constant attention it demands. We are fully stocked with Marmite and also have the added bliss of a fridge filled with proper mouth punching Cheddar cheese in which we indulge with dollops of original Branston pickle. Now that’s paradise for ya.

Jungle Journal

First few days…..

September 12, 2017September 12, 2017
by Beave

What follows is a rather lengthy diary of the bones of our first few days on the move. I’ll be happy to fill in the blanks next time we meet……..

DAY ONE

Leaving anywhere with 11 bags and a surfboard is always going to be fun. Leaving Manchester at 7 am to fly to Houston post hurricane and then onward to Mexico is special.

Great start to the airport balancing people and stuff in a beautiful RV packed to the gills. Three heaped trolleys to the Singapore counter and then the real fun begins. Despite hours of pre-event planning calls and assurances it is impossible to check our bags through to Mexico and at least as worrying there is doubts that my surfboard (my precious) will not fit in the hold. Sitting on a huge pile of bags at 8 am effectively homeless this is not the best news.

After enough time passes to make our run through security an event, we pay more than twice the price of my first car in excess baggage charges and away we go. My precious is on board …. It could be a lot worse. It becomes so when the Singapore Airlines supervisor follows us to the plane which is now waiting for us spouting platitudes and assuring us that this will all be a funny story (or blog as it happens) one day soon. We both avoid the temptation to punch her.

Plane to Houston.

Arrive in baggage claim Houston and create a luggage train of three packed trolleys held precariously together with a surf board on top. Steering was randomised and did not improve with swearing. As we headed to inflict ourselves on the United desk there was much staring and eventually some help offered and gladly accepted. Two sweaty lumps and 11 bags and my precious arrive in front of a slightly bewildered Carla.

Now as much as Carla was unbelievably inept at helping us and amazingly proficient at making our lives hell, she was lovely about it. We were required to wait 14 hours before we could check in. We were required to pay more than 5 times the price of my first car in further excess baggage. We were to buy a further 4 suitcases and repack everything to meet United weight restrictions. Sitting on a huge pile of bags at 3pm effectively homeless this is not the best news.

While escalating this as best we could to someone/anyone who had any authority to help us we witnessed other people’s less obvious troubles. The hurricane is hitting Florida and airports closing and very many tired and emotional folk were stuck in Houston indefinitely. Houston is recovering from hurricane Harvey and we discover the staff at the counter had been trapped in their houses for up to 10 days due to floods. There are so many drowned cars that there is not a single rental car available. There are so many flooded homes and buildings that there is not a single hotel room to be found anywhere. We count our blessings and feel humbled on our pile of dry luggage.

Carla changes our lives. She has found a human who at the very thought of dealing with us crumbles and waives all fees and throws away the rules and she checks all our bags and us on the plane for 9.40 next morning. Massive relief and gratitude. We leave the airport with only 4 bags (twice hand luggage allowance) and find Jaynes uncle Richard who has been waiting for hours for us outside the airport. He has listened to an entire Bob Dylan collection and two Beatles albums so is chilled out.

DAY TWO-ish

Houston is recovering. We take well over 2 hours to drive the 45 minutes to his house. Seeing houses and cars flooded out gives us added patience. We are well fed (thanks to the skills of aunt Jess) and slightly slept at 6.30 am when we then take nearly 3 hours to drive the 45 mins to the airport. Rush hour Houston with only one good freeway is less conducive to patience. We somehow get through security and on the plane with all our bags and bottle of scotch in less than 30 mins. Somehow. We watch from the windows as we see my precious being loaded. All is well.

Plane to Puerto Vallarta.

Another well practiced luggage train is taken apart by customs. We patiently show our lives in 11 instalments and a surf board. Our friends at US homeland security have kindly unpacked and repacked our bags in advance of our arrival. The unpacking seemed to have gone well but the repacking … not so much. Our vacuum packed tetrus-ed suitcases when opened prove impossible to shut. Their solution was to move spare life essentials into another of our bags. This bag is rammed with tools and hammocks and protests by exploding in transit. Making America great again will take time I fear. Bless them.

Massive cab to a much-recommended rental place. The only one in Puerto Vallarta that does not rape you for bogus insurance. No matter how cheap your website booking thinks it should be or how good your own insurance thinks it is , the companies charge you a huge lump on top for “local insurance charges “or they refuse to rent you the car. Not Mexicos proudest moment when you just arrive in the country, be warned.

Loaded pick up to see our notaria (lawyer).

Arrive in car park under shopping mall to realise my wallet was missing. Jayne sympathy increased notably when she found her passport missing. Not a good start.

We walk to the notaria office in jetlagged befuddlement. That feeling of losing important things sitting hard in our bellies. A thick set bald guy walks directly towards me. Oh, shit what does he want. I judge this dude as a time share salesman. “I have something you need” he says. I don’t need a bloody timeshare …… He then passes us an envelope with a passport and wallet in. We are jetlagged and befuddled and stunned. Much thanks and shame. We stupidly left both on the rental desk. Geko rentals have sent their man to find us. We decide to love them.

Lawyer meeting. Ready to close on the land 18^th September, We homeless till then. We have a plan. Fish tacos and get to see Big Chief and Abi at their rental apartment before our growing stupidity has further consequences.

Outstanding soft landing of whisky and loveliness and 11 bags and surfboard.

It rains hard.

