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.