Freshly squeezed OJ

The link below should bring you to a page with pictures of the house we are renting. I would have taken pictures myself but as you may know our camera is broken.

http://www.gpsnicaragua.com/renthomes/casalucia/

We are settling in to life here the following are some of the major differences. The quantity of bugs in the house is hard to get used to but we are shifting our perception of "normal" and coping quite well. There are lines of ants in our kitchen. For those of you that are in love with ants like I am you kmow they are mesmerizing. I keep on killing entire tracks but the ants seem unoffended and have their trail rebuilt in a few minutes. The home for the ants is a tiny hole in one of the wall tiles. They are lines to the sink (water) to the counter ( food crumbs) and to the tv which I can only guess is for entertainment. I have no problem with the ants as they are clean and not poisonous. We have at least 20 geckos in our house. They scramble on the walls and make weird noises that sound like someone is at the door. We kept on opening the front door until we figured that one out (Emilie excluded). The is always a plethora of dead bugs on the floor. Some dead from our lumbering feet, some burn themselves alive on the light bulbs at night and some probably die from old age but it's hard to tell. The cockroach room is the only real offender. The problem was that the light in the room wasn't working and cockroaches had been sighted. I had two cockroaches running about my feet when I was showering. Luckily the house has been fumigated and the house was bug free for a couple of hours.

We are slowly acclimatized to the heat. Apparently its takes approximately 2 weeks to become accostumed to the heat. I haven't stopped sweating since we got here. Even the breeze is hot. We have arrived in central america in the hottest time of the year. The rivers are dry, roads and trees are covered in dust and the land aching for the rain that is coming soon.

A few promising things in Granada are the women who walk up and down the street selling fresh fruit. We have been buying oranges, papaya, canteloup, watermelon, banana and carrots from these ladies. The fruit is locally grown and is delicious and the juicer has been working overtime. My favorite is carrot juice and Emilie likes the orange juice. There is a kids library across the street that Maia and I went to this afternoon. All the kids know Maia now and scream her name when she arrives. She is taking the fame in stride. We read "A case of the stripes" which is about a girl that wants to eat lima beans. Another convenience here are the taxis. They are not beautiful and they don't have shocks or seatbelts or doors that shut BUT it does cost only 1 dollar to go anywhere in town.

Hope you enjoy the photos of our house,

Adam out.

First Night

Hello Everyone,
We are terribly sorry for the long wait between blogs. We have had a lot to do and digest.
First and foremost...we have a cell phone! The number is (505) 970-3789. Call us whenever you can!!
Here`s what I have been thinking about lately... please indulge me for a moment.
We moved into our new apartment yesterday. It is HUGE by our standards, but small compared to others we have seen! It has a lot of room for guests. We want to show you some pictures, but in a moment of insanity, we let Maia play with the expensive digital camera, unsupervised. Now it is broken...we will try and get it fixed today.
On with my thoughts. Thw apartment we rented comes with ``Maid Service``. Every rich Nicaraguna, as well as most of the foreigners, have employees, or as they are called in Spanish, empleadas. It makes me feel weird. Also, everyone warned us that we have to be careful about securing all of valuables at all times, because even the most trusted of people will steal from you if given the chance. Our doors have heavy steel frames that must be locked at all times as well., because apparently (and this has been corroborated by at least 5 different sources), people will just walk in off the street and take what they want.
All of this information, true or not, makes me sad. I am having a hard time falling in love with a place where I need to be on guard at all times. This is not in my nature. I like to trust people first, then get to know them a bit more as time goes on. Apparently, Nicaragua is not as bad as Costa Rica for stealing, but that is very little consolation. We have met some really nice people here, or so I think....maybe they are casing us for all of our stuff. See, paranoia has begun to set in. I don`t think that this is a healthy way to live. I am hoping that this will change in time. I hope that I will learn for myself that life is not as bleak as it has been painted.
On the other hand, we went to a lake in an old volcano crater yesterday. The water is full of minerals that are excellent for skin and hair. It was a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon!!! You had to drive down an incredibly steep hill to get there. We were afraid that Tink wasn`t going to make it back up again, but of course, she did. Good old Tink, she sure has been pulling through on this trip.
Today, we are checking out a school for Maia. It is a Waldorf school, for those of you who are familiar with Waldorf philosophy. We think that Maia will thrive there, because imagination is really encouraged. We hope that it works out, because Maia really needs some friends. Her birthday is coming up, and we want to invite some people to her birthday party.
The last thing I would like to leave you with, in the disjointed rambling I call a blog, is this, first night in our new apartment and we have some things to work on. First of all, the hot water tap leaks in the kitchen. No big deal, that can be fixed easily. Secondly, there seems to be a mosquito colony living in our garden. This can also be fixed with mosquito coils, etc. Also, no big deal. What is a big deal, are the ten cockraoches living in our first shower. They are nowhere else in the house so far, but we can`t put Maia in her bedroom, because of them. Maia had to sleep on our floor, on a makeshift bed last night. This was probably for the best because she was up quite a bit in the night, but that doesn`t change the fact that we aren`t using one whole room in this house. Even Adam was grossed out a little, when a cockroach ran over his foot.
Our friends the gekkos are hard at work, so lets give a few props to them for their help last night. I am sure that by our next blog, the roaches will be taken care of.
Love and nire love to all of you. Please write and call when you get a chance.