Sayulita is an over popular place. Beautiful but packed all year. No parking even in low season so the smart thing to do is rent a golf cart. Chief is smart so we leave the hill and head to town. Rain has turned all the roads into fast flowing shallow rivers. Some fun is had creating waves on the way to purchase Mezcal and other essentials. We head to a favourite pizza place. We have a Mexican Venice moment eating Italian food overlooking a particularly gnarly road river outside.

It continued to rain hard.

We sleep hard till we don’t. Jet lag is a thing.

DAY THREE

Breakfast and faffing completed we stop at hardware place to load up on machetes and take our first trip out to the land. First time since June when it was dry. Hurricane and tropical storms have made the wettest summer for many years. The pick up is not 4×4 and doesn’t have the best clearance we soon find out. After fording, a few new rivers imperfectly (Chief is quite rightly unimpressed at my 4×4 driving “skills”) we bottle it. Not a chance are we driving to our land. We gather stuff to wade across. Local farmers come to check us out on their horses. They are just making sure these daft looking Gringos are not going to kill themselves. They offer to help us out when we get sorted out with a decent truck. 4×4 now top of our shopping list.

We get across on foot easily if soggy. The water is cool on the body. I’m already a large ginger sweaty thing. Better get used to that. Approaching our land is different this time. The road is a flowing mountain stream and the land is covered in green. The first entrance has 50 feet of yellow flowers about knee height. Machete job no.1.

We survey the land. Measure the well (22m deep with 20m of water today). The girls find bananas, passion fruit and lemons. The boys find huge whip spiders and water pools full of tadpoles. This place is going to be loud with frog song soon.

We discuss endless possibilities while drinking beer tequila and Mezcal while floating in the stream cooling off and nursing the red burns that appear on bare skin from the juices of machetied plants. Nature always fights back. I’m covered in them. Sensitive flower that I am.

Back in San Pancho for lunch and float in the sea. Unbelievably perfect after sweating gallons. I float and consider this will be a daily routine soon enough.

Things take a turn for the ugly when Chief is required to remove a tick from his gentleman area. Not pleasant. Lesson to note about checking one’s bits for ticks.

We (Abi & I) drink hard and sleep hard in sympathy.

DAY FOUR

Awake to 11 bags and a surfboard and news of large earthquake south of us. Thankfully for us over 1000 miles south but have a number of people to reassure.

Load up and leave Sayulita to check in to cheap room in San Pancho. Two Gringos, 11 bags and my precious in one room……

Lunch and airport to release Chief and Abi until next time.

Find Ivan. He has a taco stall in town and specialises in Pastor which is essentially pork and pineapple but somehow tastes uniquely like neither. So, good and cheap. Decided to love the place.

Sleep to the sounds of CNN warning of disaster in Florida.

Wake late.

Head out to see our real estate friend in his new office up the road in Lo De Marcos. He promises us a generator and tools and hooks us up with fix it and solar contacts. We head to beach for lunch. Quiet beautiful beach. Then not so quiet … much commotion as large (much bigger than me) crocodile swims past a few meters from shore. This has a discouraging effect on paddle boarders and swimmers. Our new friend swims up and down the shore till we leave. San Pancho has a lagoon in which a good size bask (newly found collective noun) of the buggers live. A local thief lost an arm trying to swim from Police recently. The rain swells have washed a few of them out to sea. The American Crocodile is not likely to attack when in sea water we are told. This is not reassuring enough to want to find out.

We return to our room and decide to disgorge the bags and find out what we have brought and get organised. Seemed like a good idea at the time. It is amazing to find the things that you “can’t do without”. In our case its mainly art, hammocks, buckets of ginger strength sun screen and tools. After some hours, we repack and agree to store our bags with these poor unsuspecting hostel owners while we go to Guadalajara and Chapala to collect our van and try and find a 4×4.

How we managed it I’m not entirely sure but we now have 16 full bags, 2 over stuffed plastic bags and a surf board!

We leave the room to watch the sunset and meet our immigration lawyer. He knows our land well and is very well connected in many ways. He will introduce us to a girl who lived on the land for many years who will know so much! I’m excited about that. She is currently very pregnant and due her first child any moment so she will have other priorities. Shame …but another lesson in patience for me. Like this guy & feel we are going to have some fun together. Been here a day and already feeling connected. Few too many beers and another visit to Ivan’s and we head back. Got to return truck and get bus for 5 hours tomorrow.

Wake to hear of Florida’s dealings with Irma. We managed to squeeze all our ever-expanding stuff into a laundry room and head out. Drop truck and check into bus. Love these buses. started this diary/blog and watched a movie on Bertha (my tablet) and arrived relaxed…. to wrong bus station …. late. Our friends who were to collect us 45 minutes ago are not here. We decide to taxi to other bus station to find them not there either. They do not have a mobile phone. Dilemma. Before any overriding stress sets in they arrive over an hour late due to traffic at the wrong bus station to find us immediately. All worked out.

We land at our friend’s casita late and collapse.

DAY FIVE

So, we in Lake Chapala and reunited with our van. Amazingly it’s been cleaned and serviced in our absence. It is also packed with old and new stuff and another surf board and inflatable paddle board. We are stuff rich homeless people. We do now have a fab casita to live in this week at our friend’s place. We have good Wifi and time this week to land and sort out a bit.

We don’t need to be back till 18^th and Saturday 16^th is Mexican Independence Day and more importantly … Jaynes birthday. Our shopping list for even more stuff is getting long. Solar, well pump, generator, tools, small ATV, 4×4 truck, bed, fridge, new locks …….

We are both dealing with jet lag but overall relaxed and happy.

Could have done without the scorpion in the tea pan this morning but there you go.

lt’s not a bad start.