Definitely a Christmas Eve to Remember…

Last evening I was scooting around the casa capturing photos of the soon-to-be sunset with its amazing cloud formations. I have to say that the nightly display of colours here in Cuyutlan is breathtaking….oranges, yellows, pinks, blues, purples, 50 shades of gray… Colours that would appear unreal on canvas. 




As I have stated, “You can never have too many sunset pictures.” I think I am up to a few hundred already although I have missed many nights.

So last night I noticed that there were many layers of clouds moving quickly above us - puffy dark gray clouds pushing in amongst the puffy white clouds but still blue skies above them all.  The fiery sunset progressed into the multi-coloured aftershow then darkness fell rapidly as it does here in the tropics. Meg and I headed upstairs to enjoy the breeze that was picking up. The breezes that blow through our casa make the intense heat of the sun bearable during the day (it’s well over 37C in the direct sun) and gustier breezes seem to blow away any nasty biting insects that loiter on our periphery. We both heard the sound of palm branches rustling although ‘rustle’ does not quite describe it correctly. It’s more like the sound of small bamboo sticks clacking together. Nonetheless the rustle was not palms but rain smacking on the ground and terrace. Rain?...here in Cuyutlan in December? No way! (It’s very unusual to get rain in the winter but obviously it can happen.)

Living thisclose to the ocean shore is very noisy. The waves bound the shore constantly creating a thunderous din

Well, it was rain and lots of it! The splatter grew into a torrential rainstorm. Heavy torrents of rain blasted us as were scurried around grabbing things that could blow away – the pool floats, swim gear, plastic covers – and moving furniture away from the soak, all the while trying to stay upright on slippery tile floors.

The wind was gale force by now, palms fronds were churning around wildly. Then came the lightning and the thunder. It was like a big budget movie with the continuous flashes of lightning bouncing between and behind the clouds and the blazing yellow bolts barreling into the ocean. What a show! I was spellbound. I don’t know why storms thrill me so much. Meg, on the other hand, was buried under the covers, ear-plugged and anxious.

Our ‘Sound and Light’ show was unrelenting until a final cloudburst and thunder shot at 5 a.m. Sunrise arrived a little while later with blue skies and sunshine along with a huge rainbow over Cuyutlan.         

     Feliz navidad! and a few more sunsets...

100 Km diet...

It seems a little insane to expect to find and shop for all the things that I normally cook with in Aldergrove. I figure since we are here in Mexico that we should get more familiar with the local fruits and vegetables (frutas y verduras). Here in our little state of Colima there are acres of land devoted to agriculture. Daily we see fields of watermelons (sandias), pineapples (pinas), cucumbers (pepinos), papayas, limes (limons) and bananas (platinos). We have coconuts growing in our palmas...and I even have a small garden of pineapple plants that I started from the chopped tops of former pineapples. Avocados (aguacates) are abundant and inexpensive ~ 20 pesos (<$2/kilo) and delicious! The bestest tasting bananas are practically given away at 50 cents/kilo. 

Shopping at the Monday village market in Armeria is a hoot. Little shops (tiengas) line both sides of an 8 block stretch of a road. There are many fruit and veggie stalls. This year there are many clothing stalls along with kitchen wares, some music, medicines, eggs, cheeses and chicken bits. It is very difficult not to buy too much produce. Everything looks and smells so good!

Since Meg is none too fond of meat and I haven't found a reliable source of tasty beef, I tend to purchase chicken (pollo) and prawns (camarones) for protein. We have found great fish markets in Armeria with medium shrimp/prawns selling for less than $18/kilo. They are very fresh. We see the lights of the shrimp boats drifting along our shore almost every night. 

Meg's favourite dish is prawn wraps. It is a bit of a cheat...I bring vermicelli noodles and rice wraps with us just in case we cannot find them here. The abundance of prawns helps make menu decisions.

Today I was about to start making chayote sopa. Chayotes are pear-shaped squashes that are everywhere these days. Usually I get the green ones. At the market on Monday there were white ones and prickly white ones, to boot. Normally I chop up the chayotes - they have a very sticky slime when cut/peeled. Today, mid-chop, I decided to check out ways of preparing chayotes...to see if there was a way to avoid the slimey hand in preparation. Google gave me lots of chayote info and a few recipes.  So it was I happened across 'Creole Style Stuffed Chayote' which combines many of our local veggies plus camarones. I modified the recipe based of what I had in stock. Voila...something new! 

