It's the day after American Thanksgiving, and everybody in Chelem is gathered by the church on the zocalo to attend a ceremony involving the Virgin of Guadalupe. All the ladies are in their beautiful dresses and the kids are expecting balloons and candy and other goodies. There is a parade that takes the Virgin of Guadalupe to the ria to be blessed, and then a big party. It's all very sweet and part of the local color that makes this area so charming.

All the pews in the church have been removed and taken outside for the first part of the ceremony.

The kids love to have their pictures taken.

What a beautiful dress!

Parade in Chelem

This was the first part of a parade that took the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe to the ria. Everybody here was on the way to the church, where there was a big gathering with music, balloons, kids, and ladies in their Sunday best. All the pews from the church were moved outside, along with a display of the Virgin of Guadalupe Statues.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We were invited to Thanksgiving dinner at Rick and Lynn Steele's house down the strret from us. They have a perfect little sanctuary with several outdoor seating areas. It had been very windy, so we ate dinner inside. After dinner we all sat outside, and it was a perfect evening, with no bugs. The dinner was soooooo delicious and some of us ate too much, and some of us drank too much! It all ended up well and we had that nice warm feeling that comes from spending time with good people and eating a wonderful dinner.
From the top picture: Jan and Fred and Rick (our host) in his Pilgrim hat.
Chief having a cranberry martini.
Looking toward the street.
Chief and Pocahontas ( Lynn, our hostess)

The table, so pretty!

Paul Lawrence, getting ready to try some appetizers.

Fred, a retired fire chief from Chicago, who lives in Merida. Awesome guy!

Rick and Lynn, and behind them Maria, who helped in the kitchen.

These are two of the neatest people you'd ever want to meet, very fun loving.We had a great time at their house!

Merry Christmas Tree

These are really fresh, sweet smelling trees....and most of all they are CHEAP! The tall one, which is at least 8 feet tall is the equivalent of $55 USD. We go smell them at our local Bodega Aurrera (kind of a Walmart Jr). The parking and cart attendants think it's pretty funny. I'm sure they all get a kick out of us gringos and our goofy ways.

Anyway, just try to find an 8 foot tree for less than $55 in Carmel, PG, or Monterey. Good luck.

A visiting Moroccan dignitary

This solemn looking guy is Sultan Abdul Habani, who flew in to Chelem to attend Moroccan Night hosted by Taco Maya. He was a little testy at first, but after a few slugs of tequila and a couple of glasses of vino tinto, he loosened up and was quite friendly.

Here he is with our fezzy friend Rick.

This character with the luxuriant moustache has just escaped from the French Foreign Legion and is scraping out an existence waiting tables while exiled to the Yucatan Peninsula. He looks happy enough right now, but don't cross him. He is considered quite dangerous, despite his innocuous appearance.

High tide

Well, Hurricane Ida decided to go to the east of us, through the Yucatan Straits between Cancun and Cuba. We have had no wind, no rain,just a beautiful suuny day and really high tide. Now it's 9:45 and high tide is in an hour. The palapa is flooded, the firepit is under a foot of sand and the water is within ten feet of the porch.

A present from Mother Nature

Here is a view looking west from the 2nd story beach facing porch. There is a bit of seaweed on the beach. Now look at the second and third pictures. This is our beach and those piles of stinky seaweed are at least four feet high. Nobody else has them Just us. Guess we are special, huh? Well, it wasn't all bad; the shore birds had a feast and Tuli had a couple of good rolls, which made her smell really bad. Then Mother Nature took it all away...we watched it disappear in the space of a half hour. No wonder we never go anywhere; we could watch the ocean all day.

Our new baby

There's a hurricane coming. Maybe. In the meantime, we have acquired a new toy! It should be able to power the fridge, computer, lights, water pump, etc when we experience a power failure, which are not as common as you might think, though they do happen. Our neighbors up the street were without power for almost a week and everybody around them had power. We aren't quite ready to live without power if we don't have to. Anyway, we both sleep a little better knowing our bright metallic blue generator will keep the lights on and the food cold.