MI DEPREDADOR (MY PREDATOR)

For being a wild feral cat,  Kitty has adjusted very well to domesticity.  I still have no idea where she goes to the bathroom.  From the very beginning I explained to her that I would not deal with a kitty liter box.  She did not really understand for she had never seen one.  Usually she will disappear off the balcony after breakfast and dinner.  I am guessing that is when she takes care of it.  There has always been a vacant apartment next to me and she goes in and out the windows.  I hope she does not poop in the place, but merely exits through the back to get to the acres of land behind me.  She has never had a "mishap" anywhere near my place.  Well, she has thrown up a few times, but I have been told that cats do that.

She also trains very well.  She knows that my bed and the sofa are off limits to her.  She also knows she is not allowed on top of any counters.   There has never been a problem, if she were to sneak up while I was gone, there would be evidence of it (like cat hair).  I do allow her to sleep on the guest room bed but she rarely does that.  She is really a very good cat and lots of company to me.  At night I used to put her out on the balcony.  One, I did not have a kitty liter box, but mostly because she never shuts up.  She is mewing or yowling all the time.   She got used to this and seemed to know when I was ready to go to bed and she would disappear.   After over one year or more, I sometimes let her stay inside.  She likes to curl up and sleep on my desk chair.  She looked so cute and sweet I would let her stay there when I locked up.  But then in the middle of the night she would say something.  I always picked her up and put her outside.  Recently she has even figured that out and remains silent if I let her sleep on the chair.

However she never lost the feral cat instinct to go after prey.  She will chase anything that moves.  After she has finished playing with it (that means dead), she will drop it on the door mat for me.   I did like the cute little geckos that are everywhere in Mexico (climbing walls and ceilings).  But she has pretty much eliminated them from my apartment.  I was not too upset over it as they do poop over everything,  The worst was when they would poop from the ceilings.  She is also good at catching the huge green grasshoppers that used to devour my palm fronds.  I am not very happy when she brings me a butterfly or moth, but then they do lay eggs that become caterpillars.

Birds seem to be one of her favorite prey.  Most of the time it is a pigeon, as they are really stupid birds.  She has never caught a humming bird (thank God) but she gets a few pretty small bright yellow birds.  They might be some kind of canary.  I have bought her toys, but she either ignores then, or she is afraid of them.  She would much rather chase after insects.  Butterflies and moths or her favorite dragon flies (or maybe they are just stupid and slow).  One night I was awakened by her howling.  I was afraid she was in trouble so I jumped up and slid open the sliding door (naked, but for a small T shirt).  She was standing over a large pigeon.  I petted her and closed the door.  Big Mistake!  In the morning there were a few wing feathers, one foot and the breast bone (licked clean) and blood.  Not what I want to wake up to.  The scariest thing she caught was a huge black rat.  It was almost half her size.  I do not know how she managed, but he was dead and she did not have a scratch on her.  That was the only big rat, but she does find a lot of mice.  She did once bring in a large lizard.  It was an ugly black brown with tiny yellow spots.  Most of its head was missing (like the eyes) but it was still moving.  It did not get very far for it could not see where it was going.  I later learned that the yellow spotted lizard is the poison one.  Kitty is fearless (or maybe just stupid).

Recently she dropped a tiny mouse in front of me, but it wasn't dead.  It ran in the house while she scampered after it.  The mouse crawled through the lattice work on the equipali furniture while she kept trying to grab it.  I had to keep turning over furniture so she could get to it.  But she seemed more interested in playing with it than killing it.  I got bored with it and went to bed leaving both of them inside figuring by morning it would be dead.   I was awakened by a crash.  The mouse must have crawled into one of the wine cases I keep under the bed (we have no closets or storage).  She had ripped the box apart and wine bottles were scattered across the floor.  Again I went to bed.  In the morning there was a little blood and what might have been a small organ.  No head, no feet nothing!  I could not find the remains of the corpse, so hopefully she ate it all, otherwise I will have to wait until I smell something foul.

We have our "quality time" in the morning when I pet her as she eats while I drink my coffee.  Then when I move to the computer she likes to curl up in my lap and go to sleep.  Once I get up she will remain in the chairs and sleep all day.  After her dinner she disappears, sometimes sleeps, but will join me upstairs while I have my cocktails.  Her only toys are my rubber sandals I keep up there.  She has already destroyed one pair.  She will grab it with her teeth then roll over and kick it with her hind feet.  Somehow she finds this amusing.  She likes the deck as there is more prey up there for her to torture.  But she is a lot of company and I love her.  Sometimes I will leave her curled up in a chair on the deck.  She can get off the deck by crossing to my neighbors deck and then down the outside staircase.  (just like the robber did).  In the morning when she hears me get up and she is still on the deck she will scream for me to open the door.  She could get down to the balcony if she wanted to, but would rather I open the door for her. (and I do)

Kitty would not co-operate with her photo shoot.  She also has only brought in one small mouse since I began this article over a week ago.   I explained to her that after this is published she will be world famous.  She did not seem to care.  I did manage to take a quick shot of the mouse and took it away from her.  You would not have liked to see the gory remains.  So the pictures I have are what you get.  You know I am a lousy photographer anyway.  But I doubt many of you read my blog for the pretty pictures.

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NAVIDAD EN MEXICO

Christmas is finally over.  Thank God! (is that an oxymoron?  I don't know)  Christmas does not mean much to me anymore.  I think it should be for children and Santa Claus only.  However,  Santa Claus  had an early death in my childhood.  My parents used to tell about a Christmas morning when I was little.   I got up early to open all my presents from Santa Claus. But after I had unwrapped the last gift, I turned to them and said,  "But you did not get me anything?"  That was the end of Santa Claus in our family.

