Nothing much going on with me so I didn't see a point in blogging the last few days.  The beach has gotten busy.  A lot of Mexicans come to the beach for their holidays.   Some set up there tents right on the beach.  See the angle of the tents?  Imagine trying to sleep on that slope. ( Ann says they just sleep in hamocks so they wouldn't know the difference.)

 

 

 

I sat and watched these guys fish.   They never did catch anything.

 

It got windy and all this crap washed in.  What is the ocean, just a dump?

 Saw this little prickly thing.  I have no idea what it was, but I sure am glad I didn't step on it.

 

 

I was treated to watching this crane catch a fish.

 It took about 5 minutes for it to swallow it.

 

These 3 camped here for a couple of days. They were doing the Maya Rally for the end of the world. They started with 32 different vehicles and now they are down to 3.  Every one went home when the world didn't end. These 3 decided to stay and enjoy Mexico for awhile. The one truck was from Alaska.  Now that's a long drive.

 

 

Met a couple of teenagers spear fishing

 

They were a lot of fun and so proud when they got one

 

They would yell and show off their catch.

 

Today I went and did my good deed and picked up a bunch of plastic.

 

 

This is how busy it got at our beach.   We couldn't get out if we wanted to.



Christmas in Xpu Ha

Merry Christmas everyone!  

 

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

I didn't do much, just hung around the beach.

 



 

Christmas Eve we all gathered at Gerry & Ann's

 

 

The water was pretty rough all day.

 

I saw lots of these.

 The beach was really busy I guess Mexicans go to the beach Christmas day.

 

 

I guess this is where you go when your job is done

 

 

 

We all got together for Christmas dinner.

 

 

 

And this is what my turkey dinner looked like. 

Sorry I have not bloged for a few days. I was sick a couple of days and lazy a couple of day, but thats me.



 



This picture  is for Jon and Peggy, who have gone home for Christmas.   They write their names in the sand at the end of the beach.   Every day they walk down, and if it has been destroyed, they write them again.   So romantic!    Rest assured Jon and Peg, it's still there.

 



 

And thanks Jon for showing me these seeds now all I do when I walk the beach is look for them.  The obsession is so bad I missed a topless girl.   So thanks again Jon.

 

They are called Hamburgers by the gringos and Deer Eyes by the Mexicans.  In Spanish that is  ojos de venado.  They come from south America they grow along a river bank and fall in then get carried out in the Ocean and the current carrys them here, I never checked that story but it did sounds good so Im sticking with it.   

 

Of course, Brenda stuck her nose in here and looked them up.   Here is a link to give you a bit more information on them.     http://www.luckymojo.com/ojodevenado.html

 

 

Yikes!  Looking for Deer Eyes, I  found one of these so I guess its alright that I missed out.   I would not want to step on that.

 

 

It was so cold in the morning that the crabs didn't even scamper down their holes they just sat in the sun.

 

This was the start of today it looked like another cloudy day but its nice and sunny now.

 

Went to Tulum today I was looking to see if I could  find a free way into the ruins.  No luck

 

All the usual tourist stuff.

 

How come the guy that dresses the crazyist gets to hug all the girls?

 

 

There were  thousands of people in Tulum, all going in to the ruins.   I am told this is the busiest time of year at the ruins, because of the Solstice and Christmas.    In fact somewhere in the crowds were Paul and Helen.   Good luck to them there were so many people they would of had to pay me to go in.   . I'm not into crowds... Give me a small mexican town where I'm the only one that speaks English and I am happy.

Back to the Ruins

 

 

I had a rough night.  I had a migraine all night and didn't get any sleep.   So this morning I just walked back to the abandoned resort and took some pictures.     



 I have no idea what kind of a bug this is it was about 3 inches long.

 

 

And this was an egg sack on the beach it was about 1 inch.

 

Hard to believe this exercise bike wasn't looted.

 



 

I came across this place where some guy is living I walked right in on him   .He wouldnt let me take his picture he said he was the security but didnt tell me to leave. And he had a pile of copper wire in his room that he had ripped out of the walls

 

Another toilet seat in Mexico.