Delicioso!!

Retorno ala dulce vida en Cuyutlan...

We're baaaaccckkk!! Meg and I got here about two weeks ago after a very long 4800 km drive from BC. It actually turned into 5800km with a quick trip back to Las Vegas from Tempe, AZ to retrieve Meg's wallet which had decided to follow the motto and 'stay in Vegas'.

Thanks to Sheila in Ridgefield, WA our trip did not feel quite as long as previous ones. She lent us a Sue Grafton audiobook which turned out to be extremely gripping, just distracting enough to make the drive seem less tedious. I was skeptical having never read a Sue Grafton thiller but 'V is for Vengeance' kept us going from Ridgefield to Quartzsite. We both were impressed with the well developed characters and the intricate plot. In Tempe Meg downloaded a few more of the alphabet series. 'N is for Noose' was good (although the narrator was not Judy Kaye from V. It took some time to get used to a different voice). 'T is for Trepass' was another Judy Kaye narration and an excellent listen. We would give it 4 thumbs up!! I have a feeling we will be exploring the entire SG alphabet.

We stopped by Quartzsite, AZ to say 'Hi' to Sonia and Norm. Turned out there was a charity dinner at the local hall featuring Sweet Pie at the piano. Sweet Pie runs a book store in Quartzsite and is famous for adding a lot of character to the town. He generally wears only his birthday suit and a small baggy to cover his 'privates'. For the benefit at the hall ( and maybe for those attending) he was dressed in top hat and tails. He played a mean honkytonk style and reminded me a lot of Leon Redbone with his gravelly voice.

Tempe, AZ is our halfway point on the drive south. It is always a treat to stay with Pat & John and catch up on their adventures and projects. It also gives us some time to relax from the days of driving (Meg does it all) and stock up on things that may not be available across the border. The 1000km roundtrip back to Vegas could have been a downer but it had it's highlights. We saw AirForce 1 fly over the valley as it approached McCarran Airport and due to a (perish-the-thought) malfunctioning iPhone, we made a diversion to the high tech Apple store on Las Vegas Blvd in search of help. Even I, the PC aficionado, was impressed with the store, the many Apple reps in their red shirts, their knowledge and friendly service. Amber diagnosed the problem, managed to facilitate a very satisfactory iPhone swap, transferred data and had us out the door promptly. 

We hit the road south early on November 24, crossed into Mexico at Nogales and trucked along listening to 'N. We made, or I should say, Meg made good time, so good, in fact, that we got close to Guaymas way too early in the day to check into a 12hour hotel/motel. So checking our Garmin GPS app we figured we could get at least another hour or two before sunset when we want to be safely tucked in for the night. 

Ciudad Obregon was our stop, the Motel Paradise. As usual for the majority of these establishments, it was clean, had a king-size bed, food and beer. 

Since we made such good time the first day, we whizzed by our scheduled hotel/motel in Mazatlan, the Motel Sole...the one with the dancing pole. Eventually we crashed for the night in Tepic in la Gran Via.   La Gran Via had a few different menu items that we had not seen advertised in other motels. Food for thought, perhaps...

 With a quick detour to Ajijic the next morning, we rolled onto the beach road in Cuyutlan the following day and made ourselves at home. Hogar dolce hogar.

30C to OMG!

Well, Meg and I have been here almost 2 months, working our buns off most days getting the casa into tiptop shape and I gotta say it looks spectacular! There is little else that needs to be touched up but instead of sitting back to relax and enjoy our little piece of paradise, we will be headed home to this the day after tomorrow...

Yikes!

"Her" is Outstanding!!!

We seem to watch a fair number of movies down here, south of the border, where copies of most are available before the movie appears in theatres (funny how that happens?) I am not impressed by too many movies. I find the majority of them are totally predictable, over-rated, and banal. 

Then along comes  "Her".  

