Every day a new adventure. Today R and I finally caught up with J & D, a couple we met here last year - lovely people - and we went to their house for tea. J played his clarinet for us. (He is very good. This was the first time we had heard him play.) It turned out that they know the man who owns the dog that bit me, and they say he probably has had his dogs vaccinated. They got me the number for the clinic in Kino Viejo, and I asked the park office manager to call for me, to determine whether or not I should go in. The answer was yes, so I hitched a ride into Kino Viejo and went to see the very handsome young Doctor Duran, who examined my injury, told me it looked good, gave me a prescription for an antibiotic. He wanted to give me a tetanus shot, but I told him I had had one within the last three years or so. Throughout the interview, the doctor apologized for his English, said he had learned it from television and it wasn't very good - but actually it was good.

When we drove by the place where I was attacked, I pointed the house out. Both dogs were still loose, but the one that didn't bite me was now wearing a collar.

What struck me as I was riding through Kino Viejo is that there is a great comfort in having a place where, as you travel, you can stop and feel at home. Kino is like that for me. I know where to go to buy tortillas, where the fish market is - and which vendor is the most dependable. As of this trip, I know where to get my bike fixed - not that it stays fixed, but that's another story. I know where the clinic is, and I know that if nobody is at the front of the clinic, you go around to the back door and knock really hard. Most of all, I know that there are people here who will smile when they see us, welcome us back, be our friends.

I don't know. It almost seems I shouldn't go on holidays. Last year, I fell off my bike and landed first on my head, then in hospital. This time, this morning, I took a walk down Calle del Mar because the temperature had finally reached 18C, the sun was shining, and I sorely needed some exercise. I left home at 11:15 a.m., walked for about 20 minutes up the street toward Kino Viejo, passed one of many houses, heard a scuffling and barking, turned to see a dog bearing down on me - a black and tan, mostly tan, hound obviously intent on attacking me. Before I could do anything about it, not that there was much I could do, the dog bit a hole in my right calf.

Just then a garbage truck came along, and two men leapt out of the truck to come to my aid. They frightened the dog off, and then they hollered the house's occupant out.

There was a comic moment in which I stood talking to this man. It went like this:

S: Habla Vd. ingles?

Man: (silent, hangdog expression)

S: Hablas ingles, senor?

Man: Huh?

S: Do you speak English?

Man: Yeah.

S: Your dog just bit me.

Man: Where?

I showed him my leg, complete with puncture wound and blood. He asked (with a southern American drawl) whether I wanted to go to a doctor and have it looked at. I told him I wanted assurance that I wasn't going to catch rabies. Had his dog had its rabies shot?

Man: Which one?

S: Which one what?

Man: Which dog? I got two.

S: I have no idea which one. I only saw one. Do you mean one of them has had its shots and the other one hasn't? (I'm beginning to panic now.)

Man: No, they both got their shots - over in Hermosillo. They's both healthy dogs.

At that point the two dogs noticed what was going on, and they both came out barking. The man shooed them back in. The dogs didn't look at all alike, and I told him which dog had bitten me.

Man: Never had no problem like this before.

So I came home and R cleaned the wound for me, put some antibiotic ointment on it, bandaged it. Once in a while he double checks to see that it isn't inflamed. I don't know what else a doctor could do, short of putting me through rabies shots. I would like to believe the man who told me his dogs had had their shots, but the dogs weren't wearing any collars, thus no tags, and I don't know quite how to handle the situation. I have never been bitten before. I almost wish that the dog in question were an infamous cur that had bitten half the people on the street. I could count heads to make sure everybody it bit had survived. The fact that - at least according to its owner - this is unusual behaviour on its part is worrisome. I certainly did nothing to provoke the attack.

Anyway, that pretty well put an end to my adventures for the day. The water men finally showed up, so I've been consoling myself with green tea. The shrimp man came around again, as well, this time selling the great big prawns for 150 pesos a kilo. He didn't even tell me that this was the last day for prawns. He's slipping. We had fish and prawns and zucchini and noodles for dinner.

