hot days and sultry nights

Jonna — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:35:56 +0000

beach off my deck

So, I’m sitting here in Akumal waiting for the day to start. I don’t know why I woke up so early but when this happens, I don’t know what to do with myself. I always assume that the world is closed for business before 10am so there’s no where to go. Perhaps that isn’t true but I don’t want to find that out this late in my life. I thought about going for a swim but it even seems too early for that.

I drove over Thursday night. I like driving late into the night, cool and quiet and less traffic. We’ve never paid much attention to the homily that you should never drive at night in Mexico. It can be dangerous on unfamiliar, rural roads but that’s due to animals in the road. There is something in dogs and cows that tells them to go and sleep on that nice, empty blacktop out in front. I feel nicely anonymous in my beat up Toyota truck with Quintana Roo plates. No one can see that it is a gringa driving until I stop. The military inspection guys are always surprised when they walk up to the door.

So I left Thursday at 11pm and zipped across the peninsula arriving in Akumal at 2am. I looked up a few times for the Perseid meteors but that’s not really a smart thing to do at 70 mph. I didn’t see any and when I got here I forgot. Maybe tonight, it’s nice and dark on the bay now because the turtles are nesting. We have a huge number of nests on this bay and more on the next bay over. That’s good, supposedly when there are a lot of turtle nests there won’t be a hurricane.

Mimi stayed in Mérida with 2 dogs and the cats and the fish and the plants and her sandbags. It is difficult to leave the house anymore due to all these things that need attention. I have to figure that out. Stuff that I enjoy when I’m at home can’t keep me from traveling, I’m not sure how to fix that.

I brought Chica with me because when I’ve come over here alone it seems really lonely. Chica is the best because I can just open the door and let her out and she goes about her business and then comes back, pretty quickly. No need to smell and pee on every bush in 5 miles like Hombre and not as energetic or frightening to others as Cuba. This is where she’s from, when we got to the arches she sat up and started sniffing the breeze. She knows home. She blends in here too. She looks like about half the dogs here and when people see her they usually know who she is. She’s a small town girl from a little beach town on the Caribbean.

It’s hot and muggy here too, very little breeze at night. I’m cocooned in the back bedroom which is dim and cool. I’ve got the AC on, the curtains closed and this is the only room that picks up the internet signal. Yesterday was one of those ‘everything is a hassle’ days. I didn’t pay attention to the gas gauge on the way over because the light is out in the dash. When I got up I went over to some friends a couple blocks away and was then going in to Playa when I happened to look at the gauge. I’m glad I did, it could have been a lot more of a hassle running out of gas on the highway. So, my lesson for the day is that just because it takes me a half a tank to get here in the jeep means nothing compared to the truck – especially when I have lead footed it over here with the AC on full blast. It was so far below empty my finger would fit between them. I came back to the house and the guys here found someone with a can of gas somewhere in town. They had to use a metal rod and a cut off water bottle to get it in the truck. All this in the sun and the heat. They did it though and off I went. It’s about 10km to the nearest gas station and that station is a big rip off so I hate going there. They got me enough gas that I could get all the way to Playa.

I’ve another day of running around to do, bills to pay and I need to get Rod to fix the AC in the other bedroom. I guess I can get started now, it’s almost double digits

empty beaches, empty town

Jonna — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:25:40 +0000

Half Moon Bay

I love this time of year here in Akumal, there is hardly anyone here.

We returned late last night and I got up early to talk to our friends downstairs before they left to catch a plane back to Canada. It was hot and muggy, the AC was an incredible luxury.

After they left, I couldn’t resist it and went back to bed even though there were men on ladders pounding the concrete right outside my window. I slept under blankets (what are those?) until noon. At one point I woke up because there was incredibly loud thunder right overhead, this in addition to the pounding.

When I got up it was the end of the storm and the air was cool and fresh and the sea was flat and gray.

Outside of the guys working on the outside of the building – they are prepping to paint the building – and 2 people walking on the far side of the bay, there was no one in sight.

Cuba and I went for a swim. I didn’t need a snorkle to watch the fish and see the coral it was so clear. Even Cuba seemed to notice a fish swimming by when we were out there and she kind of turned to follow it and then changed her mind.

gray and flat

The water is at least 30˚C (85˚+F) and seemed warmer than the air. Cuba loved it so flat, she swam out to me and back to shore about 5 times, even swimming around when she got out to me. She’s doing much better swimming, a lot less splash and more speed.

Floating out there alone is wonderful, just me and the sea… and an occasional doberman pounding up and expecting to be held.

It feels like an empty movie set, I keep expecting all these people to start coming out and populating the beach and the restaurant. Odd but wonderful.

Awhile later, the sun peeked through and everything went from gray to blue. The sky, the water, even the air looked blue. I took the above pics right before I went swimming, Mimi took the last one a few hours later.

xjkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

blue on blue

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hot days and sultry nights

empty beaches, empty town