Saturday, December 28 – This morning Christi went out to scrub the bird poop shortly after sunrise, wanting to get it done before it was too hot out. She was horrified to see that the entire boat was covered with a strange ash. We’d noticed yesterday that directly north of us, possibly the next building over, there had been a steady stream of smoke. Apparently, it burned all night. We also found that more birds had come along and added to the collection. The newly deposited gifts were red in color. While they washed off easily, we were going to need to treat the spots with special cleaner to completely remove the discoloration. The baked-on older gifts took a fair amount of scrubbing to remove.  

Yesterday, Keith had wanted to order chilaquiles, but the restaurant was only serving lunch. This morning, Keith requested that we go back to the restaurant for breakfast today so he could get chilaquiles. 

There was no salsa service at breakfast. Instead, they brought out a slice of banana bread for each of us. Eric ordered what is a traditional breakfast food for this region: chicken tacos with the local mole sauce, which was served with rice and fried plantains. Mole is a savory sauce made with chocolate and chilis. Every region in Mexico has its own special spin on ingredients are used in the sauce, so there are many kinds of moles across Mexico. The menu indicated that this one was mildly spicy and had nuts. This mole was dark brown. The sauce was complex; Eric could identify peanuts and cinnamon, but he couldn’t figure out the other ingredients 

Christi ordered a shrimp omelet with chipilin and regional cream cheese. She had no idea what chiplin was, but she was up for trying something new. It turned out to be a leafy green veggie, reminding her of chard. The cream cheese was tangy. It was served with chilaquiles, fried plantains and refried black beans. 

After breakfast, we went for a walk. There was a dirt road leading from the marina into the jungle. The road looked well-used, and we figured it was a back road to Puerto Madero. It was not. It ended abruptly at a clearing. It appeared that this area was being prepared for some type of construction project. 

We still wanted to walk around to get a feel for the area, so we went back to the marina and out to the entrance onto the main highway. It was a narrow two-lane highway with no sidewalks and dense foliage growing up to the edge of the road. We’d have to walk on the highway, and given how fast and reckless the drivers were, that would be a suicide run. 

We laid low for the rest of the day. Eric and Keith went to the pool in the later afternoon.

Sunrise on Sunday, December 29

On Sunday, we spent the day doing boat chores. Our big outing was going to the restaurant for lunch. All three days we’ve eaten at the restaurant, it was packed. Most of the tables were large groups that looked like extended families. We were the only non-indigenous Spanish speakers. We were wondering if it was always this busy or if it was unusually busy because of the holidays.  

We have seen so many creatures here in the marina. Most of them disappear when we pull out the camera, but here are a few that allowed themselves to be photographed: