January 9th, 2006.

Petatlan and Ixtapa.

What the fuck is a “mofle”.  I don’t know, but it sounds damned cute!  It probably bites gently in your sleep, and sits on its haunches and nibbles gently at your toes.  Perhaps it’s purchased at the “ferreteria”.  Another term that I’ve seen a lot but have not a CLUE what it could be.

The drivers here are insane.  Very aggressive – and stop lights are brand new here… and yet I haven’t seen any accidents the whole time we’ve been in Mexico.  Interesting.

A dusty camero on the road to Petatlan. One of the few cars that’s not tricked out or hideously economic. I Love the image of it covered in the dirt. Of all of them, this is one of my favourite photos
Much like "ferreterias", I want "mofles" to be related to small fuzzy creatures. They're not.
Much like “ferreterias”, I want “mofles” to be related to small fuzzy creatures. They’re not.

I saw a jaguar and a tiger being drawn by a pickup truck through the market today.  Curse my slow-ass not-getting-my-camera-thereness-in-time.. er… ass.  Sigh.

Pedro, the crazy coconut man. Visiting a coconut plantation short of Petatlan.
Pedro, the crazy coconut man. Visiting a coconut plantation short of Petatlan.

I like the way they identify my shirt here – “tooonderrrcats!”

The day was spent chasing alligators on a little boat, spotting iguanas in trees, and avoiding panic attacks in mangrove… groves… carved with machete through wetlands infested by ducks that run on the surface of the water.

Carnage.
LIZARD!!!!
Angry, angry roosters. They stayed like that the whole time we were near them.
Angry, angry roosters. They stayed like that the whole time we were near them.q

We went to a coconut plantation and cut down coconuts and split them on steel spikes.  I hate coconut, hate the flavour and hate the texture – but fresh they are gentler and softer and exquisite.  Either eating the seed if you let them hang on the plant longer, or eating the actual … I don’t know my coconut parts very well… but they’re good… and with hot sauce?

Daaaamn.

We went out to Cuytlan and Manzanillo today, released sea turtles and wandered the black sands of the beaches there.


Marty’s talking about Grandpa.  I don’t… well… he’s just so angry [after the fact, I’ve been dreaming a LOT about my Uncle Marty just screaming obscenities at my grandfather – it makes me wake up crying and I don’t know what to do with that], and I suppose I understand that.  I was semi-fortunate in that my own father’s dissolution was comparatively rapid.  It’s horrifying to see more hospice… “victims” and realize that the mental dissolution had more to do with the drugs he was fed than with his actual death.

Iguanas in the trees! Vaguely like my concept of heaven.
Iguanas in the trees! Vaguely like my concept of heaven.
The shrine outside the church in Petatlan. So beautiful. I had to wait a long time before there was no-one inside kneeling and leaving candles. The walls are scrawled with names of families and children. This is belief in something greater.
The shrine outside the church in Petatlan. So beautiful. I had to wait a long time before there was no-one inside kneeling and leaving candles. The walls are scrawled with names of families and children. This is belief in something greater.

And that makes me angry angry angry…

“He had some kind of spell” – I think it’s bizarre that Marty would think that Grandpa is faking any of this for attention or anything.  Though I understand how his playing games would be far preferable to the dementia that everyone knows is settling in.

Marty’s exclaimation of “There’s GOBLINS down there!  Let’s SPIT on’em and tell’em it’s rain!” breaks the pall of my mood and gets me to thinking about the napkins that escape overboard, fluttering in the wind like ghosts.

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