I missed a day. Sorry about that. Yesterday was a little strange. I slept in (until 8 a.m.!), then walked up the mountain*, carrying the camcorder. I took some footage of the osprey nests and their inhabitants, then proceeded up the hill. I stopped about 50 feet from the top and turned around so that my feet pointed downward at about a 45 degree angle. That was as high as I felt safe in climbing, given the terrain. I took some truly lousy film of the view toward Kino, toward Baja California, toward my feet. The ground up there is like crumbling brick, the drop to rocks and water is precipitous, and the wind was blowing, so I was not feeling very adventurous. On the way back down the hill, with the camcorder tucked in its case, I took a step forward and SPLAT! Out went my feet. Down went my bum. My hands were slightly scraped and my dignity was decidedly compromised, but the camera was unharmed. I was very glad that I hadn't gotten brave up at the cliff's edge.

I walked back into our village just in time to see Martin, the vegetable man, drive out of the park. Oh no. I ran down the street yelling Martin! Martin! Fortunately, he was stopping anyway, in front of a home just up the street. I panted up to his truck and started shopping for green chiles, potatoes, cilantro, tomatoes, apples, limes (oh, yes! limes. I'd been craving them.). R came up beside the truck and asked Martin to wait, said he'd be right back with some money. "Hola," I said, surprising him. He hadn't seen me standing there, and he was ready to do the vegetable shopping on his own. He added some tangerines to the haul, we paid our $65 (that's pesos, not dollars. The symbols are the same. Very confusing when you're doing business at the border) and we went home.

Back at the RV, R informed me that my front tire was flat again. I decided to go inside and ignore that problem.

I got out my handy little bottle of Microdyn and washed the fruit and vegetables. I roasted two of the green chiles, put them in a plastic bag to steam while I chopped tomatoes, cilantro, onion for pico de gallo. Then I peeled the chiles under cold water, chopped one of them into the pico de gallo, put the other into a frying pan with cooked beans and some more onion, producing the loveliest mixture to eat with my tortillas, which I warmed over the open flame. I carried everything to the table and had a feast. R said I adapt very well to different types of food. I said what do you mean? This is my native cuisine! R is adapting, though. He's eating tortillas now, doesn't even seem to be pining for sliced bread.

After dinner we played Scrabble, then Skip-Bo. What happened in between lunch and dinner, I honestly don't know. I think I went into some sort of blue funk because my bicycle was kaput.

This morning I suggested that we go all the way into Hermosillo because there were things like Wal-Mart there where, surely, we could find inner tubes and patch kits. We boarded the bus at 9:45 a.m. 131pesos for the two of us to get to Hermosillo. They were playing a movie called Two for the Money with Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey. The dialogue was in English. I watched it for an hour or so, until we got to Calle Doce, which is about halfway to Hermosillo. At that point a young man - a teenager - got onto the bus, grabbed the remote, and changed the language to Spanish. Fair enough. R and I were probably the only Anglophones on the bus(there were only seven people on board for the first half of the trip, including the driver and the man who seems to ride shotgun), and I had been surprised to hear English. Also, the movie was rather predictable. I kept watching, and had no problem keeping track of the plot.

As we pulled out of the Calle Doce bus station after about a 10-15 minute layover, R said "There's a bicycle shop right there by the bus station."

We arrived in Hermosillo just before noon, asked the driver when we could catch a bus back. Once an hour. Uh-huh. When? Oh. On the half hour. Ah. Thank you.

We went to Wal-Mart. They didn't have any bicycle accessories. We wandered around the mall, bought an extension cord, a roasted chicken, a few other items. Famished, I bought a couple of corn tamales at a stand in the hallway. They tasted wonderful. R bought a slice of pizza. The long and the short of it is, we didn't find anything with which to fix my bike.

So we went back to the bus stop at 1:20 p.m. to wait for the bus. A man with a nice smile talked to me a little. He looked familiar. Buses came and buses went, but ours didn't show up until nearly 2 p.m. That was much better than the hour and a half we waited for it last year, when apparently the bus we wanted went roaring by while another bus was loading. Never mind, we were aboard. As it was last year going back to Kino, this bus was standing room only. We moved toward the back, and I saw the man I had spoken to. He was sitting at the back of the bus, waving at me. He had saved me a seat. I made my way back there and sat beside him, and as I sat down I realized that he was - at least I think he was - the same man who gave me his seat last year. We chatted as amiably as people who don't share a language can. A young man on the other side of him (we were on the long bench seat at the very back) joined in. Between conversations, I watched the same movie I had watched in the morning, this time all in Spanish. Matthew McConaughey still had great teeth.

