Wednesday, December 30, 2009

An evening out!

After another 6 hour marathon in Cancun doing shopping for 4 sets of people, we met Susanne and Susana for supper at John Gray's Mother In Law's on the beach! From upstate New York, these gals are appreciating the heat and the ambience of our small town.













Spicy pork tacos and of course wonderful margaritas were a great treat.







We dropped in to the bookstore to say hi to Rob and Jo, and our favourite street band was performing for diners on the street.









It always inspires someone to get up and dance - like these 2 happy people at Triny's!!!
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Saturday, December 26, 2009

Boxing Day

There has been an unusual amount of rain since we had our little palapa built, so we took advantage of 2 days without rain (supposed to be more on the way tonight or tomorrow) to paint the cement with sellador, a clear sealer that you mix with water on a 5 - 1 ratio. After it is dry and sealed, it can then be painted.













Miki is hard at work on the top half, and since the photographer, who is painting from the step ladder on the deck level works in the nude, she will remain out of the photos. Oh, and did I mention I HATE painting and have a perfectly wonderful son in Vancouver who paints for a living and could have been here doing this for us?????










Ok, maybe just this one, taken Christmas day evening, with the wee kitten Latte sleeping on my neck.
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Navidad cheer

Our dearest friend, Valorie, whom some of you have even met, made us each one of her legendary margaritas at David Lau's on Christmas day.






Ricardo was even decked out in a blinking santa hat....!




And our "boys" at Yodi's Biergarten were all smiles too!!














Then it was home to Christmas dinner, followed by a bottle of bubbly on our patio, having called our Toronto family and talked with Carl, Alice, Carolyn, Dan, Julianna, Dan, Alice's Mom, and son Jason in Vancouver. We surely do miss family at this time of year - Jutta, Andrew, Vanessa and Jonah are up in a Mount Washington chalet for Christmas, and Amber and Nicole are with their Mom Kerri on Mayne Island.
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Feliz Navidad!

Christmas morning Miki made us a lovely brunch by the pool. We had a lazy day at home and then went to town to enjoy some Christmas cheer before we started our dinner.




Miki showing off her best Christmas smile at David Lau's, which was properly decorated, complete with Scottish tartans and stockings (bearing in mind this is a Chinese restaurant, in Mexico....:-)














Daf also posed for her Xmas photo




And then we went home for a decidedly non Xmas, non Mexican dinner of rib eye steaks, potatoes and onions done on the barby and a loaf of fresh baked German rye sourdough.
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Friday, December 25, 2009

Sunset on the mangrove

After we returned from Yalku, we booted into town to do a little shopping and on the way home snapped these sunset pics over the mangrove. Most of what you see along the road in and out of town is lush and green, but as you can see from these shots, there are still dead mangrove trees left over from 2005.



It is great to see so much water in the mangrove, which is the up side of a few days of rain.



The mangrove is a filtering system for the ocean and therefore protects the reef right off the shore in Puerto Morelos. The jungle, the mangrove and the reef are all connected and are so much part of this very fragile ecosystem.
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Yalku snorkelling!

Yalku is a beautiful lagoon south of Playa del Carmen and just north of Tulum. It is situated in a lovely little community called Akumal, which is a resort community.



The lagoon is always very calm, warm and FULL of fish. The day was a combination of sun and cloud, which was kind of nice too. Didn't have to worry about sunburns so much, and the lagoon was nowhere near as full of people as it usually is. Guess that is partly because the tourist numbers are definitely down this year, and partly perhaps because the last few days have had an unusual amount of rain. Great for the mangroves...!







When we finished snorkelling, we took our picnic lunch to the Akumal beach and enjoyed fresh baguettes with roast chicken and cheladas - beer mixed with lime juice, all of which we brought with us.












Sure not as nice a beach as Puerto Morelos. With the reef being so far out, there is always a surf on the beach, and the water gets a bit turbid from being bounced around, and is not as good for snorkelling.

For a small album of pics at Yalku, click on this link below and enjoy!!!
http://picasaweb.google.com/daffinparksville/SnorkellingatYalku#




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The Serpent!

In Mayan culture, the serpent is an important creature. At Chichen Itza, for example, the serpent is built into the stairs of the great pyramid and on the spring equinox, at an exact hour in the afternoon, the sun highlights the serpent and it appears to undulate down the pyramid. This serves to herald a good growing season for crops and animals.

Whomever the powers that be who design the roads in these parts decided to incorporate the serpent onto the medium on the highway between Puerto Morelos and Playa del Carmen. Here, you get an idea of how big this sucker is - he ate Miki as we drove down to Akumal on our way to Yalku to go snorkelling!!!


Another shot will give you an idea of just how big this is.














The side detail of the head is wonderful.........
And when you see it from the reverse direction, the length is truly wonderful. All this work just to decorate a highway - we could learn something from our Mayan cousins, don't you think????
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A night out.

Rosie and Martin - these are for you. A group pulled into town and had dinner, browsed the stores and enjoyed PM. The rain has stopped (only a little at night now) so they had a dry ride.




On Wed. eve we went out for a little pub crawling. Started at the Biergarten, a new restaurant/pub in town at Mexico Plus called Yodis. Then we went on to the Cantina Haberneros to congratulate Ed and Natalie on their new baby, Jeremy, and pick up a Puerto Morelos calendar from Frank.

Finally, we ended up at the new Bistro which had a live band playing - and they were awesome. Hard to sit still to good loud Mexican salsa music...!! The Bistro serves quiche, baguettes, great salads and cheap red Chilean wine.
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Rain in paradise...!

The tropical rains have been battering PM for almost 5 days now - I feel so sorry for anyone here only for a week....! Heavy rain at the bookstore again - a very empty town square, but still lots of customers, thank goodness.












Our pool has become an infinity pool with all the rain.....had to pump some water out one morning to keep the chemical balance ok.












Went shopping to Market 23 in Cancun with Jill. An amazing place with a gazzillion large and small markets, one of which was a children's clothing store called Vanessa - same name as our 9 year old grand daughter.














What would the blog be without an update on an animal...little latte is getting a tiny bit bigger, but is still pretty tiny, as you can see
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Monday, December 21, 2009

Bookstore fun

While their owners came in to buy books, these 2 handsome fellows waited patiently outside.
















Saturday night is always fun in the square and in front of the store. Here is an awesome collection of musicians who played on the street - a combination of guitars, mandolins, saxophone and bongo drums, played by the only woman in the group.












Two of our favourite customers, Valorie and Ken, from Victoria, had to stop and do a little salsa dancing to the wonderful music before they could continue on for supper!!














Today is very cool, just 21 at high noon, and it has rained off and on all day. We feel sorry for the people who are only here for a week, but for we locals it is just a nice few days of cool before the heat returns.
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Sunday, December 20, 2009

More Posada

Here are Mary and Joseph going past the bookstore window,



followed by the entourage of angels, and even a perky looking devil













The whole town ended up at a stage area on the basketball court, with the procession folks in the prime front seats.


The show that followed was a wide selection of Christmas songs performed by groups of kids from the smallest up to adults. The whole show was finished off by all the kids whacking on pinantas and taking home their loot.
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