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The White House
Forest path
A beautiful lotus growing in our pool
A beautiful lotus growing in our pool
Beave in the stone cottage
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Window view
composting toilet access
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hilltop view
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stone cottage 1
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Currently more of a pond...
Currently more of a pond…
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white house and yellow door
Mexican Roadtrip 2017 - Route
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Jungle Journal

Another Year

  • January 23, 2022January 23, 2022
  • by Beave

December is a special time in our wee part of the tropics. The humidity takes a few days off now and again, welcome fresh air is deliciously breathable and there are moments when I’m not soaked in my own juices. It’s Goldilocks weather. Not too hot, not too cold.

Sunset San Pancho

It’s absolutely the time of year when we feel the pressure to start growing stuff. The jungle has had its months of taking over and is retreating as the wet season turns to dry. We decide to treat ourselves to a xmas present. We persuade our local boys to again collect piles of river rocks and transform them into three large raised planting areas right outside the treehouse. The plan is to keep a much closer eye on what we grow and install an automatic irrigation system to keep stuff alive and healthy. The planters look fabulous and are filled with good earth and irrigation pipes ready to install. It’s a process but we are getting there slowly.

Our new Xmas planters

After one of our regular and very necessary organise days in our stuffed bodega we find a load of seeds. Our Argentinian garden ninja has also left us various bags of newer, fresher seeds. We have separated them into flowers, fruits, herbs and vegetables and started the process of germination in a large seeding box, a couple of our existing flower beds and a dozen or so plastic flower pots. Good soil and lots of watering (when we remember) and there are some signs of life. It’s an exercise in patience and faith.

Sunset Lo De Marcos

Jayne has recently become intrigued by the cultivation of mushrooms. A friend of ours has been propagating for over a year and developed all the skills and collected all the stuff to make it happen. After much boiling water and sterilising of straw and wood chips we now have mycelium all over the place. Up trees, in trees, in buckets, on the jungle floor and even in our new Xmas planters. In a few weeks, we are expecting flourishes of blue oyster mushrooms. Theoretically.

Mushroom Madness

On the other end of our highly limited production our vanilla beans are starting to turn yellowish. It’s been around 9 months since we were up ladders pushing pollen in all the right places and this year’s crop is impressive. At a loose count, there are around 60 big fat beans on the vine. We know it will take some time to nurture them to dark oozy vanillaness but it will be worth it.

Xmas comes at us fast. We have never exchanged presents but do sometimes make the effort to write a terrible song or slightly offensive limerick or a dodgy looking card but not this year. 2021 seems to have crept by and again we have been thankfully saved the endless exposure of Xmas trees, snowmen, Wham songs and adverts to spend heaps on seasonal crap.  We have entirely missed being caught up by the Xmas spirit.

We have friends staying with us for a few days so Xmas Eve was more of an event than usual so Xmas morning was treacly slow. As is now tradition we have arranged to open our place up from 2pm till very late to the great and good of San Pancho as well as a few of the more dodgy and unwashed. Our Xmas morning is, therefore, a sanctuary time for us to gather ourselves to what will come and eat the best of what we have before having to share.  This year our contribution is slow cooked lamb so if no one else turns up it will suit me just fine.

As I’m slowly imbibing buckets of tea and mustering my battered enthusiasm Jayne is clearly up to no good. There is something she is not telling me. The silence is deafening.  After a few too many moments of anticipation I am invited outside. In front of me is one of the finest sights I can remember. My bath which was lugged across the jungle and installed outside the treehouse is now full of hot water and very importantly overflowing with bubbles. There is a cold bottle of Chardy on a table within reach. The next hour is spent in bliss and gratitude. Perfect Xmas present.

Xmas Bathtime

Unfortunately, my lamb, along with deep fried turkey, fresh BBQ fish and many dozens of other dishes are demolished by around ninety guests who spend a rather excellent Xmas day in the jungle. We are lucky to have such an amazingly close and supportive (if ravenous) community here. The festivities go on just late enough.

We take advantage of the strange gap between Xmas and New Year to arrange the start of our new build projects. It has become clear that building material prices are going to go up massively in the next few weeks so we buy strategic amounts of steel & cement in advance and push forward getting our new bodega built so we have somewhere to keep it all. 

We buy a tinaco to store water for the build. It arrives on a truck that has no chance of getting to our land so I take the Ranger and strap it to the back in the middle of one of the rivers. Once I get to roughly where it needs to be we work out how far up the hill we can site it. It fills from our primary tinacos which are far away and not much higher. The whole area is recently cleaned jungle and is full of ticks. The wood tick is not a lime disease candidate but is not a lot of fun. They jump on you and head to your neck in search of warm blood and soft skin. They are usually fairly easy to remove once you find them but often leave holes that take a while to heal. It takes three of us to get it all done. By the time the pipes have been laid out and the hillside dug out we are all covered in the little bastards. I look like a dartboard for the following weeks.

