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Folks, Happy New Year from Punta Allen.  We got in here late last night after a looooong ride downa dusty dirty gravel 60 km road south from Tulum.  We decided to come here on a last minute plan made in Tulum at the Bancomer were we wee filling up with cash after spending all we had in Coba and the way back getting a speeding ticked in the process.  15000 pesos, bargained down to 500 pesos by Bernard – BIG THANKS !  We are out of propane, Bernard & Elena need to be in Cancun at the airport on the 1st for 11am and it’s four hours away.  So, we have just now decided to drive them to Playa del Carmen, get thema room there, get propane and come back here for New Years eve and stay here for a few weeks for sure.  It’s paradise beyond here.  End of the road, good beach, good swiming, good fishing, WiFi Internet in the camp, VERY SMALL fishing village, no turists, centre of a World Heritage Bisophere site and more.  See: http://www.shardon.com  THAT’S where we are !  I will write more later.  We have to get going now.  Adventures from Mahaual and Coba to come also.

Adios,

Frank, Rita & Hunter

I found out if you step on your computer it doesn´t work any more !! Anyway we had  a great Christmas. We started the day with orange juice and vodka , I had coffee That set the tone for the rest of the day. We had a small gift exchange, then went to try and make some Christmas calls, which didn´t turn out to be all that successful, so MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, we hope all your days wherever they were, were wonderful and everyone got lots of presents. We had 14 at the camp for Christmas dinner. Turkey legs, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy assorted salads and desert. A great meal and we all ate too much. Check out the pictures on our site

Boxing day we spent laying around in the sun while Travis packed his stuff up to catch his plane in Cancun on the 27. We all got together for a last meal and numeros beers were consumed.

Dec 27 Sofie and I drove Travis to Cancun to catch his flight. We stopped on the coast to make reservations for ourselves and Frank and Rita at los Pinos hotel. After some confusion and with the help of a interpreter we finally got things arranged. A quick stop at Sam´s club in Playa Del Carmen and back to camp.

We´re all going to Teresa’s for dinner tonight so we have to pick a few things up today , New years we´re invited to two different party´s should be a lot of fun. Then on Jan 2 we will leave Bacalar and head up the  coast whee we rentent a room for eight days. There is no Internet there and with my computer kaput I don´t know how often I´ll be able to post, I´ll do the best I can.

Happy New Year to everyone and I´ll talk to you next year

Jerry & sofie

Christmas eve in Bacalar, What a great christmas eve, We were all invite to an open house at a small hotel in town so we made some snacks to take the eggs turned into and egg salad on crackers  but thats another story. We left for Tony and and Elanas and meet Bernard and Elana walking to the campground. Trav made two trips and got us all to Tony’s. We were just figuringing out how many trips it was going to take to get us all into town when Jose showed up with a pick up truck. problem solved so we hopped in the back of the truck and went to the party mexican style. The place ws great all sorts of food and drink and a make make your our pizza counter. There was live entertainment and it got liveler as he night went on. To sum it up a good time was had by all.Check the our site for all the pictures.. Sofie and I stayed until around 11:00 and finally found a cab to the camp then early to bed to get rested for Christmas Day we will have about 10 peolple here for the the afternoon and dinner.

Just to add a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Rita Hunter & I to all our readers.  Jerry pretty well covered what’s happening down here.  Just had a huge downpour here where Kalie & I are are the Hotel Laguna outside bar overlooking the Laguna.  We got a bit wet , computers survived but it’s over now and we gotta go back and help with the evening diner preperations !

Adios,

Frank, Rita & Hunter

Dec 24 Christmas Eve., well to make all your readers happy it’s been raining on & off for the last two days. BUT !!!  we still haven’t had to shovel any snow, HA, & it’s sunny now on Christmas Ev.  Yesterday we went back to Chetumal, I know I said we wouldn’t go back but we had to get to a good grocery store to buy supplies for Christmas.
Sofie and I have been swimming everyday, Sofie’s been running every morning at around 6am, as it gets too hot & humid to run after 7:30am, she runs with Duke, dodging all the local Mexican stray dogs. Then they come back, get Meeka and they all go for a swim. The dogs have both learnt to dive under water and bring up stones.  Later on we swim again, or snorkel, or walk, or sleep, or shop, or eat, or read.  All our meals have been with our big group down here, it’s becoming a close group, it always now includes Tony & Elana, Frank & Rita, Elena & Bernard, Veto, Terrisa, Travis, Kaily, Sofie & myself.
Kaily and Travis came back on the 22nd. They spent there time in Tulum kite-surfing , snorkling and scuba-diving, they found a great place, a one room Palapa right on the beach, they had a great time. We had a small after birhday party for Travis at the resturant that night. Back to shopping in Chetumal , Sofie, Rita ,Frank and I walked out to the highway to catch a bus or flag down a taxi. We missed the bus and after about 20 minutes we got a taxi. We went to the new mall built just at the edge of Chetumal. We got there at 10:30 and it didn’t open until 11::00, but there was a good coffee shop so who cares. Frank and I sat with our coffee while Rita and Sofie worked out a plan of attack for their misson of hitting every store in the mall. At 11:00 THERE OFF , mission accomplished we went through every store. This mall was the same as any mall in the USA or Canada including McDonald’s.
The Mexicans really love there cell phones, we counted 12 cell phone stores in the mall plus the ones sold in the department stores. After lunch in the typical mall food court we headed to the grocery store. This place sells everything, food, clothes,hardware and booze. Frank and I started shopping and trying to decide what we could do for Christmas dinner. There must have been 1000 frozen turkeys piled on pallets in the back. The other thing was the 10,000 aluminum roasting pans all over the place. This place was crowded, jammed wall to wall with Christmas shoppers, Mexicans drive better on the roads than with shopping carts, the kids ride in the carts and get buried under the shopping. Most are talking on there cell phones too talk about chaos , but fun. This part of Mexico is completely different than the west coast where we were last year, a lot more money being made and spent here in the cities the tourist trade is really making a difference here. The wage here in Bacalar ranges from 4.50 to 25.00 a day, so I don’t think many people from Bacalar shop in the malls. The line ups to check out were  crazy at least 15 -20 people at each check out with carts piled high with all he goodies for Christmas , at long last we got to the checkout and we were free. We grabbed a cab outside and headed back to the Camp ( the cab cost 140.00 pesos )
Our Christmas dinner will be BBQ turkey legs, roast ham, mashed potatoes and gravy with salads and deserts. We’re going to have about 10 -12 people dropping in over he day. For Christmas eve we’re all going to Carolina’s hotel around 6:00 pm everyone brings appetizers and your drinks. ( Paul we’re making turds)  and deviled eggs.

