Brown Outs, Celebrations & Horses.....

Sorry for the delay in updating our blog...it seems like everyday I run out of time to get all of the things that I need to get done...(not so sure what all of the things are that I need to get done, I just know that I run out of time...maybe I should cut back on my daily siesta...)

Although our pace of life down here is much slower than it was in Caledonia, it seems like there is also less time to get things done...the sun rises about 7:00am and the sun sets about 6:30pm right now...so you would think that 11.5 hours would be enough daylight time to get everything done?....However, I still run out of time each day...

Yes, we do have electricity...however, there are weekly electrical surprises called "Brown Outs"...not so much a surprise anymore...they seem to be well timed to happen on Friday evenings and last until sometime on Saturday...and they almost always happen in the middle of the night...so when we hear our ceiling fan slow down to a crawl and the alarm clock goes from dark green numbers to a faint green, we know we are in the middle of a "brown out"....the hope is that it does not turn into a black out and then we have to worry about the food in the fridge going bad....
The true test for us to know if the electricity is back to its full potential of close to 100 volts (we rarely ever get close to 110v or 115v)...is if the microwave works...if we can see the number dial on the microwave, then we know we have enough power to melt cheese in the microwave...(most of the locals have given up and just purchased a voltage reader, so that they can constantly monitor the volts and take out the surprise aspect)...Not a big deal, just a way of life...

There have been plenty of celebrations, holidays and parades in Sayulita since we arrived (at least one a week)...starting with the day of the dead celebration & parade...this event happened on our 2nd day in Sayulita...it is a day to celebrate those that have passed...the whole plaza was set up as a memorial with flowers and candles...there was a parade, a band and dancing in the plaza...the party lasts all night...
Revolution day was last week (November 20th)...basically like our independence day...another parade, music, fireworks and the kids get two days off from school...
Every weekend there are plenty of weddings on the beach, followed by music, fireworks and parties...
We are finding out that the Mexican culture is one that loves lots of music, family and celebrating any and every event...it is so much fun to be a part of these celebrations, even if it is only to observe...

We seem to have gained a few new pets in the past couple of weeks...no, I am not talking about bugs or critters...we were eating dinner a couple of weeks ago and we heard some rustling at our back door...it was dark out and we have a wooden door with no windows...so we could not see who or what was out there...Mark yelled "Hola whose out there" and no one answered, but we continued to hear the noises...so we grabbed our flash lights, turned on the outside light and slowly opened up the door...there on our back stoop was a large grey horse trying to find something to eat in our garbage can (that was sitting right there with its lid off)...however, the only two things that were in the garbage can was an empty bottle of Clorox Bleach and a 2 Liter bottle of Coke (half empty)...both of these things had been left in our garbage can by the guys that power washed our terrace the day before)...anyways, the horse was not happy that we did not have any food and just stood there and looked at us...we finally got him to leave and we wondered why he would have walked up our crazy steep hill in the first place?  The next day we found many deposits on our driveway all the way to the bottom...I guess he was not happy with us... :(
Almost on a daily basis since, we have one to three horses that are munching on the grasses that grow along our driveway...not sure why they would climb our hill, when there is plenty of grass to eat at the bottom of the hill and along the road leading to our driveway...they seem to like us and have adopted us as their new home away from home (where ever their home is?)
Since many of the locals still ride horses through out town as their main mode of transportation, we are sure that these horses belong to someone that lives close by....

Mark rented a SUP board the other day for an hour and gave it a try again...the waves were a little choppy and it was a little bit of challenge to get out beyond the break...however, he prevailed and did a great job...He said it took him a while to find his balance while standing up and he decided that it was best, when he just didn't think about what he was doing...he just enjoyed the view looking back to shore and went with the flow of the ocean....

My work is keeping me busy, lots of researching vacations, answering emails and talking with clients on the phone...(many of which do not even know that they are talking to me in Mexico)....so far the fast internet has been very reliable and both of my phone numbers have worked with no problem (except for my brand new At & T cordless phone that I brought with me for our Vonage phone number, it was fried in one of the brown outs...so I borrowed an old Telmex cord phone from a friend...all of the buttons are in Spanish and it looks like it might be 20 years old...but it still works and does the job)... :)

We are still amazed on a daily basis at how simple our life is here...and how healthy you can eat for very little money...we shop at the local Tienda's and fruit & vegetable markets on a daily basis and you only get what you need for that day or two...all very fresh...
The fruit & yogurt smoothies for breakfast and vegetable's, rice and shrimp for dinner have become our favorites....of course we still go out for dinner as well and are trying new taco stands when ever we can...

