December 1st to 7th 2019 Week #10

 Yesterday while on the beach I met a friend who we became acquainted with when we first arrived this season, she couldn't believe that we have been 10 weeks! Seems like just a few weeks now, I guess it means we are enjoying our time here.

Sunday we went for a walk through the Sunday market again.

I make it a point to not eat any street side food since my parasitic episode,  but 

I made an exception this time. I am glad I did because it was absolutely delicious and I none the worse for wear.

It was Allan's birthday so after the market we went to My Paradise Beach Club for a drink and lunch.

The beach chairs are starting to fill up, high season is here.

While at the beach on this day we had the pleasure of meeting the 3 firefighters from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada who were instrumental in bring a used firetruck to Puerto Morleos.

(Photo complents of Esto Es Puerto Morelos  https://www.facebook.com/EstoEsPuertoMorelos/ )

The truck with its 3 Canadian firefighters arrived in early evening the night before. They started out with the truck over a year ago, everything was going great until they reached the Mexican border, where they had a major hold put on they trip. They did not have the proper paperwork to satisfy the Mexican government to bring the truck into Mexico, so the truck sat in the USA until the paperwork was finally completed just a few weeks ago. The truck was well received by the community and its firefighters.

A wee bit of Sargasso on the beaches today but not to much.

Sunday is family day for Mexico and this Sunday was  no exception.This is only an assumtion,  but I think the gentleman is taking the lady in pink pants out to the deeper water for a pee. I have seen this happen often with the older adults being taken out into the water by a younger person, presumably a close friend or relative. They stand together for a while then come back to shore. I asked my Grandchildren if they would do that for me when I get old and they didn't think it sounded like such a good idea. They had lots of laughs about doing it though.

We stopped at Selecto Chedraui in the port on our way back to the Colonia. Allan loves his breads and I do too, but it seems that what passes my lips goes straight to the hips, because of that I try to stay away from it.

I took this picture so I could look back and drool - you should see my computer keyboard!

They have a special spot in the shade for you to tie up your dog or hungry shopper's helper while you are inside the store doing the necessity shopping.

Claudia brought a cake lit with a candle to surprise Allan later that evening, making his Birthday complete. He heard from the boys and the grandchildren too. The internet and social media is just awesome. I don't think we would make this trip and spend this long without it.

A friend of our neighbour came flying down the street on a skate board, he jumped off it and the board rammed their water line breaking it off, spewing water high in the air. 

Another neighbour came over and plugged the line with plastic bags and a wooden plug. It took the Municipality 5 days after the tenant called on the phone twice a day every day to come and repair the break. The repair took no more that 15 minutes but the couple living in the house have a small child so having water was important to them.

Another water drain being drilled to the centoes again, but in a different section of town. It makes me wonder what is going to happen to the ecology of this area. Cenotes are so important and they are getting the dirty runoff from the streets, we can only imagine what is in that runoff. Yuk!

Canadian friends, Vic and Jayne have a timeshare, they came to a resort just South of us for a few days, then went to Cozumel for the balance of their vacation. To our pleasure they found some time to come and visit with us before catching their flight back to Canada.

This fellow is bringing his dog down off the roof for the day after spending the night on the rooftop where it is cool . This has to be one trusting dog, I guess he has made this trip often.

The temperatures dropped to about 18 degrees in the early mornings this week. Claudia has her doors and windows closed trying to keep any heat there may be inside the house. She is bundled up trying to be warm.

Our Canadian friend Suzanne goes out every morning for her bike ride and exercise. She is bundled up too this morning, but did take of one layer while chatting with us.

We never expected to see a transport full of caskets being delivered to the local funeral home. I understand these deliveries are made regularly to the small communities in Mexico so the funeral directors have product to provide to the families of the deceased.

They are similar in detail to ours back home and very 

expensive here also.

A wall mural we saw on one of our walk abouts. Very Mayan in design.

Look at the lemons Allan has on his little fruit tree. They are very plentiful and he is looking forward to picking them before we go home in early March. 

We had our maintenance person Fernando and his wife and children over for one afternoon. The kids enjoyed to pool even though the temperature was down to 86 degrees F/30 degrees C.

We stopped at the Happy Beer Bar on the highway  just past the entrance to Super Aki one afternoon.

I understand it is a very busy place after the sun goes down.

Love the plaques.

This is a beautiful cat, I don't think I have ever seen one with these colours before.

This is one of our neighbour's cat, it seems to have adopted us, you have seen other photos of him in past posts. His name is Piolin (Pee-oh-lean) and he drools a lot, he also has a dominant personality with other cats in the neighbourhood.

Another walk on the beach this week took us to 

"La Petita En La Playita"  restaurant for lunch. We have not eaten here in years, the food was just as good as I remembered it. There are so many restaurants here in Puerto Morelos it is impossible to get to them all.

This was the view from our table.

This little spot is full of local customers on Sunday, this day was Saturday so there were not so may guests.

The next post will have pictures of our upcoming Posada, we have been busy getting things ready and every day we hear of more people coming! It is so exciting!!

So, until next post stay safe, stay warm and keep smiling. 

November 24th to November 30th Week # 9

Wow, we have been here for 9 weeks!