When we got to Calle Doce, I considered making my way through the crowd, getting off, running over to the bike store, buying a patch kit, and coming back, but (1) I didn't want to lose my seat, and (2) Given that the bus was very late, I didn't know whether it would be hanging about - so I didn't. I could have. We must have been there at least 10 minutes.

We are seriously considering putting my bike up on the back of the rig and leaving it there until we drive out on the 18th. I'll just take walks, if this wind ever lets up - or I could stay inside where it's warm, making and eating Mexican delights, watching for Martin's truck to turn up.

*I use the term 'mountain' very loosely. It's really only a big hill.

I'm cheating here, because I need a nap. I posted this to one of the boards I frequent, and decided that I really don't need to type it all twice - so, AM, you've already read this entry!

R and I were going to cycle into Kino Viejo today to buy fish and tortillas, but it didn't work out that way. When I went outside, I discovered that my bike had a flat front tire, victim of a thorn that folks around here call a goat head. It's small, but it's mighty. It has two points, and either one of them will pierce a bicycle tire with ease. Apparently they've been known to pierce automobile tires.

(Is this where I back up and tell you that before we left Canada, I said "Don't you think we should go to Canadian Tire and get some spare tubes, and maybe a patch kit or three?" I was outvoted - did I think there were no bike repair shops where we were going, or what? OK. That was when I should have put myself in Ignore Mode, but I didn't.)

So. This morning we went looking for a bike repair place within walking distance. Nope. We inquired at the park office. There's a place in Kino Viejo. It's on Calle Puerto Vallarta, about two blocks from the park. R was feeling a little out of sorts anyway, so I left him here, caught the bus (6 pesos) to Kino Viejo, got off at Puerto Vallarta, and carried my bicycle wheel down and down and down the street, long past the paved part, until I was almost out of town again. Finally I found the little shop. There was a big gate, and I could see a man working on a bike way inside, beyond the fig tree. I called out, and he let me in. I sat comfortably in a plastic chair and watched the antics of a chihuahua, a Mexican hairless, something that looked like a chihuahua/pug cross, and a big yeller dog. A couple of pigeons joined the party at one point, but they didn't stay long.

There were actually four holes in the inner tube. The gentleman replaced the tube, installed the new one and filled it with air. Fifty pesos ($5-ish). I thanked him and headed for the tortilleria on Guaymas Street where I had been planning to go in the first place. I bought a kilo of tortillas, inquired about the bus back to Kino Nuevo. Could I catch it right out front? Yes - in an hour. So off I went, wheel in hand, walking to the fish market at the bottom of Padre Eusebio Kino Boulevard. I bought two kilos of some sort of filleted fish packed in lots of ice, shoved that bag into my backpack, put the bag of tortillas on top of it, grabbed my wheel and the book I could no longer put in the backpack for fear it would get wet, and headed for the little market where I shopped last year. There I bought a few bananas, a couple of green chiles, and a bag of cooked beans to eat with the tortillas. Definitely trudging, I went back to the tortilleria and waited for the bus, which turned up in about fifteen minutes.

An old hand now, I had my six pesos ready. This time there was a sorry-looking spaghetti mop propped by the door of the bus and a pile of newspapers wrapped with string next to the driver's seat, so getting me, my wheel, the book, and the now-bulging backpack onto the bus was a chore, but I did it, and I had a great trip home, resting my back, listening to the local radio station. When the driver let me off - right in front of the park - I staggered proudly home with my booty.

The upside of all this is that I now know where I can get my bike fixed in Kino Viejo. The downside is that the gentleman at the shop didn't have any extra tubes to sell me. When we go through Hermosillo, I think we had better hunt some up.

I awoke this morning to the sound of a bird singing. I couldn't remember which bird made that sound, and when I went outside, he had gone. I started the day by sweeping the patio, setting up the outside table and chairs, sweeping and mopping the RV floor, putting the water jug outside. R hung clothesline at both ends of our palapa - dual purpose line. We can dry towels on them or hang whatever - towels, rugs - as sunshades. Then he went to the office and registered us for a week here. We were going to change sites, but this morning we decided that we're in pretty good shape right here at #30, so here we will stay.

While I worked around the rig, R went off to have his shower. He spoke to S, who was our closest neighbour last year. He also saw Freeway, the cat we befriended - she was sort of a time-share cat. We had to give her back when we left, but we had great fun with her.

