Day 39-42 Dec. 28-31

Now that we have settled down in our new house life has become not that interesting. I could write about taking Bella Carmen to get tested for TB or I could write about going grocery shopping but it would bore you and it would bore me. Hopefully something amazingly exciting will happen soon but I fear any adventures are over for this year. We are on a new adventure, battling with the Mexican government and mixing baby formula.

Later today we are picking up my grandma from the airport. She is spending a week here with her new granddaughter.

Day 28-38 Dec. 17-27

For the last 10 days I have been sick to various degrees. I’ve had every sort of sickness you can think of and it all blended together into a slur of running around town looking at houses and apartments. Some of these places are really scary with cockroaches scurrying under the beds, puddles of questionable liquids in the bathrooms and the paint peeling off the walls while other places cost a million dollars but they had 50 m pools and white furniture so clean that you are afraid to sit on it. I only remember a couple places clearly but I do remember a general feeling of not bonding with any of the homes. 3 days ago we moved into a huge stone palace that we decided to rent, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms plus the maids quarters. The way we have decided to justify having the huge place is that first of all it is very cheap by Canadian standards and also with this many bedrooms relatives coming to stay here can be in the same house as us and the cost of hotels they would have stayed in pays off the difference. Of course we are in Mexico so the house isn’t perfect. The first night the toilet in my bedroom broke and managed to flood my room with 4 inches of water by 2 in the morning when dad noticed the water in the hall. Several days have been spent cleaning all the floors and outdoor areas. When we first moved in our bare feet were black as beans after 5 minutes of walking around. Now that we have a permanent house we bought a high chair and nice stroller for Bella. This involved going to 7 different Wal-Mart like stores all over town, which was quite an ordeal. Today we worked on getting the internet/phone/tv hooked up. We went to the cable place first and they sent us to the Ley mall and they sent us to Wal-Mart and they sent us to the bus station and they said come back at 5:00. Oh, also Christmas was in there somewhere. We tried to make sushi for Christmas dinner and watched Nacho Libre.

Day 20-27 Dec. 9-16

All the days blended together into one awful montage of Mexico City that I believe lasted another 3 days. We managed to find a slightly better hotel but the nights were still icy. Everyone got sick at least a little in those days and I had a fever most of the time. There were 2 mis-diagnoses of the car but they got it on the third day and we drove to Las Barcas. There were lots of celebrations for Guadelupe Day and we street food but we think that that was what made dad sick. Next day we drove to Mazatlan. The last few days have been spent on the beach mostly. We managed to sell most of our fishing rods that we won’t need now that we aren’t going to Belize. Every beach day we have built huge sandcastles in a style we call drip castles. The last 2 days have been spent hunting for a house or apartment to rent here in Mazatlan. We have decided to make this our place of residency. Today we drove all around town and collected a page of phone numbers for potential houses.

Day 19 Dec. 8

We finally got our car this morning. As we attempted to drive out of Mexico City the van stalled every few minutes. The traffic was so bad that it probably would have been faster to walk. Eventually we were forced to stop and find a mechanic in the town of Cojimalpa, which is really just another part of Mexico City. Right now the car is in the shop so we found a hotel. I’m trying to fall asleep but it is proving quite evasive as the baby screams and the trucks with engine brakes go roaring by, 20 feet from our window. The air is thin due to the altitude and full of carbon monoxide. I am struggling to breath, my throat is parched. The room is so cold that I am forced to share the blanket with Rob. Every now and then his feet will come across the bed and try to wiggle into the warmth under my body like two little wet mice. Hopefully we will be able to get out of here tomorrow but I’m not too hopeful about the car being done soon.

Day 18 Dec. 7

At noon we took a 5 hour bus ride to Mexico City. Mexicans really know how to make bus rides nice. All the seats were huge and were transformable into beds. At the door they give you little goody bags full of snacks and drinks, also there were TV’s that folded down from the roof. Unfortunately they only played Disney movies in Spanish so that part wasn’t too great. We have so much baggage that at the bus station in Mexico City we had to take 2 separate taxis. Mom and I were right behind the other cab until about a minute before we got to the hotel but then Rob and dad got ahead. There is some tricky navigating to get to the hotel and we thought the driver knew what he was doing when he drove right by the hotel. I only caught on that we were in trouble when he asked us what hotel we were going to about 20 minutes later. We told him and he replied with, “hmmmm… Never heard of it.” After asking 6 different people and roaming around the city of 30000000 people for an hour and a half we made it to our hotel. Dad and Rob were extremely worried. They thought that we were in an accident or that the cab driver had kidnapped us.

Day 16-17 Dec. 5-6

We spent the last couple days filling out documents for the Mexican government and waiting at the adoption office. We finally did manage to get to the beach a couple of times. Dad has decided that he dislikes Acapulco with a passion.

