(6) The Cave and Arbol de Hinche Huevos

     Every year we always hear about someone doing a trek up to the caves.  What caves? where are they? are they very big? how is the hike? And so the questions go and it is always the same thing, “one of these days we should go to the caves”.  Well one of these days finally happened and now I have all (some) of the answers to all the questions.

    From Troncones, it is short drive north through the fishing village of Majuhua.  Continue on the well traveled dirt road that leads to Hwy 200 and when you see a cornfield... pull over.  It is the only cornfield on this road so once you see it you are there….if you make it to the higway.. you went way too far.  My intrepid guide asked if we could take my machete because he had forgotten his and mine was in the car.  Why would I happen to have a machete in the car you ask?  Because you never know when you may run across a fresh coconut that needs to be consumed on a hot November day…remember all you snowbound northerners, we are still in the low 90’s.   From the looks of where we were headed my guess was there would be no coconut trees but only dense jungle.   Glad I wore shorts while my guide was wearing jeans….did he forget to mention something to me that might help during our hike.  “No problemo” and so we hiked through the dew soaked field that quickly soaked my tennis shoes and legs.  As we walked through the tall grass all I could think was: “I wonder if there are spiders and snakes, I hate spiders and snakes, maybe I should be carrying the machete”.  Once we crossed the field and entered into the jungle it proved to be a well traveled path.  We climbed a pretty steep uphill, even by Colorado standards, that traversed among towering trees.  I was very surprised to see remnants of several platforms in the trees with an old zip line.  When I asked Blanco (my guide) about them he said it was just some crazy Canadians who hung out there years ago.  The zip lines actually looked in decent shape but the wooden platforms hanging in the trees looked anything but safe.  We hiked a good 45 minutes at a brisk pace and reached the cave.  The cave is enormous!  I guess I had envisioned something much smaller and not nearly so impressive.  We scaled the set rope down into the cave where we could fully take in the size of it all.  However, not having lamps we really could not explore very far, and the intense humidity quickly drove us back up to dryer air.  On the hike back down the hill Blanco pointed out various plants of interest.  Perhaps the most interesting was a tree that he warned against touching.  He said the tree is called “arbol de hinche huevos” and then grabbed himself to make the point more clear.  The translation is “tree of swollen balls” and the story is that’s what happens if you touch it…the tree that is.  Anyway, whether it’s true or not, I kept my distance.

                                      The cornfield

                                     Machete Marty

                                            The platform of death

                                  The cave and Blanco

                           Arroz de leche...the thorns on this plant won't make your balls swell but it will hurt!

Fruit on a Coacoyul tree

(5) Fun In The Sun

     It is such a strange feeling to be on the other side of the building process...to be an observer instead of the builder.  I must admit it is kind of nice, my back doesn't hurt at the end of a long day and yet I still feel alot of satisfaction with all the progress that is being made.  It is also very interesting to watch and learn a new (to me) method of construction.  But there is only so much time I can hang around the job site before other things beckon me to come and explore...
     I did a great mountain bike ride out to the lagoon.   Riding through small fishing villages, great views of the coast, through coconut groves, across rivers...all is good in my world today.  I actually remembered to bring the camara....so as the saying goes "a picture is worth a 1000 words", I leave you with the following images:

(4) The Pour

     Saturday morning I watched as a big white pumper truck rolled past in front of the place we are staying.   Then 15 minutes later I saw a concrete truck go by in the same direction.   "Debi, are you ready?  The concrete is here so... lets go watch!"    When we arrived at our lot the first of 3 concrete trucks was already backed up to the pumper and ready to start.  Great timing because I'm like a  little kid in a candy shop when it comes to watching heavy equipment at work and I didn't want to miss a thing.  The pumper truck's bum swung a good 75' out and above the concrete forms and without hesitation started the pour.  It was a beautiful sight, almost brought tears to my eyes.  I watched as they poured concrete for 2 hours....Debi watched for 15 minutes before she left.  I guess she just doesn't share the same enthusiasm I have for these sorts of things.  Anyway, the crew worked like a well oiled machine putting concrete into all the forms and then leveling everything off in preparation for the tabicon that will complete the foundation walls.  Wow!!!  What a great feeling to actually see something more permanent going in at this point.  It is one thing to see wood forms and rebar in place but to actually have solid concrete really drives home the point that this building is going to happen!