Tinaco Time

Designing a building from scratch takes some concentration. We have architect/project management support which helps a lot. Our plan is to create a 6m x 4m storage space where we can have a real concrete floor for the first time. This will help with getting under vehicles and generally keeping the place less filthy. We will keep the option of building a casita on top should we need to later.  For now we intend to create a large deck on top accessible by a bespoke design iron work staircase.  Sketches of electrics, water, doors and retaining walls fly back and forth.

A big issue is the trees. It’s a constant issue for us. We have one of the highest concentrations of Capomo trees in the world. They are extraordinary knarly and beautiful trees that rain nuts that can be made into a coffee type drink that is highly sought after in expensive hippy organic emporiums. The downside is they get invaded by Bromeliads which are gorgeous but heavy. The branches of the Copomo fail often and fall over a hundred feet to the ground. Because of that they are often called widow makers. One hit our Razor and we were only saved from being squashed flat by the highly substantial roll bar. Copomo surround our new build site so we need to find a way of making it safer.

Our cute little Mexican town is home to all sorts of mad buggers. The maddest are the lads that climb the trees to take down coconuts and dangerous branches. They risk everything by shimmying up 150 foot trees with a chainsaw, no safety ropes and apparently no fear. All for the price of a bottle or two of tequila. We persuade these boys to spend a few days up our trees and remove all the branches that could potentially kill us the quickest. We agree to pay them well and for four days there are a mix of fresh noises. Many arguments, chainsaws, crashing branches and lots of swearing. The result was that no one died, all the branches that we were worried about safely on the ground. There is now a lovely patch of clear sky now surrounding our build site. The only casualty was my brand new 7.5M ladder. It is now a more reasonable 5M. It could have been a lot worse.

Our absolutely insane tree cropping crew

There is good news. We are sent a photo of our new expensive heavy solar batteries. After researching a load of traditional methods of shipping 150kg of batteries from the US through the web of confusion and corruption which is the Mexican border, we settled on a less conventional solution.  Without going into too much detail we have shipped the batteries from the supplier to a unit in Texas and a number of days later they are somewhere North of us but South of USA. We should get them soon and our power issues will be solved. Theoretically.

A very grumpy and impressive Boa who took residence with us for a while.

New Year comes and there are a number of options to celebrate. San Pancho has a famous street party that is, for the first time in two years, not COVID cancelled.  As an alternative, our friends have suggested a beach party which will be less crowded offering a few DJs and a big fire. Both sound good. I donate a generator to the beach party and prepare to meet up with everyone. One of our good friends has just returned from Guadalajara after a brain surgery to solve an aneurysm that was diagnosed just before Xmas. It will be good catch up with him.

My plans are thwarted by man flu. I am without energy, shivering cold and sweating like a horse on speed. There is not a chance that I can communicate effectively with anyone and it is very likely that I am highly contagious. My New Year is destined to be in my bed. I spend four days horizontal for perhaps the first time ever. It’s bloody awful but I have three negative COVID tests so get no sympathy.

Massive moth caterpillar that makes a disturbing clicking noise when disturbed.

Jayne is a good nurse and leaves me in bed to take up the mantle of our social diary. She ends up after dinner at the beach party for the night. It’s an unexpected hit and hundreds turn up. That did include the police who were very supportive and wished everyone a good night and some local business people checking that no one was making money from the event. My friend who was recovering from his brain operation added a touch of drama. He suddenly developed a significant bleed from his groin wound and was very lucky to make it to hospital in time thanks to fast thinking and faster action from those around him. It was a sobering start to the year. It could have been a lot worse.

It takes some days for me to recover and start my New Year by watching our bodega rise up. Concrete mixed and carried in large quantities. My strength slowly returns to find that almost everyone we know now has COVID for at least the first time. This does not seems to be unique to us. We know of people all over the world reporting the same. It makes for a quiet start to the year. Thankfully the vast majority of folk have a lot milder symptoms than my near fatal man flu. They do, however, evoke all the sympathy.

We lose a number of our workers and foreman to COVID who are instantly replaced by others so the bodega continues to take shape. It will be completed in a few weeks so we start to collect things we might need for the main build.  After a few false starts we manage to rescue a few funky wooden windows from nearby Sayulita that we plan to incorporate. We also manage to ship an actual sofa (our first in Mexico), a bench and table from a friend’s house in San Miguel de Allende. It was a journey of 700 km and we had to unload onto a pick-up truck at a petrol station 25km away with 40 minutes notice but somehow it all worked out and arrived perfectly. Our new oven and fridge for the new place are due to be delivered soon. At this rate, our new Bodega will be full in no time.