Looking for an apartment.

The matriarchs of a family that were staying in the same hotel as us, just outside of Xela in Guatemala, spoke English very well. They lived in the States and were back in Guatemala visiting their family. They arrived in the same size van as we did except their van had bench seats and 13 people in it. We didn`t take many pictures in El Salvador and Honduras because we we getting exhausted and we were really pushing for Nicaragua. The border crossings were impossibly exhausting and always very hot. This picture was taken right after our final border crossing into Nicaragua. Maia is sad here and is showing signs of exhaustion as well.
We have been in Granada for two days now. We are staying at the hotel casa San Francicso and making new friends. I look a little drunk here because I am. We just got back from dinner and we finished two bottles of wine. Our friends name`s are Adam and Grace. We are relaxing at the hotel in the courtyard by the pool.

We made it to Granada....and its great. After leaving Guatemala we thought we could drive to Nicaragua in one, long day. As you know, the border crossing was crazy and we drove for 3 hours looking for a city big enough to have a hotel. We ended up in La Libertad right before dark. Emilie got some food and we went to bed. We had decided to take all coastal roads after Mexico because Tink simply cannot handle the big hills.

We left La Libertad without incident at dawn. We filled the van with gas and oil made fairly good progress despite the check points, construction, wandering country folk and stray animals that mosey across the highway without a care in the world. We thought we would make it to Nicaragua today (April 21) and we passed through San Miguel with only 3 u-turns. There are very few signs in the cities and the ones that are legible are often misleading. Em and I use a combination of intincts, a compass and luck to get through any of the cities and towns. Once we drove right through the Town`s main market. The streets were filled with people and shops of all kinds of beautiful art and fresh fruit. We took a right, then a left and soon the density of the population on the street decreased. A couple more turns to a traffic circle and off we go!

The border of Honduras and El Savaldor was not as horrendous as Guatemala but was very expensive and took a very long time. I was waiting outside, in the 40ish degree heat while the "officials" sat on the other side of the glass, in an air conditioned room and ate their lunches. There was 3 or 4 young guys in there lounging and in no rush to stamp my paper at a cost of 10 dollars canadian. The final bill for all the different government divisions was over 70 dollars. We were at the border for about 4 hours and when we finally starting driving in Honduras we were spent.

We made it Choluteca and found a hotel. It was 2 pm and we could have been at the border in 40 minutes or so but we heard that the Nicaragua border is just a bad as the Honduras border and so we resigned ourselves to one more day on the road. The hotel we found was unremarkable but comfortable. Strangely, we had somehow driven on a pseudo city bypass. The hotel was situated on the highway to the border and we drove straight to the border (through two checkpoints ofcourse) without incident.

The Nicaraguan border was dream. It was fast (ish) and the people were very nice. We were at our first Nica police checkpoint by 10:30 am (April 22). The roads for the first 30 km were the worst we'd seen. Potholes a foot deep and wide as the highway itself. There was a crew of about 30 boys doing some repairs with tampers. After that, it was smooth sailing through Leon and Managua. We were stopped again near Leon and pulled over by the police in Managua for a bribe. We paid the 200 cordobas and kept on going. I was a little upset at my first "robbery" but it is only 10 dollars to me and 10% of their monthly salary so I will forgive him eventually.

We drove straight downtown and found a room a the Hotel San Francisco. We scheduled an appointment to see some apartments on April 23 and we also were invited to a very grand 60th birthday party on Saturday night. The owner of the Hotel is having the party. We met Adam and Grace that night and things are moving along nicely.

Today is the morning of the 24th and we will have a place to stay by tonight. We saw places ranging from $4oo to $1600 all in the downtown area. The $1600/month mansion is a summer home for a German family. It was HUGE. Hard to explain but I will try. It had 4 bedrooms, all with their own bathrooms, a pool, garage, indoor fire bar-g-que in the courtyard beside the gardens and a view of the mountains. The entertainment room was atleast 1000 square feet. We thought about renting it for 1 month just for fun but we would have to sublet half the house.

Talk to you soon!

Going Home

It is 5:30am and everybody in the room is sleeping except for the tireless line of ants coming in from the window. I am too tired to see where they are going and even if I wasn't I wouldn't disturb them. They need to eat and drink too. Even if I did use the blow dryer on them and try to close the window, they would be back in 15 minutes anyway. People in warmer climates become accustomed to bugs. It's a fact of life.