(1) The Beginning

     Once upon a time, in a sleepy little Mexican village, called Troncones, there was a dream.   A dream about a cool ocean breeze, crashing waves, soft white sand, uncrowded beaches.  But this was not your ordinary, "I need a vacation" kind of dream, this was a, I'm awake and can't believe I'm actually living a dream come true.   Well, in this dream there was couple (and two dogs), and this couple had had it up to their waists in snow and needed a change.  A change in climate, a change in altitude, a change in life style.  So the adventure began.......

(3) The Foundation

     We are into November and the weather has been perfect.  Temperatures have dropped to the high 80's to low 90's and it is actually cool in the evenings.   This has been such a nice reprive from the higher temps  and humidity we had been enduring.
     The building process is moving right along....the excavation was completed for the cimentation (foundation) and most of the varillo (rebar) has been set.  The cimentation is a very tedious process with the huge amount of varillo that has to be cut, formed, and all tied together. All of the castillos (columns) have to be hand made and tied into the varillo (rebar) that forms the zapata corrida (footer) and contratrabe (stem wall).  All of our outside corners are rounded so the castillos had to be custom made for these areas.  The easiest way to describe the construction is to basically say it is concrete post and beam filled with brick. We decided on using the tabique (red brick) instead of the tabicon (concrete block) because of its better insulating properties.  The builders are expecting to be ready to pour concrete by the end of the week or the beginning of next week.  Once the foundation is in place things will start moving along pretty fast.  At that point it is a matter of setting tabique (red brick) between the castillos and then everything is tied together with the trabes (bond beams).    The builders will actually use a concrete truck to pour the cimentation so there will be no dry seams.  We are happy that our builders are working hard everyday and are taking the extra step to make sure we have an incredibly strong foundation.  This is a real good thing cuz we are in an earthquake prone area. Our friend Christine told us tales of at least eight minor quakes she has felt in the last 3 years she's been here.
So..in the meantime while our builders are busy getting ready for the pour...Marty and I are busy trying to keep our own foundations in shape. Our day begins waking up and doing a 20-30 minute session of stretching (yoga/pilates) and then off with the doggies on a 3 mile or so walk.  Next we look for the activity du jour. Between mountain biking through the coconut groves, swimming at our friends pool, surfing or scoping new/advanced surfing areas (for the future), kayaking in the lagoon...or shopping trips we manage to keep ourselves pretty busy. Then theres the meal planning...two out of three times that means we have to decide which restaurant is calling us!  We've also made up some wonderful meals ourselves including:  smoothies, french toast, fruit salads,  huge vegetable salads, avocado sandwiches, chicken mole,  fresh lobster, shrimp and fish.... yum!  Now that it's cooler it's going to be alot easier to cook.  Speaking of which, its LUNCH TIME!!  Hasta Luego.

(2) Casa No Problemo!

It is the second week of October and the afternoons are still too warm to do anything except siesta, go to Zihuatanejo to shop in an air conditioned store or find a nice cool shady spot and write a blog site.  What better way to lolaway an afternoon than to write about the trials and tribulations of building in Mexico?  Well maybe hanging by the pool with an ice cold one...but falling asleep before 7 pm every night and an enormous beer gut after 6 months of this is probably not the best idea. So a blog site it is.

It has been a long process to finally get to this point....this point being that the actual construction is about to begin.   Approximately 3 years of working with an architect, talking with numerous builders, expats, dealing with a environmental plan, and of course corruption (it comes in so many forms) and finally we are breaking ground!  Day One started with a meeting between us, our builder and the building inspector, who also happens to be both our accountant and the builders accountant! A man with many hats!  Wish we could have taped the conversation...pretty funny...alot of the words went over our heads but in the end we are pretty sure we understood (something!).  Oh this will be fun! And now they say the key words are ...No Problemo!!! Jose Luis (the main contractor) is not drinking these days so unfortunately we can't really toast to that motto!!  Okay we'll do it with some sparkling water.

The following day we spray painted all the building locations onto the ground (including future ones if we ever have the money to add them)...to visualise where things will lay on the land. The red ants payed little attention to these markings and continued on with their business as usual.  Those little buggers are everywhere! and damn do they hurt when they bite! And we can't forget the anaphlatic shock/allegic reaction they imposed on poor Debi last year.
We stopped by later and all the materials arrived to build the workers hangout.  This bodega is where they will store all the concrete, wood and the workers can go to get out of the sun, where the (young) security guard will sleep..with a fierce dog to scare off potential robbers. They often have a tv setup for the lonely dude!  Photos to come later on that lovely shack....in the mean time....

                                                .... here's a photo of one of our views.  Not too bad and note, there is not a snow flake anywhere in view!