Then something bloody terrible happens. We get a call early in the morning. Our very close friend who we have had many great adventures with has had a stroke. I was drinking with him watching his beloved 49ers win in overtime just hours before. Thankfully he had enough help quick enough to get him to a good hospital 30 km away. We head there immediately. It’s not good news and the artery feeding the right side of his neck is almost fully blocked and his brain needs blood urgently. Emergency surgery is very quickly arranged. We wait for 7 hours until we finally get the message that he is still alive. During that time, we are invited to have meetings with the surgeons during the operation (to agree what happens next) where we see live real-time scans of his brain and the blood flow within. It was remarkable.

After 5 days of induced coma to allow his brain swelling to reduce he is now conscious again. He is now starting a long road of rehabilitation. With a lot of work and some luck we are expecting his physical and brain function issues to repair but seeing our close mate damaged and vulnerable is hard to take. It’s been an extraordinarily emotional time for everyone. Our lives have been so touched by his.  

It’s been a proper thumping wake up to understand how complaisant I have been with my own health for a lot of years. It’s made me take long over-due extra precautions to reduce my own risk of vascular brain issues. The impact is just so fucking awful.

Jungle Journal

Killing Thyme with a possum.

  • February 3, 2021February 3, 2021
  • by Beave

I absolutely promise that this blog will not include any mention of the over bearing heat and humidity here and my inability to cope with it. It is clear that that theme has had the life banged out of it. So, for contrast I can report that I am currently wearing long sleeves, socks and a hoodie for the first time in 3 years.  December delivered us delicious fresh air. Then unseasonal rains and for fun a few nights of proper chilliness. By New Year it was 4 degrees Celcius.  That’s the coldest it has been here in this part of the Mexican tropics in living memory!

The cold nights are now the new absolute topic of every conversation. Everyone is unrecognisable and proper dodgy looking with face masks and hoodies. We are all wearing the pre-Covid outfit of the ne’re do well. When we poor souls try to gain sympathy from the rest of the world we get none.  To be fair it might be that most of my Northern Hemisphere mates are shivering their blue bits off in snow and ice.

Biggest change is that we have a new jungle resident. Jake, my son, has finally given up trying to make a bearable life in the UK and has effectively moved to Mexico for the foreseeable future. He has been rudely thrown out of his world as a hugely successful cocktail guy in one of the best bars in the world. Now even trying to serve socially distanced beer and food out of a tiny brewery in the North of England is considered too dangerous. Inevitably he decided to come over here and look for opportunities. Easier said than done.

Trying to find a flight out of the UK to Mexico used to be an easy business with many sensible flight options at reasonable prices. Well that’s no more.  The only flight we could find was cancelled due to the early December UK lockdown. The only flights from Europe were out of Paris or Madrid on AeroMexico. So, a plan was hatched to take an early flight out of Manchester to sit in an airport in Madrid for 14 hours then fly to Mexico City and then to Puerto Vallarta where we would meet him. We find a stand-by flight which is less than the price of a new car with the reassurance that in these times of relative insanity planes are half empty so there will be lots of availability. And relax.

The endless rock driveway project is crawling its way nearer to completion. The road now is built from the top of the hill to the bottom and one and half the highly decorative stone retaining walls for our gate are completed. The final wall will feature a small round hobbitesk person access door hinged in the middle. Our ongoing plan is to create an automatically opening/closing gate at the bottom of the hill to keep the bloody cows out. They eat everything and are covered in ticks. We spend way to much effort shouting madly while herding massive stupid cows and bulls off our land. To make things a touch funkier the artist who built Well Ed the Turtle has agreed that our cow proof gate will feature Draig-Twp a Welsh dragon we created complete with top hat and monocle.  Now that will be worth waiting for.

Our latest challenge has been to keep our plants alive. The cows have been destroying everything they can chew and the ants have been stripping down everything else they can’t. The newest juiciest most delicious growth just doesn’t stand a chance. Our friend Ferdy has local knowledge of what grows and what doesn’t so has been helping us plan our gardens. We have planted vegetables, herbs and flowers. It’s anyone’s guess how many, if any, will survive or thrive. Our herb garden outside the treehouse has been an unmitigated failure. This was not entirely helped by me accidentally driving over it . We clearly have brown thumbs rather than green fingers and have managed to kill just about everything we plant there. Our basil, mint and rosemary lasts but days. Our most impressive skill seems to be killing thyme. We can’t get a healthy pre-grown plant to last more than a day! It’s sorta embarrassing. We have moved our newest batch of herbs to sunnier spots and repurposed the herb area to flowers to see how long we can keep them alive.  