But in Mexico Christmas is huge.  It is almost a month long celebration (translation: fiesta, a time to get drunk and party).  It begins with the honoring of The Virgin of Guadeloupe; which last for the first twelve days of December.  I covered this myth in a post about two years ago along with an even sillier one on the Virgin of Talpa.  (just crazy stuff)   Most of the festivities take place around the main church across the river as it is dedicated to The Virgin of Guadeloupe..  But there are parades and processions every where.  The main boulevards are closed to cars (sending all the buses down my street).  I hate that.   All the schools send their troupes out with  bugles, trumpets.  Then there are the dancing Aztec Indians beating on drums and all the cowboys on horses.  At night there will be candle lit pilgrimages to the main church.  It is quite colorful and amusing, if a bit noisy.  All the churches celebrate lots of mass with not only bells the those F.... Canons.  A uniquely Mexican Catholic custom.  It is supposed to ward off evil spirits and started with the revolution.  I do not know which one as Mexico has at least four.  First from Spain then President Juarez took over all the land owned by the Catholic Church,  All the churches in Mexico still sit on land owned by the government.  Then they had to kick out the French  and finally in 1910  there was a revolution to get rid of Diaz (the first totally dictatorial president).

They no longer actually use canons, but send rockets into the sky with deafening percussion.  I have gotten used to the bells, but you  never get uses to the canons.  Mexicans love noise so much that this year there will be two nights of fireworks (the 30th and the 31st)  No one knows exactly why.  The 30th will be in front of the main church (everyone calls it the cathedral, but it is not as we have no bishop)  That one I can easily watch, but the 31st will be by the Sports arena which is further away.  But they also do them at the pier which is practically in front of me.  Lots of noise and spectacle.

Christmas is just another day for me.  When my lover was alive we did decorate the house and planned elaborate dinner parties,  but not anymore.  I have not celebrated my own birthday for 20 years,  why should I celebrate His?  According to historians Christ was actually born in the spring when they went to Bethlehem to pay their taxes.  But the Catholic Church made it December 25th to coincide with a popular pagan holiday in order to attract more converts.  You have to give The Church credit for being clever in selling their religion (if a bit deceitful)

But Jennifer insisted we had to do something together for Christmas (of course this meant that I cook!)  I don't really mind as I am a good cook and enjoy her company.  But she wanted to do a duck.  I had attempted one before and found it a very difficult task and with all the grease splatter the oven has to be completely renovated after.  Also I had loaned my oven thermometer to a friend to make his brownies (the ones that satisfy more than your sweet tooth)  But we went to Costco to see what we could find (I did not really look that hard for duck) and we settled for a large turkey breast.  I did not want to cook and carve a whole turkey.  We also bought some turkey gravy and cranberries.  (I can make gravy, but without the turkey fat and giblets, it is not the same).  I make a wonderful stuffing with nuts and fruit and I also made mashed potatoes and settled on thin French green beans to be sauted in butter.  A half pound of butter goes in my stuffing so between that, the potatoes, green beans and basting the turkey breast, I used a pound of butter.  (Christmas dinner should never be dietetic.)  Jennifer is not fond of salads (even though I make wonderful salads) so I decided on cold cucumber soup.

On the morning of Christmas Eve I was thinking about starting the stuffing when Jennifer sent me a message asking when to show up that night for dinner.  Holy Shit!  I thought she meant Christmas Day.  I had not even defrosted the turkey, but it was only a breast and I had already finished the soup, so I managed to put it together by 6:30.  She arrived in red, complete with a Santa hat with reindeer horns and bells.  She brought her usual bottle of red wine, a full bottle of Bailey's cream liqueur and a cookie she buys at a local bar.  The cookie is similar to Don's brownies, but more lethal.  Maybe six months ago she insisted I have one.  I ate it before dinner and some how managed to finish the dinner when it hit.  My legs were rubber.  I had a terrible time just trying to stand, let alone walk.  I told her she had to leave as I must go to bed.  She said,  "You never should have eaten the whole cookie."  Now you tell me I thought!  For the first time in my life I went to bed leaving all the dirty dishes.  I thought I was going to die.  And this night she also brought her night gown so I figured she had planned on a long evening.

I had discovered a pretty good Chilean champagne for 172 pesos,  It is nice and dry and does not give me a head ache, so we started with that.  I had set the table with an old lace table cloth I found at the bottom of my trunk that I had sent down here.  I used the few pieces of silver I have left.  It was quite festive.  While rummaging in the truck for some silver bells I used to have, I found the hand written family tree my great aunt Josie had compiled.  It goes back to the 11th century and shows some of my ancestors living to be over 90 in the 1600's.  I also found some old photographs (some of my gorgeous aunt on her 100 birthday.)  I had brought them up to the deck to share.

The cold soup was in a blender and I thought it best to bring up the blender and pour into the chilled soup bowls at the table.  The soup and the champagne were wonderful, but as I got up to start the second course, I hit the champagne bottle.  While reaching for it, I knocked over the cream soup.  The soup not only went across the lace table cloth, but the old photos and the family tree.  Then it poured into one of the pig skin chairs and on to the floor.  Jennifer wanted to get paper towels or something, but it was a side of the table we weren't using, so I said "Just leave it"  I did not want to interrupt our Christmas dinner.  Her Chihuahua, Pili did her best to lick it off the tile.  (that dog will eat anything)

Since I did not touch her cookie, I finished all the dishes, glasses, and most of the pots; leaving the spilled soup for the morning.   Over night the soup had turned to a sticky glue and it was Hell getting if off the table, table cloth, chair and the floor.  Jennifer and Pili got up later.  Before walking the dog, she had her coffee cigarette and then put on her make up.  The dog had not been out in at least 14 hours.  I do not know how she holds it.  She is a really good sweet dog, but a bit neurotic at times.  Kitty does not like her at all.   I spent most of Christmas Day putting the house back in order again.  All in all I would have to say it was a lovely Christmas.  But once again Santa flew right passed me with dropping off a single present.  I guess he is still pissed at my exposing his hoax when I was three or four years old.