We drove through central America with our windows open and many bugs were hit by our windshield but several got into the van. One example was an ant/fly that was knawing on my belly for 30 minutes while I was driving. I don't really know the name of this bug but I do know that I kept itching my belly. I finally scratched the bug to death (accidently) because its carcasse was on my leg. The next time I looked at my belly there was red welts all over it. Maia has a few red welts on her legs as well. Some are from bugs but most are from falling down. Miraculously, Naomi has not been bitten yet. Her skin is so delicate even the bugs know that she is off limits. Having said that, I did have to swat several wasps away from her sweet smelling car seat at the El Salvador/Honduras border. The wasps gave up quite easlily and looking back now I beleive they were looking to eat some of the many flies that were calling our van home.

Highway construction. We have seen a lot on our travels but none so incredible as El Salvador. I wished I had pictures but we had waited half an hour to get going and there was quite a mad rush to get going. Lots of honking. As I drove through the 7 km section of closed highway I noticed that all the sign placards were replaced by people. There were people every few hundred meters waving a flag. The flags were all waved in the same manner and the workers crowded the driving lane forcing the vehicles to slow down or run them over. After driving for 5 km we came to the first and only piece of equipment that was working on the road. It was mixing soil cement into the base of the road. The mixer was a modified lawnmower and it took four guys to push it. It was going to take these guys a very, very long time to complete the next 30 meters of highway let alone the 7 km that was sectioned off. The pace of life is slow down here and those four guys couldn't be happier. They have water, food and work for the next year. The good news is that it looks like they had finished 2 km already.

Heading for the border now. Its 6:07 and Maia is ready to go! We want to beat the rush at the border.

adam

El Mismo Dia

Hey again...
Well as Adam said, we were literally thronged by people wanting to sell us this important document or that important document, but we stood our ground. After a while, most of them let up, but it still took as a stinking hot 3 hours to get from Mexico into Guatemala. I would have been a little less stressed, had I not had two very hot kids with me, but they survived, as did we.
One small note regarding Jose's Camping and Cabanas...it is run by a Canadian man and his Mexican wife. The Canadian (Jose...named John by his parents) had planted a coconut grove, when he moved there thirty years ago. He also planted mango trees, and he built his business, room by room. Quite impressive really. It was very rustic, but everything worked. The beach was a quick walk away, and we were the only ones on it. It was a lucky break that we (meaning me) missed the highway turn-off. We really needed the rest. I didn't even mind the giant cockroaches, I was so happy not to be driving.
When we made it into Guatemala, we were all very impressed with it's beauty. It is lush, verdant and plentiful with fruit of every kind. We stayed at the hotel where Adam wrote his last post and then left for El Salvador this morning.
Luckily the border between El Salvador and Guatemala is less busy. Not so lucky perhaps were the 2 hours it took to fulfill alll of the various requirements at the four different buildings I had to walk to. THEN...we got stopped by the police about 5 mins into the country. Oh well, 2nd time today. We are getting kind of used to it. The people who stop us tend to be quite friendly when they find out that we are Canadian. In fact, one of the policemen told me I had a pretty name while he was looking at our passports. That was nice of him!
Initially, we were warned about staying in El Salvador, but so far so good. It has been a gorgeous drive down the coast. The road is good, curvy but in great shape. The currency in El Salvador is the American Dollar. It struck me as a little weird, but with all of the money flowing into El Salvador from the Salvadoreans working in the U.S, I guess it makes sense. What about the Canadian dollar, you may ask. Nothing doing. It is just not the same.
Tonight we are staying in a vacation hotspot for Salvadoreans. It is called, Puerto La Libertad. It is really great, but we are getting tired of being on the road and Maia has been feeling a little sick, so we will leave really early again tomorrow and try to get as far as we can. We will for sure be in Nicaragua by Wednesday.
MUST SLEEP NOW! Love you all tooooo much! Becky, that is a really great vote of confidence from Montreal!

Blood, Sweat and Tears

This morning I am writing from a somewhat unremarkable hotel about 45 minutes south of Quezaltenangoin Guatemala. We are in the mountains halfway to Quezaltenango because we couldn't make it up the hill. We drove for as long as we could and Tink did her best but eventually we had to pull over beside some other broken down vehicles for fear of overheating. We asked the locals how much further and they said it was another 1/2 hour which means another hour for us. We turned around and found the closest hotel for the night. It may be a blessing in disguise because now we must take highway 2 to El Salvador which is the coastal road and should have less hills.

Yesterday was a day that we wished we had flown to Nicaragua. We woke up at Jose's Cabanas sweating. It was 7 am and it was HOT. The van was hot already too and we hit the highway quickly to get the air flowing in the windows. We had stayed at Jose's Cabanas mostly due to a wrong turn. Emilie was waving at a bus full of locals and had completly unknowingly turned off the highway. I commented that the road didn't look like a highway and Emilie agreed. Forty five minutes later we were at the coast in a town of population 1000. We went with the flow of the day and stayed the night in Puerto ? (to be added later, I don't have a lot of time because laptop battery dying).