Day 11-15 Nov. 30- Dec. 4

I haven’t had much time to write the last few days because we have been busy adopting a baby girl. My family has been working on an adoption in Mexico for over 2 years and we thought it would take at least another 2 years but on Tuesday we were offered a little girl that was ready for adoption and we picked her up on Thursday. The orphanage told us that she was 11 months old but a doctor that we took her to said she isn’t a day over 6 months. We haven’t chosen a name for her yet. Yesterday was her first bath, stroller ride, doctor visit and swim.

Day 10 Nov. 29

Today we are driving to Acapulco with Fito’s friend Angel. I am sitting in his jeep, typing and listening to music. It we’ve been driving for a couple of hours and only have another 6 to look forward to. I am kind of glad that we are spending the day in an air-conditioned car, as it is currently 47 degrees outside! That is a new record. Our previous record was 45 and was set when we went to Acapulco last year. I don’t understand why Acapulco is the hottest place because we have been to places much farther south but they are always less than this. We just stopped at a small town for a snack. The basics for every restaurant in this country are coca-cola tables/chairs, a blender and a TV playing mostly commercials. Even most street stands have these. Blenders are so important that there are old men at all the markets that do nothing but sell blender pieces like new blades and motors. People make aguas de frutas, licuados and frijoles with blenders. I wonder if Magic Bullets would sell good here? Or even Slap Chops? Last night I watched some Mexican Lucha Libre on TV. It was like a train wreck, so bad that I couldn’t look away. There were the clown wrestlers that the crowd loved that were beating on the “evil” Russians. A clown would kick a Russian and he would go running across the ring and fall off the other side. At one point a chair was broken across a Russian and the chair exploded with flour. I don’t know if they were being bad on purpose or if this was only an amateur league but I thought Mexicans were really serious about this and they had world-class actors.

We just went by a 100-foot tall waterfall and a military checkpoint. 5 guys point machine guns at us as we go right past their “complete stop” sign without slowing. The bypass for one town seems to just go through another one, filled with speed bumps. The rubber chicken hanging from Angel’s mirror is staring at me. Some of these speed bumps are like mountains, 2 feet tall. Dad sits in the front telling stories in broken Spanish to Angel. The highway decays into a dirt road covered in speed bumps as we go past a huge army base, uniformed teenagers sweeping the dirt outside. At another checkpoint Dad just smiles and waves and we go through. I bet that we will get stopped at least once before we get to Acapulco. 2 checks down, probably 20 to go. The temperature has dropped to a mild 42 degrees. I cant hear above the headphones but I can tell that dad is telling Rob’s “chicken head” story. He is acting it out with the rubber chicken up front. The last time we were at Acapulco Rob and I were swimming in the ocean when rob ran out of the water screaming, “CHICKEN HEAD, CHICKEN HEAD!!!!!!” and sure enough there was a rooster’s head, feathers and all, floating by. We didn’t swim much after that. I think we will have to this year because it is so hot. There are a lot of vultures along this road. I can see about 20 right now. They all circle over the cow fields, waiting for one to die. Luckily the road goes along the flat coastal plains instead of the mountains on the horizon to my right. I don’t think I could take 8 hours going through mountains, the most we have done was 6 hours and I threw up on that trip. We just got onto a new highway. It is straight and smooth. We didn’t have to pay a toll so I don’t know why the road is so nice. Angel usually has huge speakers in his car and an amplifier but he had to take them out so we could fit our baggage in. He says his kids like it when the car shakes from the noise. I wonder what the hearing loss statistics for Mexico are. We are stopping for lunch soon.

Day 9 Nov. 28

I think the only thing that kept me going today was the fact that this was the last day. For the first 4 hours I had a bit of hope that we might actually catch a qualifying fish because we did get 3 small dorados within an hour but as the sun climbed higher in the sky I began to lose faith. I didn’t mean to fall asleep but I did. When I woke up I discovered that my throat was sun burnt. The only spot on my body that hadn’t been smothered in sunscreen and I managed to expose it to the full strength of the fireball in the sky. When we came back to the beach the winning fish were being flaunted, hanging from the rack. The biggest fish was the winning marlin weighing in at 195 kilos but that was only worth a small car as this is a sailfish tournament. The winning dorado was only 23 kilos, I have caught one a couple of years ago that was 35. And the new owner of the Chevy Silverado, first place prize for sailfish, was the guy that caught the 35-kilo sailfish on the second day. Usually the winning fish is closer to 45-50 kilos but this was an unusually bad year for the tournament. Less than half of the boats even caught one qualifying fish although the marlin is quite rare, especially one that big. Over the last decade the sailfish population has been greatly decreased due to bicatch of the huge tuna trawlers that go up and down the pacific coast. Today was also the kids’ tournament that Rob was in. He showed up at 9:00 like he was supposed to and registered at a desk. A lady tried to line up all the children for a picture on the stage at the same time that a man took them away one at a time to give them pins to show they were registered. With all the confusion this took an hour but they finally got started. Rob endured 2 hours in the sun and Mom had him all packed up to go at noon (the scheduled end time) but a man told her that they were going another hour because they got started late. Mom tried to say that Rob was out of hooks as an excuse but the official countered with, “The guy over there will give you hooks.” Rob got a hook and continued for another hour but didn’t get a single fish. Our whole family failed at this tournament. Hopefully we will do better next year.