Next came New Years Eve.  My first year in Mexico I discovered that trying to sleep before 12:30 or 1:00 is futile.  I have seen amazing fireworks displays in Paris and New York, but for constant fireworks you cannot top Vallarta.  There is a pirate ship in the bay that has a dinner and show and the finale is a burst of fireworks.  This goes on every night of the year.  Five blocks in front of me on the beach is Los Arcos hotel and resort.  Lots of festivities are held there for birthdays anniversary's, and what not.  So they also offer fireworks displays.  We have one about every week.  Of course Mexico has lots of holidays and many require fireworks.  As I mentioned even New Years gets two night of it.  Next year (or is it this year now)  there will be a pyrotechnic symposium with competing displays from countries all over the world.

I decided on a quiet evening at my place to watch the fireworks that go on for 30 minutes or more.  Her dog Pili is a nervous wreck with the booms which is one reason we did not want to be out mingling with the thousands on the Malecon.  Besides the fireworks itself, kids will be tossing firecrackers and cherry bombs.  Many will be in cars screaming and shouting and blowing horns.  Mexico is very noisy.  I was not in the mood to cook a big dinner, so I decided we would just order a pizza.  I had on old ripped shorts and a T shirt that was so old the lettering had vanished.  Jennifer arrived in a tight fitting jersey dress, black nylons and boots with heels.  She also brought her bottle of red wine, but no Baileys and no cookie.  However she did produce a roach and her night gown.   I could tell she was not happy with settling for pizza.  She wanted to go across the street for a steak dinner.  So I changed into something more suitable (I did not want to look like her senile old uncle),  The restaurant is our favorite in spite of the horrible management.  I had just written a letter to the editor of out local English paper asking any one who knew the real owners, to get rid of him.  The letter had not yet been published.

Our shock came as we approached the entry.  The place was packed and the girl in a long gold sequin dress asked if we had reservations.  Sometimes Jennifer and I are the only customers in the place.  I still don't know how they managed to pack the place as I never saw an ad for New Years dinner.  Because we know several waiters they gave us a table.  They had a menu of the five course dinner they were offering and the table was set with hats and other favors.  We did not want five courses and certainly did not want to pay the price for it.  We asked for and got a regular menu but we knew what we wanted.  They have a filet with a delicious brown sauce, potatoes and crisp sauted vegetables for 235 pesos (about $12.00).  Jennifer put on the tiara and insisted I put on the man's hat.  I hate hats.  They feel uncomfortable on my head and besides my ears stick out to much.  I refused but she kept insisting so I picked up the other tiara and put it on.  She was happy with that.

Dinner was delicious and we finished early.   The customers planning on staying the whole evening had not been served their first course.  We went back to my place.  I changed into some comfortable old sweats and opened the champagne.  Jennifer did not last more than about an hour and went off the bed.  I stayed up on the deck enjoying the evening and the view and waited for the fireworks.  It was a nice evening, but quite a contrast to the formal black tie dinners I used to give in Laguna Beach.  That was a different time and a another life.  Frankly I prefer this one.

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VISA

Yeah, yeah, I know, it has been a long time.  Well you got three in one month, I thought that would keep you happy for a while.  The truth is that nothing of any interest has happened to me.  Or, could it be that after seven years of living here. all the weird crazy stuff about Mexico now seems normal to me?  This will be a two or three part as well, and the finale won't be until late March.  Don't panic I will think of some thing to write about before then.

For seven years I have entered Mexico with a six month tourist visa.  Then I leave of a few days to a few weeks and return on another six month tourist visa.  This is not entirely true as I did have for the first two years what was then called an FM3.  It allowed me to stay one year before getting a renewal.  But the last time I renewed it, I had to make seven trips to the Immigration Office.  The Mexican red tape and bureaucratic nonsense drove me nuts.  So I decided not to renew again as I was leaving Mexico a couple of times a year anyway.  But eventually I got tired of being forced to leave every six months when I had no reason to return to Laguna anyway.  Yes, I still have a few friends left who are not dead or stuck away in rest homes,  My thought was that I have visited them dozens of times since moving here and none have visited me.  The only guest I have ever had was Noriko who came all the way from Japan.

So last year I decided to try for a Temporary Residency which allowed me to stay here for one to four years.  Several years ago Mexico changed the procedure so you had to return to your own country to start the process at a Mexican Embassy.  Ahead of my trip last year, I began trying to connect with the Consulate in Santa Ana.  Getting through their web site was impossible for me as almost everything is in Spanish,  I tried phoning them for weeks.  If a recording ever came on, it told you to press "1"  "2" etc. but all in Spanish so I never knew which one to pick  Finally I managed to get a real person who spoke reasonable English (mind you this is in the U.S.)  Only to discover that Santa Ana does not give appointments for Temporary Residency.  They told me to contact West Los Angeles or San Diego.  Well San Diego was much closer to Laguna and I found on the Google map that it was located just a few blocks off the freeway.  Weeks more to hack into their web site only to find out that they were booked for months.

That ended that, but since then the Mexican Government has started to crack down on people who use the tourist visa to live here permanently.  I cannot say for sure, but I would bet that it is in retaliation for the way Trump is treating Mexico.  Stupid really since tourism is one of the biggest sources of income for Mexico.  Nobody ever said they were smart or logical.  Jennifer ran into that when we returned from Guatemala and was told it was her last six month visa.  She had to get a residency card.  She has now started her process by going to the consulate in Las Vegas.  She is actually Canadian, but a friend of ours learned that in Vegas you did not need an appointment and usually could get your stamp in one day.  So much for returning to the country where you are a citizen.

After the fiasco with Santa Ana Consulate, I tried to get an appointment in San Diego.  But they were booked solid for months.  But I had until March on my last six month visa and decided to do it then.  So I started four months in advance.  I could not get through the web site for an appointment, which cannot be done by phone.  Small wonder since they never answer their phone.  I tried for a month.  Everything is in Spanish but finally I got a page that had a box "click here for translation"  Thank God, I thought.  But when I clicked on it the screen said "this page is not available in English"  What the F... language did they think I wanted?  Chinese??