As we sweated down the highway our spirits were good, but also hot. We passed Tapachula (Mexican border town) without incident and headed for the border. There is a scam near the border that we avoided quite well. Every couple kilometers people try to pull you over and sell you permission to cross the border. We drove through them whilst honking and waving. The actual crossing is down in a hot, jungly valley packed with people. I would like to accentuate how many people were waiting at the border. It was shoulder to shoulder and nearly every one of them were yelling something at us. When we finally got through one of the throngs to accelerate a little, we were chased.

To be continued, really sorry. I am out of juice!

Friday morning pictures

These pictures are in addition to the previous blog and were added this morning because the internet was not working very well last night.

Maia and I are upset here because we aren't allowed to walk on the side of the rail. We fold our arms and refuse to move until something new gets our attention.
Here is a family portrait durning sunset in Mazatlan. The large cistern behind us was used to brew Pacifico, a popular Mexican beer. It is pretty good...believe me.
These are the ladies from the chocolateria. They are shredding chicken here but they do make pretty good hot chocolate.
Maia and Naomi are cuddling in the morning. Neither of them wanted to get up because it is 5:30 am. Maia just finished saying " But I am still tired?", as if we should let her sleep.
Here is a picture of Mexico city suburbs. We are approximately 30km from downtown now and on a very high interchange. Not a lot of land wasted here!!

From the Metropolis to the Jungle

Mexico has a surprisingly diverse landscape. When we pictured Mexico, Adam and I both pictured lush jungles. Until today, we hadn't seen anything resembling a jungle. Yes today, we finally felt like we entered the Mexico that lived in our heads.
The beginning of our trip, saw an arid desert, then we got to the beach at Mazatlan, then we saw huge pine trees in and around Mexico city. It was so crazy, you would have thought that you were in British Columbia. We saw a snow covered mountain in the distance just yesterday, and today we are in the heat!!! We even bought some freshly squeezed pineapple juice from the side of the road. It was really cold and refreshing and a little gross, when I discovered a dead bug floating in the bottom. Yes, I couldn't finish the dregs of the juice. Call me Princess if you like.

So, tonight we are staying in Tuxtla Guiterrez. It is the capital of the State of Chiapas, home of the anti-Mexican Zapatista rebels. We are in the heart of downtown, once again. We try to stay on the outskirts so that we can avoid overheating Ole Tink, but it NEVER, ever works out the way we plan it. Try as we might. We do plan though, really.
After our last blog, we had to brave Mexico City. We got up really early in the morning, again. For those of you who have ever lived with me, you know that getting up early is not my forte, but luckily I just didn't sleep at all. There was a high school band staying at the hotel, playing their horns in the middle of the night and having a great time. The band noise combined with the extremely loud dance music coming from god-knows-where (I didn't get up to investigate, just prayed that it would go away), made for a sleepless night. I was out of bed before Adam.
We had an unexpectedly easy trip through Mexico city. We have uploaded a little video to show you some of what we saw at the worst point of the drive. After that, it was pretty smooth sailing. Mexico City is actually really nice to look at. We were going pretty slowly, so we got to enjoy some of the nice, wide tree-lined streets.
Then we went straight up!! Tink is an old van, and the big climbs we have encountered in Mexico have been pretty slow going for us, but we have been (knock on wood) getting to our destinations each day. The climb into and out of Mexico city valley reaches approximately 3000m above sea level. More than twice as high as Roger's pass!! All vehicles pass us on the way up because our maximum speed is 52-64 km/hr but many vehicles overheat and we end up passing them when they stop to let their engine cool down.
Speaking of destinations, ours was Cordoba yesterday. We stayed at a motel that gave you the option of paying for a four hour or a full nights stay. We opted for the latter. I still haven't figured out why there was an option for four hours. I think it is a secret rendez-vous place for the lovers of Cordoba, who knows. Here's the thing, it was incredible!
It had a private parking garage right under our room. Our own, giant hot tub that was more like a pool for Maia, with a retractable roof. Yes, a retractable roof. It also had radio music wired into the bathroom. It was spotless, huge, and really cheap. It felt a little surreal because when I asked them if there was a place to wash clothes nearby, they did it for us instead.
You would have thought we would stay longer in a place like that, but we are really getting itchy to get to Nicaragua. Maia's getting a little tired of all of the days in the van, and we would really like to get settled soon too. So, we just kept going.
Tomorrow we cross the border into Guatemala. We plan on staying at Quetzltenango ...apparently referred to as "Xela". I'm not sure why, but I'm sure we'll find out.
Oh, yeah and one more thing abount Mexico. It is not as dangerous or as corrupt as we had been lead to believe. In fact we have only been pulled over twice; once by the city police and once by the military. Both times, no bribes were requested (or offered for that matter) and we were wished well and on our way in a matter of minutes. I think having kids in the back really helps.
I have uploaded a video of Naomi talking to me, as well as the abovementioned Mexico City gridlock.
Can't upload any pics tonight. I am not sure why, but we will try again next time.
Love you all very much! Keep on realxing mom and dad. You guys deserve it!

At the convent in Guadalajara!