Day 8 Nov. 27

Day 2 of the Fishing tournament from hell. We got Mom and Rob to come with us this time. I caught the only fish, a small dorado, maybe 5 kilos. The hardest part about fishing like this is staying awake. I get up at 5:30 and go fishing, by 8:00 I am actually fighting just to keep my eyes open. The sun just sucks your consciousness from you. Rob slept the whole day.

Day 7 Nov. 26

This morning our wake up call was at 6:00 and the guy calling sounded a little cynical as the tournament loudspeakers started playing music half an hour earlier. The stage and speakers are about a kilometer away across the bay but they are loud enough to wake us up through the concrete walls of our hotel room. Mom and Rob stayed on land today so it was just Dad and I that had to endure the comfortless 8 hours in the fiery sun. We didn’t even get a bite the whole day.

Day 6 Nov. 25

This was the day of preparing for the tournament. We went shopping at the Super Che, a giant chain of Mexican Wal-Mart’s, and bought enough food and drink for the next 3 days. Dad is growing more exited the closer the tourney gets. At the Super Che bakery all of the bread had been bought and they wouldn’t be getting more until Saturday so Dad and I left Mom and Rob to finish buying the other things while we went up to another bakery. Another man got to the bakery just before us and was told that they were out of bread also and he went sprinting off to a third bakery. We walked behind him and managed to get the second last bag of buns. We have to get up at 6 tomorrow so I need to go to bed early.

Day 5 Nov. 24

Today was another surfing day. This time Rob and I both did it. Rob had his own style where he would make his whole body hang limp, like a dead starfish. I don't know how but it worked.

The main reason we came to Puerto Escondido this time of year is to enter in their biggest fishing tournement of the year, El Torneo Del Pez Vela 2010. First prize is a Chevy Silverado and there are seven other vhicles as prizes. There are three days of fishing with eight hours each.

Day 4 Nov. 23

Today was a Fishing day. We left at 6:30 and were just out of the bay as the sun rose. We trolled down the coast, cooking alive in the relentless sun. After an hour or so we got a strike and soon my dad had caught a 6 kilo dorado (mahi mahi). About five minutes later I brought in another one, probably the first one's mate. This dorado was about 5 kilos. We continued down the coast until about 10:00 when we decided to turn around. On our way home I heard the wizzing as the line flew off of a reel, a half second later the sound doubled as another reel got a hit. Pandemonium ensued as Rob and my dad each tried to reel their fish in and I was dangling a line in the water hoping to get one of the 2 other dorados not already hooked that were circling the boat. Eventually we got back to the town with 4 fish. In the afternoon we went to Fito's house to eat some of the dorado for lunch. Fito is one of the fishermen we go out with. His wife had made tacos estylio ensenada with the catch. Bits of deepfried dorado with salsa, chopped cabbage and cream in a tortilla. It was delicious.

Day 3 Nov. 22

I have never surfed before today. As I lay on the board, a gigantic breaker formed behind me. I just had time to duck down to the bottom, out of the wave's reach. But my board wasn't as lucky. The tumbling wake grabbed the piece of styrofoam, flipped it and sent it powerfully to shore. This would all be fine except that the board was tethered to my ankle. Every big wave I would go surging through the water, dragged by the board, towards land. Other than the huge waves the surfing was alot of fun, so much fun that I'm going back for more on Wednesday.

Day 2 Nov. 21

This morning I arose from our bed only to be attacked by a fit of coughing. Mexico city's altitude and its layer of brown, dismal smog did not combine well with my cold. Soon we were boarding a small propeller plane to Puerto Escondido. In the plane I was almost uncomfortably cold in my shorts and t-shirt but the second I stepped out into the salty Puerto air I was glad to have changed. The humidity hit me like a wall and everyone on the plane ran, rather speed walked as fast as they could in the heat, to the air conditioned comfort of the small airport.

Day 1 Nov. 20

Today we left Vancouver in the biggest snow storm that I have ever witnessed. The plane roared down the runway leaving a trail of black ashfault in the white behind it. I was sad to miss what might have been the only snow I would see all year, but the warm coasts of Mexico lay ahead, beckoning.