I decided to call my computer guru who has helped me for years.  He worked for an over an hour and could not get through to make an appointment,  He did manage to send emails to San Diego and to the Embassy.  They do not accept emails!!  It seemed hopeless and I was almost ready to try Las Vegas (even though  I loath the town) but I had already booked my flight.  By booking in advance I got a really cheap ticket but I still had to get an appointment.  Another friend of mine who is not only very good with computers, but had already obtained his Permanent Visa in Las Vegas.  He did get through but they were only accepting appointment 2 1/2 months in advance (and all of those were booked),

You might think that it is because Americans are leaving The U.S. in droves because of what Trump has done to us.  Maybe, but the real reason is that Trump is deporting all the children that were illegally brought to The U.S. and most have no birth certificate (most are born in homes)  The Mexican Government will not accept them.  They have a very strong immigration against Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, etc and who knows who these kids are.  Some can barely speak Spanish have no relatives in Mexico.  So they flood the Consulate trying to get documentation as they must leave.   It is tragic, but not my immediate problem.

John had to check every night and every morning as they added only one day at a time.  Finally he managed to get me my appointment of March 12th at 9:00.  This will give me a whole week for my second appointment to get my passport stamped.  Once you return you have 30 days to apply at the local Mexican immigration office for your residency card.  Otherwise you must return to The States and start all over again.  Also when you return to Mexico you must tell the immigration man to only stamp it for 30 days.  If he gives you a six month stamp, you must return to The U.S. and start all over again.
They do not make it easy and John also told me I must use a lawyer here for the second part as it is the most difficult.  The form you must fill out is in Spanish (of course) but if you use a Spanish dictionary, you will not know what the word or passage means.  It seems they use colloquial Mexican phrases and words.  Will it ever end?  /Stay tuned!

MEXICO CITY Y EL FINAL DEL VIAJE

We were both sad at leaving our little casa in Antigua.  In spite of the ordeal of my visiting Tikal, we really liked it there.  Our driver picked us up at the door and drove to Guatemala Airport.  It is a relatively small airport and easily managed.  Like every other airport in the world now,  they have kiosks to get your boarding pass.  When I booked my reservation it did not ask for my passport (which was odd since it was an international flight)  I had to enter my name but I do not use my middle name for in Mexico for that is actually your last name.  There were three boxes and I could not move on until something was in the third box.  I entered "Mr."  Remembering that I entered Larry Mr. and sure enough it popped up.  Instead of what we are accustomed to in a boarding pass it spewed out three 8 x 11 sheets of paper.  One was placed inside my checked luggage which I thought was a good idea.  Jennifer was not so lucky as it would not accept her real last name.  She had to go to another window to explain her problem.  They gave her what looked like a grocery receipt.

No problem with the flight and we pulled up to an actual gate so getting off the plane was no problem.  I walked up to Immigration and told the man I understood no Spanish.  He muttered a few words I did not understand and stamped my passport and visa.  Not so for Jennifer.   She got a real bitch who questioned her entry into Mexico just 6 months earlier.  She was told that a mark was going on her passport so unless she obtained a permanent visa, she would not be allowed back into Mexico again.  She was almost in tears.  She spoke perfect Spanish and yet I breezed through with no problem.  That will be our next battle:  getting permanent visas.  We had a nice cab driver who drove to our hotel, but had to let us out at the corner as our street was a pedestrian only street that led to the Zocalo (or main square of Mexico City)  The room was quite small but very clean and very well equipped and it was in a great location (unlike our first hotel).   The Hotel Ritz in Mexico bares no resemblance the The Ritz in Paris, other than it's name.  It is an old hotel, I think it said 1939 (which makes it younger than I am) but the baths had been redone with white marble and frosted glass.

We wandered around the Zocalo marveling at the beautiful buildings all illuminated.  We had arrived just a few days after the earthquake hit.  But the only sign of it were the tents set up in the middle of the square where food and housewares were handed out to the homeless.  We saw no damage at all.
Mexico City is an enormous megalopolis of over 21 million people (most are extremely poor) But around the Zocalo every one looked prosperous and in a hurry (just like all major cities)   On the way back we stopped to watch a little kid playing a small guitar and singing with all his heart.  He was just amazing.  When he wasn't singing he pressed his ear on the guitar listening to the sounds.  We are hoping he will be discovered by someone for he could be the next Mexican Michael Jackson or maybe Ricky Martin.  He was that good and so cute.  I can't remember if we ate that night as both of us were so tired.  I had brought a flask of Scotch with  me and Jennifer bought a bottle of Tequila at a local tienda (I had also brought a flask of Tequila for her, but she drank it in Antigua)  Maybe that is why we never ate.

The next morning I was up early and quickly dressed  in sweats to go to the lobby and get some coffee for my morning coffee and cigarette.  There was no coffee in the lobby and they directed me to the dinning room where a huge buffet had been set up for our complimentary breakfast.  I told the girl I just wanted coffee to take outside to have with a cigarette.  She said I could not take the cup outside so I told her I would take it to my room (a lie of course).  This is all in Spanish.  She said if I took the coffee to my room, I had to sign by my room number and that would be considered my complimentary breakfast.  WHAT??  I will never travel again without my portable coffee pot.  I got a cup of coffee next door and sat on a bench in the middle of the street to have my smoke.  No one else seem to be smoking anywhere.  A couple of policemen walked toward me and I was afraid I would be cited for drinking and smoking in the street.  (Is this Laguna Beach, or what??)  They passed by and I was struck by the fact that they carried only a pistol.  In Vallarta 18 year old kids are sporting machine guns.

Jennifer's main reason for visiting Mexico City was to see the home of Frida Kahlo.  Frida is an icon in Vallarta although she never got near the town.  Our favorite bar is called Un Bar Frida and there are paintings of her all over, including a huge mural that was cut out and moved from their previous location.  Jennifer has written a book on Un Bar Frida and the colorful characters that frequent the place.  The book also discusses the life of Frida and some similarities to Jennifer's life.  I had purchased tickets on the internet for I heard they were lines around the block.  Not so!  I was first struck by the size of the property which was originally owned by her parents.  The house is quite large and the walled gardens even larger.  I commented that her parents must have been rich, but Jennifer said the were not.  Even in the 1950's a property that size must have been worth a lot of money in the middle of Mexico City.   They had not only her paintings, but photos, and in glass cases her wardrobe and jewelry.  She was known for her large collection of precolonial art  (some of which was on display)  Along the way (in English) her life is chronicled as well as describing the use of each room during her life time.  She had many, many physical problems which she overcame.  Her clothing was designed to hide her deformed body.  She was considered quite gorgeous and attracted attention where ever she went.  The gardens are also gorgeous (which was the only thing I was allowed to photograph).  I really enjoyed it, but not as much as Jennifer.