After staying on the beach in Mazatlan for 3 days, we felt very relaxed. The downside of being relaxed is we were somewhat mentally unprepared for driving to Guadalajara.

As we ventured inland, we started climbing into the highland of Mexico. Almost all of the large cities here are at 2000m above sea level. The heat was overwhelming and the van was starting to overheat as we climbed. After climbing over 1000m we had to turn on the heater to keep the engine temperature down. The temp inside the van was approaching 40 degrees. Naomi was only wearing a diaper and Emilie was wiping a wet cloth on her. Maia was in her underwear and looking very hot with her red cheeks. We stopped in Tepic to fill up and took our time licking popsicles in an effort to cool off.

The popsicles gave us all some frozen liquid courage and we continued going uphill. After climbing 2000m we finally reached a plateau and as soon as we did.......it began to rain. The clouds were waiting for us and we left the windows down and stuck our hands our the window.

Guadalajara is a town of four million. It is huge. We arrived at 5pm, just in time for rush hour. The drive seemed endless to get downtown and when we finally did, we entered into a tunnel that whisked us past our hotel. We drove three blocks past the only hotel in the area with parking so Emilie popped a uturn on a six lane road and headed back to the hotel. When we finally got to the right street we found it was a one-way so we circled the blocked and pulled into a very fancy hotel. The 3 or 4 bellboys were a little surprised to see a 24 year old van pull into like an old ironhorse, the steam slowly rising from its roof.

The hotel was fantanstic and was a refurbished catholic convent. By the time we ate, the pool was closed and it was time for the girls to go to bed. The hardest part about this day was that we drove all the way downtown and we didn´t have time to check out the city. We hadn´t left early enough in the morning.

Once the girls were sleeping, Emilie and I broke out the maps and the monocles and started planning for the next day. We decided to drive to Toluca and we would be leaving a 6am. By leaving earlier we will miss the hottest parts of the day and we can do some adventuring when we arrive at our destination. With the spirits of the nuns watching over us, we went to bed.

Emilie here...we are at an internet cafe now in Toluca, so we had to switch off writting the blog.
We managed to get up at 5 am, and we started driving at 6. We made it to our destination at noon. Our plan was to get a hotel on the outskirts of town, so that we could have an easy entry and departure in Toluca, then we could leave early the next day to hit Mexico city before 6:oo am.

Toluca is a small (500 000 pop) city in Mexico that is right outside of Mexico city. We are too chicken to drive in there. When we arrived, we were reminded once again that Mexico is unpredictable. We spent three hours looking for a hotel on the outskirts...van started overheating again...Maia was getting cranky...so we headed into the town centre. Exactly what we had planned on not doing!

At any rate, there is a silver lining to this cloud. We found a hotel, thanks to Adam and his amazing hawk-like vision. He spotted a parking garage that was hidden almost underground. We found a great cheap hotel, that is right in the thick of things. Toluca is a surprisingly great city. Lots of "plaza" culture. We had dinner at a chocolateria. It had wonderful hot chocolate (freshly crushed cocoa), of course, and churros and sweet bread, and something else that was made with chicken that Adam ate. We are not able to upload the pictures here, but we will try again next time.

We have to get back to the hotel now and put the girls to bed. We will try and plan our day again tomorrow. Who knows if this will help, but we will try at least.

Oh yeah...Sorry about the lame eighties reference in the last title. It just had to be done.

Love you!

The Coyle-Browns

Woah oh...we're more than halfway there!! Woah oh living on a prayer!

These ladies run a little restaurant that is located at the end of a long tunnel in the heart of Old Mazatlan. It was very fun to get here and very delicious as well. There is a popular tourists plaza nearby with many english speaking locals. We asked one of the locals where he eats when he goes "out" for dinner and showed us this place. We were the only ones eating.

A long day of driving takes ingenuity to keep the kids entertained. This photo was one of many taken by Maia.
We visited a very beautiful church in the old part of Mazatlan.
A nice moment on the beach.

