We are settling into life in Puerto again; it's a pretty good life. We get up with the varied sounds of wild birds, crowing roosters, crashing waves, barking dogs, and tortilla-selling drivers with bad speakers blaring catchy jingles as they creep around the neighborhood, with all these sounds and more coming in the open large windows. The morning low temperatures are in the low 70s, about 8 degrees (F) warmer than our Port Hope house will get before April or so. Luckily the construction crew next door doesn't start beating on chisels until a bit later.
I ran a little yesterday, barefoot on the beach, and again today, 3K or so on the roads up above Derek's, but haven't settled on a course or regime yet. Breakfast has been cereal with copius fruit (papaya, bananas, pineapple), sometimes a bun or roll, juice for me and coffee for Liz. We need some more milk today so she can make yogurt by setting the warmed, innoculated thermos of milk in the sun by the pool for the day.
The afternoons require a trip to the beach. We acquired a beach umbrella this year so the shade/sun controversy of years past is settled; to each their own. So far we've been going to the beach at the point, nearest both Derek's place and my hole in the dirt, but we will no doubt be seeing Cariizalillo, Coral, Bacocho,
and Angelito sometime soon, and probably taking trips to the South and east to Mazunte, Puerto Angel, HuatulcO, and others. So far we've been going out or up for dinner, but that will change too.
Part of the reason we've been out a lot the last couple days is that Dan Wadosky, a friend from Oregon, flew in on Tuesday afternoon so we were out with him the last two nights. He's in the Olas Altas, one of the nicer Zicatela hotels, for another night, but we spent come time yesterday looking around for other options for his stay which will be through January 5 or so, before he has to go do taxes for 4 months. Dan's survived a cancer bout the last few years so it's good to see him back pretty much up to speed. He might join one or both of us on some local adventures and maybe a trip to Oaxaca city later.
The hole in the ground at Casa Den was mostly excavated by a backhoe in a few hours Tuesday afternoon, with the new plan to move the house up the hill a meter and excavate more below for a lower-level bodega, cistern, and parking slab. The even-lower septic tank below will be excavated later. In one place a large rock proved immovable by backhoe. Wednesday two workers started measuring and shaping the bottom of the trenches for the eventual footings, and started chipping away at the unmoved boulders with picks and a pry bar. Fortunately the main rock is of fairly crumbly material, sort of a poorly constituted granitic rock, so it will be moved, though I'm glad it's not me swinging a pick in the afternoon sun. I can't afford to work for myself here with the local wage rates. The word is that they plan to start pouring foundation components next Tuesday, mas or menos (give or take). It's not clear how much I can do to help, we have a sort-of fixed price bid from Lencho so I can pretty much do nothing if I like, but will want to be invloved as we get closer to final surfaces, fixtures, etc.
This evening we'll be having another Thanksgiving. We had one in Minnesota in October when we were visiting, and onother the next week for Canadian Thanksgiving at home. Now we have the 'American' version, approximately, in Mexico, upstairs at Derek & Christine's. We will have to get by without the fall chill or snowball fights. We hope everyone up north is having a nice relaxing Thanksgiving (or Thursday as they call it it Canada), and the US folk still have a few dollars to drop on the big specials tomorrow to help stimulate the global economy.
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