Hola desde Chetumal!

(Hello from Chetumal!)

Irene and I arrived safely yesterday! I didn't say so sooner because we've been recovering from our travels. We arrived at our house in Chetumal about 24 hours after I woke up to pack and get going. Dad dropped us off at Newark but there was some debacle when all of the flights to Mexico were consolidated and we were not on the final flight. The nice ladies at the check in fixed this, and we were off to Houston. I finished getting my grades in during our layover, and looked up my own final grades on Irene's Blackberry right before we took off, so my semester literally ended as I was about to leave the country. I passed GIS! Moving forward with my life now...

We arrived in Cancun without any problems. The flight was mostly empty so we each had a row to ourselves. Debacle two: the bus from the airport to the bus terminal wasn't running according to schedule because no one is coming to Mexico these days (why?). We ended up taking a rather expensive taxi ride, and then waiting two hours for a bus to Chetumal. We departed at midnight, and five hours later, we met Alejandro, the project manager in the area. He took us to the house and picked us up again around noon to get some things from the market. We slept for maybe 5 hours, and then didn't eat until late in the afternoon, almost 24 hours after our last meal at Houston George Bush International Airport. Ugh.

So today we're feeling a little better rested and we've had more regular meals. We met with Alejandro in the morning to discuss what work needs to be done, and the plan is to start tomorrow at 5AM travelling to an ejido (a sort of farming village-- there's 20 in all that I'll be visiting in the coming weeks) about four hours away. He'll work with us at least the next few days. After we were done talking work, Irene and I took a bus to Bacalar for an afternoon at Laguna de Bacalar, a gorgeous lake. It was a really lovely, relaxing day.

I am slowly learning some important words in Spanish, most notably today: catira (blond). Apparently, it's very obvious that I'm not from around here, and everyone's assumed that Irene is my guide. It's kind of hilarious.

So, things are going just fine so far, except for one very, very important thing that I left in my apartment. Honestly, I was just crushed when I realized forgot it: my Trees of North America: a guide to field identification. So many amazing trees here, and I don't know what any of them are. It's pretty sad.

However, you can see in photos that life has gone on without my tree book: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v473/fishius25/Mexico/