We have officially driven 5500 kms now. Phew! We are resting in .... MAZATLAN. We apologise for the lack of communication over the past few days, the availability of wifi, or even internet for that matter is not as evident. There certainly isn't any internet in our entire hotel.
Well, we started out driving in Nogales, as you may remember from Adam's last blog entry.
Adam was little nervous about crossing the border, so he threw away my nice bottle of wine that I had been carrying in my purse all the way from California. It turned out that the border crossing from the U.S INTO Mexico is not that difficult. Apparently the other way is a little harder. They didn't even check our car... I could have been sipping that wine right now.
At any rate, we crossed the border without a hitch and immediately, I mean immediately, saw that it was different country. The Nogales on the U.S side, was ugly, but it looked like any American town. The Nogales, directly on the other side was decidedly less wealthy. It shocked me. I am not sure why except that philosophically, my perception is that imaginary borders shouldn't dictate a person's living condidtions.
We made it that night to a small coastal town called San Carlos. We almost stayed at Gringo Pete's, but it was dank and dark... luckily we found a cute little motel, right downtown, which made me, *Princess Emilie, according to Adam*, feel a whole lot better. Here's the thing, I know there are cockroaches in Mexico, I just wasn't mentally prepared to greet them as soon as I walked into the bathroom.
That night we decided to go for bust...The nearest beach was a ten hour drive away from San Carlos, so we got up at 5:45 in the morning, threw everyone in the van and started driving.
Are we crazy? Perhaps...but the kids were really great the whole day, and we finally made it to Mazatlan by about 4 in the afternoon.
There are three prett distinct zones in Mazatlan, the old town, the north beach and then the Zona Dorada. The Zona Dorada is where all of the mega resorts are located, the north beach is where the Mexican people go on their vacations, and the old town is the original site of Mazatlan tourism boom in the 1950's.
We are staying in the north beach at a hotel where noone speaks English. It has been great for our Spanish, and we are learning a few things about this new country.
First of all, we need to live louder. People definetly live louder here than in North America. Last night we had a soccer team partying on the street outside our window until 4 or 5 in the morning. You get used to the noise. I like the colour and vibrancy.
Secondly, I was a disgusting person when I was a smoker. The beach is littered with old cigarette butts. I am sure that I threw mine into the sand as well, back when I smoked. Yuck!
Lastly, find a kind waiter to direct to where the good Mexican food is. We found a restaurant that was hidden in a tunnel across from the theatre here. It was authentic, fresh and muy delicioso. It was called El Tunnel in fact, for those of you who may be in Mazatlan at some point. There is a picture of the women who cooked and served us a little further on.
Thanks for all of your comments this week. Shannon, I hope that your little family joins the adventure at some point. Let us know if you have any questions. Lana, we can't wait to hear any new that you have. Dad and Lauren we are calling you soon. Anna, we would love to meet for tea, and finally Rox...we will take your advice and ask the older and hopefully wiser women for directions and advice.
We are moving on tomorrow...hope to write again soon.

I don't understand the pregunta?

Nogales is likely an old spanish word for "transition town". As you approach Nogales the destinations signs show distance in metric and the drivers becomes increasingly aggresive. The lonely planet actually recommends increased aggression whilst driving in Mexico. I didn't believe it until we received a serious honking while taking a left turn too slowly. The perpertrator was a little old lady in a rusty oldsmobile. It was the first honk in 4000 kilometers.

Everybody we meet in this border town speaks Spanish and English fluently and they switch back and forth between the languages as if there was no difference at all. I may be the only one in "transition town" that doesn't speak Spanish. I try not to let my nervousness show and I say "Si!" with great enthusiasm at every "pregunta". Maia is teaching me Spanish and I have already learned "me llamo es Maia". I have received some strange looks while venturing bravely past my language limits but how else is one to learn a new language.

Hermosillo is our destination tomorrow. The population of Hermosillo is 600,000 people but it is considered a small "town" by Mexican standards. Driving in Mexico feels like the beginning of a totally new adventure and the we are are vibrating with excitement. I should detail the fact that Maia is always vibrating with excitement and Naomi has found some excitement in a new soother. Tink vibrates pretty well while idling, or accelerating..... and a little while parked at night.

The Heat Helps the Head

Hello from Tucson. It is 90 degrees and we are standing beside a heated pool. It was still very refreshing.

Do we look the same?

How about now?

A couple of things to mention in this blog. To begin, we are in Tucson, Arizona. Whenever I say that name, I sing a little bit of Paul Simon's song "Under African Skies"

-I said take this child, Lord

From Tucson Arizona

Give her the wings to fly through harmony

And she won't bother you no more-

Tucson is a really beautiful city, and very warm. We finally feel like we have come to summer. I will add pictures when the computer lets me. I have been fighting with it for over an hour.

We have been here for a little longer than we had anticipated because we were afraid that we were overheating the engine. Funny story this one, we were so concerned with overheating that we had actually been keeping the engine at way below average running heat by blasting the heat inside the vehicle while we drove. Ha! Ha! the joke is on us I guess.

The bad news in this whole story is that the mechanic has informed us of our much rusted radiator. We thought about getting it changed, but we have put way too much of our savings into this vehicle, so we are going to go ahead with the old girl, just the way she is! Ole Tink has been good to us so far, and we have already been over some pretty steep mountains.

This information about our vehicle did put a little damper on our spirits, but we quickly ate away our bad moods with some ooey gooey goodness in the form of a chocolate brownie and ice-cream covered in fudge and caramel. We used the fact that it was my sister's birthday as an excuse to have this decadent dessert. We sang happy birthday to Lindi with our faces full of yumminess. It was so sweet, that I actually started to feel lightheaded about halfway through.

The last thing I have been noticing lately is that when you travel you want to talk to everyone you meet. When you live somewhere, it is almost like you forget, or don't take the time to really talk with people around you. Living in Edmonton, a complacency came over me with regards to a curiosity about those that I encountered on a daily basis. Now I am finding a neediness in me sometimes. That neediness is a desire to have a deeper contact with people we are meeting along the way. Funny, in a contemplative sort of a way. I wish I had had more curiosity when we lived in Edmonton.

