"Mom, I am taking a bath in my own sweat"

I find it very interesting that in ALL the reading I did (and if you know me, you know I did a lot) on Puerto Morelos, that not once did I come across any person or website saying that there are often power outages.

Never.

Now I have been here a month, and I enjoyed 4!  FOUR!

I never understood what it would be like to be in a small concrete box, with no fans, no wind, pitch black in 85+ heat. 

As Eddie said, it is like bathing in your sweat.

Mmmm, sweat bath...my favorite.

Did you know if you get hot enough, you will eventually fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion?  Never mind that you can barely stand the feeling of your own skin, your body and mind just at last shut down.

This is a warning to all who want to come to this area, at least in the summer.  Power loss may happen to YOU. 

Oops, Wait...how did we get HERE?

I discovered some new resorts today.  I had no idea that in that direction outside of Puerto Morelos there are fancy giant resorts.

I know this, because, in my hurry to get out of the heat and into a micro bus with the windows wide open...I took the wrong bus.  Yup, we went out of town to drop off employees of the resorts and to pick up the random lost white person wandering in the heat outside of the large resorts.

One of the joys of Puerto Morelos is, that it is very small.  So even spending the extra travel time, it did not add on THAT much time to our trip home. 

Eddie was worried, he noticed right away we had headed in a new direction.  I kept repeating that is was an adventure!  That we could enjoy the new sights!  He stopped worrying out loud, but I believe inside of his sweet head the worry did not stop, as he peered out the open windows at the surrounding mangroves and murky green water. 

"Mom, is that the crocodile's home?  Are we going to see one?"  Not if I can help it baby.

My truly favorite part was when the driver turned around in his seat and fired off some spanish at me, I may not have understood all the words but he was wondering why we had not got off at any of the stops.  And then I got to say in front of the interested crowd that I had in fact boarded the wrong bus.  Haha.  So funny, right?  OK, maybe not funny, but a bit amusing...yes?

Alright.  Not even a bit, his face told me.  Did I in fact know at all the direction I needed to head?  I assured all that I did!  I even knew my street name!  He studied my face for a moment.  Then turned back around and continued to drive, with only the occasional look at me in his mirror.

Just so you know, we did make it home.  And it was an adventure.

Como se dice eso en espanol??

 Right next to the corner market is a tiny little video store.  It is about the size of a very small single garage.  A simple straight line of concrete filled with shelves.

 After our evening shopping and walk Eddie talked me into going in and figuring out how to rent.  We wandered in, the young woman and young man behind the counter smiled and oohed over Tamra.  I walked up to the counter...and...and...my brain went blank.  I could not think how to ask for anything, let alone how to rent.  I could not even remember how to ask for how much the movies cost!  It was like there was just empty space between my ears.

I hopefully tried English.  No go.  They stared at me like I was from another planet.  Shook their heads.  Damn.  Alight.

I will admit right here, that if my children had not been looking at me with big hopeful puppy dog eyes, I would have most likely bailed at this point.  Cut my losses and ran.  Oh ya. 

Finally I groped among my grocery's and dug out the little Mexican Spanish phrase book I was caring around.

I held it up in the air like a lucky talisman, I may even have waved it around a bit.  The store attendants smiled encouragingly, and the other customers stopped to watch.  I could feel my face slowly turning what could only be described as a very deep beet red color.  I felt like I was on fire.  And not in a good way.

At last I managed an ok "Cuanto cuesta esto?".  AHHH!!!  The kids behind the counter smiled!  Si!!  The other customers gave me big smiles and stopped staring as hard at me.  Whew.  The movies they said, cost 10 pesos each.  Awesome, less than a dollar. 

And I also came up with "como?" (how).  I was really rockin' now.  As easy as handing over my drivers license and 10 pesos, and we had rented a movie!!

This has made me want to sit down with my little phrase book and memorize that bad boy.  Good Lord!  And than pray that I don't freeze next time.

However, Eddie is very proud of me.  :)

And I thought I loved to shop...

I like to shop.  Not for stuff around the house so much (though that has it's joys as well), but I LOVE to food shop.

And it is a damn good thing.

I have learned that if I don't want to take a bus to buy grocery's, I can walk 2 blocks to the mini corner store for a random assortment of things.   100% juice, canned goods, diapers, a few items of produce, candy, snacks, water, milk and the best home made "string cheese", you have ever had!  It comes in a big round in a big bag and you tell them how much you want.  Queso is the name, and this has a lovely aged flavor and still does that fun "string thing" for the kids.

Or, I can take a right at the store and walk another block to what I call The Big Red store.  It is a good size, and it is painted red.  There ya have it.

There I can get all grocery items and things like shampoo and toothpaste.  They have great fresh meat, cheese and eggs as well.  However, no produce!  For that I walk another block and hit the produce market...or 2 MORE blocks and I can go to the REALLY good produce market-Chilem.  At the produce markets you can get almost anything your little heart desires including fresh herbs and cactus.  Not many leafy greens though...but fresh eggs and freshly juiced anything they have in stock bottled in a cooler.  I am talking mango, orange, carrot, a mixed green drink, papaya....it is the BEST juice!  

Plain yogurt, whole chickens (yes, head, feet..all of it), raw local honey, plus odds and ends for daily cooking.

To be honest, if I make it as far as the 2nd produce shop, I am waving down the next bus to pass and happily handing over 5 pesos to not have to haul everything back on my own two feet. 

You can tell my kids have been raised in a store, for one, Tamra Rose crawls under all the produce racks and tables and picks up fallen produce and hands to over to the family working.  They have been greatly amused by her.  She however has been greatly disturbed by how much food falls on the ground.

Today on the way to buy produce, we passed a stall open for the evening that has a great selection shoes, and Eddie very badly needed a new pair of sandals.  After much of my spanglish and the shop owners rapid spanish, we settled on a green pair of crocs for 89 pesos-a very good price.  Tamra Rose sat the entire time on the curb in front eating a whole apple and watching with interest as Eddie tried on many shoes.

I know some (ok, most) of the "white" folks here go the extra thirty minutes to cancun to hit up walmart, but I have a very hard time shopping at walmart ever, let alone to completely ignore the local vendors and all that they have to offer.  Which is a lot.  It just takes a little work.

My mission, or one of them, to myself?  Learn ALL the numbers and number combos in Spanish!  Whew, that one hurts my brain.