Leaving Tepoztlan – Days 122 to 129

Sunrise on my morning exercise walk to the pyramid

Tomorrow we take to the road again and continue our travels as our six week housesit is drawing to a close when Louise returns from Ireland this evening. 

We expect her about 10:30pm this evening and, no doubt she’ll be severely jetlagged after nearly a day of travelling (via Amsterdam we think!), but we anticipate she’ll have the welcome of her life from three very excited dogs. At the moment we plan on returning here on 27^th January (6 days time) to look after the dogs again while Louise takes an eight day trip to Ecuador to look for a new house for her planned move there in March, so our departure is probably temporary. I write ‘probably’ as Luna dog has started limping a little again and Louise may want to spend her time with her rather than go to Ecuador, so we’ll see what she says when she gets home.

We are always up for trying something different. Whilst walking round the market we saw these, we asked 'is it a fruit', 'Si' they replied, 'Muy rico' (very tasty), so we bought one...

Her jetlag won’t be helped by the fact that we’ll still be here in the only bedroom and she will be out in the lounge/kitchen on the camp-bed and probably feeling like the middle of the night is the middle of the day, but we’ll be leaving her in the morning to catch the bus to Mexico City, so she’ll have her house back from about midday tomorrow.

Its called a Mamey they told us, so we had it for breakfast with other fruit. If you can imagine, it's a fruit equivalent of an avocado, same consistency but a slightly sweeter version. It was OK, nothing wrong with it, but we decided not to bother again. Probably why they are not popular outside Mexico

We’re not sure why it is Luna has started limping again, we haven’t been throwing her ball, that she so desperately wants, and have tried to rest her as much as possible, but we occasionally don’t stop her in time dashing out into the garden to bark at passing dogs, horses and miscellaneous things and so that, coupled with her occasional ‘tatty turns’ chasing her blanket and Maty dog in the house have probably contributed to it. The vet thinks it’s probably a weakness she has and will always be susceptible to it so, it’s possible her ball throwing and retrieving days are over. Poor Luna, it’s the thing she really enjoys too! From now it’s patio door closed permanently and they all have to ask to go out, we’ll have to stop her jumping around in the house and there’s now a big pole in the garden to tie her lead to when she goes out to enjoy the sun and/or shade. She doesn’t understand and looks quite miserable, but it is for her own good. We have told her but she just gives us those ‘Princess Diana’ eyes making us feel quite horrible.

The first of the five Black Widow spiders Jackie found in the garage. If not always deadly to humans they give a very nasty bite

So this week not a lot has happened, I went for a brisk walk up to the pyramid and back early one morning just for the exercise, leaving Jackie in bed with three dogs, who hadn’t moved by the time I got back just after 8:00am! Managed to see the sunrise over the town and mountains, which was quite special, after scrambling up some rocks to a viewpoint just minutes before the sun appeared from behind the mountains.

Here's another one

We had a slightly unsettling evening one day when Jackie misplaced her ring that we bought in Peru and, after searching the house she went out into the garden with a torch to see if it was out there. She went down the outside stairs to the front gate and then walked into the open garage, where the dogs leads are stored for their daily walks, thinking it may be there. She did find it the following day, just outside the front gate, so it was a happy ending, but before she exited the garage she panned her torch around to the garage doors…….

And a third. We put all five on Facebook, so have a look there

She calmly came back up the stairs and back into the lounge where I was sitting and announced: ‘There are at least three Black Widow spiders in webs on the garage doors downstairs!’ Grabbing my camera we followed the torch beam into the garage and saw at least five separate spiders that definitely were Black Widows. The red hourglass shape on the backs of the plump black bodies were unmistakable! What did we do? Nothing, they actually weren’t doing us any harm, weren’t in the house and, somehow we’ve got quite used to having things around that could do us harm. By next day they were nowhere to be seen as apparently they are nocturnal, so we’re going into the garage but staying away from the doors!

Last night and today has been another marching band and loud fireworks event from early morning, 6:00am on Friday morning and it’s still going on now. Twice the band have been passed the house, playing good music, but the trouble is that they like to let off rockets that seem to serve no other purpose than producing an incredibly loud bang, like a gun going off, which seems to form part of the music. Normally the dogs don’t turn a hair, but when they are right outside the window, little Maty dog gets quite upset, needing cuddles and shaking like a leaf! Poor thing.

The marching band outside our window this morning. See the guy with the white 'T' shirt and light brown trousers? He's holding a load of those very loud rockets which he sets off at odd times.

Last night we were watching a film, ignoring the bangs until the noise built up to the sound of half a dozen machine guns going off in unison. Putting the film on pause we watched an amazing firework display right outside our window. Searching the internet (and using Google Translate) I found the 21^st January is ‘Tepoztlan Operation Birthday: Terrace Guanabana Tepoztlan’. They say: ‘At this time we take the party to a place outside of the city, where mountains and green life makes us company; Where the disco music, funk, house & techno, will make a magnificent afternoon of sun and tropical drinks, precenciando the landscape from the "Terrace Guanaba Tepoztlan". The after party awaits us in Oaxtepec, a private house *** pool and space to follow the party. We look forward to your assistance, thank you all.’

And while the band was playing very loud music outside the window and rockets were going off little Maty was shaking and panting while sitting on Jackies lap. Cookie, next to her and Luna in the background were not in the least bothered!

Mmm, since it seems to be close-by, we may not have much sleep tonight – poor Louise and dogs!

Anyway, that’s all for now, next stop Mexico City and a visit to Teotihuacan, an ancient Mesoamerican city. More on that later….