Yesterday we drove into Cancun airport to pick up Jason and Elizabeth. They have come to join us for about a week, tomorrow we are all joined by Pam and James. Mar will be even more thrilled,  she will have her babies all together. Anyway, the point to all this is that while we are wandering through the airport I spy a Starbucks. We head over for a couple of Chai Tea Latte’s, tall please. Gracias Senor, she responds, 820 pesos por favour. 820 pesos? (Oops, I’ve been corrected: You’re right, 82 pesos, not 820) Down the road, less than an hour away, we can buy a few days groceries for less than that! You can almost buy a dozen beer for that. Settle down Larry, you know that 2 anything latte in any of these stores in Canada or the states and you reach in your pocket for a $10. I’ve forgotten, that’s all.  A few days groceries for the family or a couple of lattes, take your pick. On our way out of town we stop at Costco and I pick up a litre of Bacardi Superior for about 100 pesos and think again about the lattes. I like Chai lattes but for that kind of money from here on in I think I better stick to the rum.

Can I have some ice please?

Tags: Mexico, RV Adventures
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and no, not checking it twice. That would be too easy! Our cupboards are starting to fill up with things we didn’t really want. See our kids begin arriving tomorrow so Mar needs to stock her kitchen. You know what mothers are like when it comes to making sure the kids (both 20 somethings and certainly capable of preparing food themselves) have enough to eat. Anyway, as I was saying, we have a few rather strange things in our cupboards now and are trying to prevent more. Mar was making Rice Pudding for our christmas dinner and the recipe called for vanilla flavored rice milk. We searched Wal-Mart, Chedraui and Soriano’s and came up with what you see in this picture. We were sure we had Rice Milk. Turns out we have rice flour that you add to milk. We also have some veggies we ought that we should take around to the neighbors and see what they are and how do you cook them before they go bad too. So now we make our list, then sit down with it and a English-Spanish dictionary and note the spanish words for things on our list. I mean for things like banannas it’s pretty easy and I can spy cerveza from out in the supermarket parking lot but you can’t live your life on a diet of banannas and beer. Sooner or later you have to move on. Let me just say we’ve had a few suprises over the past few weeks.

So now we making our list and translating it twice.

Yes we’ve been in Mexico now for 5 weeks now, we’ve been on the road for two months today. Seems like a life time ago we left Grimsby.

We notice a change in how people relate to us now. Part of it is we have lost that lily-white color we left with. We’re not the same color as the Mexicans, not even close, but we are brown. Now lily-white tourists stop and ask us directions or advice and often Mexicans open their conversations with “you guys live around here?”

Tags: Family, Mexico, RV Adventures
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Yesterday morning we put dogs and goodies in the truck, loaded up with water, snacks and, of course, dog cookies and headed out to Tulum and beyond. Down through the Sian Kaan Reserve, onto the dusty, gravel road, heading towards Punta Allen. On our way we were stopped at a temporary Army checkpoint. Seems a couple of the troops needed a ride to their barracks, also in Punta Allen. Meet the boys:

 This is the first time in my knowledge there has ever been weapons in our truck. Guaranteed, the first time there were ever machine guns. The soldier on your left spoke good english and at one point told me that I spoke very bad spanish. Note, not just bad, but very bad. I told him though, I told him my english isn’t that good either.

While at lunch we meet a couple of american tourists who are staying in town who told us how you get to the lighthouse at the actual point (punta). Lighthouse says Mar, we are off again. (She is looking for the perfect lighthouse to paint)

You can see the jungle closing in a bit:

 Thank goodness our truck is a 4 by 4. In typical Vanstone fashion we can always just “forge ahead”. A couple of miles down the road, as promised by the gringo tourist, here’s the lighthouse.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the ride.

Tags: Mexico, RV Adventures
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