The Adventure Begins...

Well, we made it to Mexico with a LOT of help from our wonderful friends. Thank you one and all. The house is ready to sell, the storage van is packed, and whatever we forgot is just fine. For those who don’t know Flo and Peter Larson came to the airport to say goodbye to us and ended up driving us to Kenai to start our journey when we all learned that flights into and out of Homer were grounded by local weather conditions. We got there with 10 minutes to spare because that flight was a bit delayed and Peter was a good driver. What can I say, but a thousand thanks and offers of a kiwi hosting?

We are now in sunny La Manzanilla where the weather is perfect. The little place we are staying is called Eileen’s and is three blocks off the beach in a relatively quiet neighborhood. There are only two guest rooms and the other is rented by a Canadian couple who are very nice and doing about the same thing we are… taking to a life of uncertain adventure. After dining at our favorite street taco stand last night we lay down for a 12 hour nap and now feel pretty refreshed. Last year around this time we were on the same beach with Marty and Susie. Much is the same here which makes finding things we want like a good restaurant, and the grocery store, quite easy. Some things have changed like our favorite restaurant, Yolanda’s, has moved across the street to beachside. Many gringos are enjoying the laidback lifestyle here. The crocodiles are many more than what we saw last time we were here. Tom was playing with fate by walking quite close to a huge one laying on the edge of the riverbank. I scolded him for trying to ruin our adventure right at the start, and reminded him of the nature show images of the gazelle being snatched suddenly and drug into the water by the seemingly “sleeping” crocodile who then snacked heartily. Some things don’t change much…with Tom and me. This week they have Gringo day where the non-locals serve the locals dinner and then we all enjoy the bull rodeo coming to town. Should be fun unless Tom decides to ride El Toro and the adventure takes a medical turn. Ah well. More reports later on. Love to all,
Chris

PS. It has taken us two days and lots of time to post this blog having first to find an internet connection, then to figure out why and how to change the blogger settings from Spanish to English so we could figure out how to manage our blog account and make a new posting. Sheesh. We are sitting in an outside cafe with wireless connection (the new Yolanda's) enjoying the sea breeze and view of the beach while we, like monkeys at a typewriter trying to compose Hamlet, figure all this out. Be patient with us, dear friends, as we slowly add to this site.