Not a Good Day

We needed to do our laundry after the first week. We packed up our clothes, sheets, and towels and took them to the Lavanderia on Saturday. They told us that we could pick them up Monday afternoon because they were closed Sundays. Probelma grande.  We did not have extra sheets or towels, so we took our landury back to the apartment.

We decided to take a bike tour of Tulum and stop at the Panaderia to buy a loaf of whole wheat bread.  On the way we had an accident.  I stopped my bike and Jane ran into my back tire. She fell off her bike and damaged the left side of her body. Her watch took a licking but kept on ticking. She is ok but very lame.

A Dinner Invitation

At the end of our first week at Spanish school, we were invited to Kris's house. He lives in the U.S. and has a house in Tulum.  He was at the school for one week. The students and teachers were invited for supper.  We all chipped in and prepared our meal together. We made guacamole, home made tortilla chips, baked chicken breast with peanut sause, rice, salad, and assorted beverages.

A fun evening together.

Art Class Activity

We did not know what art activity we would be doing.  We were given a list of  items we needed to find and bring back to the school.  We each were given list of  items to find, two small containers of acrilic colors, a couple of paint brushes, and an old neswpaper.  When we returned at 4:30, we were told that we would be making paper mache charactors similar to the famous mexican artist Pedro Linares Lopez.  Barbie, the director, made the paper mache and we began by molding the newspaper and covering it with the paste.

When we had molded our amimal, we let them dry a little and then began the painting.

Our characters are drying after they were painted.

Segunda actividad del día

This afternoon we began our second activity after we finished our conversation session.  We were given a list of ingredients to purchase for our evening meal together.  We are making cerviche.
Ingredients:
2 kilos filets de Mero (sin espinas) - Grouper
1/2 kilo camarones - shrimp
5 tomates rojo - red tomatoes
1 cebolla grande - large onion
2 pepinos - cucumbers
1 zanahoria - carrot
6 limones - limes
2 bolas de totopos - bags of taco chips
Oil
Vinegar
Sal
Pepper blanco

Preparation

The evening meal

First After Class Activity

All five students and Barbie, the diredtor of Chac-Mool, went out in the evening to a cafe to meet with each other and relax. Of course the cafe had a special, one shot of mescal and a beer for 50 pesos. It was a great deal.

Here is our group.

Left to right. Amy, Barbie, Chris, Tim, Charlie and Jane.

After three rounds we headed back to the School and later headed home. It's a good thing there were taxis near by to take us back.

Instituto Chac-Mool School Day

This is our classroom. Notice the whiteboard in the background.

In the morning, we started class with a new student, Chris. Our teacher is Sofia and she speaks only a little English.  Our instruction is only in Spanish. We begin with basic instruction from 9:00 - 12:00 with one 10 minute break.  At noon, we have a 15 minute break.

In the afternoon, 12:15-2:00, it is time for conversation. During this time we have conversation activities.  Sometimes individually and other times as a whole group, all 5 students and 3 teachers. We are having a great time, the people are wonderful and we all get along.

Yoga classes on Tuesday and Thursday before school. The yoga instructor comes to the school and we have class on the second floor deck.

Instituto Chac-Mool Spanish School

This is our first day of class in Spanish School. We will be attending school for ten days with five hours of instruction each day. There are currently five students at the school, including us, and three teachers!! We work with two different teachers during the day. We were told not to speak any English during the day but that did not happen today. We had a great time and had to come right home to do our homework!!!

School is held outdoors. This was our working space today.

After class we rode our bikes to Chedraul Supermarket to get food for supper.

Our First Day

We spent time with Barton, the person that rented us the apartment, and his girlfriend.  He introduced us to the local store owners, whose store is right beside us.

Then we met our neighbors from Michigan, Gene and Tina, who are here for four months. We made plans to go out to dinner with them on Sunday.

We walked into town and checked out the cost of renting bikes, (around 60 pesos a day/bike) for two weeks.

We had no pots or pans to cook with so the owner's son showed up around 7:00pm with some new ones. Now we have a way to start cooking our own meals.

Our Kitchen

Catching up on the News

This morning we found the Choc-Mool school, which we will be starting Monday. It is about a 10 minute walk from our casa. We met with the director and she went over what to expect during our classes. We will have instruction in the morning and some kind of activity in the afternoon. Mexican cooking, crafts, dance lessons, field trips and going to a local restaurant for coffee with the other students. We will speak only Spanish when we are at the school. We took a short written and oral test and found we could certainly use the lessons.

We  asked about where to rent bikes and the director told us we could use two of the bikes from the school. One needed a new tube in the tire and we had that fixed. We now have transportation.

Las bicicletas de la escuela

We ate lunch at a well know seafood restaurant here called "El Camello Jr." where we had ceviche and a mixed fish soup for lunch.

Chevrche mariscos

Sopa de pescado mixto

Off to the supermarket on our bikes.

Tulum Arrival

Nuestra entrada del apartamento

It was a journey getting to Tulum. We left Vermont and flew to Philadelphia. We got on the plane in Philly and the plane had a tire problem. After a two hour delay of sitting on the plane we headed for Cancun, way behind our scheduled arrival time. We quickly went through customs, caught the bus to Playa del Carmen, just before it left the airport!!

At PDC we caught the next bus to Tulum. We walked to Charlie's Restaurant where we were to meet Barton, (person I had been in contact with for the past several months about the rental apartment we would be staying at). No Barton, so logged into the WIFI at the restaurant. Received an email from Barton and his telephone number. Of course, we can't call him so I asked the owner of the restaurant, Charlie, if he would call. The call was made and a plan of getting us to our apartment was made. We had a cerveza and supper.

Then we asked Charlie to call the taxi and tell the driver where we needed to go. We had no address of where we were staying.  We left the restaurant with Charlie and ended up in his car. He told us he felt better driving us there than giving us to some taxi driver. Charlie knew where we were staying and knew Barton.

Charlie took us to the owner of the apartment's house, Anastacio. Charlie left and we got into Anastacio's red Mustang with his son and he took us to the apartment. The apartment is small, but clean and nice. Tomorrow we will deal with everything else.

Going to Tulum, Mexico

Leaving St. George, Vermont

This year we decided to travel to Tulum, Mexico, where we will be staying for six weeks. We have rented a small apartment in Tulum for the first 30 days. On February 20, Jessica will be arriving to spend her winter school break with us. We have rented a house/condo for the nine days she will be with us. After Jessica returns home, we will stay the last three days of our trip in Playa del Carmen in a one room apartment!

We have spent a lot of time traveling in Spanish speaking countries and decided this year we would try to improve our Spanish by going to school. Therefore, we have enrolled in the Chac-Mool Spanish School for 10 days. We will be receiving 5 hours of instruction per day for two weeks with our own teacher.
We have no other plans on what we will be doing in Tulum. We will figure that out when we are there.

January 21- We are up at 5:00 am to begin our journey from Burlington, VT to Tulum, Mexico. Our first stop on the flight is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for a quick overlay before we head to Cancun Mexico. We will arrive in Cancun at 1:00 pm. We will catch an ADO bus at 2:10 for a 2 hour ride to Tulum.

Thus the journey begins.
Adios Amigos,
Jane & Charlie