We are never in a hurry to go anywhere or do anything, we basically do not where a watch or need to know what time it is...and we always seem to run into someone we know in town that wants to chat...(which sometimes can turn into an hour or so)...It is a very stress free life...which we love!

We missed you all at Thanksgiving time...and we were thankful that we could Skype with Mark's family and talk on the phone with mine...it sounds like the family celebrations back home were wonderful and that the weather even cooperated that day as well...sorry to hear that Winter has started to take hold and that you have even had snow (although the boys up at Michigan Tech are use to snow in early October)....we hope the Winter is a mild one for you all (except for the boys in the old hood, we know you really want to play hockey this Winter, so we will wish for some cold weather for awhile so that the hockey rink freezes)...

Please keep in touch and call or email anytime...we would love to hear from you all...

I'll try to update more often...
Until next time....here are some more photos of Sayulita and our life here... :)

One of our new pet horses

Fresh fruits and veggies (all for under $3.00USD)

Mark looking good on his SUP

All you really need.....

Mark in his new work uniform...bathing suit, flip flops and tool belt!

Still a happy couple living in Sayulita!

Our Casa

The pool at our Casa  :)

The local bus we take to Puerto Vallarta - only 25 pesos one way...

Pineapples for only 10 pesos (approx 80 cents)

Fresh fish right off the boats....

Day of the dead celebration on the Plaza

Our favorite place to buy breads and croissants (the back of his pickup truck)

Our first two weeks just flew by.......

We can't believe that it has been two weeks since we moved in to our Casa in Sayulita...time has flown by so fast...

There have been so many unexpected twists, turns and challenges...that we have learned that patience and laughter are the two main ingredients to living life in a small Mexican village...and so far, so good...we embrace each new adventure and are very thankful for this amazing opportunity...

We have called a truce with all of the new bugs/critters that we meet on a daily basis...we made a pact with them...to just co-exist, learn to get along with each other...and no one gets hurt...so far, everyone is keeping their word and life is peaceful... (However, I did just almost have a heart attack about an hour ago, when Mark turned on the ceiling fan in the living room and out came flying, the cutest gecko ever...I am sure he was not expecting to go for a ferris wheel ride at that moment...it scared us both - the gecko ran behind the couch and I am sure he is still there shaking)....

We are settling in to every day life...realizing this is not a vacation...but our life now...

My daily 2-3 mile morning run through the village is something I so look forward to... as does Mark, taking his daily swim/body surfing time in the ocean...we do our market shopping most afternoons (the fresh fruits and veggies are wonderful and so inexpensive), and we go out to dinner occasionally for fish tacos or pizza... I work at least 6 hours a day selling vacations and Mark is keeping up with the daily chores as well as fixing some odds and ends around the casa...

The temps have been between 80-85 every single day...and there is always a very nice breeze to keep us cool...(sorry to all of you in the North...we heard that snow has made it's first appearance).

Here are some of the recent photos that we took on one of our many walks around the village...the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Sayulita are hard to capture in photos...hopefully, you will get an idea of what life is like in the village and why we love living here so much!

More to follow soon...

Our whole life fit into these 8 suitcases

Fruit and veggie market

El Centro - Plaza in middle of town

Corner store selling souvenirs

Mark's favorite Taqueria- tacos are only 60 cents each....

Selling coconuts and pineapples out of the back of his pickup truck

One of our favorite streets down to the beach...lots of restaurants and stores

Everyone is represented in the village (United States, Canada & Mexico)

A small hotel and pharmacy sharing the same storefront

Happy couple living in Sayulita....

This is my office on our terrace...

One of the oldest Catholic Churches in the village

Fresh Red Snapper just caught - local fish market

The sunsets are amazing from our deck

Our favorite fish taco restaurant, they know our order by heart now...

Real Italian pizza, made by real Italian guy...made in wood fire oven

Beach at low tide, our casa is on hillside in the distance

Local fisherman enjoying a Sunday afternoon party on the beach

Main street leading from Plaza down to the beach

Beautiful sweeping 2 mile beach 

Great surfing, stand up paddle boarding or boogie board waves

Finally an update....We are safe in Sayulita and loving life!

Where to begin????

 I intended on updating you all prior to our move down to Sayulita....The last week prior to our move was one of comedy, laughter, tears, stress, sleep deprived, storage unit size challenges, random house issues going wrong and just plain the craziest week that I can ever remember in my life... I will spare you the details, but suffice to say that almost nothing went as planned at the time it was suppose to, but in the end, it all worked out and we made it safely to Sayulita on time on November 1, 2012....(anyone that comes down to visit us will most likely get the crazy details of the week before we moved)....

