Thursday, January 19, 2012

Not A Lot Happens Around Here

We have been back to Xpu-Ha for 19 days and I have only posted one time. My friends are complaining, they want to hear what’s happening in dangerous Mexico.

The reason this is the fourth year in a row that we have spent at least part of our winter here is that not much does happen. A few campers come & go, we listen to the live entertainment a few day’s a week coming from the popular beach restaurant right next to us, and on Fridays go to Pizza Leo’s in Chemuyil.

So here are the comings and goings of our camper friends.

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Reed & Elaine from New Mexico arrived on on 1/10 in their new 34’ fifth wheel. They are pulling it with a 4-wheel drive pickup truck. After Fred & Emmy left for Belize and points south, they took over their spot.

Elaine bought a new inflatable kayak with a sail rig that they hope to learn how to sail in our protected bay.

Whenever the wind calms down I am still taking my kayak out and over to Puerto Adventuras just for the exercise. It takes about an hour each way.

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Gerry and Ann arrived on 1/11, with a new (for them) 20 year old RV that they hope to leave here at La Playa. They were stuck in Texas for more than a month because they had never cancelled their old 10 year RV permit when they left last year. They had at least one un-cancelled permit in each of their names from RV’s that they sold back in Ontario,

The only way they actually got to get a new permit this year was to sell the RV to Ann’s son-in-law Rick, fly him down to TX, then let him get the TIP in his name. He visited for a week and flew back home on 1/15.

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They plan to stay until April and fly home. Then in the future they can fly back and forth to their RV,

Gerry figured to get around he will need some transportation so he bought a Mexican made Italian scooter and a kids bike trailer. He can carry groceries and laundry from the Puerto Adventuras about 3 mi away.

Here he is setting up his satellite dish so we will be able to watch the Super Bowl in a few weeks.

Claude & Erika arrived back from Switzerland. They also flew home from the holidays but left their RV at Meco Loco near Cancun, When they got back Claude got bit by a dog vey near where I got bit two years ago. So it slowed their return to La Playa until 1/13. They are camped up on the beach again on the other side of the restaurant. No full hookups up there but a nice breeze and beautiful view.

There is another campground right next store to us run by the same family called Bonanza. They have nice shady spots and cater to smaller rigs and tent campers. Some electric is available. Here is what we look like so far this year. Starting on left, picture 1 to the far right, picture 2. It’s a rather small campground.

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Claude & Mags son Steve & Maryann flew back to Ontario on 1/16.

So far, since the beginning of December, the weather has been averaging in low 80’s during day and high 60’s at night. Got a few warmer and a few cooler days and it rained for a couple of days. But mostly any rain lasts a for only few minutes then clears right back up again.

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Elaine & Reed preparing for their maiden voyage.

Pretty much all of us are using USB sticks in our computers to get Telcel’s 3G service. Telcel lowered their price this year and even ran a special for new people. You get the stick and two months service for $399 pesos, about $30 USD. After that depending on how much bandwidth you use, the cost is $300-500 Pesos per month. Their signal is reachable in most populated areas of Mexico and is fairly fast.

So it’s 3S - Sunny, Safe and Swell here on the beach in MX. Some day we may be home. If something exciting happens I’ll post some more but my posts will be a little sporadic until we start heading home in March.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Happy New Year–Back to Xpu-Ha

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Well I haven’t updated my blog since I’ve been just hanging out in my hammock and taking life easy.

We flew back direct from Cleveland to Cancun early New Year’s Day. Flight was ahead of schedule, we just made connections to an early bus from the airport to Playa del Carmen and after a Collectivo ride we were back in camp by 2 PM.

A few more campers had arrived and a few left but there is still room for a few more.

Since we were early Claude was nice enough to give us a quick ride back to the new Super Chedaraui back in Puerto Adventuras.

On Monday Claude and Mags drove to Cancun to pick up their son Stephen and his fiancée Maryann. They are going to spend two weeks here between work schedules on the cruise ship circuit. They work in a store on the ships selling jewelry and watches. Here they are checking out my hammock.

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I borrowed all these pictures from Mags camera. I haven’t even taken a picture since I came back.

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Claude got Steve to give him a haircut, saving a trip into Playa.

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Meet our campground hosts, Vera and Dietrich. Dietrich makes sure everything is working in camp and everybody pays their campground fees. If you stay a month it is only 5000 pesos including all hookups, this only comes to $375/month USD at the current exchange rate.

We all got together this Friday night to go out to Pizza Leos again in Chemuyil. We had 15 people there this Friday. Here is a picture of me telling Glen from Alberta all I know. This took about a minute. But he did seem to believe me.

It seems like there is always a celebration or a party or something going on in town.

 

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This Friday was the Feast of the Three Kings. All the bakeries make big bread like cakes that have a small toy Jesus somewhere inside. It’s called Rosca de Reyes. If you find him in your slice, tradition says you must throw a party on Feb. 2, Candlemas Day, and serve tamales to your guests. Or I think that’s how it goes. The cakes are not too tasty, we tried a small piece in the grocery store.

But of course it is also the reason for another celebration. The ladies in town dress up in their beautiful Huipiles, they have their dancing shoes on and they march behind a car playing music and dance around a man holding a king, while holding on to their ribbons.

Even some little ones dressed the part.

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It’s a fun little town, when ever we walk around town we usually find a party going on. Here we found a birthday party with a piñata. All the kids were having a great time trying to break it to get at the candy.

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These are the friends from Belgium that we met at our campground. Fred & Emmy are the ones who had a bad experience on their way to Mahahual last February .