Home and Away

A cloud joined us for breakfast. Sitting on the second story balcony of our (and the only) hotel, eating pan dulce, we were surrounded by the thickest fog I have ever seen in Mexico. Having arrived at Isla Mexcaltitán the afternoon before, we were enjoying watching the orioles, egrets and herons in their early morning rituals and the fishermen, punting in long canoes over the shallow water of Lago Mexcaltitán.

Walking the tree-lined, stone streets of Guanajuato, I felt immediately transported to Europe. Somehow, a drive of several hours from Sayulita had landed me and my husband in a city where I almost expected the language of choice to be French or Italian.

For the third time in two weeks, I received an email from our property manager saying that guests have checked out and taken the keys with them.

Sitting in the rows of white plastic chairs outside the immigration office, my husband, dog and I waited with other residents to conduct our business of the day. Sensing activity inside, we all arose and formed an orderly line, knowing exactly who had arrived before and after whom.

As Dona Lety reminds me, I have to earn money in "El Norte" to put in my pocket to be able to return to Sayulita. I'm not as "snowy" as many snowbirds. Yes, my husband is retired, but I am still working - at least about 8 1/2 months out of the year. While I feel very lucky to be able to escape for the better part of each winter, I now find myself "champing at the bit" to get going and join our fellow snowbirds on the road and at our destination, the ever-lovely and enticing Sayulita. High season is in full swing, friends ask: "When are you coming?", and I note on Facebook that plans are starting to gel and reconnections are being made, without us at this point.

There's been so much talk online, in the press, all over the place, about safety in Mexico, including Sayulita.  I feel so safe in Sayulita, it's ridiculous!  Yes, we lock our doors.  Yes, we have a safe in each unit.  But no, we don't have bars on the windows.  No, we don't have a guard dog.  We don't sleep with a club, or anything else, by the bed.  People near us surrounded their property with a wall that's about 10' high.  Motion-detector lights have become all the rage.  Nobody's put bars on windows yet but perhaps that day will soon come.  I hope not.

We have two new additions to the family here in Sayulita.  Twins, in fact.  I would love to show you a photo but their mother is very protective, naturally so, and won't let me photograph them quite yet.  The parents are locals, I believe, probably born and raised here themselves.  They come from a once very large family but now there aren't that many of them, hence their sense of privacy and protection when it comes to their children.  I'm speaking, of course, of the chachalacas.

And more and more and more of them are in English only.  In Sayulita, Mexico, where the vast majority of residents are Mexican, one can't go down any road in the centre of this beautiful village without seeing businesses with English-language names offering services spelled out solely in English.  This troubles me.  In my home province of Quebec, Canada, the population is overwhelmingly French.  A problem existed though.  While the majority of the population was French, increasingly the language of commerce was becoming English.  So much so that the majority French population began to feel excluded and, worse, disenfranchised.  I can see Sayulita headed in the same direction.  Very, very quickly.