Que Paso? October 1st, 2008

Firstly, it is great to be back, had a wonderful time with family in Melbourne and yes Mum is recovering from hip replacement rapidly, up the ladder hanging paintings after 6 weeks. Also recovering from hip replacement is Ken of Casa Santa Fe, after repairing his roof, in Puerto Morelos, he slipped on the top rung of a wet ladder, ouch! Roberto, Casita Blanca, has his leg in plaster for a nasty sprain after tripping on the street in front of the condos, Big Gary is recovering from a rebuilt knee and for those of you who knew of my horse fall, I am fully recovered. Puerto Morelos is sopping wet right now we have had rain pretty well continuously for 5 days and that is great for our gardens but not great for our visitors or the building sites. However, we are thankful it is rain only and we have been spared hurricanes to date. As the first frosts are falling in Canada we are starting to get our vacation bookings in and look forward to a good season. We were all saddened to learn of the passing of David Lau last month. David was a loved and well known member of our community. He was the chef at Hola Asia for many years and started his own restaurant in PM, David Lau's, which remains open. David died in his home in Puerto Morelos and his ashes were taken to his family. There will be a memorial for David in October, to be announced. Mega Commercial Mexicana was gutted by fire last month (no-one hurt) which changes shopping routines in Cancun, it was just so convenient. A fun alternative, especially if you are tightening the belt this year, is Mercado 23. Tucked in behind the Cancun Fire Station on the corner of Tulum and Chichen Itza this is a real market that sells fresh fruit and vegetables, cheese, grains, fish chicken and meat. The prices are lower than elsewhere and the quality good. I bought a whole boquinete fish for my dinner for only 35 pesos, you can see the fish market prices in the picture. There also all sorts of handy stores: shoe repairs, picture framer and for those supermarket items there is a San Francisco Assis right there. I found the parking very easy (although probably not now I have told all of you!) and the people friendly and they don't look at you like they are trying to work out how much money to get out of you like they do in Mercado 28. Also while I was away IMPLAN came and started to take down all the cute signs that line the entrance to PM, they got almost to the end before the mayor managed to stop them. However, what has not been stopped is the really ugly signage on the corner with the highway and the opening of OXXO. The mayor has managed to get the funding working and is paving the whole of the colonia, the roads are being flattened right now, it will be a great difference in quality of life for many people. Although it rained a lot last weekend the Copa del Caribe tournament at El Rey Polo Country Club did go ahead, we had our friends from Merida visiting and they fought valiantly to win against Cancun. We also had guests from the Dominican Republic who were thrashed soundly by our Mexican team, a lot of fun was had be everyone and there are vows of a rematch in the near future! I think they would have stood a better chance if they hadn’t been enjoying the Cancun nightlife ’til 7 in the morning. Puerto Morelos was once again lucky to have the volunteer vets performing their tricks on our moggies and muts. VIDAS provide the services of the volunteers, Diane organised promotion and the primary school as the location and they stayed to Liza’s place in Playa Secreto. Once again we all thank them for their work and the great assistance it is to our furry community. Some of the new properties in PM: new condos on the corner at the end of Rojo Gomez, Josh and Amber have nearly finished their beautiful house and close to completion is Ron and Sue’s as well, sadly graffitied this week, the new Marviya hotelita is getting a facelift, there are Rob and Joanne’s extensions, OXXO is finally open, new apartments going up next to Marilyn’s real estate and Comex and my town houses near completion. Also extensions have gone on at Hotel Inglaterra and some creative trompe d'oeil work in their pool area. Carmen Hotel (Villas Latinas) has had its doors locked up for a couple of months for 'remodelling'. By the way there is no truth to the rumour that all the shops on the south side of the Parque are going to be closed to make way for a mall, just not true. As you know, I spent a month in Australia, mostly in Melbourne in my mother’s penthouse. Twice a day we were visited by the sulphur crested cockatoos which we now feed by hand. They make an extremely loud squawk when they arrive, demanding their sunflower seeds, they always come in pairs and Mum has named them all (more about cockies here) . Picture of me in front of the gym is for my friends who do not believe that I went every day while there. Melbourne has a lot of renovated Edwardian buildings, lots of pretty arcades and a very active café society (more about Melbourne here). We took a few days out to visit relatives in the country and enjoyed the beautiful spring wattle (more about our national floral emblem here) . of the 1350 species of acacia in the world Australia has 1000 of them, you see there is something not poisonous. We visited Hepburn Springs and local quaint bush towns. That big bird is called an emu and they are not usually friendly (more about emus here) . The koala is not real I just had to put one in there because you were probably expecting one and I would hate to disappoint you. I do hope you enjoy the pictures.