Back in Bacalar for Christmas

Sunrise right out of Casa Chica here at Casita Carolina

Izamal was a perfect place to relax for a couple of days after being in Merida & Campeche, two cities with lots of people & traffic. There are no stoplights in Izamal, it is a small town and our accommodations were like living in a jungle paradise. It was Shana’s favorite stop on her trip to the Yucatan.

We spent our last morning shopping for little Christmas gifts for Shana to give to family & friends. One jewelry designer/craftsman stole our hearts with his love of his stones & his incredibly positive energy. He quickly created a necklace for Lindsay out of a beautiful polished stone that he had found. Shana bought a few pieces from him and when she went to pay him he put some ‘magic beans’ in her hands and demonstrated how the Mayans take stress away by rubbing and releasing negative energy. Keith spent quite a bit of time with him while Shana & I looked at other crafts. Keith reported that he said “I am not afraid to die, it’s life that I’m afraid of” at which point this man immediately looked at his Mayan friend giving Keith the impression that he had quoted Mayan philosophy. There was magic in the air that morning! I was I had a picture to display, my camera was out of juice, Shana took one which I hope to post when we return to SLC.

Crazy sailors on Laguna Bacalar, out way after nightfall with no wind at all!

We had to spend one night in Cancun so that getting Shana back to the airport in the morning would be easy. Cancun is an urban jungle! Beautiful landscaping, but overdevelopment is amazing! We sat on the beach enjoying a sandwich before the sun went down. I had made the sandwiches and walked away to help Shana purchase the drinks and a flock of seagulls nearly carried our lunch away. Luckily Keith fought them away, but it was amazing to see how quickly they moved right in. They must have been just waiting for the opportunity to grab a snack themselves because I wasn’t five feet away when Keith starting hollering. After the four hours in the car we were hungrier and luckily victorious in the struggle for food.

After breakfast Shana waited for her flight, we returned the rental car & boarded a bus first back to Playa del Carmen (one hour) and then on to Bacalar (another four hours). The ride wasn’t bad on the 2^nd class bus; we both had some interesting conversations. We arrived at Casita Carolinas happy to find Caroline here for the holiday. She has an event planned for every night we will be here. Last night we thoroughly enjoyed a one-man rendition of Dickens’ Christmas Carol very well done by the current manager of the ‘hotel’, Austin. Caroline throws great parties, we fondly remembered being here three years and were hoping for the same great atmosphere this season, which we are finding.

We have met other travelers from Oaxaca, Quebec, Ontario, the Yukon Territory, France, and Germany so far. Lots of traveling stories are being shared. We also renewed a friendship started on our last visit with a neighbor three houses up the lakefront, Jim Bacon from Wisconsin. He took us sailing last time and I’m sure we will be sailing again in the next couple of days.

Here in Bacalar there’s not much to do which is perfect. Yesterday I sat by the beautiful lake in the sunshine and read all day, finished the book this morning. Now that I am finished writing these memories I’ll start another book. The temperature is around 80 with 90+humidity so all is right in our world.