The war with the Iguanas in my back yard has cooled off a bit.  There is fruit dropping off the trees everywhere and I make frequent trips to the back yard during the day to scare those reptilian menaces away from my crop of baby CHAYA trees.  I will throw a rock at the slower ones and sometimes I get pretty close.  I was an all star 11 year old 3rd baseman (with the help of alot of chewing gum bribes)
     

comida economica (cheap eats)

this is the sign where i try to eat 2-3 times a week.  with the basket of tortillas and the hot sauce

     there's a piece of chorizo in there and a plantain end and pork and whatever veggies they have.  i dump the  rice in and drink the broth like soup and  try not to think of the murderered pigs.  this country loves to eat pigs.  Its the national pastime.  This  is all the eating I need for the day, maybe  a banana later or some chips and avocado.  35 pesos translates to about 2.75  US.

      there are one or two of these on each block, any direction you walk.  its  basically someone selling food from their hpuse.  This one has tables and  chairs  and  delivers, id  say 50 to 75 meals a day and is my go to place because they are really nice and try to speak spanish with me.  we sat and watched the world cup there one  afternoon long after closing. 

                            The backyard in the house my YUC TRIBE is renting is full of building rubble.. 

                     I am told that it is typical for yards to just fill up over the years, I am making this a garden.

      A broken toilet, concrete waste from a collapsed wall of a building.  They make them fast here, like a kid with a set of blocks, cubes rise all around you in the cities in the Yucatan. 

        And YUCATECCANS love our walls.  everyone has their walled yard and cinder block homes and they are cheap and fast to build. 

                      To live in the Yucatan is to get used to waiting for things. 

           It's really too hot to rush anything, Tranquillo, Tranquillo......

   To live the yuc life is to hear the iguanas in your back yard tearing through your compost pile as they eat the tastiest parts.  This guy lives in the cinderblock roof and sleeps three feet from where I hang my hammock, IN my wall.  Here he is plotting to eat the tomato plants on my porch.

Godzilla in Mexico

     A six foot tall 275 pound rugby brute gets the same reception in the Yucatan as Godzilla got in Tokyo.  It doesn't help that when I sit on the doll furniture in most of these houses it often breaks.  I average about a chair a week down here.  The stone tile floors are also great for braking glasses, coffee cups and bowls.  I leave a trail of destruction in my wake.

     When I went shopping at the Farmer's market in the center of town I felt like a bit of a curiosity.  Kids stared, slack-jawed.  women looked away quickly, or out of the corner of their eyes.  Grandmothers stared and discussed my oddity.  It didn't stop the locals from shoving by me in the market.  In the Yucatan, if you are in the way, someone is squeezing by and then five more.  The busses are the best for this.  the lucky ones get seats.  Then the others cram into the bus like so many sardines and when it's time to get off someone is getting a face full of my ass, depending on the way I am being shoved.  Low center of gravity is the answer.  They have it and I better hold on.  It's kind of fun and kind of sexy actually.  Everybody hoping that the stinky guy isn't standing next to them, getting a good whiff of crotch stink occasionally, (it does get warm down here.)

LIVE THE YUC LIFE, leave your Yuck, Life! in the Rearview mirror......

     Come take naps in the middle of the day!

we call them siestas.

Come and fall in love with one dark eyed hottie after another.

Swim in an underground lake.

The sun is ALIVE down here and the wind off the Gulf in Progresso is always  a refreshing counterpoint.