The email arrives within 48 hours of Jake’s flight to Madrid to let us know Spain now requires a negative Covid test within 72 hours to get into the country even for transit passengers.  It looks like we will have to cancel and try again later… unless.  By some miracle there is a single venue we can find in the whole of the UK that will give an adequate test result within 24 hours. It happens to be in the North of England 40 minutes from Jake. He finds himself in a car park at midnight collecting stuff to shove up his nose and posting it into a letterbox with the promise he will get a confirmation email a few hours before he is due to fly.  He takes the train to Manchester and we wait.

The email confirming Jake is not currently infected arrives on his phone at the last moment and he is allowed to fly to Madrid.  The poor girl in front of him in the queue is cruelly denied her flight home to Madrid because her negative test was taken 72 hours and 15 minutes ago. Wow! 

Jake arrives in Spain early morning for his midnight flight to Mexico City. The airport is empty and effectively closed. No food places or bars open so his much-anticipated long Spanish lunch is cancelled. Since he left the UK Madrid has declared a no travel zone from midnight. No-one can leave or enter the city without a very good reason. Tourism is cancelled. In anticipation, there has been a mad rush to leave Madrid on the very few flights that are operating. Jake’s flight is one of them. The previous flight was oversold by 14 seats.  It’s not looking good.  His standby flight may not work and he will have to navigate his way into a fully locked-down city where he is being told he’s not allowed to be.

He hasn’t eaten in many hours, there are no restaurants open but he finds a vending machine. It’s all sold out apart from a few remaining sad and suspicious looking sandwiches. He buys them before someone else does. He waits the final stressful hours at the check in desk trying to flirt with the check in girls while smelling of old airport shirt and vending machine crab sandwiches. His phone loses charge 15 minutes before the flight so we are entirely unaware of his fate. Is he sitting in a cramped plane wearing a stinky crab mask or trying to blag his way into Madrid for a night wandering the streets?

12 hours later we get a message from Mexico City. He has had to recheck and repack his bags to meet new weight restrictions but theoretically he is heading for the last plane and should be with us in a few hours. Most of his excess weight allowance is cheese and tea for us so we do feel slightly guilty. We head to the airport to meet him.

What arrives after a solid 72 hours travelling is a very pale exhausted and practically suffocated version of the Jake I remember from 2 years ago. We last saw each other when he boarded the flight back to UK after his last visit all bronzed and fit and charged up.  He removes his face mask for the first time in days.  His bright white UK winter lockdown skin is blindingly reflective in the sun. He takes some much-needed breaths of warm air and we head to the jungle.

Jake finally lands

A fitting introduction to jungle life is a close shave accident with potentially serious consequence.  It sharpens the senses.  The opportunity comes about by our need to manage the trees in our life. We have been introduced to Uri who is a local guy who is famed for his fearlessness in the face of gravity. This Mexi-monkey can climb just about any tree with the aid of a two-foot length of rope wrapped around his feet. It’s bloody terrifying to watch. We employ him to work with Ferdy to help us remove large lumps of tree that are threatening to land on our solar panels.

The most worrying of these is a huge Papelillo tree which is looming at a precarious angle over our battery house.  The tree is a magnificent example of what is locally known as the Gringo tree. It is such named because of its red coloured paper like bark that peels off in strips like a sunburnt gringo. It’s over 100 feet high and its massive upper branches are waiting to smash our panels as the trunk cuts our battery house in half. These trees are also famous for falling down with no notice.

Uri fires a string attached to an arrow over the highest point on the tree which we use to pull up a rope. He puts his feet into a loop at one end and we literally haul him up to the top of the tree. He stands unsecured 100 feet up on a branch. He is smiling and far too relaxed for a sane person. The rope is lowered and a chainsaw pulled up. The rope is then removed and tied around one of the largest branches and the rest thrown down to us. In order to persuade the branch from falling away from our solar panels we are instructed to climb the hill behind the tree and wrap the rope around a palm tree three times and prepare ourselves. We hold the rope nervously as the branch is removed.  The air is thick with fresh sawdust from the chainsaw. There is a loud crack as the branch slowly falls but is held by the rope just long enough to swing clear of the panels.  We lower the hanging lump of wood to the ground safely.

We are dropped more string to recover the rope.  We need to do that again. This time we plan to remove the upper section of tree.  Its high and difficult to judge the size or weight of the limb but we know it’s big.  When the rope is lowered to us we climb high up the opposite hillside and find a suitable tree. We wrap the rope around it three times and three of us hold the rope tightly in anticipation.  There is a familiar cracking noise and the rope gains tension. Then a larger crack followed by the high-pitched scream of a rope being pulled through the jungle at lightning speed. As the rope flies off the tree and out of our hands we thrown ourselves to the ground. The limb hits the jungle floor completely unhindered by our rope.  Thankfully a few feet away from our battery house.  We pick ourselves up slowly and check ourselves for injuries.  The rope knot hit Ferdy who is not doing well. His ribs and arm do not look good.  Jake and I have rope burns on our arms but nothing worse.  We are all very lucky. That could have been a heap more serious.

