Tomorrow's plan (if the rain is not too hard): off to the jungle to look at a piece of property of about 87 hectareas (200 acres). It's all monte alto (high forest) that hasn't been touched for over 40 years so there should be some big trees on the property. No electricity but there is a natural well. And because it is a natural well, it could led to a domed underground cenote. There are also at least two reyolladas (terminal phase of a cenote... usually a dry cone-shaped depression, sometimes over 100 meters across or +110 yards or a little longer than an American football field). Reyolladas are interesting because most of their area is below ground level; they're filled with good, fertile soil, often have old-growth trees, often have unusual trees/plants because of their protected situation and sometimes have interesting wildlife as well. Plus the apex of the cone (is that the correct geometric term?) is usually less that 10 meters from water and is a good spot to dig another well. I am taking my GPS and my digital camera as well as my machete and ropes and going with the owner's son and two friends of mine, one of whom is a cave diver to help access the well potential. Who knows what the day will bring?

[ add comment ]   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link

---

Here's the link to the interview.

[ add comment ]   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link

---

Just reread this quote from the science fiction novel "Cities in Flight" (about 1955) by James Blish. I read this novel when it was first published.

"Under the relentless pressure of competition from the USSR and its associated states, the Earth's Western culture had undertaken to support a permanent war economy, under the burden of which its traditional libertarian political institutions were steadily eroded away. By the beginning of the twenty-first century it was no longer realistically possible to see any difference between the rival cultures, although their outward forms of government continued to be called by different names. Both were police states in which the individual citizen had lost all right to juridical defense, and both operated under a totally controlled economy. In the West, the official term for this form of public policy was "anti-Communism"; in the East it was called "anti-Fascism," and both terms were heavily laden with mob emotion. The facts of the matter, however, were that neither state was economically either fascist or communist, and that as economic systems neither fascism nor communism has ever been tried in recorded Terrestrial history."

The USSR went away, but the USA are (sic) still in a war economy and eroding more individual rights every day... little by little so that most of us don't even notice the loss. And "mob emotion"... just read the paper/internet and/or the TV news any day of the week. Maybe they haven't yet heard in Washington that the USSR dissolved some years ago. Or, just maybe, we have had to find a new global evil to justify our actions and priorities and prejudices.

[ add comment ]   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link

---

Jenny, the manager of Casa Hamaca, finally had her baby late Sunday, Aug 29, with a C-section. A baby girl. First name is Linda after Jenny's mother, Doña Linda. No second name yet. Baptism may not be until December. Bebe Linda is healthy and fat. Mother and child are both doing well although Jenny is hurting from the C-section.


[ add comment ]   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link

---

We recently had an architect as a guest at Casa Hamaca. He was on the original surveying and planning team for Cancun in the early 1970's. They camped in tents on the bare beach where the hotel zone now sits. This was a planned tourist development, from scratch, by the Mexican government. The original plan for the non-hotel zone was for no more than 30,000 people. Population in 2005 was estimated at 563,000. The word Cancun is probably of Mayan origin and can be translated as Nest of Vipers... an apt name, I think.

[ add comment ]   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link

---

Next

www.casahamaca.com/pblog - Page Generated in 0.1738 seconds | Site Views: 4362