“Does anybody really know what time it is?”

A favorite old Chicago song came to mind this morning when we woke up in our villa. Bob’s watch had mysteriously reset itself to local time which is mountain time here, we think, in Nayarit. But just a little bit south of here, when you cross back over into Jalisco—which is where PV is—it becomes central time again. No matter. The back refrain for the song goes: “I don’t care…”
I’m sitting at the table on the deck, facing the ocean. It’s morning and the sun hasn’t come over the mountains from behind us yet. It’s shining on the ocean and on the palms sloping down to the cove, but we’re still in complete shade. We’re supposed to have internet wireless here, but Juan told us yesterday it hasn’t been working for a couple of days. Doesn’t know why: Ojala que funciona muy pronto. Ojala, indeed! No TV, no internet, no news…..Oh. My. God. I’m out of touch with the world! We have our Mexican cell phone with us, but since we use it so seldom, we can’t even figure out how to check messages. There’s no land line. We’re not even sure how broadband is provided out here. There’s a dish up by Peacock, so maybe it’s brought in…or not…by satellite. It certainly doesn’t deliver TV. It’s interesting though. I can’t web-surf, can’t talk on the phone. Town is too far away to walk to. So, what am I doing? WRITING!

So, now I know the key—total and complete isolation. There’s a wonderful breeze and all the animals, 4-legged as well as 2, are muy contentos.

After our arrival yesterday, which was either 2:20 or 3:30—the trip took us about 4 ½ hours—we unpacked our clothes and put the foodstuff away. I’m glad I brought as much as I did because the stores nearby are just little ones—abarrotes—with minimal supplies, and we didn’t see anything of any size, like a Soriana, on our way here. There’s a Mega store just north of PV, but that’s entirely too far to go. When we run out of what we’ve brought, we can get fish and shrimp in town and all the fresh veggies and fruit we need. I made us a couple of drinks—G&T for Bob, a margarita for me—some cheese and crackers (we hadn’t had lunch), and we plunged into the pool—not with the drinks and cheese, obviously. Very comfortable water temp. The air temp was in the high 80s and humid even at this time of year. I wonder if it ever gets really dry like much of the rest of Mexico. Incredible views of the ocean. We found a very tiny boom box but couldn’t get it to play, so we used my laptop to play cds. Very nice.

As it got dark, we started to prepare dinner. Bob built a fire in the grill for steaks. It has a gas starter and there was some mesquite wood. I made a salad and popped a couple of potatoes in the oven. Very simple but yummy. I was amazed at the flavor the mesquite gave the steaks. We opened a bottle of Chilean red and lit one of the little lanterns with citronella oil we had brought with us. But with the breeze, we didn’t notice any bugs at all. At whatever time we had eaten, listened to music and the sound of the ocean waves, cleaned up the kithen, we had quick showers and went to bed. We had to lock away any food, such as cereal or crackers, because critters from the jungle around us raid these open areas at night. Bob blocked the open doorway of our villa with the collapsible kennel to keep the dogs from wandering off in the night and getting eaten*. We started off with the mosquito nets spread around us, but that didn’t feel comfortable, so we shoved them aside. With the ceiling fan, a box fan, and the breezes, we were just right. Daisy snuggled very close all night.

*From literature here in the villa about the area regarding animals:

“Jaguar, cougar, deer, skunk, possum, warthog, raccoon, iguana, green parrot, macaw, pelican, dolphin, sailfish, mahi mahi, red snapper, turtle, whale, etc.” Oh, and toilet-diving frogs!!

The Spanish version seems to include more: “jaguar, puma, ocelote, venado, zorrillo, armadillo, mapache, iguana, tlacuache, guacamaya, perico, gaviota, pelicano, urraca, garza, caiman, delfin, pez dorado, pargo, pez vela, cangrejo, tortuga, ballena jorobada, etc.” I know at least one of those—caiman—was left off the English list. Hmmm.

This morning, we walked down to the cove, about 100 very steep steps. Once down there, we couldn’t really get to the water because there was a drop-off and a steep slide of dirt between the end of the steps and the rocks where the waves were crashing. The dogs are nimble and young enough to manage it though and seemed to enjoy the romp. Later, we came back up and had breakfast. While I was cooking—with the open-air view to the ocean, remember—Bob yelled, “Come, look right now! Whales!” So we got the mini-binoculars and watched them blowing just offshore. Very cool. Bob says it’s his first whale sighting, but I had seen them once before when I rode Susannah’s ship from Pearl Harbor to San Diego. It’s very calm out there today. We’ve seen a few motorboats and one large sailboat with several sails. Bob scouted out another beach with the dogs while I’ve been writing. I think we’re going to head that way soon.