Quiet and humid in Chacala

Not much new construction going on around town.

Some road repair people are in the process of re-cobbling the section of the road that goes from the paved road past Concha's down to the stores and the beach road. The top 40 feet or so got semi-washed out during one of the big rainstorms. But they got about half-way through and went away, leaving the road blocked off with those sawhorse things and big rocks. Which was pretty inconvenient for getting around town. So today I noticed that someone had removed the sawhorses and rocks on one side of the road and everyone but the big buses are zipping up and down again, bumping on the loose cobblestones. Oh well. (added August 26th: the repair hasn't returned yet - I think road crews operate the same all over the world - dig it up and then let it age for a month or so before repairing and filling in). Later, never did come back.

The Canadian couple building the new house uphill from the paved road and one block back are in town for a couple of weeks, staying at Chata and Isreal's lovely kitchen/terrace unit with super-view over the Malecon. Chama's crew is working on the house (and on the remodel of Casa Tortuga at the same time).

I am out of the loop about the garbage project. Don't know what's going on with that. But the pickup has been erratic. Saturday last week and then nothing until Monday this week. Whatever.

The lake behind the little stores and restaurants is filled with water now, but I haven't seen any crocodiles yet. Mosquitoes and no-see-ums are still pretty active in the evening. The ocean water is comfortable and not too hot yet.

Marina Chacala has tons of traffic in and out, construction trucks, pickups and and people cars.

The power is going to be off for three hours tomorrow morning. A planned outage for the whole town I think. Apparently everyone in town got a hand delivered note. A pickup with five people in it delivered mine. And one of the passengers spoke English and told me what the note said. Nice to have a translator along. (updated August 26th - turned out the power was off most of the day, but still... could have been worst).

A bunch of new signs, all professionally done, are going up along the roads into town (one fence posts or whatever). They appear to say "private property" in Spanish. I don't know what that's all about, but it doesn't seem to be on eijido land, for whatever that's worth.

A man who said he owns the lot between Gordon's (where I am living for the summer six months) and the paved road came by today and told me he is going to start building a house on his lot soon and wanting to clean off the lot (with chemicals) (which he did, with two helpers). I think I convinced him not to spray the bouganvillas and the palms that I have been babying along. (Later, the bouganvillas and palms he didn't spray have survivied)

Luckily he spoke English and was friendly. It's very strange, but he is actually the third person that has told me they own that lot. He said he was building a two-story house. I asked him what he thought about eijido land grab/sale/whatever and he said "screw them" but he used a different, more succinct, word. He said no one was taking the eijido leadership seriously on the land sale thing until after the next election. Who knows. (Later. A new group of eijido leader was elected in September, so who knows what will happen next).

That's it. It's still hot and humid.