Thats about it for now, I’ll post this later today.
Jerry & Sofie

MERRY CHRISTMAS  everyone who can”t be here with us you are all in our thoughts
Jerry,Sofie, Kaily,Travis
Duke & Meeka

Hello to all, It’s another beautiful day in Bacalar and from what I hear your all still freezing you butts off. Wish  you were all here with us.

Yesterday we all hopped on a bus ( 24 pesos) and went to Chetumal to see the Mayan displays it’s a great place and I’ll post some pictures on our site. We spent some time in the market ………….. not too impressed like a big dollar store. We took a walk through the town to the waterfront , it was Sunday so a lot of the stores were closed but from what we could see , we won’t be going back anytime soon.  We lost Frank and Rita somewhere along the way and Rita just happened to see us trying to flag down a cab to take us back to Bacalar (180.00 Pesos) They already had bus tickets so we took the bus back with them. Dinner was at a BBQ chicken stand on the highway, great food ( 160.00 P , 6 people ) he didn’t see beer thee so he ran down the street and bought some for us. We took a cab back to camp and sat around re hashing the day until bed time.

Today Frank was up and away to check on Tony’s van , the news isn’t good it looks like the motor is toast. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear but at least he knows now, we’ll probably see him later for dinner. Sofie and Duke run every morning before it gets too warm about 6:30 – 7:00 then comeback and we all swim. Duke and Meeka have decided to try and get all the rocks out of the lagoon. They swim out with Sofie to where it gets shallow then get rocks off the bottom and swim with them back to shore, drop them and go back again to get more. Don’t ask me I’ve got no idea what they are doing.

Frank , Teresa and I are at the Hotel catching up on the internet while Sofie, Bernard, Elana and Rita went back up to the Cenote. We’re all going to meet in town for dinner later. Travis and Kaily should be back in the next day or two.  Christmas Dinner will be at the camp and it seems to be getting bigger all the time, I’ll keep you informed.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jlbaldwin52/Chetumal#

Jerry And Sofie

Well, I’ve (Sofie) been down here for 5 days, first day at an Internet Cafe, Tony found an Internet Cafe for all of us which is right on the Lagoona Cliffs, around a pool bar.  Hard to take! Jerry and Frank have been trying to download a new Mexico Map program, so thought we’d add a Blog Posting.

The weather down here is amazing, the water in the Lagoona and the Cenotes are amazing, magical.  The Cenotes waters are different then the Lagoonas waters.  We are now camped right on the Lagoona water, with Frank & Rita circling the wagons with us.  I swim about 4 times a day, Jerry and I snorkeled today, it was wonderful. Duke and I run in the Morning, around 6am, as anytime after 7:30am is way toooo hot!  We’re definately in heaven.
The kids left today, Travis finished some business he had, succesfully, now they are driving up the coast toward Cozemal, to do some Ocean water sports for a few days.   Travis and Kaily will be back by the 23rd ish, and then we’ll all have Christmas together. One of the local xPat’s, who owns a hotel, is having a Christmas Eve party that we’ve all been included in, that should be fun.

Frank & Rita’s friends arrived yesterday, Bernard and Elena, they came in from Toronto.  We’re actually all here at the Internet Bar together, it’s been fun, all sorts of Cerverza’s to use the internet.

Yesterday Kaily, Elena (Tony’s wife) and I went over to the deepest Cenote in Mexico, over 100ft deep.  That’s where they all jumped off the second story roof of the resturant into the Cenote, I tried, but chichened out, i didn’t realize that you had to propel yourself out a few feet clear the cement dock down below, I wasn’t ready for propelling! So, I’m visulizing it now, i WILL do it before we leave.

Tonight, Rita, Frank, Bernard, Elena, Jerry and I are all going to go downtown Bacalar for Dinner.  Often, we “pick up” Tony and Elena and our new xPat friend Terrisa, along the way.  It’s a wonderful community down here.

Hugs all around!
Sofie & Jerry

Bacalar is quite a bit different than La Maz there are a lot more stores and they are really spread out there isn’t really a downtown area. You can find find anything you want but you have to look a little bit harder. I had a small shopping list and I had to hitb 4 stores to get every thing. You do get to meet a lot more people this way. Once you know where to look the selection is great. By the time we leave I should know where pretty well everything is.

I just downloaded and installed the 2009 version of Mexico maps, there is a lot more detail and a lot more cities, we’ll have to see if it’s any more accurate than the other versions.

Thats about it for now I’ll post more pictures to our Picasa web site.

Jerry & Sofie

The other day was funny it got a little crowded and noisy where we had set up camp so Frank and I decided to move to the other sideof the campground where there was no one.  Bright and early we moved over ……….. within in and hour everyone else moved too , now where we started is empty except for Travis tent.