Town of Izamal

Road trip today......went across the Yucatan Peninsula visiting lots of Mayan villages and colonial towns....this is Izamal....recognized because the whole dang town is painted yellow!! Magical little place....you can see remnants of the pyramid that dominated the region at one time..that is until the Fransicans came and built a convent right on top of the pyramid!! Many of the stones in the convent were taken from the pyramids as well as to build the colonial buildings surrounding it.
How is this for a handmade childs bicycle seat!

Sunrise this morning

ahhhhhh.......

Team Explorers

Today I was invited to join a team of explorers and use my mapping skills. Jeronimo and Flor de Maria are accomplished cave divers and so they were called upon to dive an underground cenote by the owner who wants to know what is under the surface of his land.
Peter and I mapped the surface with my GPS while the rest of the team went below. There is a small opening with a ladder and the tanks had to be lowered down to the surface of the water....about 20 feet...a nice big cave that was great for swimming too....then with their lights and compass and LOTS of other gear they took off in the crevices of the underworld!! An hour and a half later they came up in another cenote. Wow!! What an incredible day!

Eco Building on Lake Bakalar

Went to visit a building site for a new Eco resort on Lake Bakalar near Belize......they are going to build composting toilets so Dinah was called in as a consultant...therefore I will learn from the beginning of this project how the design fits into a structure and how it will actually be built.

Paradise to Paradise

Left Texas today and the last thing I did before I left was to drive by the San Marcos River on the way to the airport. I LOVE this river!! It is another paradise for me!

Texas Rodeo

Here is a video of Bonnie running the barrels at the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo. She placed third with a time of 17.67 seconds....beat by a half a second...its always a close call...I consider her winning when she doesn't knock over a barrel or get hurt!!! We had a great time!! KK and Melinda came to cheer her on and its their screams you can hear on the video! This is a big time rodeo, 112 years, World's Original Indoor Rodeo so it's an honor to ride here. There were lots of events like cowboy poets and musicians, roping, bull riding, and the normal rodeo things.

Fixin to get ready to....

We are in preparation (fixin to get ready to is the way you say it in Cajun world..HA!) to go to the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo as Bonnie has qualified for the barrel race. Laura trains and rides their horses daily so it's a team effort. Here is Charlie getting some new shoes from one of the top ferriers in these parts of Texas. More from Cowboy land later....this should be interesting!!

Cowgirl Yoga

It was soooo wonderful to reconnect with the core group of a phenomenon we created a few years ago....Cowgirl Yoga....women coming together one day a week to share in each other's lives, trading stories, secrets, recipes and anything that happens to come up....for its not your conventional yoga as we often talk and everyone does their own excercise as they feel it for themselves...very freespirited and I LOVE IT!! Kevin was there because we meet at him and Danise's home in the woods!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008 !!!!

hmmmm....from Texas or is that New York Times Square?! We took the easy, laid back way of celebrating the New Year by watching that ball drop on television along with a BILLION other folks it was reported!!
Laura got on the roof and reconfigured the satellite signal so we could sit by the fireplace AND watch the TV...young folks know how to do such things. What a strange tradition we have but evidently it has been going on for 100 years now! The ball is made of crystal triangles and truly beautiful....really it was neat to think about that many people watching the light show and we felt very lucky to be in our pajamas
in front of a warm fire instead of with a million other folks freezing their ass off in New York! HA! Happy New Year everyone and may we all be blessed with peace, love and happiness!

Louisiana for Christmas

I woke up in my hammock this morning and opened my computer to find a voice message from my daughter asking me to PLEASE come home...well I couldn't stand it...I was out on the afternoon flight!!
I spent Christmas Eve and Day with my family in Louisiana.....my mother, sister, youngest daughter, aunt, nephew, and cousins, inlaws...my sister and her husband are building a house on the same land where my mother and grandmother were born! I guess Santa thought Kevin was really good!me, sister Pam (the blonde), Bonnie, my youngest daughter and my mom

Mayan Riviera

I have been fortunate to enjoy the view of the Caribbean from some of the finest homes in the Mayan Riviera this week! Whether its from a cabana, a tent, a hammock, a deluxe suite, or a fine home, the essence of the Caribbean is magical!!

Composting Toilet

It is on my mind to become more involved in Dinah's composting toilet projects that she has going on here in the Yucatan.....today she was called upon for her expertise in putting in the final touch to the actual operation of one at a private home in Tulum, Mexico. You can see more photos at the following link http://picasaweb.google.com/divadelmundo/CompostingToilet

Punta Allen

I finally made it to Punta Allen! I was here 29 years ago when it was a very small lobster fishing village....it is still small, remote and fairly primitive. The sandy, rutted, coconut road has improved somewhat but it still took 3 hours to drive 30 miles. Very nice pristine beaches on the way down with treasures of seashells and even a skeleton of a Toucan's beak! The village is at the end of a narrow spit of land between the Caribbean and a lagoon, nestled in Sian Kaan Biosphere Reserve. There are cabañas for rent on the beach, also tent camping allowed....and of course FRESH seafood! Creative accommodations as well.
We stayed at Cuzan in this cabaña on the right.

Underground Cenotes

Some of the cenotes here are underground, accessed by a steep ladder in a small opening in the rock or in this case a nice staircase. Because of the small opening, there is a need for artificial light to see the amazing cave atmosphere...there are stalagtites and stalagmites underwater....and crystal clear cool water....it is like swimming in an underground aquifer....it's easy to see why the Maya's say this is the entrance to the underworld...because it is true...this whole peninsula is a honeycomb of limestone(karst formations) filled with water. These are located about 5 kilometers from Coba...called Cenotes Tamcach-Ha and Choo-Ha.

Coba Ruins

Took a little road trip to the Maya ruins of Coba, about an hour and a half south of here. Built in about 500 AD., it has the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan at 137 feet offering a spectacular view. This photo is from a postcard that was obviously taken from an airplane. It is estimated that at the height of the civilization there were 50,000 inhabitants. There were many unexcavated areas that you could walk around in so it didn't feel so touristy. You can also rent bicycles as it is a large site. Also one is allowed to climb the pyramid which is not allowed anymore in some other ruin sites like ChichenItza and Tulum.

Friend from Baja visits

A friend I met in the Baja last year, Tarmo, was passing through the Yucatan and stopped in to see me...its such a small world of international travelers I am finding!.....we shared a big fried grouper and shrimp ceviche at a local restaurant.

Virgin of Guadalupe

One of the most important and spectacular celebrations in Mexico takes place on the 12th of December, when thousands of pilgrims from all over the country stream into the Basilica in Mexico City where the miraculous image is kept, to pay homage to Mexico's Patron Saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe. The celebrations are not just in Mexico City but everywhere....fiestas, parades, dancing, singing, etc.
I was helping a friend shop for a refrigerator in Cancun when this parade passed by. They even threw me candy like we do in our Louisiana parades.

Jungle Zip-Line

I was invited by 2 new friends from Colorado, George and Steve, to try out a new form of entertainment in the jungle...Zip-Lining.....one way of accessing the tree tops!! It consisted of putting on a harness, climbing up a chicle tree to a high platform where you attach the end of the harness to a taught cable that is stretched to another tree. One is propelled by gravity...there were about 10paths of cables so the thrill lasted a while...I allowed myself to be talked into doing it upside down on one of the sections by one of the Costa Rican boys. He accompanied me as the way to stop is to grab the cable with a thick leather glove so he performed that duty. What fun!