I did something today I should have done ten days ago - went out with Mañuel and bought a nice hammock for about $18 and hung it from the hooks in my old room. It is WAY more comfortable than the matress and sheet because of the horrendous heat and humidity. There is a reason the huge majority of native Yucatecans sleep in a hammock under a ceiling fan.

This also resolves a small dilemna for what Pat and I will do when we arrive here to a completely unfurnished house. No bed or mattress...no problem. I already have a traditional Yucatecan hammock (unused) at home from a previous trip here. Today I bought the sigas (special ropes used to hang the hammock from the wall hooks in every room here) and S hooks for both hammocks along with the new one in the photo.

I had lunch at El Campeon , Sonny's place with Sonny and Don Alberto the mesero today as usual, and we talked a little more about the fix-up we want to do on the house he's renting us. I found a perfect example of a kitchen re-do that will be functional, traditional, and cheap. Here are before and (probably) after photos:



Tomorrow I'll publish another cataolog of pictures of the neighborhood around the new house. It's a fantastice place - everything is nearby and it's a clean friendly neighborhood. There's a hardware store, a panaderea (bakery), two tortilla mills, pretty complete groceries, cheap restaurants, a bar, building materials....all with a block or so of the house. There is also a stop from and to the center of town half a block away for the 15-minute trip.

One of odd things about the neighborhood is the large number of mariachis located along calle 59 lust around the corner. For some reason most of the mariachis (there are a LOT) have places with their signs out from along a stretch of this street. I believe they live in these houses, but they all have signs out front as well. Some day I will catalogue them all with photos. Today, there was a mariachi standing on the sidewaly outside his house, practicing. Had we been sitting out on our balcony, we aould have heard him quite clearly.



Text © 2003-2004 Stanley J. Wolf