We got home at 5:30am! Put the truck in the garage and went to sleep. It was a slow ride back, our little Toyota pickup was so overloaded that we didn't go over 40mph! Everything is unloaded and in the hall now and I can take my time finding it all a place. Did I mention it rained almost all the way back? Or that most of the weight was due to my insisting on bringing 3 huge concrete pots?
Melissa, the press goes crazy with bad news. While the drug war has taken a lot of lives in the last few years, it is not everywhere. Even in the areas that are in the middle of it all there are tons of regular people living their lives with maybe a few modifications in where they go but most of the country reads these stories with the same horror that we read about the shootings in Conn. Tourists are not on their radar, they are fighting each other and the military for control of routes to the US border. Regular people get caught in the crossfire and it is horrible but they aren't the goal. They are criminals, very rich ones, and they don't care about anyone else. Here in the state of Yucatan where I live, the crime rate is lower than most of the US about the level of a state like Montana. This peninsula is off the direct route to the US which has helped. It is rumored that the big crime bosses keep their families here, I'm dubious about that, this is a rich city though.
My EX- beach place was directly across from the southern tip of the island Cozumel, about 100km south of Cancun. I think I could wave at you across Cuba but I'm not exactly sure where the USVI are, I've been to several Caribbean islands but not to either of the VI groups.
I live in a city of about a million, the oldest continuously occupied city on the continent. It is a center for art, music, food, architecture and medicine. My view from here is over colonial rooftops to many churches, the cathedral, colonial monuments and new monuments (I can see the angel Moroni on top of the mormon temple) and lots of trees.