We gather our senses and check out Ferdy’s arm and are concerned enough to want to get him to the hospital to be checked out. He is a tough rough Mexican bloke and is happy to continue to work but we call it a day. We realise that Uri is still 100 feet in the air with no rope.  Before we can deal with our wounds we need to get him down.  I am tasked with firing an arrow above him.  I’m not the most experienced of archers but give it a go. I learn very quickly that I need to aim a lot higher as the first arrow hits the branch where Uri’s head was moments before. Good job he was paying attention. My second attempt was more successful and we lower him down and drive back to town.  The tree is many times safer.  Ferdy arm and ribs are not broken but he end up very sore for a week. We all have a few extra story scars.

Hearing the Christmas was effectively cancelled in the UK makes us epically grateful we are here and Jake made it out just before things shut down entirely. Our Christmas, for the third time,  was a pot luck outside jungle gathering at the bar. This time a social distanced affair. No traditional Xmas snogs this year. Folk are due to arrive throughout the day but are avoided all morning while we prepare ourselves by ingesting large quantities of British sausages and Heinz baked beans on toast. The finest of Xmas breakfasts.

Our entirely unnecessary but rather special Xmas breakfast.

Our new Covid-kitchen is soon christened. The sinks and oven are fully employed. Heating and serving and cleaning up all in one spot which makes things considerably easier.  It turns out this is an opportunity for our mates to show off . We have further obscene amounts of outstandingly good food offerings delivered.

Our French restaurateur friend sets the pace by heading out to sea early morning to catch a huge dorado fish from which he creates the very freshest sashimi, ceviche & herb infused BBQ lumps of deliciousness.

 Our friends from Atlanta bring the entire kit to deep fry a turkey.  Deep fried turkey has so far only been a thing that Southern boys have told me about. My first taste was a few weeks earlier when we were invited to the American version of Thanksgiving Day. 45 minutes in a bucket of bubbling hot oil and what comes out is extraordinary. The skin is crisped up and tastes almost like bacon. The meat has cooked quickly at very high heat in its own juice. Untraditionally our Xmas turkey is neither boring nor dry.

A good-sized ham arrives and we add our contribution of a lamb leg. There appears a number of Xmas lasagnas (I’ve never heard of those before) and acres of creative side dishes. Our new neighbours engage in a competetive won-ton off… A Korean girl and a Chinese boy each creating their own version. We encourage such nonsense.

Notable by absence was my Mum’s Xmas cake and mince pies with chunks of strong cheddar cheese washed down with port. In truth, I didn’t much bother with them when they were piled up on our UK Christmas table but sorta kinda miss them now.

It was a proper feast and a great way to share Christmas. Throughout the day we must have fed over 40 visitors. It does not escape us how lucky we are to be able to host people in this way.  Someone from my own family in the UK told me recently she hasn’t had human contact since March. That’s heartbreaking.

Jake’s birthday a few days later was a great excuse to take up an offer from our new friends in Sayulita to go sailing and whale watching. They have a 45-foot classic sail boat moored close by. We meet up and set sail in perfect conditions. Much as it’s always exciting to see whales breaching from the shore, from the bow of a sail boat it provokes a different level of adrenalin rush. They are truly magnificent creatures and big. Very big.  

We spend the day, under instruction from our captain, celebrating Jake’s 26th year by pulling the right ropes at the right times and manoeuvring this very beautiful piece of art across the ocean through pods of dolphins while spotting humpbacks tails waving and sinking on the horizon.  Perfect antidote to the awkward gap between Xmas and New Year.

We have decided that we need to be better bee parents. Our termite rotten hives that were rejected by the last swarm are done for so we make the jump and commit to a couple of brand new hives. They will arrive with swarms installed and queens pre-coronated. A better class of apiary is in our future.

Our favorite beach bar in Lo De Marcos s going through some changes. A brand-new bar area is being constructed beach side which will effectively be Sasha’s new home for almost all of his awake time and there is much to do. They plan to open on New Year’s Eve.  We have been tasked to make grotty lumps of Parota wood into serving trays and table tops to class up the place. Our first efforts to create sexy serving pizza and burger trays hits a few snags. After much sanding, my enthusiasm to varnish proves unhelpful.  The ridiculous cold snap colliding with the high humidity is making the lovely clear varnish dry milky and a heap less beautiful. We spend days re-sanding and varnishing those trays endlessly.  We deliver a few but quarantine others due to my incompetence. They are well received as they make the pizzas and burgers look well posh. Tables next.

Our treehouse is a fabulous place to be. It’s set in the most perfect altitude to watch birds and see the shimmer of the vast palm leaves as the jungle breezes skip along the tree line. It is decorated with some of our favorite things that have somehow followed us here.  It is, however, a small space. It’s a lofty 20 feet square which is plenty of space for two large folk and one and a half cats to coexist but no more.