 



I saw 3 of these guys.

 



 

The only one using the pool

 

 

Kept picking something out of the pool   It looked like seeds.

 



 



Yesterday and Today

 

Yesterday I didn't blog.  Just lazy. I got up at 4 with Brenda and headed to the airport by 5. I dropped Brenda off and headed back home. The only other things I did was take the laundry in and an oil change on Albert.

 

 

Today I decided I needed some exercise so I walked down the beach.

 

 

 Sat and watched the pelicans fishing for 10 minutes.

I am always suprised to see plants and flowers living so close to the ocean.  Tough plants.

 



I walked down around the point

 



and came upon this small ruins.  It looks like a mayan ruin, but I have no idea if it is.

When these clouds came I headed back.

 



 

After the rain passed I went to pick up the laundry and came across this accident. The guy was heading north lost control and went over the median then across the south bound then rolled it and ended in the parking lot of the

grocery store smashing into the  parked car.



 

Snorkel with Turtles

This is my last day in Xpu Ha until after the holidays.   I am going home for Christmas!   I am very excited.  I can't wait to see my family and friends.    Sadly, I am leaving Gerry here, but he is with a lot of great folks, and has a working satellite dish. 

Living in Crystal Beach, we are quite used to spiders.   We grow them fairly large there.   Even so, the spiders we run across here give us the heeby geebies.

 

 

This adorable little fellow hops when he runs around.  

 

Gerry stuck his big toe beside it for perspective.   Ugh...you wouldn't catch me putting my barefoot anywhere near this critter.    I dont know what kind of spider it is, but you can bet your bippy it has some nasty venom.

 

 

A few of us decided to go down to Akumal to see if we could find some turtles to snorkel with.  

 

There we are, the motely crew! That is me, Helen & Paul, and Shirley and Rob. Gerry, sat on shore and took pictures.    I wish I had a housing for our camera.    Perhaps I will visit ebay and look for a good deal.    

 

The five of us stuck together for a little while, but once we started seeing turtles we were too distracted to keep track of exactly where each other were.       

 

 

I admit it...I stole this pictures from the internet.   This is from a website about snorkeling with turtles in Akumal, and I saw a couple that looked exactly like this.   I saw 15 turtles, 1 ray, 1 blowfish, 1 needlefish and several other various fish during my half hour snorkel.    Until today, I had never heard of turtle grass.       

 

The turtles eat the grass on the bottom, and will sit there while you watch from above.   They don't stay put when you dive down, they swim off presumably to find another spot to eat in peace.

   

 

What's a good snorkel without a drink afterward?    We got menus, but one look told us that we were going back to Xpu Ha for lunch!   It was quite expensive.    My Pina Colada was 65 pesos, and Gerry's Pacifico was 40 pesos.    

   Don't you just love mask face?  

 



 

This is the little restaurant at the end of the road leading to our campgrounds.    I have been saying I wanted to stop in here for some authentic Mayan cuisine since we got here.    Gerry finally indulged me today.

 

Holy expensive!!!   We ended up getting appetizers, a shrimp cocktail and a conch cocktail.   They were tasty, but not awesome.    120 pesos each and 20 pesos each for a luke warm coffee.  

 

 By Canadian standards, it really isn't very expensive; however, we are more accustomed to the prices on the west coast and in central Mexico where there is less tourism.  

 

They sported a lovely zombie coconut head on the wall.

 

This dude is standing on an aluminum ladder, working on the hydro.    Yikes!

 

For the last 2 days we have had crazy hydro at the campground.    One outlet would spike 175 volts, while the other outlet would drop to 60 volts.    One second our fan would be running normally, then the next second it would slow down until it was barely moving.    Everyone was worried about their electronics.    Some people unplugged completely and turned on their generators, others relied soley on their solar panels.    However,  Nicole and Stephan burnt out their inverter, and perhaps some other electronics.   They didn't even get a chance to try to fix them because they were flying out today.    I sure hope the damage was minimal.   They will be returning in March. 

 

It turned out to be a ground wire was shorted out from a fallen palm leaf.      All is well again.