Iguanas in the Laundry Room

Camping in Mexico is not the same as camping back home. In addition to the excitement of a different language and culture, there are the adventures of encounters with the natural world. This morning I met one of the resident iguanas in the laundry room. Harry had been telling me about them but I hadn't run into them until now. Coming around the corner I almost stepped on it—a biggish brown and green one who lives in a hole with her children. She was as startled as I was, but held her ground. Earlier this morning two hummingbirds flew into the motorhome and fluttered around trying to escape. One found its way out but I had to actually capture the other in my hands and carry it to the door and release it.

Because we're doing our own cooking, we have had to develop protocols with water, food and dishwashing that are different from at home. Our drinking water is delivered in the big five-gallon jugs that you see everywhere in Mexico. We keep ours on the floor and have fitted it with a little hand pump. The vegetables, which we buy at the mercado or from the vegetable truck, we soak in an iodine solution and air dry them before use. For dishwashing we use the regular tap water and a hot water rinse. After a few days of washing dishes it occurred to us that we were rinsing our plates and cutlery with regular water, so we've taken to putting a little splash of bleach in the rinse water. It must be doing the trick as neither of us has experienced any tummy rumbles. Sometimes Harry overdoes it with the bleach and the morning tea ends up tasting like swimming pool water. Yuck. Could be we'll end up getting sick from the bleach and not the water!

San Fernando RV park is emptying out this week, as most of the snowbirds who have been hanging out here since November are now heading back home. A surprising number here are from BC, and others are from Alberta and Quebec. Of over sixty spots only three are occupied by Americans. In any case, the exodus had begun. This morning three big rigs towing cars pulled out. By the end of the weekend I think that it will be half empty here. However, we won't stay around to see, as we're heading south tomorrow towards Guadalajara. Our plan is to spend a few days exploring this area and then go north to Zacatecas. There we'll meet up with Armando, a young Mexican man who stayed with us a few years ago when he was studying English in Victoria.