Our good friends and old old neighbors from Mexico moved to Arizona last weekend. They are about 30 minutes south from us. We met them for their arrival and to help them unpack. We are happy they live so close now.
Before they arrived, we got into their house (the front door was unlocked) and set up some signs and balloons and such. It was about 30 mins later we realized we were in the wrong house. Fortunately we didn’t have any problems, but Yun was traumatized.
I can’t fill up the pool without first cleaning out the pool filter. I paid a $100 to have someone come out to the house last year to do it. It didn’t look too complicated.
With all of the algae we had I knew it was going to be a disaster.
Yep, pretty horrible. I had to pull each of the filters out and then clean them trying to remember how to put it all back together again.
But in the end it seemed to work out and looks much better.
Is this filter uses diatomicious earth which isn’t the best option in the desert. I am thinking about switching it over to a sand filter in the near future.
When we bought the house, the pool was not in the best condition. We knew at some point we were going to have to have it re surfaced. Matt and Dana have had quotes over $10k to do the job. Since we have a long list of priorities over something like that, I thought I would give painting the pool a try.
About a month prior to doing this job I thought it would be smart to turn off the pool pump rather than pay for the electricity to circulate water I was going to drain in a short time. Pool pumps use quite a bit of electricity.
Anyway, it turns out this was a terrible decision. In part because the algae grew out of control without the pump circulating the water. This made draining the pool and cleaning it significantly more difficult.
We had a swamp in the backyard.
But with 7 gallons of pool paint, we finally have an improvement. This foto is from yesterday.
We are hopeful that this will last a few years. It looks really nice.
This dog is getting old. He is entirely deaf and his vision is going as well. He limps most days. Still he has moments of energy. He’s holding on, but I don’t think he has much time left.
We bought these really nice place mats. So colorful.
Lots of tourists in San Cristobal. Mostly European, Israeli, and American bohemian.
Traveled north and visited some water falls. This one was called Agua Azul.
This one was called Misol Ha. This is where Predator was filmed. Pretty amazing. You could walk under the falls.
Then we traveled on to Palenque. The ruins there are impressive
We planned to sleep in and spend the day wandering around San Cristobal de Las Casas our second day. The day began a bit cold but warmed up fast. We spent the day walking around the city and shopping.
I bought some corn.
We bought some hand made sandals (the soles are from old tires), hand woven place mats, some shirts, and a few other things. Prices are cheap as the sellers are indiginous people from local villages.
This is a high season because the weather is so nice – which means there are a lot of tourists here. A lot of Europeans and bohemian types. We had dinner last night next to a table from Israel.
Dinner was pleasant and the restaurant was nice… until I was up all night in the bathroom. It was awful. Yun got sick too, but less impacted than me. However, lunch today was bad for her and now she feels terrible.
After our long journey, we finally made it to our destination. The drive from Tuxtla Gutierrez seemed to take forever and it was quite cold when we arrived. The hotel is nice but pretty simple for the price. We walked around town for a bit and then found a nice place for drinks.
We traveled through Mexico City yesterday on our way to Chiapas. It was a pretty long journey when you add in the 5 hour drive to Hermosillo. We stopped in Nogales to drop off the dogs.
Almost 6 years ago exactly we ate at Chili’s in the Mexico City airport as we were on our way to Spain. We stumbled upon it again for lunch yesterday.
Yesterday Yun and I went to Phoenix for a work xmas day. We started with a 2 hour boat cruise on a lake near the office. It was fun.
We had lunch afterwards at the restaurant on the lake. Great views but food was not great.
Later in the evening we went to a play at the Hale Center – A Christmas Carol. It was surprisingly great. We left around 11pm to head back to Tucson.
