Sunday December 2, 2018

Week  #8 November 25 to December 01, 2018

Highlights from this week.......

This has been a good week even though there are only a few photos to show for it,

We started our week with another delicious meal at La Cabanas at the end of our street on Timon. It is right next to El Horno. The food on their menu is so delicious you keep going back for more. Wednesday December 5th they are hoping to be open from 12 noon to 12 midnight with fish dishes added to the menu. Currently their hours are from 6:00 pm to Midnight.

These little newts are outdoor critters but they do find their way into the house from time to time. When we find one we try to catch it and put it back outside, but occasionally they get away and hide behind or under the furniture. They have a way of keeping ahead of you and hiding.

We had guests for dinner one night, Allan cooked a delicious dinner of chicken wings and french fries. He loves to entertain in his outdoor kitchen.

Our dinner guests were the Gogals from Manitoba. They met us on the street one day last year while they were in the Colonia  checking the place out. They stopped and chatted with us a while asking questions about Puerto Morelos - that conversation lead to a following get together  for lunch and the friendship took off. More important they fell in love with the Colonia of Puerto Morelos and they are back for the winter!! I keep saying, "Puerto Morelos is addictive."

This is Kiki again, our neighbour's  dog. She has taken to Allan like glue on a stick,

S






she comes regularly for a visit but only once a day does she get a treat.

 Sometimes she eats it in our yard but often she takes it right back home with her.

 We needed to make a trip into Cancun to do some shopping so we asked our favourite taxi driver to take us. Emilio has been our sot-after driver since we first met him about 9 years ago. He not only drives us to our requested locations but also stands back blending in with the crowd of shoppers until he sees we need assistance with translation. He quickly steps up, gets into the conversation translating from English to Spanish and Spanish to English. Emilio is an amazing person, he has been a godsend to us. Our Mexican Guardian Angel.

Chedraui's on the Colonia side ( that has to be stipulated now that there is a new Chedraui's in the Port as of this past Friday) have real Christmas trees for sale at the cost of $885. pesos which in Canadian funds is about $57.00 each. 

I have been playing with my 75-300 zoom lens again this week.

What a lovely bunch of Coconuts our neighbour has.

I have to work on getting a better photo of the black birds whose name I do not know.

This is a type of vulture or hawk I believe - I'm going to work on bettering this fellow's photo too.

Hey I saw Trump in town - he can only disguise so much.

The doves are very easy to get a photo of, it's almost like they pose for the camera.



Another bird photo I have to work on - these are the  Chackalaca Birds who like to roost in trees near our casa  overnight. They certainly are noisy in the morning.

Allan had a beautiful day to celebrate his 72nd birthday. We went to the beach to meet with friends and had lunch at Don Ernesto's restaurant adjacent to Ojo De Agua on the beach. This is one of our "best food" stops! Due to a shortage of staff that day the Chef waited and cooked for our table. How honoured was that!

In this photo we have Allan, Claudia our neighbour, Laura - a fellow Canadian from BC travelling through Mexico, me standing, and Maurice and Susan Gogal from Winnipeg.

You see there is a vacant lounge chair waiting for you in paradise, come enjoy.

The beach was beautiful on Saturday, the Sargasso was being cleaned up as usual, the water was in typical Caribbean blues and everyone was happy. 

       
This is our Great Kisdadee again, it is a regular visitor to our back yard. She/he lands in the tree and then chirps often and loudly as if telling us to get out of her birdbath it is time for her swim. We leave the pool and sit back to watch her antics - nature is beautiful!

We came home last evening to find our little newt on the wall up by the ceiling. There he stayed while being photographed.

This week has passed quickly like the seven before it. I booked our flights for March 6th to go back to Canada. We certainly are going to miss  our Casa, the Colonia of Puerto Morelos and its beautiful people.

We did receive exceptionally good news this week. Dwayne and his family are coming for Christmas!!! Yippee! They arrive on December 18th and head back on December 26th. We are very excited and looking forward to their time with us - especially Christmas.

As this post officially draws week eight to a close we ask that you stay safe, be kind to others and may God bless each of you.

Week #7, November 18th - 24th, 2018

Highlights of our 7th week,

 November 18th to 24th, 2018

For the faint of heart, you can rest assured we did not experience any "different" foods this week. No  animal 

innards were in this week's menus.  However, we did enjoy 

a delicious Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and 

a variety of vegetables with pumpkin pie. 

During our early morning walks from 7:30 on we catch businesses opening up for their customers of the day  and their delivery trucks with needed supplies.

The red chair restaurant staff pressure washes their floor every morning and gives all chairs and tables a good wipe down.

 More beautiful flowers.

This reminded me of my childhood days when 

I would dress up my cats. Another child is having great fun playing  kitty dress-up.

Allan found another well supplied hardware store in our village. This one is easy to get to. If interested, travel on the same street as the Taxi Union running East and West, go East until you come to the last cross street running North and South, turn North and there it is just a short distance away. It is on the first street running North and South from the highway.

  El Rey del Pollo has brightened their decor by adding and painting wood pallets in orange and green around their perimeter. Looks nice and it is eye catching.