We do, however, have a frequent visitor that is testing our tiny boundaries.  He lets himself in at all times of the day and night uninvited. He regularly interrupts our sleep by eating lemons remarkably loudly and wrestling with our pans.  He is known to smash the odd glass and is stubbornly reluctant to leave. We have a possum squatter.

My attempts to scare the little twat with my aggressive nakedness throughout the night has been totally ineffective. I have acquired and mined the place with moth balls which we are told will dissuade him. They do not.  He is sneaky and quick. We make a plan to borrow a trap from the local animal sanctuary.  He will have to go.

Our new bee guests arrive.  Each of the three swarms has been preinstalled into a hive which we set up.  They are trapped inside by gauze for now. We place the hives carefully to allow the right amount of sun and shade then leave them for a few days. When they have recovered from their journey and are more settled we will need to remove the gauze, build the hives and feed them with sugar water.

The Possum trap arrives. Big long thing with a pressure pad that closes the door at one end. We load it with pineapple and lemons which we know the wee bugger loves and prepare for the catch. It is not long before we catch a cat. Twice.  Two nights in and no fruit left, no sleep and no possum. The cat has finally learnt that it’s not the place for her but frustratingly the long-nosed freak is outsmarting us.

Sleep deprived possum hunters

Our bees have been settling in long enough and need to be freed. Our co-apiarist Diego and I suit up and take on the task of building the hives. Each of the three boxes are packed with bees who are lively enough but do not appear aggressive. We have both been on the wrong end of a few too many wild bees so are mighty relived. I douse the area and the swarms with sugar water which seemed to go down well. We removed the retaining mesh on each box to release the bees who are now in sugar subdued and set up a second story on each. We install extra bags of syrup then pile rocks on the lids to prevent attack from greedy honey hunting Tahones (coatis.)  We return to the treehouse in confident mood without a single sting. We now have  three happy hives.

The Possum trap has been installed for over a week and so far, we have managed to feed the $%&# half a dozen lemons and a pineapple and yet we have caught no possum.  The noisy long nosed %&*@ is being well fed while carefully avoiding the metal trigger plate on the cage floor. We get creative with the bait positioning but can hear him at 4am sniggering at us gratefully and loudly crunching mouth-fulls of pineapple.

Our new throwing axes and knives need an outing. It has been suggested to me very strongly that I must create a safe space before I get carried away and perhaps impale something or someone that may not be so keen to be impaled.  I’m absolutely on board with avoiding non-consensual impaling so devise a plan.  There is a perfect spot beside our Bodega which provides the right throwing distance and a huge wall to prevent any over throws.  We have installed fabricated metal shutters onto our Corona-kitchen which has freed up a load of wood I had put aside to build wooden ones. This is now re-purposed and we create a target board and hang it on the Bodega wall. It’s perfect. So far after chucking very sharp metal things many times no one has yet been impaled.

I have lost patience with the possum. It’s 3 am and I have been awoken too many times. He’s taken to stealing cat food, he sounds like he’s chewing on gravel. It’s driving us insane. I take another long look at the trap. I stick celery sticks into peanut butter and stick them through the bars. I take a pad of paper and rest it on the trigger plate so theoretically it will make it more sensitive and have a larger area of effectiveness. I return to sleep.

Its 6 am and I am woken by the wondrous noise of a trap door shutting. One fat cocky possum all mine. We leave him in the cage to sulk till midday then I take him to the outskirts of town and let him go. There is a large field where he can bother no one. He leaps from the cage, doubles back on me  and runs into a small roadside kitchen. There is a loud scream and I last see him being attacked by a shocked woman with a broom. No longer my problem.

New Year arrives at last. We’ve all been waiting for this one since March. Tomatina’s bar in Lo De Marcos starts the night off with social distanced live music played from the top of a bus. We then meet up with friends outside on the top of the hill overlooking the town and end up on the roof of other friend’s large house overlooking the beach. It was good to avoid the inevitable crowds in town.

Life throws in another spanner. My very good friend in New Zealand, Dave Lawrence (aka Hi Dive), takes his daughter and her friends to a roller disco.  He is almost certainly showing off his most fabulous moves when he drops dead of a heart attack. He was my age but a heap fitter and more athletic. I attend my first, and hopefully last ever, zoom funeral.  Dave was a good man and we have had far more fun that is strictly necessary in many parts of the world together. Travel well brother. The final kick in the balls from 2020.

