Appologies for the lacking of blogs lately, it has been more than an inconvenience not to have internet access in our condo for most of this week, so going out to sit in the palapa hut has some ambience for thought, but it just wasn’t quite enough. But also, I had not much to tell. This blog might be a bunch of “random goodness”.

 This past week we had our 3rd round of visitors stay with us and unfortunately for them the waves weren’t cooperating for surfing, although we did manage to get in one day of less-than-mediocre waves. Enough to enjoy a few good catches anyway, and more importantly the weather was great for the entire week.

 We mistakenly set our clocks ahead this weekend, as we thought that Mexico participated in the daylight savings at the same time as Canada and the US, but we were wrong, and didn’t learn until a full 24hrs later, thanks to a friend here at the complex. Duh. At least we dropped our guests off early at the airport instead of too LATE. I did enjoy our day of later sunsets, with the light of day lasting until almost 8:30 you can get a lot more done. That, and Nixon is much cooler on our morning walks…

How is Nixon? Everyone always asks, but there’s not much to report. He’s full of piss and vinegar as usual, needing a good run on the beach, which he almost got today. He loves to have the sand in between his toes and kick up his heels for a few bounces, lucky I had my footing, or he’d be checkin’ out the ocean too. I am missing him in the pool more than he is, but I think his ears are finally okay again, so maybe we’ll let him back in there soon. I enjoy my time on the deck, with the doors wide open to the world to let the breeze through, at least for just that one hour of the day.

We made our third trip to Jero’s car wash today, hung out for 2 hours while they spick’n’spanned the car up nice. We enjoy “reading” the spanish newspaper while we’re there, and it helps to have my little dictionary for translation. I think I learned alot actually. Not only did I learn some more spanish language, I also continued to learn more about life here.

It’s unbelieveable what photos and stories show up on the front cover of the news. Yesterday, at a traffic light, the front page was a completely charred and deceased guy, today, car accident victims entrapped in the vehicle with close up shots of each person who lost their life in the crash, exactly in position of demise. How sick. I really felt awful not only for these people’s complete loss of privacy, but for their families, heaven forbid they hadn’t heard the news yet. One can only imagine, waking up to find that on the front cover of the newspaper; your dad, your wife, your child. It’s rediculous, have they no decency?!

I also flipped through the rest of the pages and most, if not all of the stories were involving motor vehicle accidents, related to excess speed or drivers under the influence, and usually young people in their early 20’s in the evening. This is why we don’t go far at night.  It makes me wonder whether its lack of education, lack of law (or punishment) or just a lack of the value placed on life. I’ve discussed, in past blogs, the issue of people piling into the back of cars and trucks, of course with no seatbelt, but also sometimes completely hanging over the sides or roof, tearing around wild and windey roads at high speeds.

Is that why their are numerous crosses in a row along the Punta de Mita highway or the one to Sayulita? Because they flew out of the truck box? Or were they a happy family on their way to the beach, minding the rules, and driving safely when some other maniac with poor regard for human life rips into their lane on a blind corner to pass a slow moving vehicle? Who knows, I can’t quite get enough from the story in the papers as my spanish still really sucks.

But, at least, someone has begun to realize that people are dying on the roads…maybe. There was a road-blocking protest to raise awareness and to stop the rediculous and unnecessary loss of life. This was the only positive story in the entire newspaper. I realize there are other problems going on here, but come on Mexico, you can do better than that. Educate the kids, AND the adults, and lets bring safety up a notch or two for everyone’s sake. People are loosing children over this preventable problem. I would like to get my hands on some statistics, because even though these things happen at home in Canada,though they shouldn’t, commonly due to weather, but sometimes not, it sure seems extremely frequent here, and I’d almost not quite hesitate to call it a trauma- epidemic, if I could. P.S. an ambulance just went by with sirens. Sigh. Not to mention, you always see two people in the front of the ambulance, does this mean that they are on the way to the call, or no one is alive to work on in the back, or the paramedics are just drivers. I’m not sure.

Anyway, not sure if I can recover the mood of this blog, so with that said, let’s talk about spring. The days seem warmer, even the cloudy ones. The flowers are definitely more in bloom. And, people (snowbirds) are starting to head home. We said goodbye to one couple in our building (the butter tart making lady Diane), and our dinner friends from Vancouver leave this friday. The other Calgary couple with the black poodle leave tomorrow. Not sure who’s left here, it seems like maybe the next 2 or 3 weeks will be short term vacationers, doing the spring break thing, or the Semana Santa Mexican holiday.