I was still suffering from my cold and ran out of Kleenex.  I wanted out and go to a pharmacy.  I was told there was one 3 or 4 blocks away, but Jennifer thought we should get a cab.  As we headed back to our hotel I said,  "I am dying, get me to a pharmacy"  The driver said they are everywhere and I said,  "Fine take me to one".  It was just a few blocks from our hotel.  For some reason they sold me three boxes of the stuff.  They must have seen I was suffering.  I do not know what it was as it was a Pharmacia Similar.  What ever they worked so we walked to the Zocalo where there is a roof top terrace overlooking the Zocalo.  We started up the stairs, but when we got to the second floor I said, "Find me an elevator"  I think it was the fifth floor.  The food was so so, but the view was nice.

I was not in the mood to do much more walking so we returned to the hotel.  We wanted a really nice dinner for our last night and I had to recover first.  I asked the concierge and he showed me on the map where a nice reasonable restaurant was located.   Later that evening we set off.  He was a few blocks off on the restaurant but Jennifer spotted it.  The manager said they were closed.  Why?  There was no one in the place so maybe that is why.  Discouraged Jennifer looked across the plaza and spotted one on the corner.  It was a Kaiser of Paris which is basically pastry.  But next door was a nice restaurant with outdoor dinning.  We settled in there.  To our surprise and delight there was an ash tray on the table.  The first we had seen in Mexico City.  The food was wonderful and the ambiance even better.  Jennifer said she felt like she was back in Rome.  A perfect ending to our vacation,  I went back the following morning to take a picture of the restaurant and the square where it was located.
It is a short flight to Vallarta and we cleared customs and were out in front in no time.  Over Jennifer's protests, I hailed an airport taxi.  I was dropped off first.  So nice to be home again!  In spite of a few set backs (like Tikal) it was a wonderful trip.  Jennifer is a lot of fun to travel with.   Less than 30 seconds after I opened the sliding door to the balcony, kitty appeared.  She was screaming her head off.  I picked her up and carried her to my desk.  She likes to sit on my lap while I am at the computer.  I needed to check my email and wanted to spend some quality time with her, but also I was delaying going upstairs.  Felipe had messaged me at the M.C. airport.  He had his wife cleaning my apartment and she discovered that a lot of stuff had been stolen from the terrace.  I had only paid Felipe to water my plants and look in on kitty, but he had my apartment cleaned anyway.  That is the kind of person he is.

When I first opened the door I am not sure what I thought I would see, but I was surprised that everything looked the same.  There was no vandalism, nothing broken or even moved.  They just took everything that they thought they could sell.  My fan and ladder may be the most expensive things to replace, but my devil mask with the sheep horns will be the most difficult to find.  They took all my tools, including my garden tools, ash tray, even kitty's brush.  They also took several pieces of Mexican folk art.  Odd! as Mexicans do not like their own folk art, especially the younger ones.  But they were not stealing it for their own use, but to sell.  All the pillow cases to the pillows on my chairs were gone.  That also seemed odd, then I realized that they needed them to carry all the stuff away.  Still, it must have taken them several trips.  They also stole stuff from my neighbors patio and hit the patio of the taco restaurant next door.  Busy boys!

September is the slowest month of the year in Vallarta.  The foreign tourists have not arrived and all the Mexican tourist left when their kids went back to school.  There is no business,  no jobs and they have no money: so they steal.  They mean us no harm they just need money for food and they believe that anything they take an American can easily replace.  To a Mexican all Americans are rich, even someone like myself.   Tracy (my neighbor) and I have gotten together and made up a plan to stop the theft.  We now think they use the tin roof of the taco stand below her balcony on the side street as it has new dents in it.  We are going to put razor wire on their roof (with their permission of course) then install motion detection flood lights on her balcony and lower patio.  This I have offered to pay half of the cost.  They cannot reach my deck except from hers.  She also wants to put in a motion detection camera.  That may work as a deterrent, but even if it captured the face of the thieves, what can you do with it?   It is a hazard of living in a poor country, but I would not consider living anywhere else.

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TIKAL

The main reason I wanted to visit Guatemala was to see the ruins of the Mayan empire in Tikal.  I have been to most of the pyramids in Mexico (Mayan and Aztec) as well as Cambodia and Egypt (which dwarfs all of them)  What I did not know is how far it was from the house we had rented in Antigua.  I was told it was an eight hour bus ride.  I could do that in one day I thought.  I would take the over night bus, hopefully sleep a little.  Then spend 3 or 4 hours touring the pyramids and return to Antigua.  It did not work out as planned.
Yes, It is eight hours from Guatemala City to a town near Tikal.  But you have to get to Guatemala City and then from Flores to Tikal.  I decided to do it anyway.  The flight was too expensive and I still would have the problem of getting from Antigua to the Guatemala airport (wait God knows how long for the flight) and then get from the airport to Tikal.  I did find a one day tour from Antigua that would fly me there and provide transportation and a guide.  It was $639.00! (but it did include a lunch).  Out of the question!  Our round trip from Puerto Vallarta was $200.00 less than that.  I did consider staying overnight, but where?  I was traveling by myself and was a little worried about staying in a town I knew nothing about.
I booked the tickets for the bus ride and contacted my guide about when I would arrived in Flores.  He answered that he would meet me at the bus terminal in Santa Elena.  Was that the name of the depot? I arrived in Flores and as people were getting off, I asked the driver if this was called Santa Elena.  He said, "No, it is the next stop"  Thank God I asked.  We arrived about 5:15am.  I had not been able to sleep on the bus at all.  Two "gang banger types" sat in front of me and immediately threw their seat back.  The tray table banged into my knees and suddenly I realized I had no place to put my legs.  The Guatemalans (of Mayan descent) have very short legs.  My vertebrae has shrunk by almost two inches, but my legs are still long.  It was impossible to get into a comfortable position.  Plus the guy in front was either texting or talking on his phone for hours.  Two ambien did not help.

