Oregon to Yucatan 2012, por esto!

Oregon to Yucatan 2012

Safe and sound in Chabihau, Yucatan, Mexico.  We arrived, breathless, on Sunday, September 2nd.
Of course we found no water, no electricity and two years worth of sand in the house. But true to what we love about this place; within seconds of our arrival, all of our local friends showed up to help.  Alma helped me clean out the house. Ruben laid a cord from his place to ours so that we could have lights and fans and the refrigerator. Tino connected the water and started in on cleaning the yard.  And even Francisco Leon stopped by to hook up the TV.

The place looks great so far–

We’re here. We’re happy.
Fi in the hammock–

And my coco trees are FULL of cocos!

It is warm and a bit humid, but we have the wind off of the sea, and, well, I *like* it hot.

Speaking of hot, our trip here was fabulous.  We had the best border crossing ever.  We got up at 4am on the 31st of August and we were at the McAllen/Reynosa border by 5am.  We parked in the customs area and were quickly greeted by our own personal guide.  “Fox” helped us with everything. Even filling out the forms, which we’ve done a million times before, but he was quick quick quick. He walked us from window to window; here, now here, now back over here.  Pay this, put this sticker here, now pay for this.
It was wonderful.
Bless you Mr. Fox!

We hit the road without any troubles at all and spent our first night in Esteros at a funky roadside hotel.

Great fajitas with ice cold beer.

The next day we drove from Esteros to Cardenas.  It was a long haul.  Driving in Mexico is very interesting.  You have to keep an eye on everything at all times.

See that car half in our lane with its lights on?  It is passing that truck and we have to get over.  That is just the way it works.  It is actually a very practical way to drive, simply because you don’t have to be stuck behind a big slow moving truck forever– if you want to pass, the oncoming traffic is supposed to get over.  And they usually do.  ::cough::  Okay, moving on…

Topes topes topes. Some are nice and flat on top like this one–

Others will scrape off the underside of your car.  We learned this fabulous technique of coming up to the tope at an angle…but this only works if one *sees* the tope in time.

There are many wonderful bridges on our route.  Here is the Puente Tampico over the Rio Tamesi–

Of course these are all toll bridges.  Some of the Plazas de Cobros are really fancy–

I think this should go on pinterest, don’t you?

Look at this giant fruit stand:

Oh Nom Nom.
(note the tope sign on the far left)

My top favorite road-side food in Mexico is Pollo Asado–

These places weren’t open -yet- when we passed through.

Wait, where are we going?

Anyway, we made it.  By the way, driving here is not easy, please don’t try it without first researching where you are going.  We use a GPS with the most up-to-date Mexico maps, cross referenced with a paper highway map that I purchased in Merida. Just thought I’d mention that.

Now that we’ve been here a few weeks and settled in, here are some pictures of the sea, sky and a bit of my kitchen remodel.
See the yellow cabinets under the sink area? Tore those out. They were bug eaten and useless. So we’ll just have the nice, bright barely used tiled shelves underneath.  I’ll run a curtain to hide the underside of the sink.
Before:

In progress:

Ocean:

The sky and the view from the front of our house when the weather rolls in:

Ocean Sunset:

Harpo and I:

Two salty dogs in the pool:

Baby Iguana!

This poor starfish was stuck in a hot shallow tidepool:

I put him/her/it? out in safer water.  Little thing stuck to my fingers. Awww.

More in a few weeks. Love to you all!