Our Year - 2023

 

Our Year - 2023

First the fun things:

Alix and Basil paid us a visit in January and released us from our pandemic exile. They tested negative for Covid before we met for our first breakfast out since March of 2020. We had a wonderful time with them.

Jane’s cousin Lyle and his wife Diane took a cruise ship from Galveston, Texas, to the Port of Progreso. We took a Didi taxi to Progreso and met them for several hours of talking and eating. Jane felt honored by the visit.

 

In May we spent a month in Playa del Carmen visiting with Grisel and her husband Juan...always fun. Grisel has a big place in our hearts. We wish she lived closer to us.

Breakfast out is our favorite activity. We had many with Rosario May and her kids. We celebrated all our birthdays at a breakfast.

For the Record:

In 2023 a striking difference from other years was climate change, record heat, an increase in pollution, and flaming red sunsets at our home in tropical Mérida, Yucatan Mexico, 21º North Latitude. Mérida is city of nearly two million with far too may motor vehicles plus mega power plants straining at their limits.

Twenty-seven percent of Yucatan’s agricultural land has been lost to ever expanding growth.

Fifty years ago when we first arrived in Yucatan, Mérida's population was 175,000 with three gasoline stations, and bicycling was a lark. We had blue sky above and thousands of bright stars at night. Wellwater was safe to drink. Half the housing in Yucatan was made of 100% recyclable materials sourced from the forests. These palm frond thatched homes have vanished replaced by Tio-Sam cement block houses not environmentally friendly making brown outs irritating. The finite potable water supply is dangerously low. Droughts have devastating impacts making wild fires deadly and dangerous. There are just too many toilets to flush! Even with these problems the city is expanding at a roaring rate with no end in sight.

I had read the books by John L. Stephan's of his Yucatan exploration of 1842. In the appendix of volume 1, pages 264 to 271, the morning, noon, and evening temperatures were recorded in an airy shaded place for a year and a half. Those temperatures never exceeded 89ºF. Temperatures we encountered in 1980s Mérida were the same as 1842.

During the last five years climate change significantly accelerated. We had eight consecutive months of record setting temperatures above 100º F or 38ºC every day. Mérida went from a scorching oven to a blazing hell: A preview of coming attractions.

Note: listen to the audio book; Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Valliant to see where our environment is headed.

To avoid the hot season last May, we went to the Caribbean Coast for a month.

On our return to Mérida we coped with the heat in our ecologically friendly home. With no air conditioning unit we used nature to our advantage.

We continue to do our daily exercise routine that includes bicycling and eating breakfast out weekly. Getting around town and to the beach have become wonderful and affordable using the Didi taxi service. There is no excuse for owning a car in Mérida.

Guarding our health is still extremely imperative. The pandemic plus yearly influenza coupled with mosquito-born infections make peremptory precautions of inoculations, social distancing, and face masks essential for senior citizens, and those with asthma absolute necessity.

For amusement Jane has been giving me bread making lessons...she ingeniously has been baking bread from age 10 with the priceless lessons from her two Swedish grandmothers and her mom...I am not yet at graduate stage of learning the thousands of culinary tricks. The learning curve seems unending...it is fun, creative and educational.

We never run out of fun and interesting things to learn and do. We read a lot of books and also listen to audio books. John reviews the books he reads on his blog.

Wishing for an adventurous and healthy 2024.

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