The Big Red One

It's an hibiscus, not a military unit.

This flower is really big, almost 6" across. This particular hibiscus bush will only put out one flower at a time. But the flower you get is really beautiful. You can get lost in its color.

Thelma Report

Thelma is hanging out under the palapa. Maybe she is communing with Foggy. Only she knows.

Carnival in Chelem

Here we are at the carnival in the square of Chelem. The first picture shows me gazing rapturously at a couple of wooden crosses. Seriously, we didn't even realize they were in front of my face until we downloaded the camera. Too much.































Here we are gambling our hard earned pesos on Loteria. We did notwin.

Scary electrical work.

Fellini carnival..and rubber ducks

MMMMMMMarquesitas...the local Yucatec favorite. A thin crispy sweet shell with grated Gouda (!) rolled inside, melting and then Hershey's or Nutella poured inside. Completely to die for.

The mexicans are loco for foosball. There must have been 100 tables everywhere you looked at the carnival. They were all well used, too.

A cutie on the merry-go-round.

Busy, busy

I'm a busy little bee. Taco Maya is reopening soon after a month away, Robin will be back soon and I am champing at the bit to use my new beads. So I have been on a non stop jewelry making binge. I found a store in Merida that has great buys on crystals. A 16" string of 5 mm cubes is 18 pesos...about $1.35. They aren't Swarowski, but at that price I can cull the imperfect ones out with no problema! I am not that thrilled with their metal components; I haven't been able to find a good source for them down here, but Fire Mountain Gems is a mouse click away and there is always somebody who will bring them down for me. There is a store called Mineralia that has beautiful pearls, turquoise and other gemstones and some other cool stuff. I found some beautiful electric blue glass with silver foil cubes about 1/2 inch square for just a few pesos each. I hope I can get more; they made a fabulous necklace (for me!) I am so happy to be playing with beads and looking out across the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. What's not to like? And if I sell some, I get to buy more beads!

The price tags are made from a sheet of Loteria cards. Loteria is the national craze in Mexico. It's kind of like bingo...you can even gamble on Loteria in a roulette kind of way at the little street fairs. These cards are a special version for the Yucatan and are really neat with local pictures and Mayan words. The original version is very cool as well. Everybody, and I mean everybody, plays this game. The family who comes to the house next to us plays it at midnight. The 10 year old kid who reads the cards sounds like an announcer. Hilarious, especially after midnight.

Zocalo's Shrimp Cocktail

Even with all the great food down here, I still miss my favorite shrimp cocktail from Zocalo in Pacific Grove. Diane Wells, Koryn Stone and I used to get this every Wednesday.

Diane, who is a great food experimenter said she had made something that was as close as could be. The secret was Clamato! So here's the recipe:

1 avocado

2 tomatoes

1/2 cucumber

small white onion, chopped

cilantro to taste, chopped fine

cooked shrimp (Zocalo uses big ones, and so will I next time) I boiled mine with garlic salt and a bit of cumin.

lemon juice to taste

splash of apple cider vinegar

Clamato juice

Yucatan Sunshine, or any other hot sauce, to taste

Chop the onion, tomato, cucumber, avocado, cilantro. Combine in a bowl and pour Clamato over the top. Use a bunch; this shrimp cocktail is more like a cold soup. Add the shrimp...make sure they are cold. Splash some apple cider vinegar and a few tablespoons of lemon juice and he hot sauce (optional). Heat up a big flour tortilla and go to Mexican Food heaven!

Carry a big stick

Looks like fun

They flly by every now and then. We want to go, but it costs the earth. Looks like fun, though.