Briefly reading articles about 'Her'..a guy falls in love with a Siri-like entity...it seemed like another forgettable Hollywood feature. How wrong I was to make such an arbitrary assumption! 

We watched it last night. Normally I am alseep within half an hour of pressing 'Play'... Meg rarely lasts till the end either. Not with this one. We both stayed totally focussed on the movie, relishing on the premise, the dialogue, the cinematography, the high-waisted pants, the colour red in every scene. 'Her' is gripping!

This has got to be the most compelling story to come along for quite some time. Joaquin Phoenix is perfect, as was 'Scarlett Johannson'. Read this review. It says it all. I would give this movie '3 thumbs up'...'5 stars'. It's wonderful! 

OAN, I don't understand what all the hype is for 'Gravity'. It pales in comparison. We have a few more Oscar nominations to view before this year's event but, for now, I certainly have a favourite to root for!

Zen and the Art of Casa Maintenance - Parte Tres

No question - it is lovely to live by the sea. Temperatures are hovering around 30C during the day and dropping to a shivering 19C during the night. When you compare our weather this week with that in parts of Eastern Canada and the US, there is no doubt that we are liking the sunshine and balmy ocean breezes. The sunsets are outstanding, as usual. It's a good life! 

But along with living on the seashore comes a few mandatory maintenance chores that have to be followed to counter, maintain or repair anything that can deteriorate or fail due to the high salt levels in our environment. 

This week I called on a few of my acquired skills to tackle a few repairs - electical...rewiring a pump motor plug to include the ground wire; plumbing...replacing the innards in one of our toilets; upholstery...repairing a collapsed seat of a chair and recovering the padding and cover; and computer set-up...spending many hours yesterday troubleshooting and setting up a router for our newly repaired telephone/internet connection. 

Fortunately Meg is an expert in pool chemistry, having owned and operated her own pool company for many years. Not only does she maintain the equipment (pool pumps can be stressed down here) and clean the pool, she has structured a water quality program that gives us the clearest, cleanest and most pleasant water imaginable. It does take time and careful attention to keep it sparkling but it is well worth the effort. It is pure joy to swim in and float upon!

Meg also is in charge of lubricating and working all the many locks, hinges and any moving parts on the property (a chore that takes countless hours every week), not to mention sorting, identifying and organizing all the keys. For some reason one key cannot open more than one lock in our little 'burb. Fortunately her carpenter skills came in handy as soon as we arrived last week. The lock on our garage door was completely seized so she had to unscrew the whole mechanism from the door to allow the Subaru in then fabricate a new system to secure the door...all after driving 10 hours from Mazatlan suffering from the initial stage of bronchitis.

A couple of years ago we planted 5 coconuts on our beachfront. We didn't expect them all to grow but they have flourished so well they obscure our view of the shoreline.

Before ...

It seemed like a good plan to dig and move the smaller trees. Our handy hombre, Julien, said that he could do it and arrived with a shovel this morning. I just couldn't let him do all the work himself, after all it is 30C out there and it was our error in judgement for planting the palms in the first place. So I grabbed a shovel and started digging. I managed to unearth one of the palms while Julien dug up the first of four much larger ones. Digging up a palm was a little more rigorous than I had thought it would be. I decided then that I had better dig some holes for the soon-to-be displaced trees. Sand isn't as hard to dig as other soils but the soaring temperature and weight of each shovelful began to get the best of me. I could only move 2-3 shovelsful before I needed to rest a moment and breathe, shovel a couple more times and rest. Yikes...I guess I'm not a puppy anymore. Eventually we hauled the trees to their new homes, planted and watered them and refilled the original holes. The physical effort and sweat felt good but soon progressed to pain and exhaustion. All in all it was a rewarding few hours of toil. The shoreline is visible from the casa now. It's now easy to watch the pelicans dive-bombing for fish.

After...voila!...the ocean!

 Shortly afterward, while I was stretched out on the concrete couch trying to cool down, Julien brought us a couple of coconuts that he had cut down in our own backyard. Wow! These were our very first, very own coconuts!!

 He was considerate enough to chop the tops so we could get at the juice and soft core which I popped immediately into a blender for pina coladas...yum! Life is good!!

My, what a loverly pair of coconuts...