There are so many places worth visiting in the Yucatan Peninsula, how does one get to them all? Well, just pick one and go there…make a point of it. I knew that I wanted to see some flamingoes and had never been to [...]]]> This is a guest post by my good friend Kathe Kirkbride

There are so many places worth visiting in the Yucatan Peninsula, how does one get to them all? Well, just pick one and go there…make a point of it. I knew that I wanted to see some flamingoes and had never been to Río Lagartos nor Celestún, so I chose Río Lagartos and set off from my house near Chetumal, Quintana Roo not having a set number of days for the trip.

Great Blue Heron

Makes it sound like a simple thing, but I also decided that I didn’t want to go alone and there weren’t any humans who wanted to accompany me. Josh, my one year old Doberman, was elected to join me on the trip…not that he had a vote. Now I had to pack for me and for Josh…food dish, dog food, leash, dog bed…you get the picture. The back seat of the truck was quite full with Josh and his accoutrements and my duffle.
The route took me 400 kilometers from Chetumal north to Felipe Carrillo Puerto, northwest to Tiohsuco, northeast to Tepich, north to Vallodolid, through Tizimín to Río Lagartos. On arriving in Río Lagartos at the waterfront all I had to do was hesitate at the T intersection and I was immediately approached by a member of the local guide co-op to see if I wanted to go on a boat trip. I said that I wanted to go see birds, specifically flamingoes, but not until the next day. I asked for a recommendation for a hotel and was given a couple of suggestions.

I aimed for the most promising sounding one, the Hotel Punta Ponto, and drove down the waterfront to the south to the hotel. The owner, Roger, told me the price of the room per night and agreed that I could have the dog in the room with me. The room had two double beds, a TV with a few channels (none in English), a functional bathroom, wireless internet, continental breakfast included and a nice garden area in front for 500 pesos a night. Roger was a very friendly and interesting host and I enjoyed the times we just sat and talked. Once I arranged for the room and put my things in it, I went back down the street to the tour guide co-op.

I was originally quoted 750 pesos for a two hour trip; they negotiated down to 600 pesos then I asked to make it a three hour trip and we came back up to the 750 pesos. Birds are early risers and I knew that I would have to get up early if I wanted to see as many as I could; we agreed on a time of 6:00 am and I was told that José would be my guide.

Based on information from Roger at the hotel, Josh and I went looking for a taco stand for dinner. Josh sat patiently, tied to a faucet, while I ate some really great tacos. Each time Josh and I had to walk somewhere we had to deal with all the people, dogs and other animals and traffic. Josh had been a homebody for his entire life to this point and had never been off the home property except to go to the vet. It was all pretty overwhelming and exciting for him, but he dealt with it really well. A chicken that crossed the street (to get to the other side, our side, not sure why) caused him to almost have a heart attack and it was quite funny to see an 80# Doberman bristle up to what he considered a major attack.

The next morning, after feeding Josh and putting my camera and sandwich purchased the night before plus some water into my daypack, we headed down the street for our rendezvous with the boat. José was right on time and we headed off through the lagoon in a light rain toward the mangrove areas. Fortunately José had two yellow slickers with him and we only got slightly damp. As the sun rose we started to see the birds on the mangroves, in the water and flying around us. José was very good, after some explanation about how pictures turn out better if the sun were behind the camera, at slowly drifting up on the birds. I had my tripod with me, but decided that the photos would turn out better without the vibration of the boat being transmitted up through the tripod and instead hand held the camera.

Flamingoes

José was very generous and the trip actually ended up lasting for 5 hours…not a bit too long…and I got some great photos. The sun had eventually come out, the drizzle stopped and it was a perfect day. Josh did really well on the boat…we did have one beach landing on the trip which Josh took immediate advantage of and after 10 minutes or so we were back in the boat. I tipped José 250 pesos and headed back to the hotel where Roger put out my late continental breakfast and Josh was content to lie at my feet.

After resting for an hour or so, we jumped in the truck to go visit Las Coloradas and San Felipe, nearby towns. Las Coloradas is a town dominated by mountains of salt and a salt processing plant. There are dikes and lagoons for evaporating off salt water pumped in from the Gulf of Mexico to harvest salt; the lagoons extend for miles beyond the town. Some of them are quite pink! I went straight on through Las Coloradas, following the rudimentary map that Roger had given me, to see if I could find some more birds.