When we had showered and finished setting up, S dropped over for a cup of coffee. The queen's Annus Horribilis had nothing on S's past year. When we last saw her, she and her husband were leaving Kino early because her back was giving her a lot of trouble. It still is. Then her husband was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx. The cancer was successfully removed, but it left so much scar tissue that he hasn't been able to eat since last May. S has to feed him some sort of formula through a tube that projects from his stomach. She is taking meds for the pain in her knee. She needs a knee replacement, but doesn't dare get it because then she won't be able to look after her husband. Meanwhile, their 39-year old son died of a heart attack in October, leaving a wife and three children. Then, in December, S's younger sister died suddenly. S said to me, "You shouldn't have to bury your children. That's a big mistake in God's plan." Then, eyes turned skyward, she said "I'm sorry to question you, but..." She said she's here in Kino hiding from God. I bit my tongue so hard, it hurt. They have put their trailer here up for sale, so this 27th year in Kino will presumably be their last.

After S left I checked my e-mail, found I had a letter from one of my sisters filling in some details of our mother's life before I was born. It occurs to me that this mini-biography is going to be a harder, more painful job than I thought.

I walked over to L's house and, as I feared, she has gone to Hermosillo. The grandchild hasn't been born yet, but daughter has a doctor's appointment today, and we all await word.

I've taken a brief walk on the beach, gone to the store for bread, spent some time gazing at the palm trees. Now I'm sitting out on the patio to write, because R has been using the kitchen table to hold his great big gigantic dinosaur of a word processor. He's starting work on a book that he has been planning for some time. Hooray! On the other hand, I say "has been using" because suddenly he's not there any longer. Somebody just came by and invited him to go play bocce. They needed a fourth - so off he went. I said I would go cheer him on when I finished here. I am so glad that he brought his machine and is starting to write. It's been too long.

Home at last - in Kino Bay RV Park.

We left Ajo, AZ at 9 o'clock this morning, and we didn't stop for anything except business at the border and more business at the real border 26 kms farther down the road. When we crossed the official border, the guard asked us where we were going and we told him we were going basically everywhere in Mexico, so he told us to get our vehicle permit and visas at the check point 26 kms down the highway, and he waved us on our way.

When we got to the place the guard had described, another guard pulled us aside and told us to go to the immigration office. There, a very nice officer took one look at me and asked whether I spoke a little Spanish. Well, sort of. Good, then I might be able to help him. My job was to help him explain to a couple of Canadians why their cell phone wasn't working. They were trying to sort out a document problem, and their cell phone was like the one I used to have. Once across the Mexican border, it went into limbo and refused to come out. Eventually these folks, who were from Red Deer, Alberta, managed to set in motion the business of having their documents faxed down from Canada. It was a team effort.

Once that was taken care of, the same man took our information, gave us our visas, and sent us next door to get the vehicle permit. That involved waiting in line, being told by another man that we needed photocopies of the vehicle registration plus R's driving licence and passport - which we could obtain at the restaurant on the other side of the highway. We walked over there and waited while the lady behind the counter finished cooking and serving someone's lunch. Then she made the requisite copies and we walked back across the road, where a young lady sat down at her computer and entered all the information we gave her, took our $49.50 U.S., and gave us our Mexican vehicle registration. That didn't take care of the $22 each for our 6-month visas, so I asked her to take that money too, lest we forget. She did that, and she duly stamped our visas to prove we had paid for them. All this took over an hour - but the vehicle registration is good for 10 years.

The rest of the trip was unremarkable, if long. We quickly reacquainted ourselves with the Mexican road signs (Slow down – fasten your seat belt – don’t drive when you’re tired - don’t throw garbage - don’t molest the signs – picky, picky, picky!) The Sonoran Desert is as stunning as always, Hermosillo is no fun at all to drive through, and because of the delay at the immigration office, we drove straight into the setting sun again when we turned right at Hermosillo and headed for Bahia Kino. What was wonderful was that we actually knew where we were going, so that when the sun finally set, driving down the Kino road in the dark wasn’t a problem. Actually, it was a dream. The last time we were here, that road was under construction and it was a nightmarish trip. This time, we had a brand-new road with reflectors to guide us. Piece of cake. The office was closed when we got here, so we have pulled into any old spot for the night. In the morning we will go register and tell them where we really want to park. Already, one of the neighbours has come over to say he remembers us and to pass on some of the park gossip.