"HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY- we love you!"

Happy Valentine's Day to each of you, family, friends and new aquaintances. We

love Peurto Morelos but not near as much as we love all of you!

Día de tarjeta del día de San Valentín feliz a cada uno de usted, de familia, de amigos y de nuevos aquaintances. Amamos Puerto Morelos pero no cerca tanto como amamos cada uno usted.

February 13, 2008 DAY 10!

The day started the same as any other with one exception – we spent the first hour of our morning walk picking up garbage off the street. So many people we have stopped to talk with since our first day here have loved Puerto Morelos but complained about the amount of garbage on the streets. We have shared their concerns and decided perhaps if we did a little bit of garbage pick up it would make a difference. At home everyone is litter conscious, it has been taught in our schools for years. Remember Arbor Day? The term is now “Spring Clean Up Week”. People adopt a portion of roadways and highways and we are recycle conscious. None of that is done here. The beaches and parks are kept clean but other than these areas locals just toss papers, bottles and cans. There are garbage cans in several locations on the street and they have regular garbage pick up however, what is not in the barrel gets left behind to be blown around in the wind. Several tourists stopped and thanked us for trying to make a difference; one lady clapped her hands as she drove by. You guessed it – no one offered to help but that isn’t why we did it – we wanted to make a difference and we have. It feels good to walk down he same section of street and not see the usual clutter.

It has been a very hot still day, we didn’t sit on the beach for long but we did some snorkeling. The water is very clear and the bottom is free of dead coral, this is because the reef has been declared a national park. They are very protective of the reef; you can not go diving or snorkeling on it without a guide. We are looking at going out on Sunday if the weather cooperates. Tuesday the winds were so strong they wouldn’t allow anyone out from the pier.

This afternoon we stopped at the Finca Café, here they roast and grind their own coffee which is shipped in from their family owned coffee plantation. The coffee is very good, deserts are out of this world and the waiter/dishwasher/coffee toaster/grinder – you name it is a hoot. His name is Rudy, he speaks English well and he is somewhat of an OCP (Obsessive Compulsive Personality) – Allan says it is something I can relate too – what does he mean by that do you think???

We went back later for dinner and met a young couple from Denver Colorado, they have a time share south of here and dropped in to PM to just look around. They want to have kids but aren’t ready to pass up the party life just yet. It is a major decision for young couples.

The cactus moon flowers were out again tonight – I will attach another picture because there were more blooms showing.

We dropped laundry off again today, it will be ready for pickup tomorrow – I am curious to see what we get this time – can hardly wait!

Podría estar en otras personas bajo desgaste mañana
Adiós para ahora,

Anne

PS – these little blurbs of Spanish can be translated to English at “translator.live.com”

February 13th, 2008

This is Rudy from the Finca Cafe, a visit to Puerto Morelos

would not be complete without a visit to the Finca and meeting him!

The infamous cofee roaster at Finca's

This is the army base in Puerto Morelos - it is inhabited by army personel; we often see them riding around in their trucks with machine guns mounted on the back. Our obvious question was "Why?" Well the answer is simple - this is a major drug channel from Columbia. The ships and high speed boats drop off drugs in the ocean which are picked up by fishermen and brought to shore where they are transported by land to the US. Who'da thought!

Sad to see these vacant buildings, Wilma did a lot of distruction here - Peurto Morelos was the worst place hit along his coast. Many people were unable to replace what they lost.

Here is the cactus moon flower tonight - lots more blooms. I found out these come in a variety of colours, yellow, pink, red too I believe -this one is white

This Market is in town every Wednesday from 7:30 in the morning until late afternoon.

NEW TO THE MARKET - GUARANTEED RESULTS

This was sent to Allan by a friend who is genuinely concerned for the safety of our passports and other items of importance. I do believe it will work - we will be better prepared to make a full report upon the completion of this vacation.

February 12th - Day 9

Tuesday was a beautiful day; we went to Selvatica (selvatica.com.mx), I would recommend it to anyone that might be interested. It is a zip line jungle tour including a bicycle ride to the centos or sink holes for a swim and return back to the reception area for lunch.

It was a neat experience, we did not ride a bicycle type vehicle as I had thought; you are secured in a harness that puts you in a seated position; you are on a pulley system that takes you from one staging to the next – there are 11 zip lines in total. Prior to leaving on the circuit they explained how to hold yourself in line with the cable, how to brake and how to straighten yourself from a spin. What a neat experience – something I could easily become addicted too. We then rode bicycles to the sink hole or centos – these contain fresh water and are very deep – this one ranged from 10 to 150 feet deep. Yes we both went in – it was not as cold as we expected it to be – it was so refreshing after the long bike ride. We were the seniors on the excursion, one girl from Ottawa said later that she was really proud of us – it was something she would like to see her parents participate in, but she didn’t think her mother would attempt it. We met the bus at 9:15 out at the highway and we were back by 1:30, it is nice to do these things in the morning before the heat of the day.

