Que Pasa? July 2010 Puerto Morelos Newsletter

Puerto Morelos is happily busy for low season with most businesses choosing to remain open and new businesses opening all the time. Today July 7th marks the day it stopped raining - 2 tropical storms in 2 weeks, everyone is busy out fixing! The beautiful mural at left is in Cancun, we wish the same for Puerto's walls one day. There's always a lot of talk about food here and everyone is interested in new restaurants: like Taco Avenue down past Bara Bara specialising in arracherra tacos but with a wide menu (closed Tuesdays). Hamburgers made with arracherra (95p grande), gringas al pastor 35p and sirloin burritos 55p amongs the choices. And the new JJ's Kitchen is, opposite Cantina Habanero, serving Mexican fast food and hamburgers, flautas and bbq'd chicken. On the corner before the Police station the little outdoor cafe does good breakfasts and lunch and now in the colonia on the right just past the basketball dome a real restaurant with a variety on the menu specialising in dishes in potatoes. Not to be missed is the Sunday morning (7am-11am) roast lamb tacos in the colonia opposite the fruit store on the wide street. Seen here is Tony Sansone, great helper for the charity, polishing off his tacos and considering more! There is even a new little supermarket in the colonia and another large fruit and vegetable store. La Plage is a new restaurant at the Snorkelling Adventures site, turn left on the way to Secrets Silversands, beautiful palapa and a very interesting menu some very reasonable items and a lot of seafood, rumoured to have a french owner 998 211 3084. Tho' it escapes me why they have to advertise it with young girl in a bikini bending back! John Gray has made a lot of changes especially to his Downtown restaurant and well worth checking out the new menus - he is also now on Facebook, John Gray Restaurant group, even giving away infused vodka drinks this week in Cancun! When you are shopping at Superama try a refreshing drink at the Tapioca shop, great varieties. There has been a lot of activity in the charity, El Mundo para Puerto Morelos, this year we have successfully found sponsors for 24 children in the primary school, this pays the school fees and some supplies for families unable to pay the 500 pesos for the year. There have been a lot of donations distributed to the school including this baseball equipment, books to the library, penpal letters exchanged, medical equipment for the dispensary and lots of useful school items. We bought a printer for the kindergarten and delivered donations for 2 air conditioning units for the primary school. Our other projects currently raising money for more air conditioners, school computer room, school entrance portico, computers themselves and raised security for all the schools. In the last month ther have been at least 4 school robberies that I am aware of. Robberies attributed to underage children, the only juvenile centre here is in Chetumal, the mayor has sent a request to have them put there but it is a long process. Pictured also is the playground equipment we installed by an anonymous donor being well used. Sadly, the fire deparment is in a bad way, this is the photo of our current fire truck attending a highway car fire. This is how bad the equipment is and what you see is clothing and helmets donated to the charity and those air packs on top came from Austin. I wish for someone to come in and take this on as a project! Our ambulance was off the road for 2 months waiting for a part. We now have 2 public clinics daytime, one nightime exclusively, one private doctor (opposite Aguakan) and another doctor on 24 hour call from the Taxi Union.
The turtles are hatching on the beaches here, you can see their tracks struggling up the beach looking for dune access, it's getting harder and harder to find space. We have green turtles mostly in Puerto Morelos and they hatch in September and October. If you would like to learn how to help protect them there is an useful article HERE. We recently ended the polo season here with a large tournament seeing players from all over Mexico and a large crowd to enjoy the spectacle. Happy to report only one person fall and no horse injuries. Puerto Morelos also recently had 2 fishing tournaments with the weather proving challenging in both competitions but some pretty spectacular fish were brought in by the intrepid sailors. Tom and Christine Gordon were recently married on the beach - they are great Puerto Morelos lovers and when Tom finishes up in Kuwait he will be right back here. I recently visited Guatemala and a slideshow of the pictures are in the right column, it is an easy 1.5 hour flight from here and I was delighted with Antigua. Warned of its heavy tourism I was impressed with how easy it was to get around cheaply, charming well preserved town and well worth a visit. I travelled out to Lake Atitlan and picked up some lovely fabrics some of which are still for sale if you are interested click HERE. Managed to practise a little polo there at the Molina family's home. Earlier in the year I travelled to Kingston, Jamaica, to assist my sister. She was ill (now recovered) and just starting a project to accommodate Haitian artists and promote their work. Managed to watch and play polo there as well as visit Laura Facey's house in the hills and see some of her extraordinary work and help the Haitian artists. The Little Mexican Cooking School is taking a break and will reopen with new menus on October the 5th, we will post them as soon as we can as I know you are anxious to see what will be cooking. Also now the 2 very comfortable bedrooms above the school are available to rent at very reasonable rates ($250/300 per room or $500 for both 7 nights until Dec 20). We had an extraordinary season and met some fabulous people whom we know will be back to Puerto and some of whom have been a great help to the charity. Chiles en Nogada was one of our great triumphs and many other successes and culinary moments were had by all. In the world of Mexican cuisine there are some great chefs and Diana Kennedy reigns supreme, she is about to launch her latest cookbook and is seen in this article checking the proofs in her home in Mexico. Cielo Falcon, psychotherapist, is hosting Family Constellations, you can read more about the benefit to your family HERE at Casa Cultura, Sunday July 11th, 11am 998 1035066. Our dear friend Ray passed away last month and the town turned out to celebrate his joyful life and our love for him, some pictures of the wake can be seen on the right column further up. Below are some photos around Puerto Morelos and a pic of the University football team at practise during the World Cup and others of the folk here!