Puerto Escondido, June 28th - July 1st, 2010

Monday, 7am. I could not have gotten out of bed for anything, let alone be drenched and pounded by high waves. But Tom, the trooper went out with Jim, as usual. Extreme perseverance, but he slept the rest of the day! Chatted on skype with family and friends in the evening and...went to bed early. Tuesday, Jeanne sent our new ebook via DHL, there were no promises on when it will arive in Huatulco but we have a tracking number and faith. Tuesday night or rather early Wednesday morning about 2:30am, brings another surprise. Between the storms and flooding rain, tropical depressions and hurricanes, we thought that about covered any natural disasters. Wrong! Earthquake. A 6.2 epi-centered in Oaxaca (the state where we are) about 90 mile from us. Tom woke thinking I was up and moving around. Finding me asleep, he then thought someone was outside and had bumped the RV. But Winston was asleep and would have barked if anyone were lurking outside. Yes, Winston and I slept through it. Earthquake. I knew headed south into Peru and Chile we might face them but not here. Wednesday, I emailed another contact friend of the Saladita crowd who lives in Guatamala. Mike got back to me. Seems they live on the Pacific coast in Monterrico which is far south, not too far from the El Salvador border. Mike offers some advice on going to Guatamala and with luck we will meet him in a couple of weeks. We track our package, it is in Mexico City already, headed for Oaxaca. Thursday we decide to take Winston to the vet for a check up. Poor thing. Of the 3 of us, he has had the most difficult time and seems to go from one problem to another. This time, it is a rash that has developed on his back and he is losing some fur. His skin also feels bumpy. Pat had said that although Mexican dogs handle the conditions here well, American dogs have a difficult time adapting. This is true for Winston. So, Thursday finds us at yet another vet, here in Puerto. At this rate, when I write the book, there will be a whole chapter on vets. It turns out he has been bitten so many times by ants, flies and other insects which he then scratched and infected the area. Another round of anti-biotics and some special shampoo. A bath every three days and Winston hates baths. We are also going to be applying Frontline every 2 weeks from now on. Hopefully this will help all problems. When we get back from town we check the tracking nmber again. Surprise. In only 2 days th package from Jeanne has arrived. DHL came through again. We decide to stay here until Saturday, break camp early and get to Huatulco to pick it up by 2pm. That leaves us just one more day in Puerto so we should make good use of it.