We have met some interesting people, and I expect to meet more as we continue on our travels. The people of Tucson, that we have met thus far, have been very kind and considerate.

To all of you, we miss you and love you and would enjoy a deeper connection with you as well! We're off to Mexico in two days...wish us luck!

The 5:45 to Yuma

We're here...we're tired...we want to eat sweets!



We drove all day from Pismo beach and we didn't make it to Encintas. We tried really hard though. We made some crazy decisions in the heat of the moment whilst driving through traffic jams in Los Angeles. L.A was totally insane. I never want to drive through it again. The girls got tired though and at 8:30 we pulled into the first hotel we could find. It turned out to be San Clemente...home of the high school surfing champions 6 years running.

The next day, we drove a leisurely 45 minutes to Encinitas and went to the meditation gardens of the Self-Realisation Fellowship. Here's a picture of Naomi drinking some blessed milk, under the Saint Francis of Assisi tree.

Encinitas is a great little town. Very beautiful and laid back. We also were able to camp for the first time since we started this journey. Again, there were surfers everywhere and many fellow Westies...

Well, we tried to see Adam's brother David, but we didn't get there on the right day, nor had he received any of our messages, so it didn't work out on Saturday, but we hoped for a Sunday visit. While we waited, we walked around town, Maia had some ice cream...

While she was enjoying her blueberry cheescake all-natural ice-cream on a sugar cone, I spoke with a woman who was organizing a film festival and education day about the 911 conspiracy theory. They were hoping for a big turn-out.

We walked along the beach at sunset and had a campfire at nightfall. Adam and I enjoyed a nice homemade cup of tea (it always tastes better when you make it yourself) while the girls slept and then we went to bed to the soothing sound of the ocean marred slighlty by the jarring sound of the amtrack train as it went by every hour.

This morning, after I ran on the beach, (and it felt glorious) Adam visited with David. Dave was only able to see Adam between 9 am to 10 am and the girls and I were unable to see him. Adam's visit was short but sweet. Maia, Naomi and I will have to wait for next time. It just wasn't meant to be.

We left the beach and drove to the moon. California's south-east is a barren landscape of rocks, boulders and granite. It is a far cry from the lush redwood forests we had just passed through. It was also really hot! It was so hot we stopped in Yuma at the nearest swimming pool and dove right in with all of our clothes on.

Ok, ok, we didn't really have all of our clothes on, but it was pretty close!

Love to you all! Thanks for the advice Zoe, we are really careful with our overheating, and will continue to be. We don't want any engine fires.

San Fran to Pismo Beach

San Francisco is a really fun city. We found a great hotel that was a short bus ride to the famous fisherman's wharf. We walked for three hours along the wharf listening to music, getting free balloons, watching the sea lions on pier 39 and eating ice cream. We met with Sunny, Patricia, Dallas and Linda for dinner and decided on the Cioppio restaurant. It was really great to see our friends, even though it was a short time.

















After updating our AAA membership we starting a leisurly drive to Pismo beach. We quickly decided against the coastal road and drove Hwy 101 all the way. The hills and valleys cause Tink to overheat too quickly. We have to drive with the heater on full on the flat freeway as it is. We stopped at home depot and I bought an allen wrench to tighten the bolts on the drive shaft. (Safety first!!).












We arrived at Pismo beach at 4:30 and we were all itching to get sand stuck in our toes. It's hard to describe the feeling but the the two beach pictures must be worth about 200o words. The Blue dolphin hotel in the background is where we are staying tonight. We all got out feet into the ocean. AMAzinG!








A few words from Naomi.

The Adventure Continues

(...this blog continued from yesterday's installment)

It's Emilie now. Well, in response to those of you who did comment on the last blog; Laurene, I think the universe was playing an April Fool's joke on us, but unfortunately, we weren't playing a joke on all of you. Dad, when you hear the end of the story, you will realise that Hales Grove had no internet either.

Well, last you heard, AAA was sending a truck within 45 minutes. Two hours later, we were still waiting. Janet had told me about her niece's true character, quote "she thinks she's hot champagne in a glass, but she's really cold piss in a cup". She has also taken off her logger socks to chow me her cat wounds. It was a long two hours.

We were getting hungry, so we popped the top and made some dinner while we waited. We had somewhat resigned ourselves to the fact that we may be staying the night in the van. Janet had offered to put us up for the night, but I just couldn't do it. It has to be said that she was a very kind and giving woman, despite all of my odoriferous misgivings.

Finally, after another hour had passed, the tow truck finally arrived. Unfortunately, (yes it just gets better and better) AAA had not informed them that there were 4 people waiting to be picked up and that two of them were children, and they were therefore,not equipped to take all of us back to a town. We would have to wait the night. YIKES!!!

