Dec 06, 2018
We have been planning our next trip to Europe, leaving May 15th, for six weeks. This trip will be using the last of our Aeroplan points and we are once again traveling business class. I booked our flights this last July. We had to go with what we could book at the time and that involved traveling Air Canada from Vancouver to Frankfurt and then onto Istanbul, etc. There is a huge tax surcharge traveling on Air Canada even though Aeroplan is associated with Air Canada. We paid what we had to and then were free to plan the stops on our trip and book our accommodation.
I had made a note to recheck our flights and so I did that this past Tuesday. By leaving just one day earlier we are able to reroute via Montreal and traveling from there on Turkish Airlines, our favorite airline. We only changed the overseas flight and I was shocked at how much the refund was going to be. I was pretty sure that the booking agent had made an error but when I checked just an hour ago the refund had been credited to our Visa account. There was a $250.00 change fee but taking that into consideration I am still getting a $1658.80CAD refund 😯 😆
The new routing also gave us another two nights at our first destination. The only problem was that our Airbnb was not available. So I have spent all of yesterday and today on the computer trying to find a new place to stay. Not even a beach walk!! Nothing is perfect but we have found something that might work. It is middle of the night there so I will have to check back in the morning. The best part is that for the same amount of money we will be getting five nights for the same price as our original three nights 😀 If I were back home I would be rushing out to buy a lottery ticket.
If you want to see how our flight went on Turkish Airlines this past May, please click here. We loved traveling with them and are thrilled to be doing so yet again. Then there is that refund to enjoy 😎
Happy hour from Diane and Pierre’s last evening.
Dec 05, 2018
Here on Isla de la Piedra we have ejido and colonia lands. I am not an expert but in a tiny nutshell the ejido lands are a Mexican system of government, an area of communal land used for agriculture, on which community members individually farm designated parcels and collectively maintain communal holdings. The colonia is outside of this area and is often referred to as a colony or community or neighborhood and sometimes a shantytown.
A typical street.
Some kids making the most of what they have on hand and their imaginations.
Creative fencing.
Some homes are nicer than others. Many live in cardboard shacks.
We watched the beginning construction of this new home last spring. It looks fabulous.
This vehicle has been resting here for a very long time. Likely it will be here as long as we keep coming back to the Isla.
A small store. There are usually one or two every few blocks.
Coming around this corner there is a lovely view of the harbor.
So many changes on the Isla in general but nothing surprised us more than this four story modern looking apartment building.
Dec 04, 2018
There has been a lot of wind this year and our palapa needed some repairs. If you don’t keep maintaining it, it will get worse much quicker. Our palapa was born in November 2011, click here for that post. If you click the next few posts from there you will see how it came about and read some interesting stories along the way. Plus there are some sweet photos of the girls from seven years ago. It was difficult to read the posts and see the photos while searching for day one of our palapa. Our last major palapa repair was January 2016, click here for that link. We had to move the RV out of the site for that one and at the same time we were doing major RV repairs.
The repair yesterday wasn’t so drastic. The top layers of palm fronds or palmas as they are called here were removed as was the layer of plastic. The bottom layer of palmas remained so the mess was not so great as three years ago.
It took a long time for Lupe and his helper to gather all the palm fronds as they need to climb the tall palm trees in the plantations and are only able to cut one or two off of each tree. Very labor intensive but they did bring enough for the job.
The old plastic was brittle and cracking and needed to be replaced.
Everything is tied to the main frame of the palapa. You can see one of our four solar panels.
Once the plastic was in place the branches were handed up one at a time.
Lupe parked his truck in the lane and was able to throw the disintegrating palm fronds over the fence. Much easier cleanup at the end of it all.
This weird looking doll was on the top of our palapa roof. How did it ever get up that high?
It is a slow and methodical process.
Each branch must be tied into place.
Meanwhile the tide was so far our that a tractor was needed to push the banana boat out.
One of the key parts of the palapa is getting an angled long fringe to keep the late afternoon sun from heating up the RV. We spent the rest of the day cleaning up and reorganizing our yard. Followed by guitar playing and a book and wine for me. Happy to have the job completed.
November 2011 was the start of our third season here at Tres Amigos RV Park and our first here on this site. All we had was our dust screen fencing and our dog fence. Note the lack of any plants or gardens. The plants you see on the left are in pots that we had started collecting back in our first month here in 2009. What a change we have made to this empty site. We even have to bring in our own pea gravel.
Dec 03, 2018
What is it? Why just the cutest gift that anyone could possible want.
Its a USB heated mouse pad hand warmer in Warm Winter Pink for only $17.97. I wish that I was either back in Canada or the the US so that I could order this. I think it is a unique gift idea at a great price. Click here for the Amazon details.
Resting while on a short hike in the US and enjoying some Dairy Queen soft serve back home. That was one of their favorite treats, although in the last years of their lives they weren’t able to have any.