Eventually, after wandering around for miles alongside and on top of the levees, I did come to an area where there were some flamingoes but not nearly as close as the ones I had seen in the boat that morning. Josh at least got some off-leash time and it was a fun adventure. I do not recommend doing this little side jaunt if it has been raining recently as the roads bore dry evidence of vehicles that had struggled to get through.

From Las Coloradas I headed back toward the road to Río Lagartos but kept going to the town of San Felipe. It was getting late and finding an early dinner somewhere was my goal. I ate in the restaurant that was the most highly recommended by those to whom I talked. Incredibly, the name of it was Vaseline….I didn’t ask why. The food was mediocre, slid down my throat easily and was sufficient to get me through the night and we headed home.

Beep Beep…Oh…whoops…that's a different bird.

The next morning Roger served me a full breakfast with coffee, eggs, ham and toast and then I packed up and headed off not knowing where I was going next but I wasn’t ready to end my adventure. On the way south I decided on Sian Ka’an, but that is for another time.

Jonna, thanks for letting me share my trip with your readers…I had such a great time that I wanted to write about it. Río Lagartos has a resident population of flamingoes but July and August are the times when there are many thousands of them there. I imagine that there are plenty of tourists then too but I only saw one boat with other tourists when I was there. It felt like I had the place to myself.

Go here Rio Lagartos to see the rest of Kathe’s pictures from this trip.

© Jonna for blah...blah...blah... Ginger!, 2012. | Permalink | 12 comments | Post tags: flamingo, guest post, Rio Lagartos

My main problem [...]]]> I’m trying not to disappear but being sick is such a PITA and I’m not getting better as quickly as I would like and I don’t like whiners. I seem to have started all of you on this path of my dengue and post dengue experiences so I’ll keep on.

My main problem now is lack of energy, lack of breath, and leg cramps as side effects from some of the medicine. I returned to the doctor yesterday, completely wiped out. I had stopped taking several of the prescriptions because they seemed to be causing me to get leg cramps at night. I’ve had problems with that before and the pain is so intense that I’m terrified of them. I was mentally wondering what I would do if my life depended on taking something that I knew would give me cramps, I’m still not sure. Without the steroid inhaler, I wasn’t breathing very well. I felt so bad that I thought my oxygen levels must be really down again. The headache is my constant companion, the extreme exhaustion as well.

On top of this, some really good friends that we haven’t seen in two years were in town for a short while and I wanted to spend time with them. I tried, I wasn’t a lot of fun but I really pushed myself to stay up and go places. They were wonderful and came here to the house a lot and just sat around with me and were happy to continue on their own when I ran out of steam.

So, I was pretty down when I returned to the doctor on Monday. I admitted everything I had stopped taking and told him why. I also admitted my huge fear of the cramps and the pain. He was great, he told me that there are other options for medication and we would find the right ones together. He tested and examined me again and I was relieved to find out that my oxygen levels were not back down where they had been. My blood pressure is pretty low but since mine is usually low it isn’t too bad.

He spent a lot of time with me talking about when I use the inhalers, telling me to change and use them in the afternoon so the highest level of medication is available at night and in the mornings, my worst times. He changed my medication, he reassured me, he had his assistant go over the procedure for using the inhalers several times, making sure I got it. While I’ve had these things for years I don’t think anyone has ever really gone step by step with me in their use. By the time Mimi and I left, I could feel the effect of using one of the new ones and could walk and breathe much better. Going over, I was so dizzy and out of breath that Mimi had walked with me, I was grateful as I was afraid I’d fall.

There are some up sides to this, and I’ve been looking hard for them. One thing, all of my doctor and treatment visits are only in Spanish. I’ve added some medical terms to my meagre vocabulary. The Spanish word of the week is los calambres or cramps. I had to look that one up last week as espasmo which I originally used was causing confusion. I also can now pronounce oxígeno easily, it used to tie my tongue in knots.

