Settling in here at la ticla. 40 pesos per night to camp, with lights showers and toilets... Just about perfect. Waves too, everyday. With the exception of a few Australians who have passed through it has been only Gerod and myself and the three Israelis, who apparently rival the australians and Canadians in terms of worldly travel. The three we have here spent the last three years in the Israeli army, one of them was in some real s*** in Lebanon, their impression of the danger in Mexico is pretty much the equivalent of "pppppfffff"
They flew to guadalajara with boards, and paid a cab 140$ to drive them 6 hours into the jungled coast, the plan was to take busses south, but they will probably end up traveling with us for a while, we look more normal with 5 people in the xtra cab anyway.

Apparently everyone in Israel surfs too, but they do not have have any waves, so travel is a necessity for the avid Israeli surfer.

Off the record, i did get the israelis to admit to whacking that guy in Dubai a few years ago, but they continue to neither confirm nor deny any involvement with the stuxnet worm.

the family we are staying with are great, they are building a new kitchen on the first floor of their house, all the materials are taken from the surrounding area, even the cement is refined about two hours north of here. The walls are river sand and rocks mixed with cement, and the chimineya is dirt and cement hand formed in place. The whole family is working on it but I have seen some pretty heated input from the wife, something like "no no no the chimineya here, the garbage over there!" however it is arranged I have no doubt it will almost instantly be transformed into a really comfortable living space, something these people manage to do extremely well with very little, by us standards anyway.

There are 4 little girls In our neighborhood, navi (short for navidad) fleur, azul, and zayuri (sigh-yoodie) perfect names here, which I like a lot. Funny that the small agricultural country communities in the states Also have girls named Christmas, blue, and flower. Don't think zayuri translates... Amberlynne? Desiree?

Have also been running into a lot of guadalajarans too. Those we have run into are definitely of means, appear very European, and are almost identical to your typical American college Greek, but with a definite Mexican flare. We were comparing cultural differences one night and they finally said, "we are exactly the same as you, same music, same movies, same Internet, we grew up just like you guys". And when I saw the middle aged woman in a matched track suit outfit with a polar fleece tied around her waist speed walk by us in the gated mountain community I knew they were right.

On Mexican flare:
Last night 3 guadalajarans showed up at our campsite at about 10 pm, set up a hammock about 5' from my tent, released there dogs and started bs'ing. The camp was empty too...
I seriously considered getting up and dropping a deuce right in the middle of them, the only equivalent response to their offensiveness...chose not to though... Which I now feel was wise, I don't think they thought twice about it.

Probably traveling south Monday or Tuesday. Headed to llorona or rio neixpa. More details as they become available.

Paz,
Joe