The bus station in Santa Elena was scary, but I got some coffee and settled down to wait.  About 6:30 my guide walked up to me.  He said he had been there in 6:00 looking for me.  I was outside smoking, of course.  But we still had to wait until 8:00 for the first van to Tikal.  The van kept letting off and picking up people so we did not get to the park until 9:30.  I had been up for 27 hours at that point.  The walk through the pyramids is four miles.  He insisted I climb the highest temple which is 194 steps.  Somehow I did it.   The temple is 781 feet tall.  Once I reached the top there was a stone ledge about four feet wide and then a shear drop.  It terrified me and I placed by arms against the stone wall fearful of fainting.  My guide wanted to take picture of me at the top.  But as you know I do not allow photographs of  myself.  From the photo I took from there you can only see two of the pyramids sticking up above the jungle.

The Mayan civilization began around 900 B.C. and continued until almost 900 A.D.  (Two Thousand years, can you believe?)  They think the city which was built on a hill around 250 A.D. but was abandoned in 900 A,D. because of several years of drought.  They had built reservoirs and canals to serve the city of 200,000 people.  The temples and buildings became over grown by the jungle with trees growing all over them.  The native Mayans still went there to worship but when the Spaniards arrived in the low lands, no one told them that Tikal was on top of the hill.  If the Spaniards had known they would have torn them down and put a plastic Jesus on top.  Thank God they missed it.  In 1848 the government made it a national park. but it wasn't until 1955 that any excavation took place. Wrigley (of chewing gum) had built an air strip there to take the sap from the gum trees and that is how an archaeologist from Pennsylvania  heard about it.  He worked years clearing off some of the temple sites and several other archaeologists followed him.  Yet only 20% has been excavated.  I kind of liked seeing what the temples looked like covered by the jungle.  That is what that mound of trees is about.

It is a huge site of 576 square kilometers and it is all in a dense jungle. It rains 9 months out of the year.  So it is far more than the jungle that surrounds Vallarta.  Lots of wild life.  I got a picture on one of the spider monkeys that are all over the trees.  It was the howler monkey that fascinated me.  He lets out a roar that sounds like a huge lion and yet he is smaller than the spider monkey.  We also saw some toucans and my guide said a black jaguar was passing us.  All of them were too quick for a photograph.  At the information center (where all the trinkets are for sale) there is a stone replica of the original sign for Tikal.  My guide told me what all the symbols meant but I was brain dead by then.  I do remember that the large round thing is the back of a head.  They wrapped their hair in rolls of fabric much like the Sikhs do in India. The model lay out gives you some idea of the size of the city.

 One temple was dedicated to a king and the opposing temple to his wife.  His skeleton was found under the temple (covered with 158 pieces of jade) but they have not yet looked for his queen.  There is no money for any more excavation.  Tragic!!  The royal family lived in the 38 palaces containing 140 rooms.  It was a dynasty, but a woman could succeed as queen.  The long flat building with the people on top is one of the palaces.  One was for a market where the Mayans could buy food and stuff.  The observatory is tall with the flat roof was to study the stars.  Three smaller temples were in front of it to depict the exact time of the summer and winter equinox.  On top of the observatory they followed Venus and the Milky Way trying to determine the length of a complete celestial cycle.  They figured it would take until 2012.  It was not the end of the world, but the end and beginning of a new celestial cycle.  The roads were built of limestone covered with plaster.  The temples were the same, but were painted red, yellow, or blue (the three primary colors).

According to my guide they did not practice human sacrifice.  But since he was of Mayan decent, maybe he was jut trying to clean up their act.  He said the offerings to the Gods were of incense, flowers and chocolate.  Chocolate came from the higher mountains so they traded for it.  They mixed it with honey and a red plant that made it resemble blood. Only the royal family and the priests were allowed chocolate.  After the revolution and the break with Spain, the Guatemalan government allowed the Mayans back into the park to practice their religion and make offerings to the Gods.

 What I still do not understand is how these people obtained such a vast knowledge of engineering, astronomy, and math.  They came up with the concept of the "zero" which few cultures at the time had figured out.  They used only three symbols for numbers.  An oval was the zero, a dot was one, and a short line was a five.  With those three symbols you can create any number you want.  This is how the archaeologists were able to date everything.  Even more amazing they came up with a written language.  One of three independently developed written languages in the world.  How did this happen?  We think man came up out of Africa and walked to Asia and Europe.  Some speculate that they crossed the Bering Straights to get to the Americas.  It must have taken tens of thousands of year to reach the south of Mexico and into Guatemala.  Did they leave all the stupid people behind?  The rest of the people on the American continent were all still living in caves.  Okay there were the Incas in Peru but they did not come along until 600 years after the fall of the Mayan empire.  The Aztecs came into power in the early 1400's.  They had no idea who the Mayans were.

Okay, this is already too long and not funny,  Well here comes the funny part (although it was not funny to me at the time).  My round trip ticket included a van which picked me up at our casa at 6:30 at night.  The bus terminal in Guatemala City was a dirty scary place and I had a two hour wait for the bus.  I think I had a couple of beers, smoke a lot of cigarettes and waited.  The bath room was outside and a man at the door collected two Quetzals  for a hand full of toilet paper.  I did not need it for my purpose but decided to keep it.  The toilets had no seats and did not flush.  But there was what I guess was a huge bath tub.  The water was so black you could not see the bottom.   The first bus to Flores and Santa Elena did not have a working bathroom.  They made a pit stop around 1:00 in the morning.  It was a parking lot with a row of three quarter doors that looked like a row of out houses.  It wasn't much better.  Again the toilets had no seats and did not flush.  During two days I only found one flushing toilet with a seat and that was on the bus coming back.  Do people steal the toilet seats?  During the trip I noticed that a little boy would enter the bathrooms with a bucket of water and flush them.