Oh, did I mention the red raccoon eyes I got from the potassium? That was merely irritating and funny. One of the anti-cramp medications I got last week was potassium and about an hour after I took it, while I was sitting at the RV park talking to our friends, my eyelids, eyes and cheeks turned bright red. I couldn’t see it and my friends asked me about it as I was leaving but I just shrugged since I didn’t know what they were talking about. I got to the doctor and he asked me about my eyes, again I was just confused and there were no mirrors. When I got home I realized what they were talking about and how weird I looked. I stopped taking that med too. Yesterday the doctor told me I could half the amount but I should take it for about 5 days because many of these medications reduce the amount of potassium in my blood, thus cramps. I can live with rabid raccoon eyes if it keeps the cramps at bay. When I mentioned that I was eating a banana a day, he said that wasn’t enough and that if I wanted to get more potassium from food I should also eat a whole tomato, a glass of orange juice and some kiwi. That is exactly the recommendation that Manuela our housekeeper in Akumal had given me when I told her about my last couple weeks. Folk wisdom is pretty good in many cases.

Sunday night, a friend and commenter from my blog arrived from Alaska to get some dental work done. She’s been great too with my lack of energy and was fine with me taking her to get our feet smoothed instead of walking around looking at sights. They had the most wonderful recording of the Ave Maria on the stereo and I think getting a foot massage and listening to that was the highlight of my week. Your priorities sure change when you get old and I’m feeling really old this week.

© Jonna for blah...blah...blah... Ginger!, 2012. | Permalink | 14 comments | Post tags: dengue, sick

When Sheila dropped the lab results off last night, I couldn’t figure out what they meant. There wasn’t a line that said anything like “dengue: si o no”. My leucocitos are low normal, my monocitos are high and my plaquetas are very low, everything else was normal. So, today I went off [...]]]>

Dinnertime

When Sheila dropped the lab results off last night, I couldn’t figure out what they meant. There wasn’t a line that said anything like “dengue: si o no”. My leucocitos are low normal, my monocitos are high and my plaquetas are very low, everything else was normal. So, today I went off with my test results to the free doctor at the Ahorro pharmacy I usually use. I explained, she read the results, she said it is generally leucocitos and plaquetas that are indicative of dengue and from the looks of my test, I have it. She wants me to go for the same test again tomorrow and if the plaquetas have not gone up, or if they have gone down further, I should go to my doctor. If they get too low, I would need blood. She did a short exam, blood pressure, temperature, lungs and heart and all was fine. The good news is that she said since I’ve had this for 5 days, it should be over in 3 more days. I’m ready for that.

Since I was out and about, I went to the San Benito mercado to get some fish food. It’s much cheaper there and the fishies were almost out. I wasn’t on my game though, I bought some flowers and the deal was for half a dozen for $20p and she only gave me 5 stalks. Then I went to the regular grocery store in search of something that would look appealing to me to eat. I think I’ve had a bagel and a bowl of cereal in the last 3 days. While I was in Superama, it began to pour rain with thunder and lightening. This is not really the time of year for this kind of storm. The lights were flickering and the rain was beating the corrugated roof so hard it was impossible to hear. As I was coming down the escalator to the parking garage, I looked across the street and there was a guy up on the roof between a bunch of rebar towers and some other high metal objects. I was thinking that wasn’t a great place to be during a thunderstorm when lightning flashed and the thunder boomed right on top of it. The worker glanced up through the downpour, crossed himself and went on about his job. That’s a lot of faith.

Itty Bitty the 3 legged kitty

One thing I was really happy about is that even though I was feeling horrible, I got up Saturday morning and got the jeep to the upholstery shop. I’d made a deal with them to put new zippers on the windows and sew and patch the places on the canvas top that were ripped. I got up again that afternoon and took a cab up there and picked it up. They did a really good job, it cost the equivalent of $150us and I think the top will last at least a couple more years. The best part though, is that I had windows to close while I was driving home in the deluge.

The Teenagers, Mancha and Ocho

I don’t have the energy to mop up the water in the hall that blew in during the storm and I haven’t even gone upstairs to see how much water came in the bedroom since all the doors were open. Whatever, it’s just water and everything is rock or concrete. This is the only house I’ve ever lived in that I don’t have to worry about water. Not worrying about water or fire, that’s a very nice feeling for a homeowner.

**see how cleverly I snuck in pictures of all the cats without making those who hate reading about my pets suffer?

© Jonna for blah...blah...blah... Ginger!, 2012. | Permalink | 17 comments | Post tags: dengue

See the coastline between 2am Thurs and 2pm Thurs? That’s about where our condo is on the coast in Akumal. Rina is bearing down on it, either a cat 2 or cat 3 by the time she hits. We are directly opposite the southern end of the island of Cozumel.

