Puerto Escondido, July 2nd & 3rd, 2010

We woke Friday thinking this would be our final day in Puerto. Again, we have been here almost 2 weeks and the time has flown by. Tom goes surfing with Jim and meets up with Pat who is also out that morning. Tom arranges for us to go to dinner with them, one last time. Pat is also helping me out by printing some insurance forms from online for Guatamala. The afternoon brings a surprise. Up until now, with the exception of Texas Jim, we have had the campsite to ourselves. Imagine our surprise when a huge motorhome pulls in. Mike and Rosemary are Australians but originally Rosemary is from England and Mike a New Zealander. They are headed to the States but coming back from Panama and Costa Rica. More stories and info. Unfortunately for us they are only planning to stay one night and we are going out to dinner. We ask lots of questions. The most interesting info is that they color photocopied their vehicle license plate and drivers licenses and then laminated them. They kept all original in safety and had only the photocopied license plate on their home. It seems that in Central America, license plates get stolen and the police have a habit of keeping your drivers license until you pay them to get it back and they don't really know the difference! It got Tom and I thinking. With dinner brought surprise number 2. We knew Sunday July 4th was election day in Mexico but what we didn't know was that for 2 days there was no sales or public consumption of alcohol in Mexico. Yes, that's right. The day before and the day of the elections, no alcohol is sold. After having 6 people for drinks that night, we are low on beer. This led to a late night foray at the local abborretta for supplies. We had a great dinner with the Puerto gang and hope to meet up with them in a year or so. Saturday, Mike and Rosemary had a slight mishap in the motorhome. A sink oveflowed and soaked everything. They would have to stay one more night. As I had already planned a dinner of smoked salmon fettucine with spicy green beans and almonds, and I knew we had enough to go round, we invited them over. However in the afternoon, armed with some addresses from Pat we went to town. First to an office store. We had color copies made of the car licenses plate and our drivers licenses and then had them laminated. Is this considered forgery? I am sure the US would not approve but if it works in Central America and helps us keep all of our originals, so be it! We also got some reflector tape to put around the motorhome. Again, in Central America the police looking for any reason to get money found Mike and Rosemary "in violation" for not having reflector tape (They do have the standard reflectors that are acceptable in any other country) on their RV and having no emergency reflective triangle in case of a breakdown. They were fined and immediately went and purchased the desred items. Tom & I decided to be preemptive. We feel more prepared now to face the CA4 (Guatamala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua). We had a wonderful dinner with Mike & Rosemary. Picked up more names of contacts and said our ggodnights. Tomorrow, having dried out, they are headed to Acapulco and us to Huatulco.