Unexpected Event

 This morning Caro walked out the door about 9:40 going to her 10 A.M. haircut and pedicure appointment.

I was quite surprised to see her back shortly after eleven and it turned out the stylist never showed up at the salon to do the job. Caro had waited over half an hour before giving up.

A short while later we were back out walking to a restaurant we had been to before, to enjoy a brunch. Yummy!

In the afternoon we went swimming in the big "salty pool" with this time being only the second time for me but a daily occurrence for Caro. After I was out of the ocean and at the pool Serge came over and we chatted about getting together tonight. All the while I was watching Caro to make sure she was doing OK bobbing up and down in the waves.

It was a great day talking to family on Facetime. I caught up with Dad, and later Lisa connected with us from Mike and Michelle's house. Hannah and Will are becoming very articulate and Rachel is rolling over! Once off the Facetime call we received a video message from Vanessa and Nathan showing Beckett getting ready to crawl soon. It is really time to get back and enjoy the kids "in person".

As per Lisa's suggestion here is Caro enjoying one of our last beers (beer and Chelada mix). Very shortly after the above photo was taken I took the following photo;

This is not a drone but a full size military helicopter that THUNDERED directly over top of us.

We have noticed a greater number of military and police in the area. We haven't heard about anything happening as far as the drug cartels or anything, just a greater degree of "authoritative" presence.

We finished our supper and watched another mind blowing sunset.

Busy Day

 We had a busy one today!

We left the apartment shortly after 10 and by 10:30 we were at the Barcelo hotel where we got our PCR tests taken. It was quick and relatively painless.

With that done we started walking towards Las Hades resort. We had to walk up into the hills and then westward.

In the center of the photo is Las Hades and down at sea level is the marina. We walked all the way to the marina where we stopped in a restaurant for some sparkling water. As we were walking out of the resort a cab came by so we caught it and had the driver take us to Miramar beach which is part of the bay north of ours (but is still part of Manzanillo).

The beach there is perfect for walking as the seas are very calm and the beach is hard and flat.  After a short while we decided to grab a snack at a beach restaurant.

After we left the beach (in a cab of course) we were dropped off at LaComer food store where we picked up some supplies for our return trip home on the airplane. We were back here about 3 P.M. and we both had long naps.

Tonight we went for supper with Serge and Marthe. We all walked to a restaurant about a kilometre from here. Caro and I were there two years ago and Serge/Marthe had been there earlier in their trip. It was a great supper with great food and drinks at very reasonable prices. There was an excellent guitar player providing live music which further enhanced the beautiful evening "ambience". 

Unfortunately the photo below isn't that good. There is a big sunset happening in the background and the reflection off the ocean doesn't help either.

We walked back together and said our "good nights" shortly after 8:30 P.M.

Getting our Massages

Last night there was another party just outside our apartment building. The owners have video cameras set up to view the area and because of the ongoing issues with people partying at night when they (the owners) saw there was a party they called the police so it was cleared soon after. At least it wasn't too late.

Lupita, "our" masseuse was here at 11 A.M. and after setting up, Caro got her massage.

After Caro was done it was my turn. I said I wanted "fuerte" (hard) so she gave me a good working over! It was great, especially as I had completed a good walk/jog this morning so my legs were tightened up. Anyway the experience was so good (and the price with tip only $25 each) that we have booked her for Thursday morning at 10 A.M.

Tonight we went to a restaurant near the traffic circle. 

It was excellent. I imagine we will go they again. We had a couple of drinks each and the meal for a total cost with tip of only about $26.

Afterwards we sat on Serge and Marte's patio and chatted for a couple of hours. A lady from the apartment at the back joined us. She is from Leon, Mexico and her father is a retired army general. 

Tomorrow we get our PCR test and after that we plan to go to a beach near the hotel where the testing takes place.

Start Your Engines !!

 I forgot to mention last night we watched the whales breaching. They weren't super close but it is always exciting!

Today was a busy day on the beach with many families enjoying the day. The noise of just lots of kids having fun and no boom boxes blasting away was very nice!

This afternoon was the start of racing season. The Daytona 500 was run in Florida. A great race with a rookie winning it by 1/2 a car length. I slouched so long on the couch my butt is killing me. 

After supper and clean up we headed down to the pool area. Caro went for a walk on the beach and I took the following photo.

Caro had been speaking to the owner of the house next door . He is down from Los Angeles for the weekend (he is originally from here). Somehow it came up in conversation about him getting a massage tonight from a local lady he knew. When Caro stated she might want a massage as well the fellow called out to Caro when the masseuse arrived. We are both booked tomorrow starting at 11 A.M!