No, I’m [...]]]>

See the coastline between 2am Thurs and 2pm Thurs? That’s about where our condo is on the coast in Akumal. Rina is bearing down on it, either a cat 2 or cat 3 by the time she hits. We are directly opposite the southern end of the island of Cozumel.

No, I’m not thinking of driving over for the event. I’ll watch from over here and only go over if there is a lot of damage afterwards. It’s been raining over there for a couple weeks already and yesterday the lady who takes care of our place told us that there are 2 leaks in the roof. At this point, they aren’t going to get fixed before Rina arrives so I’m considering them hurricane damage. Maybe we can get a new stove out of this too. One can hope. No hay mal que por bien no venga.

© Jonna for blah...blah...blah... Ginger!, 2011. | Permalink | 8 comments | Post tags: hurricanes, Rina

This is the weather that I moved to the tropics for, hot sunny days and cool nights. The rains are in their stride now, they are coming at the right time, late enough that the sun doesn’t come back and create humidity. Every day starts out sunny and hot with a few puffy, [...]]]>

This is the weather that I moved to the tropics for, hot sunny days and cool nights. The rains are in their stride now, they are coming at the right time, late enough that the sun doesn’t come back and create humidity. Every day starts out sunny and hot with a few puffy, white clouds on the horizon. Around 5pm black clouds form in the north and the east and the wind picks up and the thunder crashes.

I’m still a bit afraid of the thunder and lightning. I didn’t grow up around this kind of thunder storm and when it cracks overhead and shakes the floor I’m about ready to crawl under the furniture with the dogs and cats. This afternoon it was right overhead, all the animals were under something and I was trying to act nonchalant. I unplugged the computers just in case but we only had a small flicker in the lights. The main complaint I have is that the thunder set off about 3 car alarms within a couple of blocks of my house and they are still going off hours later. I like to open up the ground floor to let the fresh air sweep through but that means I’m listening to car alarms. I think it is just part of living in a city, for me it beats the boredom and isolation of the boondocks. As soon as the lightning stops though, I’m going off to the super and hoping they are turned off when I get back.

It is perfect sleeping weather, cool and languid nights with the smell of flowers hanging in the air. The last few nights we haven’t even turned on the floor fan. I don’t need a blanket yet, but I thought about it a couple times. Soon, too soon for me, we’ll have to get out the blankets.

Hiding from the thunder

© Jonna for blah...blah...blah... Ginger!, 2011. | Permalink | 8 comments | Post tags: summer weather, thunder storms

So… there is a free spay and neuter clinic this weekend put together by Planned Pethood (the absolute best vet clinic in the city) along with Evolución and the City of Mérida. Planned Pethood and Evolución are great partners, it is the city’s involvement that makes it tricky. It’s important though that these [...]]]>

So… there is a free spay and neuter clinic this weekend put together by Planned Pethood (the absolute best vet clinic in the city) along with Evolución and the City of Mérida. Planned Pethood and Evolución are great partners, it is the city’s involvement that makes it tricky. It’s important though that these relationships thrive and the hope is that bonds will form that will benefit everyone in the city.

Mimi is doing her thing in the recovery room and helping with organizing the volunteers. We had a volunteer meeting here last night, actually two meetings back to back. One in Spanish and one in English. It was well attended in both languages and I was impressed with both the turnout and the enthusiasm.

This clinic is just two days and will be held in one of the poorer colonias in the south of the city. The Spanish speaking volunteers have done a lot of work in canvasing the neighborhood, talking to people, letting them know what is available and where. The English volunteers have done support work and will be equally involved working at the clinic. The vets are all local and are putting their time and efforts to making this a more livable city for people and animals.

Several times last night people would ask me about some detail and I had to respond that I was just the catering staff, I had no idea about the rest. I fully support MImi in the work she does and all of the people who put in time working with the animals of the city. I just don’t do well at the actual clinics. You probably have guessed that I just want to bring them all home. I’m really good at staying detached when humans are suffering but I have more of a problem with animals. Somewhere in my cop’s brain I can tell myself that humans have a choice, it is a lot harder with children and really tough with animals. So, I provide tea and cookies and smiles and most importantly, Mimi.

© Jonna for blah...blah...blah... Ginger!, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Post tags: evolucion, planned pethood, vet clinics