Another new home -

So much for my beautiful lake view. Now we're in a proper park,
where we can hook up to water and 30-amp power, and where there's a pool (though Robin says it's cold, so I haven't braved it yet). The park is attached to the Hotel Tepetapan, which I write here because I'll never remember it otherwise.
Which brings me to my good news: I have clothes! Woo-hoo! Yesterday, while we were staying at the restaurant, I took a taxi to a laundry and left my clothes there, to be picked up at 5:00 this afternoon. Then I took the taxi home. However, there were a few little problems: I didn't get a receipt for my clothes, so I had no idea what the name of the laundry was, or its address; and worse still, I had no idea how we got there, or how we got back to the restaurant. For a tiny town, this place has a very confusing layout.

Never mind, I thought, it will be obvious when I'm coming from our new location, because we're just off the main street. No. It wasn't. About an hour ago, I walked out of the park and up to the corner. I looked around and thought, I haven't the faintest idea which direction to go to get to the laundry. Oh, dear. So of course I flagged down a taxi and told the driver my sad tale of woe. I said "It's the laundry that's near the rodeo." That didn't get a reaction. "Some lady told me it's the one by the rodeo. I don't know what the rodeo is." (by the way, it isn't the obvious! I think it's maybe the middle of town.) "Do you know where the laundries are?" Yes, he did, and we embarked on the same sort of cat's cradle trip that I took last night. I decided to consider that a good sign.

The first laundry we tried wasn't the right one. I knew that from half a block away. "Is it on a different street?" the driver asked. Yes, I knew that much. So we twisted and turned a bit more, and there it was. Great sighs of relief. I picked up my laundry and came home in the same cab, and even though I tried to watch where we were going, I know that I couldn't find my way to the laundry again. Never mind. I am not naked in Mexico.

But there's more good news - our friends Kristin and TJ have resurfaced, and they're way ahead of us - probably in Cancun by now. I'm so glad. I was beginning to go all maternal.

I've spent most of the afternoon cleaning out and defrosting the refrigerator, but I did take time to clean up my blog a little, too. Do you like it? I ditched my beach photo and replaced it with the same one I use over at The Red Room. I also did away with some messy stuff and replaced it with a new widget that Blogger just introduced (I think). It's a list of some of my favourite songs, of which you can play snippets, if it pleases you. Of course, I'm now thinking Oh No, I forgot Alison Crowe's version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah! But never mind. I'll just refer you to You Tube for that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIMOdVXAPJ0

Oh, and one more thing. This day is just full of good news. Remember the poem I was trying to find? An online friend of mine found it for me. She's a much better internet sleuth than I am. So here it is, in its entirety and its correctity*!:

Vertigo by Adrienne Rich

As for me, I distrust the commonplace;
Demand and am receiving marvels, signs,
Miracles wrought in air, acted in space
After imagination's own designs.
The lion and the tiger pace this way
As often as I call; the flight of wings
Surprises empty air, while out of clay
The golden-gourded vine unwatered springs.
I have inhaled impossibility,
and walk at such an angle, all the stars
Have hung their carnival chains of light for me:
There is a streetcar runs from here to Mars.
I shall be seeing you, my darling, there,
Or at the burning bush in Harvard Square.

I followed my friend's instructions to find the poem on Google (type in "I distrust the commonplace" Adrienne) and guess what I got? My own blog. I got the post in which I asked for help finding the poem. Aaaargh. I also got a couple of sites in Spanish. I guess I have to wait until I get home to search again and get the source book. Meanwhile, though, I have the right words. That's plenty to be going on with. One line that I'm always forgetting is "the flight of wings surprises empty air". After last night, I should have no trouble remembering that.

*my word.

photos from http://www.gaudis.com/

We drove to Catemaco and settled in the unassuming RV area beside La Ceiba restaurant. We have electricity, but not water (we are using what's in our tank). We don't have wi-fi, but the restaurant itself has it, and the connection is great - so now that I've taken a taxi to the laundry and back, we're enjoying a quiet afternoon drink while we catch up on the web.

Robin took a ride on his bike and found the proper RV park in town. He says it's beautiful, and he wants to move over there tomorrow. That's fine with me, but in the meantime I don't mind this place at all. Sitting here, I can see fronds of the open-air restaurant's palm roof hanging down and, below that, the beautiful lake just across the road. Almost the first thing we did when we arrived was to take a one-hour boat ride on the lake - to see the monkeys. Well, why not? I said. I wasn't too sure about the monkeys, but I was up for a boat ride. It was great.

The first place we went was to a Marian shrine somewhere along the shore. I wasn't quite sure why Erick the guide had brought us there, but I thanked him, and then we proceeded. We tore across the lake at great speed, then slowed down at several islands and crept right up to the shore where the monkeys - Erick called them 'macacos', so I gather they are some sort of macaque - were lounging about. He said they were from Thailand, and they were part of an experiment done by the university. Here, my Spanish failed me. I don't know what sort of experiment Erick was talking about. He also pointed out a number of birds, some of which we already knew from Canada and England. It was just weird to see moorhens swimming around, cheek by jowl with some very exotic and beautiful birds that could only come from this kind of climate. There were also kingfishers, which seem to thrive anywhere, and many, many egrets. The lake was studded with very sturdy-looking floating plants, and many of the plants were serving as chairs for the egrets. About two-thirds of the way through the tour, we pulled up by an island where there was some sort of eco-tour encampment. Erick told us that for a price, we could go for a thirty-minute walk there to see the turtles and the wild pigs and I forget what else. Robin's ankles weren't feeling up to the walk, so we declined, but it did look like a beautiful place to walk.

All in all, I'm very glad we took the tour. We are surrounded by ecological preserves of one sort or another - including a volcano. I'm not so sure about getting close to that.

I don't imagine we'll be here more than two or three days, but there's lots to see, and the climate is wonderful - not too hot, not too cold.

What has been haunting me today is that our holiday is more than half over. We are very near the Yucatan, which is the outermost part of the journey. Already I'm beginning to feel nostalgic.

Photos from catemaco.info