 

Dogs find their favourite spot every day to just lay comfortably and people just walk around them. These favourite spots do change depending on the weather, on hot days they find their spot in the shade, like today and  on cool days they have their sunny spot.

 New construction on the main street leaving the Colonia to the Highway. It looks like it may be a rental building with vendors below and housing above.

We found the local horse who seems to be tethered in grassy areas around town for pasture. Here I expect his owner is running a quick errand between pastures because there is no grass on this spot and no water.

More commercial construction happening on the way out of town, this one is attached to the Chedraui building strip mall.

Anyone who has shopped in Chedraui and sees this photo will know my story before I tell it, I am sure. LOL. When we go shopping we take our pull carts with us to bring our purchases back home. Makes life easy. At Chedraui we fold our pull carts and place them on the bottom shelf of our grocery cart, Allan is in charge of the cart throughout the shopping expedition. Well, this particular day I was left in charge as Allan had something else to do in the store - my turn to drive. You guessed it, one of the wheels of the pull cart stuck out far enough to catch this bottle of hot peppers and knock if off the bottom store shelf! A staff member working in that isle disappeared in a flash and I knew instantly she was headed for security. I remembered  from being present when someone else had a similar experience - "if you break it you own it! 

I went on about my shopping like nothing had happened and at the same time waiting for the followup which I knew was coming. Sure enough a young man dressed in security uniform was in haste as he walked about the store looking for the culprit.   By this time Allan was back in control of the cart, the security officer approached him and of course Allan didn't know what had happened prior.  I fessed up and was quickly escorted by the officer to check out - he pushed his way past those waiting in line and constantly checking to see that I was following - his first big important task of the day - he explained to the cashier in Spanish what had happened and everyone was looking at me like I had been caught red handed  stealing. I guess that is how they look at it. Anyway I paid the price of the pickled peppers, went back to get a photo of the remnants of my accident and the security guard went on his way very proud of himself for a job well done. No one went by to clean up the mess while we were in the store. Now I would have been more concerned for the potential of injury to workers or other shoppers by slipping on the liquid, cutting themselves on the glass in the event of a fall or just stepping on the glass than making sure I collected the few pesos for the damn jar of pickles. Anyway it was a day with a story to tell at the end of it and I always say what is a day without an adventure?

Revolution Day Parade

We attended the Revolution Day Parade - including participants and spectators there were thousands of people in attendance. The weather co-operated, there were many fluffy white clouds that came out from time to time to shade everyone from the hot sun.

 I took 95 photos so you can appreciate how difficult it has been for me to choose these few for my blog post.

This little horse was used for photography with children. I just realized he looks much like the pastured horse.

These ladies were having such a delightful time!

Do you need your shoes polished or repaired? If so, this is the place to have it done. They are located at the vacant lot on Vallarta the main street leaving the Colonia to the highway.

Allan purchasing agua de jamaica - hibiscus iced tea

 on our way home from the parade. It is so tasty and 

refreshing. The little bags hanging above the cashier's

head are filled with spices for sale.

In this same store there is a meat market that is well supplied and prices are reasonable.

Neighbourhood dogs wait in line for the scarps.

We needed to go to the key maker to 

have one of our keys copied.

This is our Thanksgiving Dinner at Cantina Habaneros. It was as delicious as last year's dinner.

We left the table with satisfied taste buds and stuffed tummies!

Why is it after having a turkey dinner (before going to bed or you wake up in the middle of the night) you want to snack on the leftovers? We should have ordered a take out dinner for that time of night. A thought for next year for sure.

This is the roof reveal I promised last week. 

Abraham and his men did a fantastic job.

It is a cement product which we will be able to walk on and not have to worry about doing damage to the roof. There are cat tracks ( surprise, surprise) on the cement. Since the pattern is scattered stone I am going to claim the tracks are fossils.

 There is more to come - another reveal in my next post. 

 Yesterday we went to the beach to meet friends. There is still Sargasso along the shore however, it is being cleaned up every day. These photos were taken about 11 am, by noon it was cleaned up. Municipal Staff are working so hard to preserve their tourism industry.  The orange booms I mentioned a few posts back are still holding much of the Sargasso back from the shoreline. Boats are collecting it on the outer edge of the booms and bringing it to shore for disposal.

c

We can not remember ever seeing the ocean so calm, 

there was not the slightest  ripple on the water other than what people were making, even  the reef was showing no signs of its existence! There was not the slightest breeze anywhere. Unbelievable!

Yesterday was the first day of this season's Saturday Market at My Paradise Beach Club. This is Claudia our neighbour and her friend Juan Pablo standing in front of their booth which was raising money for the Cause for Paws animal rescue program here in Puerto Morelos. I understand there were about 40 vendors in total at this Market day.

I did not take this photo - I borrowed it from a post by Amaya Juan in the Friends of Puerto Morelos group on Facebook.

This is Puerto Morelos' very own Jack Sparrow. 

He wonders  the beach while expertly acting out his part  as a pirate very well, he will let you take a photo with him for a small fee. Great fun! A good looking young man he is too, any grandma would be proud to call him hers. LOL

Until next week take care, stay safe and be kind to others. God Bless!