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Jungle Xmas & Thanksgiving-gate

  • December 24, 2018December 24, 2018
  • by Beave

It’s a few days after we land back from UK that we understand the extent of the changes that have happened since we were away.  In just a week there have been vast swaths of jungle completely destroyed by bulldozers and chain saw teams.  Bird sanctuary and Jaguar habitat gone forever.  The Auto-pista highway from Guadalajara to Puerto Vallarta has been spoken of for decades and  we were aware it was heading our way before we bought our land.  The reality now it’s here is sickening. The small village of Tiqueeleechi very close to us has had a 60M corridor of jungle ripped out of it.  We can hear the distant machinery and chainsaws every day from our tree house. 

We take a breath and a sharp machete and head out in the Razor to examine what’s happening close by.   We climb a hill about half a km from our gate. From the top  we can  see huge areas of trees grounded  and the yellow dirt where the highway will sit clearly visable.  It hurts to look at it. 

We take the Razor down rivers of mud where roads were only weeks ago and find total destruction. Trees laid everywhere and a huge mud super highway stretching for may kilometers  North. This is the direction they are coming from. To the South hectares of  jungle are already wounded and even more marked out for the heavy machinery to flatten.


Jungle completely wiped out

We approach a resting chainsaw crew who reassure us that they very much doubt the highway will be seen from our land but it’s only a guess and it doesn’t make the tragedy of this senseless destruction any easier to take.  The highway is a pay/toll road.  In Mexico they are only used by the wealthy or the bus companies selling premium tickets as they are too expensive.  Your average Mexican is not going to spend more than a day’s wages to make his trip from Guadalajara 2 hours quicker. They will take the old 200 death highway. This new highway is going to be empty, expensive and an environmental disaster like all the other toll roads we have used.  Too many people have been paid off so there is no stopping the thing now.  Too late for the new government to step in.

A previously beautiful remote jungle walk

The existing 200 highway continues to prove fatal.  Your average Mexican drives like a maniac. A bus carrying passengers to Guadalajara is run off the road by some idiot and rolls down into the jungle.  This takes place very close to us and is traumatizing for everyone who witnessed it.  The bus was destroyed and there were many fatalities and horrendous injuries.  Despite this there is still a frightening number of wreckless morons  on the road every day. We are lucky we don’t have to commute anywhere and when we do drive it’s invariably during daytime. Our driving style is defensive to say the least.  I drive like a scared granny with one eye and Jayne is a biker so automatically assumes everyone else on the road is a drunk blind twat and that helps. 

On a more positive note there is art in our jungle again.  We encourage everyone to leave no trace but leave us art. We were blessed to have one of our favorite artists staying with us who has epic skills with oil paints and has just spent the last year travelling the world perfecting hand-poke tattoos.

Jungle art day in at the bar

Roughing it on the balcony

She has surveyed spots for murals and has started an elaborate sign for us on a lump of parota wood. She had to leave to attend a posh exhibition of her work in London but will be back with us early next year when we intend to kidnap her for some weeks. 

Actually turns out she is back with us a bit sooner. We get a message from the airport soon after dropping her off. She has taken Pauly’s British passport and left hers behind.  She does not have shaved hair or mustache or any other resemblance in the slightest to Pauly. She is effectively stuffed. Has to return to us for a few days extra and rebook flight to get to London just in time. She is not at all phased by the added sun and jungle days.

We are all invited to US Thanksgiving. There is a crowd of six of us on the land and we arrive mob handed to a beautiful seafront property with a private beach.  Although many hours late we are the first to arrive and settle in for a huge feed.  More folk arrive as we carve up turkey and start tequila matching everything.  Turns out tequila goes with everything. The sunset is stunning and the moon is full. We all become thankful as newts.

A slight hiccough comes as we try and leave.  Our pick up truck is squeezed in a tight space and during much maneuvering manages to catch the large front security gates and make them an unhelpful new shape.  No drama as our very understanding hosts employ a guy who arrives and quotes for the repair and takes a rather hefty deposit for the work. Turns out the bloke was a chancer who has no intension of mending anything and disappeared.  The receipt for the cash was a fake. Cheeky bugger. A local chap mends the gates in no time for pretty much no money. Deposit gone and lesson learned.

Love is expressed by different cultures in different ways. In Mexico love is expressed by volume.  If there is a speaker playing it is on full volume. Bigger the speaker the more love. It’s insane. If there is a wedding or quinceñera party in San Pancho we can hear it out here in the jungle as if it was just outside.  Amazingly bad music played very very loud.

We are invited to an early Xmas party out at an organic farm through which we have met many good people.  It’s an impressive set up run through volunteers and a dedicated full time crew.  They produce organic vegetables, cheese and dairy and sell it from a shop in Lo De Marcos.  All goes very well until  further conversation is made impossible. A large group of highly loving musicians turn up and blasts our faces off with fairly terrible versions of all the traditional Mexican hits…. The boys then bring on their beloved horses to dance. How they have such affinity with these animals I do not know. They are in beautiful condition and dance pretty much in time to the crap music.  It’s a sight to behold.