While we sat dejectedly waiting for any other news, we had some good news finally. Richard from the Redwood Towing Service came back. Yes, he came back! He had finally managed to get some radio reception from down at Jimbo's place and he had asked his wife Ginger to come with another car to pick us all up. Honestly, we had quite a bit of luck that night...with Jimbo and Janet being so kind to us and then Richard and Ginger being so wonderfully giving, we just felt cared for and safe. It was a good feeling.

We finally made it back to Garberville (big shout outs to Richard and Ginger) to spend the night at the Best Western. It was a great hotel, with free wine and cheese receptions every night from 5:30 to 7:00. We took advantage of that.
The next day, Richard and Ginger's mechanic took a look at our van and fixed it in an hour. It barely cost us any money, and we got to explore a nice little town in California that we otherwise would never have seen. Here's some of the interesting stuff going on in Garberville and area. One-They have a little food stand called NACHO MAMMAS that serves all organic and delicious Cali-Mex Food.
Two-There's a Reggae festival just north of there every year, which is supposed to be alot of fun!
Phew! What a crazy day!
It has to be said that we did experience some moments of panic, as well as some serious doubts about the longevity of this trip. Tink was pretty close to being sold. BUT...we are in San Francisco now and we made it without a hitch.
Some tips that we have learned about adventuring so far are; to be patient and calm throughout any type of ordeal, It really helps.
I have to say that Adam was truly incredible. He took everything in stride and really sorted everything out. Cheesy but true.
I have included some more pictures so that you can see that it truly did happen. There is also a little video of Naomi that I made while we were waiting in Garberville. Just so you can see how much she is growing.
More about San Fran and the great night we just had in our next blog.
Please keep your fingers crossed for us that Tink keeps on keepin' on!


The above picture shows Richard hooking up the van for a 30 mile tow. We all squeezed into the tow truck until we met up with Ginger.

This is one of Adam's favorite pictures so far. The gentleman in the middle is Jimbo and Walter is standing to the far right. Walter is Janet's nephew.

Maia the princess.

Love Emilie

Hales Grove Adventure

The adventure has really started now. After leaving Eureka on monday morning, we drove for a while and we picked up Larry. Larry was walking down the Highway with an empty gas tank. Larry had lost his money at the casinos and then had run out of gas trying to get home. We gave him a ride to the nearest town, which was 3 miles away, and drove him back to his truck. Larry said that we restored his faith in humanity.

We drove for a few hours and we were headed for hwy 101 along the California coast. What we didn't know was that we had to drive over a very steep and windy road. At the begining of the climb we picked up Janet. She was shopping in Leggett and needed a ride over the mountain to her house in Hales Grove. You won't find Hales Grove on the map because the population is only 8 people. We drove up the windy road at 10 km/hr and we had to stop 4 times as the engine was overheating. Climbing the hill took nearly 1 hour. Going down the hill went a lot better and as we were turning into Janet's the driveway the van jolted and a loud crack was heard. The van was not moving anymore and when we got out to look underneath we saw the large hunk of steel that was apparently the driveshaft, hanging unusually low.

Undaunted but somewhat shaken, we asked Janet if we could use her phone. She told us that there "ain't phone lines in Hales Grove", but she said that Jimbo (her neighbor) had a cellphone and if we could get back to the top of the hill, we might get some reception. After Janet put her groceries in her house, we walked over to Jimbo's house. Jimbo was very friendly and agreed to lend me his cellphone and give me a ride back to the top of the moutain (Elevetion was approx. 500 meters). When we arrived at the top of the mountain, Jimbo jumped out of the truck and told me that I should be able to get reception here. That is when I said, "I don't have a cellphone, don't you?". He replied, " I didn't bring my phone either", in a very matter of fact manner, and he quickly continued in nearly the same breath, "I guess we're going to Leggett".

Meanwhile, back at the van Janet had invited Emilie into her house to choose a pair of homemade beaded earings in thanks for the lift over the mountain. Janet took care of 10 cats and 2 dogs. Let it be said that the home had a certain odor. Emilie and the kids were surving Janet's unique brand of hospitality and was keeping a eye for Me

The only payphone in Leggett is in disrepair and the AAA associate asked me to phone back on a land line as my "cellphone coverage was very poor". I knew as soon as I began to explain to him where I was that there would be problems. The conversation went something like this,

"Where are you sir?"

"I am broke down in Hales Grove, California, I have two..."

"Where?"

"It's on mile marker 96.3 on Hwy 1, we were heading southbound."

"Is it close to anything?"

"I am calling from Leggett, its about 9 miles to the north of where we are."

"I see. Can I call you back at this number?"

"No, this is a payphone.."

"Really?!, you are very crackly, I can barely hear you!. What number can I call you back on?"

"You can't call me back. There are no phones in Hales Grove and cellphones don't work."

(I hear crackly laughter on the other end of the phone.)

"I have two children, there are four of us."

"Ok sir, I will send a truck to Hales Grove. It should be there in about 45 minutes. Try to keep an eye out for the tow truck."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Ok....?"

"Have a good day sir."

Well Jimbo and I zoomed back over the hill I quickly told Emilie the news.

To be continued....