Thank you a million times over to Kevin & Antonia for their generous offer to help us move our storage stuff (what little we kept and did not sell or give away to goodwill) in their 30ft snowmobile trailer (we moved it all into a 10 x 15 storage unit...now that was a challenge)...

Thank you to Jim, Barb and Leah Newhof for their wonderful generosity of letting us crash in their basement for 2 nights when we were completely homeless...and for feeding us the best fish tacos ever...

Thank you to Andy Anderson (Wendell) for allowing us to use his spare car & van to run around town with (after we had given back my leased car & sold Mark's truck)...much cheaper than Enterprise car rental and more fun to drive (loved the red rocket and Mark wants to adopt the Safari van as his work truck for next Summer)...and thank you for being our back up storage area (his basement is now full of our plastic storage containers) once our "real storage unit" was completely filled to the ceiling...and for being our mail box and our banker for the next 6 months...you are the BEST!

Thank you to so many other friends and family for their love, support, advice and prayers and for hanging in there with us on this incredible life journey...we could not have done this without you...THANK YOU!

Also, thanks to Alamo car rental (rented a Dodge Caravan  in Grand Rapids and dropped it off at Detroit Metro), to Frontier Airlines (Detroit to Denver to Puerto Vallarta), to Mary Dolinka (Mark's cousin who picked us up at the Puerto Vallarta airport and who owns a small bungalow hotel in Sayulita), to Santander Bank in Bucerias (which allowed us to change some of our U.S. dollars to pesos), for Mary's Ford Focus station wagon that accommodated all 9 suitcases (weighing approx 50lbs each) and Mark and I and drove us safely to Sayulita (approx 25 minutes from the Puerto Vallarta Airport), only to get stuck in the river while trying to cross it where there was no bridge (a long story...)...we were stuck in the river for about 30 minutes while a backhoe tried to pull us out with a questionable chain...(like I said its a long story)...finally we were on dry land again and were on our way driving through our tiny village of Sayulita to our Casa (our Villa "home away from home" for the next 6 months)...Casa Vista Del Pacifico...
However, we still had one more hurdle...the road to our Villa washes out every rainy season (which is from June - October) and the road becomes a river (complete with ruts, large boulders and the occasional tree trunk)...since this is the end of rainy season, the river wasn't flowing much, but the road was in rough shape...however, the ford focus station wagon was determined to make it through (kind of like it was determined to make it across the river that we got stuck in the middle of)...it was quite the challenge and a lot of spinning tires and mud flying later, we managed to make it through the ruts in the road and to the bottom of our driveway...now the driveway is a whole different animal...it is extremely steep, is pretty much all cement (stamped where the tires drive for traction)...however there are just a couple of areas where a section has washed out...once again the ford focus was determined to get up that hill...(keeping in mind that we had a ton of weight in the car, 3 humans, 9 suitcases, 2 backpacks)...Oh yeah, did I say that the ford focus is a stick shift car with only a 4 cylinder engine...ugh!
The villa property manager was following us up the driveway in his Toyota off road truck (think Hummer!)...no issues with him making it up the driveway....half way up the driveway, the ford focus did not want to go any further and started to slip backwards...in the process one of the tires jumped the curb and it (or should I say we) were hanging off the edge (looking straight down a small valley)...carefully we all got out of the car, took all of the luggage out and proceeded to lift the car back over the curb and push it up the hill...(unfortunately it burned out the clutch and the emergency brake in the process)...welcome to Mexico!...After dropping us off, she coasted back down our driveway (which was much easier than going up it)...and was able to limp along the ruts in the road back to the main road in the village and the 8 blocks back to her hotel/home...now the Ford Focus sits on the side of the street waiting for a car repair man to come and fix it...(it could take days or weeks, everything is on Mexico time)....

Sorry for the long story, many more crazy things happened that day..those were just some of the highlights...Patience and laughter were required that arrival day (and probably will be required each and every day...and we both LOVE it!)...

Our Casa (villa) is beautiful -   http://www.sayulitalife.com/vistadelpacifico ...the view of the Pacific Ocean, palm trees, and village is amazing, and even the critters are tolerable...(they had just fumigated the villa prior to our arrival...so the fact that we found 5 half dead scorpions (baby ones), 6 mostly dead, very large black spiders and several other bugs/critters dead on the floors in the first 2 days, was only a little alarming...in the days since our arrival, the dead critters are getting less and less...now I am just finding the occasional live critter...mostly cute little gecko's...although, every time you put on your shoes, it a good idea to to check for critters...don't want to accidentally step on anything that might bite or sting...(ouch!).