It’s tourist season again. The days are bearably sunny, new restaurants are opening and producing exceptional food this year. Nights are cool enough to sleep. It’s altogether rather pleasant. With all the Thanksgivings over we now experience a great influx of Canadians and Pacific NW Americans who are here escaping the snow for the next 6 months.  Xmas is coming fast and the town is busy… and so are we.  Guests are arriving and paying us to stay. We sorta kinda forgot about the intricacies paying guests which is very much a lot of the point of the place. We have been too wet and warm and are out of the professional hosting habit.  It’s back to laundering sheets and employing my legendary patience. We seem to be avoiding the idiots that can’t work out where the beach is and attracting a more jungly sort this year which is good news.

So we have all sorts of ambitious plans to create and refurbish but have spent most of our energies transforming our rental casitas and apartment from soggy and rain-washed to clean and sexy places to stay again. It’s working out. Thankfully guests like what we offer a lot and our bookings are looking good for the next few months.  The jungle destruction machines and chainsaw teams are moving away from us for now which means our guests are no longer treated to the not too distant sounds of engines, falling trees and reversing alarms from 7am to 9pm. At it’s worst, it was still better than the roosters in town we are assured.  It turns out we won’t see the highway from any part of our land which is a massive relief but we will have to arrange for some guerilla bamboo planting in the next months to create further sound barriers.

More worky work is lined up for after Xmas.  We have a heap of wood ready to be varnished , placed and screwed. I have spent a week or two making the stuff taste foul to termites. Termites will take out a solid 4×5 beam in less than a year out here. By soaking the stuff in a mix of diesel fuel, engine oil and a particularly nasty behind the counter toxic red fluid it has a fighting chance of surviving 5 years. The right screws have arrived from USA with friends along with a new impact driver and other essentials we can’t get here.  Just in time. My beloved much abused Makita that came with me 15 months ago from UK actually burst into flames in my hand.  Didn’t know they could do that.  

The soon to be Sky Yoga Platform. Currently just old termite infested lumber.

Our chickens need to watch themselves.  A new morning visitor is a huge black eagle with a white face and long striped tail.  Size of a teenager. It’s taken to sitting on top of the chicken house and scaring the feathers off them.  To be fair it is a huge mean looking scary thing. We can shout it away but it’s not scared and looks twice it’s size in flight. Its very possible it could take off with a chuck in each talon.

Eagle food.

The new chickens continue to provide eggs, as is their purpose.  Sister Bricklebank & Sister Bland are, however, heading nearer to the pot.  To add to the mix our friend who is studying to be a vet saved a small scraggy chicken from the mouth of a dog. She mended its legs with lolly sticks and delivered  “Hey-Hey” to us to adopt.   I had a strong word with Hey-Hey about not becoming a rooster and giving us eggs and to add authority I pointing my machete right at her.  This daft little thug was not paying attention, she jumped on my machete and then sat on my shoulder and pecked my ear.  For the past week we have had a small chicken that looks like a dog has chewed it follow us everywhere while regularly nesting on my shoulder.  When we leave the house she gets in through the cat flap and eats the cats food and leaves chicken shit everywhere.  Mausetrappe is nearly as unimpressed as we are.  I have taken to launching her off the balcony as a discouraging strategy that seems to be working.

Hay-hay the half chewed chicken

We have a rather successful birthday party at our bar.  We have the place restored from the rains and lit up and ready to go.  The waterfall/pools above our land create a magical secluded spot and to have a unique exclusive jungle bar close by is a proper bonus. We have a friend cater for us and deliver endless shrimp and some excellent form of pig to soak up the refreshments. Everyone is fully refreshed for the mandatory scorpion hunt. It’s a great night and reminds us that we have a great venue.

Our exclusive Jungle bar venue ready to take on the masses.

Invisible during the day and day-glo ravers at night

Xmas is now upon us and we have decided to stay in the jungle.  There is no tree nor snowman nor Santa nor turkey nor pudding nor presents nor tinsel nor baubles in sight. We love the lack of Xmas stuff.  Not being total humbugs we have invited anyone who wants to come over in the afternoon to do so and bring food and tipple. We will set up at the bar as the venue. It occurred to us today that we have had over 30 people absolutely confirm they are coming.  If they all indeed arrive and bring food and booze then it’s going to be an event. We have created the makings for four large Beef Wellingtons which is pretty much the most complicated choice for a stress free Xmas but we are going to give it a go. We and our full compliment of guests will standby the beef with a lightish refreshment in hand and see what happens next.

Pressure washing spontaneous tags

More spectacular winter sunsets.

Gold thread spider. One of many throwing massive webs this this of year.
This fella is destined to be a belt.
Found close by when laying water pipe.
Love & Feliz Navidad to Everyone from La Colina.
What is not given is lost.
Be Kind

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