One week in Mexico
It's now Sunday, Jan. 10th. I've driven over 2,000km so far in Mexico.
I got out of Vera Cruz after some driving around; only took one bad road and lost 30 minutes. The roads were good, bad and very bad. On a freeway, I hit a stretch of 1/4 of a mile long that was worse than any road I've ever seen. It was raining and this road(I'm talking about a freeway here) was almost impassable. There were hundreds of cars going about 1 mile per hour over bumps and holes, mud was flying everywhere and drivers were weaving in and out trying to avoid the really bad holes. I took a video and will try to put it on U-tube.

When entering every hamlet, village,town, and city, speed bumps greet you. And again, once, I missed seeing one and I thought my kayak would fly out of its saddle, never mind the damage to my shocks, tires, etc... Also, you could be driving on a nice road and all of a sudden, no warning, big holes appear and trying to avoid them is next to impossible due to oncoming traffic.
I find the countryside very dirty...lots of garbage strewn everywhere and platic bags hang from every tree. I've never seen so many dead dogs along the roads. I assume they have little ministry people doing the cleanup. I hate to say it but Mexico is a third world country and has a lot of catching up to do.(Pierrette tells me I should mention that the state of Campeche is very clean) I do enjoy seeing men on horseback riding along the roads. I saw many of those.
But I'm now about 4-5 hours from my destination. I arrived on Monday, Jan. 11. Lost my hearing in the left ear.

It's now Saturday Jan. 16; been here 5 days. It's cool and cloudy for this area and apparently, it's been the worst weather in 100 years. Is it following me??? (Christine is sure to acknowledge this fact!!!!)

Jan. 19: Marcel and Pierrette have rented a beautiful home on the ocean for the past 8 years. It's very cozy with lots of charm. The pool is being filled today as the weather outlook is promising. It's really a peaceful and quiet here. A few nights ago, we went to dinner at a neighbour's with about 10 couples, many from N. Ontario.

Things I've done since arriving:
-went to a Mayan ruin at Xcambo around 2,000 years old. It's small compared to others which will have to wait for my next visit(if Mars and Pete will invite me again),
-Church on Sunday: standing room only, lots of singing, a colouful celebration,
-went to Merida, a city of 750,000 or is it 1,500,000. The main plaza had tons of vendors, Mayan dancing, cold beer and lots of to see.
-went to the clinic for my hearing, got antibiotics(hearing still not better). Marcel also got attacked by bugs and his legs are covered with bites and he's been to the clinic too.
-Pete loves to cook, we've had very tasty meals.
- went kayaking yesterday against Pete's advice. I had planned on being out for 2 hours but returned after 40 minutes, soaked and tired. I hit some pretty strong waves and a few times I thought I'd have to swim to shore.
- ate some botanna which is a free appetizer with every beer and piscado frito(only in the Yucatan) whole fried fish.
-finding out that the Lapierre's are very competitive at crib, scrabble and Scatergories.
-lost my ATM card which caused me some consternation. Banque National staff were good enough to go and deposit money in my RBC account.