We do not have a car or golf cart as of yet...(we have not decided if we will buy or rent one either)...so we walk everywhere...up and down the steep driveway, through the crazy, torn up river road to town (which will soon dry up and be a normal road again), to the beach, to the fruit and veggie markets...the village of Sayulita sits in a large bay (approx 2 mile beach from end to end)...and it is easy to walk everywhere...It takes approx 7 minutes for us to walk to the ocean for a swim, and 10 -15 minutes to walk to town (depending on where we are going)...there are at least 50 different restaurants in Sayulita (most of them very small (only one or two tables) ...and run by the locals...called Taqueria's...a great place to get local tacos very cheap....) We have every kind of food here....from Pizza to Sushi to a Jewish Deli to an authentic German Restaurant complete with sauerkraut...We have taco stands in the street where you sit on red plastic chairs and we have gourmet restaurants with white linen table cloths and fine dishes...as well as the coolest beach/bar restaurants up and down the beach....Some restaurants are pretty expensive (and cater to the tourists) and other's are so cheap, you wonder how they can make a profit...so far, all of the one's we have tried have been delicious and worth going back to...

I have found a wonderful running route (between 2-3 miles) and have been running each morning...lots of hills and cobblestone streets, so I am not breaking any time records...just making sure that I don't sprain an ankle...and I love the sights, the sounds, the smells and the friendly local faces each morning....

We get a lot of exercise going up and down the hill to the local markets for fresh fruit and veggies...and there are also many small "Tienda's" where you can buy various other grocery items...all owned by local's and each one seems to have different items...so shopping can take a while, depending on how many Tienda's that you have to visit to get what you need...
Every Friday they have a true "Farmer's Market" in town with lots of very interesting, homemade foods and items, and organic ingredients that you can not get anywhere else in Sayulita...it is also a wonderful social time, to meet up with all of your new friends in the village and meet other gringos (as we are called)...and spend some time comparing notes on various concerns, challenges, updates and ways of life in Sayulita...

Mark is staying busy, he loves to go for a swim in the ocean (at least once a day)...the rest of the time he stays busy with checking online stocks/financial stuff and with cleaning our pool, sweeping the tile floors, picking up any dead critters, making most of the meals, doing the dishes, the laundry and fixing any little issues that come up in the villa (lights, water, window locks, doors, washer, dryer, grill etc...) those things alone will guarantee him job security for a long time...he brought some small tools down here in his suitcase and has also had to improvise a few times...it is amazing what they use duct tape for and there is no such thing as a real building code...
As soon as he can, he will be out there surfing and stand up paddle boarding (SUP)...we just have to check into some board rentals or purchase a used one...all in good time!

I am working full time selling vacations...and most of my clients don't even know that I am sitting in Mexico when they are speaking to me...(I have the same phone number (616) 558-5201 and email address bnewhof@sbcglobal.net as before and Mark's email is mnewhof@sbcglobal.net)...we also have a new Vonage phone number that anyone can call us (it is a local call and will not cost you anything)...
(616) 855-1611...
I have my office set up, so that I can sit on my terrace, overlooking the pool, ocean and valley (I try to stay focused and not too distracted) and we have very fast internet...so it all works well....(I like it a lot better than sitting in my basement at our old house in Caledonia)...

We had our first visitors yesterday (Nov 8), George & Joanie Snyder from East Grand Rapids...they happen to be staying with some friends of theirs in Puerto Vallarta for a week and decided to come North to Sayulita to visit us and the town...they took a taxi from the Marina District in Puerto Vallarta (which took approx 45 minutes) and spent several hours with us...lunch on the beach, a walk through town, several hours of getting caught up on life, lots of photo opts...and then they decide to be adventurous and take the city bus back to Puerto Vallarta...(it only costs 25 pesos per person one way...approx $2.00usd)...riding the local bus is always an adventure...you never know when you might have a live chicken sitting next to you or a traveling musician ...we are both looking forward to taking the bus to some of the local villages in the area and to some very local adventures...

We were given some fresh fish (Dorado - Mahi-Mahi) today by a friend in town and are looking forward to grilling tonight...however, we have to go to town to get some foil and a few other things (so we grab our backpacks, our flash lights and shoes with traction and off we go)...so I will sign off for now, I have lots of pictures to post soon...and I will try my best to update the blog as often as possible...

We wish that all of our friends and family could fly down to visit us and share in our new life...we love it so far and are so very thankful for this amazing opportunity to share with each other...

We love you and hope to hear from you all soon...(call or email anytime)...

Brenda & Mark