New Years and the trip to Los Pinos
On new Years Eve we went to the cenote so Sofie and Kaily could jump in two last times, I went swimming and the water is really different it almost feels thicker than regular water. We enjoyed lunch at the restaurant next to the cenote, wonderful last day of the year. It’s something you have to experience for yourself. We dropped our laundry off and went to see the fort which turned out to be close until Fri, we’ll check it out on our way out. Back to camp to clean up and get ready for New Years Eve.
We pick up Bob and Eleanor and met Vito for dinner on the Bacalar square before going to the first party. The party was at the same place as the Christmas eve party , Carolina’s, and Kaily won the 50-50 draw. W e stayed there until around 11:30 then moved up the road to a costume party at the Arab house. It seems strange to see an Arabic house in Mexico and stranger still there is a Chinese style right beside it. There were all sorts of interesting characters there, it was by invitation only, Elene, Tony’s wife, got us into the party. It was a great part and a beautiful house, Jack, the owner, was a story too. He had a very interesting past. It was a colourful party; the theme was the Dark Night. Everyone was very mysterious. Elene is trying to get us all to come next year again, in costume.
New years day. We headed to Theresa’s for a birthday brunch for Tony, many good friends where there, and afterwards we stopped at Miguel’s house in the jungle, he had many treats for his “neighbours”. We’ve made a lot of friends here and it will be hard to leave. We spent the rest of the day de-camping and getting ready to leave on the 2nd. We went for a last group dinner and as usual a great time was had by all.
Jan 2 , we finished the packing and headed out around 9:00 we stopped for breakfast and went on a quick tour of the fort. On the road to Cancun, about an hour out of Bacalar Sofie realizes she can’t find her purse, which has her passport and visitor papers as well as her credit and credit cards and drivers license in it. After a quick search of the van on the side of the road it was back to Bacalar to try and find it. Two hours later we were on the road again sans purse, we searched everywhere we could think of but no luck. we’ll take care of things in Cancun we hoped. We were told we’ll have to go to Mirinda to the Canadian Embassy there. After a 4 hour drive that turned into an 8 hour drive, we got to the hotel just as everyone was heading home. We got settled and had dinner at Coco’s Cabanas for dinner and looked at one of her rooms. They are 75$ a night and are just beautiful. But their place is not on the beach. Our hotel is right on the beach but pretty run down. He’s probably just waiting for the right price to sell-out to one of the big hotel chains. The hotel on our right charges 350$ US a night per person and the one on our left charges 275$ a night per person. We’re paying $50 a night for the room and $5 a night for Kaily to camp. I like it here.
Jan 3 up at 7:00 to get to the airport to pick up Kaily’s friend Couchie, as well as to start Sofie’s journey to figuring out how painful replacing her passport and visitors permit is going to be. Sofie is pretty stressed out over this, Kaily and I are trying to calm her down. We head to terminal one, then realize that is only for private plans, then we head to terminal 2, walk all over it to find arrivals, it’s right at the beginning of that terminal, we missed it a few times. Anyhow, Kaily stayed there to wait for her friend. Sofie and I headed to Information and to Immigration. Information said that the Canadian Embassy is actually in Cancun, NOT Mirinda, so, we were very happy! She pointed us toward Immigration. Immigration said we needed to go to the Embassy first, to get a new passport or travel permit, then he’d be able to give me a new visitors permit. So, we called the Canadian Embassy emergency line and ended up speaking with someone in Ottawa! He cancelled the passport and said that on Monday we need to go to the embassy and they’d issue a travellers document. He said it’s going to be more complicated then normal, as Sofie’s flight is to Detroit, as that’s where her car is, and so, she’ll have to get something that allows her to get through Mexico and the US and Canada. We then called TD bank and cancelled all the credit cards and have a debit card being sent to Windsor for Sofie for when she gets there next weekend. Sofie feels a lot better now, everything is in order and seems it shouldn’t be a problem. We headed back to arrivals, picked up Kaily and her friend and then headed to our new home on the Beach outside of Playa De Carmen. We spent the day on the beach on the 3rd and had dinner right on the beach, under a Palapa in the restaurant attached to our little 8 room hotel. It was a magical feeling, as we were the only ones eating on the beach that night.
Jan 4th, Sofie woke up early and went for her first long run in a few days. She went to Playa De Carmen and back, found it too hard to run in running shoes on the beach, so, she and duke walked and swam she said. She found a really nice beach about 45mins away, she’s trying to talk me into going there tomorrow. The girls had a bit of a rough night, as Couchie has a cold. They’ve just taken Meeka for a walk. The four of us are going to hang out on the beach for a while, then go to Playa De Carmen for the afternoon to post this blog and to visit the shops.
more photos here
http://picasaweb.google.com/jlbaldwin52/NewYearsAndLosPinos