We had three games of rummy tonight with Caro winning two games to one with the last game won by one move. Can't get much closer than that!

Caro and I have been commenting to each other the last few days that it is time to go home. Right now it looks like six weeks is the longest we want to be away from all the family (and we are in our seventh).

Our last Saturday here

 Today was a great day because for the first time since Caro broke her foot six weeks ago she did a run!

She wasn't able to complete what she would consider a normal distance but about a third or so. Progress!

In mid afternoon there was, what appeared to be, a homeless woman using the pool to wash up. Caro realized what was happening and questioned the lady (from the balcony). She  (the lady) quickly took off. Meanwhile Caro had contacted the owners and Adrian (the co-host) was over a few minutes later to confirm nothing had been stolen from the area and to clean and re-chemical the pool.

We had a quiet afternoon just being lazy and then tonight after supper we got together with Serge and Marthe at the pool side table.

After the darkness came our furry neighbours came out to visit.

We really get along well with Serge and Marthe and I imagine we will spend as much time as possible together before we leave.

Tomorrow afternoon is the Daytona 500 race. I believe I will have to watch it in Spanish but at least I can watch it!

Thursday and Friday

 Thursday-we had a very quiet day with nothing out of the normal happening throughout the day.

The evening was spent watching the series "Inventing Anna" on Netflix.

In the late evening a party started on the street below us when a couple of unknown cars drove in (supposedly this street has parking for only the few residences located here). There were four guys whooping it up and blasting their stereos. Caro had wanted to say something to them but I felt it was unsafe to do so as "you never know what kind of loonies they may be".

Anyway the party carried on until 2:30 (I was able to sleep through most of it, but not Caro). We heard this morning that the neighbour called the police who must have come to break things up.

Today, Friday, for the first time on this trip the navy marines did some training in the water out in front of us.

Every few seconds a marine would drop off the back of the boat and eventually make it to shore. There was a small group of marines learning (?) to fly a drone from the beach and there were the usual personnel with guns standing around to protect these marines. They eventually loaded up in a truck that had backed up to the beach entrance.

After the marines cleared out Caro went for a swim in the ocean however she was soon out after getting many stings/bites from something in the water.

Serge and Marthe have returned from a couple of weeks of travels south of here. We are getting together tonight to catch up. They are back in apartment #2 as before.

Our cleaning lady came today so we went downtown to LaComer food store for one last bulk pick up of food. We also took the opportunity to get cash from an HSBC ABM machine located there. I think we are good now for food and cash for Mexico although we will have some restaurant charges.

After our return and unloading of all our provisions we went back by cab to the same general area as the big stores to LaSonrisa taco restaurant where we enjoyed some awesome tacos. At about a $3 charge for the cab each way it is not a big deal to go back and forth. Our bill for three ice cold beers and five tacos was $18 (including a tip).

 Tuesday was so quiet there was not much to write about. 

I spoke to Dad on Facetime (video) while he was at Boston Pizza so I was able to show our regular server Melissa my little bit of paradise. Caro was Facetiming Vanessa at the same time. We love modern communication!

Interesting about the conversation with Dad was that his Facetime call came through both on my phone and the Mexican phone so after the call was finished I had to change a bunch of settings on the Mexico cellphone  (as it is my old iphone and still has my old settings). 

At suppertime we sat down at the table on the veranda for another great meal Caro had whipped up. Also we love the gas stove here and that gets me thinking that maybe we will consider one of those in the future. I never really thought about it in the past but now.....

After I had finished doing dishes we played three games of tile rummy. Caro beat me two games to one. We finished the evening with another two episodes of "Inventing Anna" on Netflix. We are enjoying this limited series quite a bit and are about half way through.

This morning (Wednesday) Caro was up about 6:30 AM and took this photo.

Today we did our usual walks and later, in the afternoon, Caro wanted to set up the umbrella on the beach.

We rented a couple of chairs from the restaurant people (the owners of the apartment here asked us to rent from the restaurant rather than bring the apartment chairs to the beach in order to help out those people). I brought out one of the apartment umbrellas (stored in the pool area) and put it up on the beach. We managed to 'somehow" find a good spot for us to enjoy ourselves....

Caro spent quite bit of time in the ocean today (and I did not!). I must have listened to three or fours hours of podcasts throughout the day (awesome!).

The paleta guy came buy and Caro bought another ten paletas. I wonder if she has enough to last her until we come home. Seriously I wonder!!

Tonight I imagine it will be more Netflix (lately this is our way to finish off the day). Caro is chatting with family in Mexico City so we might not get to any games.