When we returned to Puerto Morelos we picked up our laundry, got some groceries and went to the beach to do the R&R thing. Upon returning from the beach I decided to put the laundry away. It’s a good thing I have a sense of humour because once I started to take things out of the laundry bag I found the female items were not mine! Lots of underwear but none of them belonged to me! We gathered up the items of the unknown owner and took them back to the Laundromat, much to my delight the person who got my laundry by mistake had already returned it! Now I have clean underwear and it is mine!

In the early evening we met with Cat Brown who is the Chairperson of the local Charity “El Mundo Para Puerto Morelos” and Antonio Auila Morenoa who is a private ambulance operator from Cancun. The purpose of our meeting was to start the initial steps in setting up an ambulance service in Puerto Morelos. This is an interesting story so I am putting in under a separate posting at a later time.

We had a lovely dinner at a new restaurant in town – the Mexican Pub – they serve great steaks (Angus beef). On our walk back to our apartment we had the good fortune of seeing for the first time a Cactus Moon Flower. We were told it only blooms at night and it has a beautiful fragrance. They bloom twice a year so we were pretty lucky to have seen it and to have had someone with us that knew what it was.


Todavía estamos gozando de Puerto Morelos,

Anne

Day 9 Pic's

This was the musician playing and singing during dinner last night

at the newly opened "Mexican Pub"This is the cactus moon flower
This is our room mate
Swimming at the centos at Selvatica Park
This is NOT Allan
No this isn't him either
a rerun - sorry

Days 7 and 8 Already?

Sunday Feb 10th, Day 7

We took a long walk on the beach this morning; actually we have been doing a lot of walking every day. Sundays are Mexican Family day, much busier than yesterday. By early afternoon the beach was lined with tents, large family picnics and lots of fun had by all as some lay in the hot sun soaking up the rays while others swam and played in the water.

It was a lazy day for us, we went swimming and got a bit of sun, later we found a place on the back street that cooks chicken on the rotisserie, people were lined up to get theirs before she closed at 2 o’clock. Was it good! That was our dinner; they give you a whole chicken, rice and a salad for $6.50 US. Not bad for being able to get 2 meals out of it.

We stayed in during the evening because we had high winds and rain with thunder and lightning. I love it all except the howling wind, therefore I didn’t sleep well. While trying to read I saw a small mouse run into our apartment, s/he came in under the sliding screen door and spent the night. I heard him on top of the refrigerator during the night, he was a noisy little thing. The property manager has sticky traps set so if he is still in here hopefully we will catch him.

Monday Feb 11th Day 8

Instead of going for our usual walk this morning we went to the Botanical Gardens just a short distance from here. This is not the flowering season so there was not much to see in the line of flowers but it was interesting. The walk was about 1 ½ hours long, we got to see plants that were used during the Mayan times for medicinal purposes; they had a house and kitchen set up with gardens outside. Later we saw Mayan Ruins; then we climbed a tower and walked a swinging cable bridge. The grandkids would have loved it.

When we came back to Puerto Morelos we went for another walk throughout town, had lunch and checked where we could have dinner.

Allan just got back from checking our laundry – we dropped it off this morning at 9 and it was to be ready for pick up at 3 this afternoon (Mexican time). It is now 6:15. The charge is 14.00 pesos per kilogram which for easy figuring is $1.40 US for 2 pounds. Thank goodness for Mark’s Work Warehouse Bags, he quickly found it on the floor with other “to be washed bags” it has not been done yet. They have had a busy day I guess so we should have it later tonight or early tomorrow. Here you drop off the laundry; they wash, dry, fold and bag it for you to pick up later. Right now I am running out of underwear! Do you think anyone would notice if I wasn’t wearing any?? I don’t expect they would – who looks at an old girls butt anyway! If one did and noticed I wasn’t wearing underwear what do you think they would be thinking? Maybe I don’t want to know.

It is 9:30; we had a great dinner at Bodo’s Restaurant and are now settled in for the night. We checked on the laundry on the way back and it is still not done. It is raining hard at times; we still have wind and some thunder and lightning again tonight.

Our door step lizard has moved inside for the night – he is hanging out by the TV and the window on the west side of the room. Hope he doesn’t get stuck in the mouse’s sticky trap!

I will include some of today’s pics that were taken today at the Botanical Garden. Tomorrow we are going on the Jungle Cable Tour. We ride and paddle a bicycle type unit on an overhead cable through the jungle, do some swimming, have lunch and then come home. The trip is from 9:15 to 1:15. We are looking forward to it. I have to wear a bathing suit – good thing remember I have no clean underwear left!

Tome el cuidado hasta la vez próxima,
Adiós para ahora,

Anne