Friday the 13th has, up to now, conspired to validate its malevolent auguries . Water has ceased to flow to the toilet, sink & shower. Dogs howling at night & our host (Roberto) unable to attend to the problems until later in the day! So your ablution deficient host will attempt some descriptive prose in spite of these handicaps.

Finally, good news. The water is back on. It appears that the gardener had inadvertently switched off the supply, and subsequently the pump tripped out on the resurgent current. Ah well, it’s resolved.

At least one can rest easy.

Monday 16.07.18 will be headed east over the Yucatan Peninsula to Playa del Carmen. It’s a four and a half hour road trip, so not so bad.

16:40 Arrived after a fairly boring, though comfortable trip. The bus was a relatively new Swedish Scania, so all “Ship shape & Bristol Fashion.” Checked in with host Julio & wife. Although, she wasn’t there, having left for Europe on a research sabbatical.

30.07.18 Monday  Visit to the local Doctors surgery today. My GP back in the UK is restricting my prescription tablets as a precursor to an examination ( which I am of course unable to attend due to travelling.) However, if I can provide satisfactory blood tests, liver & kidney function test results locally, he will enable the proscription. So now engaged in a search for a local clinic and blood test facilities in order to provide the necessary information. Tedious, but thankfully do-able, which would obviate an early return back to the UK.

The weather here has turned a tad changeable this past couple of days with cloudy skies and occasional rain. It has a propensity to flatten ones mood and put a less than rosey veil of grey over the environment. The political diaspora back in Blighty is no less grey and foreboding as May & Parliament break for Recess. Why on earth they would take a holiday during the course of crucial Brexit negotiations and the still ill defined British position is astounding.

Notional route around the Yucatan.

A couple of other things, in the form of random observations about day to day life in Mexico follows a slightly more critical path. For instance, the plumbing. The flushing process in Mexican toilet bowls are by and large abysmal, even in newer properties. It is a completely hit and miss, a “cliff hanger” as to whether everything is discharged from the bowl, leading to embarrassing extra time hanging around waiting for the cistern to refill at an extraordinary slow rate as the pressure is so low. The second imponderable, are addresses. I mean proper meaningfully exact addresses. The existence of road names, house numbers appear to be a complete mystery wrapped in an enigma . Sometimes they are apparent, and often times not. When one is completely bereft of hope, along totters someone with local knowledge to “snatch victory from the jaws of defeat,” by saying “Oh, it’s over there.” The third thing is “sleeping policeman.” It’s like a politician had gone on holiday somewhere, saw some examples of the said “sleeping policemen,” returned home and stuck them,….. everywhere. They are, for all practical purposes, everywhere; Motorways, A roads, B roads….you name it..and there’s an infernal “sleeping policeman.”  Finally, pavements…….there is absolutely no conformity or consistency. One definitely needs to keep one’s eyes on where one is stepping or suffer a broken ankle.

Tomorrow (Thursday 09.08.18) headed north for a weeklong stay in Puerto Morelos.