In the park in Tikal the bath room was clean, but no toilet seat and no flushing.  At some point I had to do more than pee.  Nothing could posses me to actually sit on the rim of the toilet.  Imagine trying to hover over the toilet while holding on to my travel bag, camera, and sweat shirt (which was too hot to wear)  You would never dare sit anything on the floor.  To make it even more disgusting, there was a sign (in English) telling you not to put any paper in the toilet.  You were to place the used toilet paper in a trash can in front of you.  I would not attempt to describe the smell.

 After four hours of walking and climbing, I was about to die.  The van back to Santa Elena was at 3:00 arriving about 4:30 pm but my bus back did not arrive until 9:00.  I asked my guide if there was a Mexican restaurant across the street where I could sit and have dinner.  He said that he would not advice me to leave the terminal.  There were armed guards with machine guns outside.  I could not figure out if that made me feel safer or not.   The bus was late leaving. I have now been up for almost 40 hours.  I was sure I would sleep on the way home.

My seat partner was Gargantua.  Mayans are tiny but he was about 6 foot 2 and must have weighed 300 pounds.  He took up his seat and half of mine.  The bus was freezing cold.  It looked like dry ice coming out the vents,  Mind you all day I had been in 90 degree heat and 100% humidity.  The only good thing is that he was warm and I was forced to lie next to him.  I took more ambien and prayed I would sleep.  But the girl in front of me had her seat almost flat so again there was no place for my legs.  Apparently they were building a new road and we were diverted to a narrow rock strewn road that made the bus leap and lurch.  Maybe I nodded off again for the bus took 11 hours so I was more than three hours late for my van to my house.  First I stepped outside for a cigarette.  Not having smoked for 12 hours and being so tired I thought I would faint and put it out.  The lady  at the counter did somehow understand my problem (no one speaks English) and called the number on the ticket.

A van finally appeared but it was already loaded.  There were 12 kids on it plus me.  The van made several stops dropping people off so it was after 10;00 when we arrived in Antigua.  We turned off the main road from Guatemala on Ave 6 Oriente,  I lived just off Ave 7 Oriente.  Why I did not scream to get off, I do not know (I was nearly unconscious by then).  The van continued to drop people off and I assumed he would go back and drop me off at my house.  NO !  He said this is the end of the line and you must get off.  But I do not know where I am.  He said,  "This is Antigua"  Fine but where is my house?  I was too tired to argue more so when  a city bus came by I hopped on.  I figured if I stayed on it long enough I would recognize a street.  Sure enough I saw Ave 7 Oriente, but I was too late is standing up and the bus moved on.  When I got off I was still disoriented and was not sure what street to walk down. Some how I staggered home by 10:30. (52 hours since I had last been to bed).  Jennifer was near hysterical as I was to arrive by 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning.  I showered (it had been two days) had a glass of wine and went to bed.
 When I got up I had a horrible cold.  There were still places I wanted to see in Antigua, but I was not up to it.  Was the trip to Tikal worth it?  Well, I did it so I guess I have to say it was.  But only someone who was stupid or insane would attempt it without staying overnight.  Yes, I know what that makes me, but I never said I was smart.  Mexico City and the end of the trip are next.  STAY TUNED,

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ANTIGUA GUATEMALA

Last year we talked about going to Guatemala.  We both had to leave Mexico and return to get our new six month visa in September.  But Jennifer went to Canada to see her mother who was turning ninety (nice to know someone is older that I am) and so I went to visit my friends in San Francisco. So this year we were determine to go.  I have a friend at the gym who has made many trips to Guatemala and said he thought I would love it.  He also recommended several hotels in Antigua.  My Mexican friend Elvis said, "Oh, Larry you must not go to Guatemala".  It is too dangerous, many gangs and crime"  I told him that is exactly what my friends in The U.S. say about Mexico, so I was not deterred.  Guatemala has always been sort of a poorer step child to Mexico (sort of like what Mexico is to The U.S.)
I was to check on flights and Jennifer was going to take care of the reservations, so I gave her the names of the hotels that I had checked out.  They were both charming old colonial buildings and very cheap.  But Jennifer wanted a more luxurious vacation and decided on a two bed, two bath fully stocked house at more than twice the price.  I suspect it might have been because I snore. It did look nice so I agreed although I was already worried about what the trip was going to cost me.  I could not get a flight plan that would take us from P.V. through Mexico City to Guatemala City and the shuttle to Antigua in one day.  There was one flight, but it gave us one hour and a half to planes for an international flight.  Not possible we figured, so it meant an over night in Mexico City (more money)  We had the same problem on the return flight, so Jennifer decided we should stay two nights in order to see Mexico City.  I had not been there in almost 50 years, so I said Okay..

But I still had to book a trip from Antigua to Tikal to see the pyramids.  Jennifer was not interested in that especially when I told her it was an 8 hour bus ride each way.  My friend at the gym gave me the name and number of a driver for Antigua and he gave me the name of a guide in Tikal.  I figured I would work that out when we got there. My friend recommended an over night there, but I did not want to stay by myself in a town I did not know anything about.

A few days before our flight I decided to go back to Santandar Bank to draw out pesos from my American account, put some in my Mexican account and also I needed U.S. dollars.  For some reason our hosts wanted dollars for the house and so did the driver.  After pulling out a bunch of cash from my U.S. account I went in the bank to deposit more in my Mexican account.  I thought it might be easier and safer to use that when in Guatemala.  No teller speaks a word of English and though it is obvious I do not understand a word they way they continue to prattle on in rapid fire Spanish.  He carefully inspected each peso I was depositing.  After that was complete I told him I wanted to purchase U.S. dollars.  With a  quizzical face he asked for my passport.  WHY??  I was taking out less than I had just deposited, but after my last losing battle with the bank I decided to return home to get my passport.   I gave it to him and pushed across what I thought was sufficient pesos for the dollars I needed.  He pushed it back and said something.  Luckily the man next to me told me he wanted to take it out of my account.  Okay, so I gave him my card.  The dollars were in his drawer, but it still seemed to take forever while I signed multiple papers.

