No pictures today...i was thinking that I have never actually shown you any pictures of Santa Clara itself so my goal is to do that Thursday when I post the new blog. Since I didnt post one last Thur., that makes this the new old blog i guess....yes, i'm in a weird space today. Yesterday was dark, dreary, very windy and rainy. Today has been more of the same minus the wind. It was actually cool enough for me to put on socks around the house.
Last week we paid some guys to come cut down all the coconuts. There were huge clusters of them in some of the trees that turned watering and yardwork into some kind of adrenaline junkie extreme sport....(commentator comes on speaking in hushed tone)..."she's going for the philadendron under the tall palm....OH! Thats gotta hurt..oh..is she Ok? Is she moving? There's a dog licking her face ..the paramedics have arrived but they are evidently having a hard time moving the dog. He seems to think it's some sort of game...". Anyway, we had them cut down. When there was a threat of Rina arriving in our neighborhood, we patted ourselves on the back for the foresight to remove potential missiles from our parimeter but for lack of hurricane force winds, they remain laying in the front yard in a heap...or pile...mound? stack? we thought we had a guy coming to buy them but he never showed up. I even pulled some out into the drive with a sign "se vende coco's"on Sunday for the weekenders...no luck.
Late this morning after breakfast and fiddling about, we called our friend Merritt who lives down the road in Dzilam de Bravo ( FYI- the pirate Jean LaFitte is actually buried there). He has been ill- Merritt, not Jean- and was finally up for visitors. I wont go into his afflictions but i will tell you is he was recently hospitalized for 10 days, had a major operation that took 6 hours, ICU for two days and the bill was $25,000.00 What do you think that would have run in the states!! He has international ins. so most of it will be covered. Dzilam de Bravo is about 10 miles down the coast. it is literally the end of the road. Beyond it is a wildlife refuge (one of the places the flamingos go for the winter...not much of a migration!)As we approached Dzilam the stench was overpowering." What is that?!" we both scrinched up our faces and rolled up the windows as fast as we could. It smelled like everyones sewage was in some large open community pool. I think what it actually was is a lot of rotting seaweed. the wind has been blowing in hard from the north which means everything in the gulf has been 'flushed' south to this town. While we were there, we also visited a friend named Linda whose house is awash with the beautiful things she has painted all over her walls and the fabulous tile mosaics she has created outside. She is originally from canada and has lived here for over 15 years. She has no car and lives on $250.00 a month. She takes in lots of stray cats and dogs so its a real menagerie. I brought her some books and she made tea and broke out a treasured box of cookies from Wal-Mart. She asked us if we had remembered to turn our clocks back (daylight savings comes early here). " oh! thats right! Folks at the meeting Thur. told us but we forgot." we promptly switched our timepieces... After we drank, ate and caught up on all the latest, we headed for home, thankful to leave the smell of Dzilam behind us. On the way we passed flocks of egrets hanging out with flamingos. A heron or two, drove passed 'mino de oro' an abandoned salt hacienda. as we approached the edge of santa Clara, we saw the "cocos' man. He drives a beat up white VW van with a load speaker mounted to the top. He drives up and down blaring things about his various coco treats. We stopped and talked to him about our pile-o-cocos in the yard and a couple hours later, there he was. He gave us a complimentary slice of DELICIOUS coconut flan...omg to die for! His wife makes it. Mmmmm...if I knew how to make that i'd weigh 300 lbs...after he and john loaded up all the nuts and he paid us (about $18.00) john came in and we played a hand of gin..an afternoon ritual. when we finished, we looked outside-'its dark! Its a quarter to 6 and its dark!"..'the time change....." so that explains my weird space. it's gloomy, drizzly and dark at 5:30..it feels like portland! Makes me a bit melancholy ( Lynda, you will be happy to know I used the dictionary to look that up...)so, there you have it. Just split a piece of flan with john and we'll watch an episode of Mad Men we checked out at the library in merida. Pretty good day even if it did stink and get dark by 6......
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