Sunday we went to the Sunday Market again, we find it interesting to just walk leisurely about and look at all the items for sale and people watch.

Lots of jewellery to choose from.

I think this is the same dog I photographed the last time we were there. Just laying about getting sunshine and R&R and not the least bit worried about people walking about.

If the vendors don't have a table they just spread a ground cover and lay everything out on that.

We had a light brunch at the Secret Garden after an earlier snack at one of the food vendors. This outing makes for a relaxing Sunday morning and early afternoon. I have been posting on a couple of the tourist facebook pages for Puerto Morelos in hopes of getting more people from the port side to come and take part in a great shopping experience and to taste  inexpensive Mexican food from the market's food vendors.

A grocery shopping trip to Chedraui took us by "Micheladas del Semaforo" on the highway 

where we like to drop in for a nice cold draft occasionally. We met fellow Canadians there from Kettle Point, Ontario on this stop.

This is the sound of  birds as they are eating from a certain type of tree. These birds do this every day for about 2 weeks at dawn and dusk. We are certainly happy we don't have these trees nor this loud chatter near our house.

Monday night we had a rain fall, the following morning these doves were taking full advantage of the puddle for a bath.

We are having a party!! Yes, a block party is being held on Saturday December 14th. The purpose of the party is hold a Mexican celebration of the Posada, everyone is invited and asked to bring a dish of food to share. It is going to be so much fun!!

La Posada means "the Inn" and the celebration is in recognition of Mary and Joseph coming into Bethleham looking for a place to stay to give birth to their baby. 

The party starts with a door, (in our case it will be a curtain hung across the street), on one side of the door there is a group representing Mary and Joseph and on the other side of the door a group representing the Inn Keepers. A song is sung (in Spanish of course) with the Mary and Joseph group asking for a place to stay and then the Inn Keepers come back with no room. At the end of the song they are told there is room in a stable and at that point the door is opened, everyone enters and the party begins!

The Municipality has agreed to close off our street from 5:30 pm until 9:00pm. Guests are providing potluck traditional foods and non traditional foods for the Posada, lighting, music, 2 bouncy castles for the children, pinatas for children and one for the adults. This is certainly going to be a great evening, the neighbours are really looking forward to it.

We have offered to help our neighbour Claudia prepare and set up for the party. After going door to door to invite the  guests we contacted Emilio our favourite taxi driver to take us to Cancun to purchase items needed for the party. Exciting or what?

The most interesting of the places we shopped at that day was Market 23 which is close to the ADO bus terminal. If  you have gone to Cancun and not gone there you have missed out on a great Mexican experience.  What an interesting place, they have anything and everything for sale. Ann M - we should go here when you visit this year.

We were at this market to shop for items we needed for the Alters we did at the beginning of November in celebration of Day of the Dead. The shops have all transformed from Day of the Dead items to those for the Posada, Christmas and Three Kings Day celebrations along with others I have not yet had the opportunity to experience yet.

The meat, fruit and vegetable sections of the market are so colourful, everything is fresh and makes you want to buy. 

 Pinatas galore! Everywhere you look there are pinatas of every colour and description you can imagine.

The entire market is so colourful and it was very busy, I was fortunate to find a spot with few people to get this photo.

Before returning to Puerto Morelos we treated ourselves to  lunch at La Parrilla.

The Hurricane season is officially over and we are soon to step into Caribbean winter, not to worry though because winter here has it beauty.

Road maintenance is a year round job around the world with Puerto Morelos being no exception. We found these workers repairing Zetina Gazca this week. There was evidence of them having had worked on other streets also.

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Puerto Morelos merchants are displaying their Christmas decorations for the season's shoppers. Do you need a plastic table cover?

Lights and artificial trees are adding bling to the sidewalks.

Saturday was FREE Spay and Neuter Day for the cats and dogs of the community.

Claudia volunteers in Puerto Morelos and one of her many charities is this clinic. Being a people person she likes to take the registrations, she registered over 170 pets at this one day clinic. It is such a much needed service that volunteers provide to the community. The program as I mentioned  is a community program, so it is open to the pets of residents and visitors along with the many animals wondering the streets seemingly without owners. These animals are trapped and brought into the clinic entered into the program if they have not already been spayed or neutered.

People waiting for their pets appointment while others wait and aid in the final recovery phase of their pet's process.

Surgical tools are washed and sterilized for the next patients.

      This concludes another week in Paradise, it has been a       memorable one, the sun has been hot and the pool warm, the     food delicious and the beer cold, but we lost a good friend, Manuel May.

The community of Puerto Morelos has lost another icon, this week, Manuel May passed away.
Manuel, Miss Ali and their children operated the restaurant called Ole’ on Calle Chaca just before you reach the highway. Manuel was always a smiling face with a big wave as we passed by on our shopping trips to Chedraui, on our return we would stop in and be greeted with a smile, a hug and hand shake. He was a true friend and helped us so much with translation and the learning curves that are a bit challenging to new comers to the community. We, as others who knew him, are deeply sadden by his unexpected passing. We pray that his loved ones are given the strength to pass through this difficult journey with God’s help and that Manuel rests in peace.

In closing we ask that each of you to stay safe, keep warm and let that smile shine!