But then I had to deposit more pesos to cover what he had taken out.  Not trusting what my credits and debits showed, I wanted a copy of my statement.  He sent me to another lady and after handing her my card and passport she produced a statement.  It was correct.  I was elated and left the bank, but had to stop at the store for some groceries.  After unloading the groceries I began pulling cash (both pesos and dollars) out of my gym shorts.  NO BANK CARD!  Panicked I went back to the store. They had no card.  So for a third time I marched to the bank.  Mind you this was one of the hottest most humid days we have had.  I went to the desk where I had last used my card and she was gone.  I found the manager (the only one in the bank who speaks any English).  I told him my sad tale and he said she was at lunch.  I tried to impress upon him the urgency of my request so he went to the lunch room to find her.  He came out and said she had given the card back to me.  I had just put all that money for my trip into an account I could no longer access.  How long to get a new card?  A least a week he said.  I was about to fall apart when I man walked into the bank and over to the manager and handed him a card he found outside..  It was mine!  This was just the beginning of the trip.

The flight to Mexico City was short and uneventful.  Since we booked separately, Jennifer was in the front and I was in the back.  The plane landed a long ways from the terminal. They said there were no gates available.  Okay, that happens and we waited for a bus to take us to the terminal.  Finally people started to move and then it stopped.  We all stood there waiting, but nothing moved. Finally someone translated for me that they said they had no more buses and we had to wait.  I was on the plane on the tarmac for longer that the entire flight.  How could they have no buses in an airport as large as Mexico City??  Jennifer who had gotten off first was panicky wondering what had happened to me. At last I joined her and we hailed a cab for our hotel.  He had never heard of it, but luckily Jennifer had the telephone number.  The driver called and got directions.

The hotel was listed as an Airport Hotel, but turned out to be 20 minutes away in a run down industrial area.  As the driver weaved through smaller and smaller alleys of nothing but closed garage doors, I turned to Jennifer and said,  "This does not look promising"  He finally arrived at the back of the hotel so we had to enter through the parking garage.  The hotel turned out to be very nice but not a good location.  It was a convention hotel, very well appointed, very clean with a nice dinning room. Fortunately for I would not step outside at night in that neighborhood without an armed guard.  There was no coffee pot, but coffee was available in the lobby.   However since there was no smoking anywhere in the hotel I went outside and sat on a bench to drink and smoke.

The next day we flew to Guatemala City where our driver met us with sign with both our names on it.  She was very nice and spoke some English and explained a lot about Antigua on our way in (about an hours drive).  The house was a really cute little casa.  There was a small court yard entry with heavy wood doors onto the street.  Not really little as it was a tri level with two bedrooms and two and a half baths.  It was fully stocked with everything we needed so we could cook breakfast and dinner thus saving money.  It also had a washer and dryer which I really liked. The house had a wonderful roof top deck with a view of the three volcanoes.  (Well on the one morning when the clouds lifted above the volcanoes).  One wonders why the Spaniards decided to built the capital of Guatemala in a valley surrounded by three volcanoes. One is still active periodically spewing flames into the sky.  It was not the volcanoes that destroyed the city, but an earthquake in 1773 that leveled the town.  So the capital was moved to what in now Guatemala City.  Parts of the ruins of the 16th Century churches are still visible.  It was slowly rebuilt mostly of one story colonial houses.  Except for the churches which are huge and very baroque.

It is a very walk able  town with lots of parks and plazas.  A very beautiful place.   Antigua is more expensive that Vallarta.  Drinks and food is almost twice the price.  Why? I wondered.  Most mornings I went out while Jennifer worked on her computer.  She is a contract writer for several companies and had to product a certain amount of writing a day.  My first day I came upon a market spread out in the street in front of the facade of a ruined church.  It is mostly textiles for which Guatemalan are famous for.  I was going to bring Jennifer back as she was more interested in the textiles than I am.  But I did buy an oil painting of the arch with the volcano in the back ground.  It was only about $12.00.  Why are drinks so expensive?  Unfortunately for Jennifer the market is only there on Saturday and Sunday so she missed it, but still bought a ton of stuff in other stores.  I heard there was a beautiful garden nor too far from us.  (You know how I love plants).  It was like a mini botanical garden with orchids and gorgeous hanging vines,  It had a little cafe where I had lunch.
The number of scooters and motor bikes was amazing.  I have not seen so many since Rome.  But with the tiny streets, they only allowed parking on one side.  Some streets had no parking at all and there are no parking lots or under ground garages, so cars are limited.

We found a bar just off the main square that we liked and went back several times.  The bar tender flirted with Jennifer after asking if we were married.  I thought that was a little insulting to Jennifer since I look more like her grandfather.  In any case he got no where.  Our favorite restaurant was a pizza place we chose mainly because we could smoke in the patio.  It was the best pizza I have ever had and Jennifer who lived many years in Italy agreed (with a possible exception in Italy).  It was a thin crust covered with Parmesan and then fresh thin sliced ham, arugula, and large peels of Parmesan cheese.   We bought two of them. Two nights Jennifer cooked pasta with what was already in the kitchen.  I was too exhausted and sick from my trip to Tikal.

One square with arches over a water basin is where the early inhabitants got their water.  There are a series of basins where women still wash their clothes.  The main cathedral on the square still had remains  of the original church which you could visit.  While I was in Tikal Jennifer visited a convent which had rooms set up as there were hundreds of years ago for the nuns.  Antigua is a beautiful city with narrow cobble stone streets.  It is not as elegant as San Miguel de Allende which must have been a much more prosperous city in the 18th and 19th century, but it is very charming.  Because of my ordeal in Tikal, I was unable to see as much as I would have liked to.  Maybe I will go back at Easter when they have processions of flower carpeted floats with life size statues that are carried through the streets.  This is much to long already, so I will write about Tikal and Mexico City later  (when I feel like it)

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