It’s a sweet, sweet life living by the salty sea – unless it’s metal!!

Still standing 2010.    

A formerly intricate statue lay in a pile of unrecognizable rust. 

We had first seen the still upright-structure in September 2010, when we visited the sculpture garden located at the southern tip of Isla Mujeres Mexico.

Reading the plaques at the base of each statue we had noted the artists were from various European countries as well as Mexico.  

In 2010 many of the statues had weathered the abuse of salt, water, and wind but two or three had already collapsed. 

Same statue - September 2018

From what I remember, the garden was created a few years earlier with the intention of the showcasing metal sculptures the first year, wooden statues the second year, glass creations the third year. 

But according to my local source the original artists didn’t get paid and the entire project came to an abrupt halt.

A few weeks ago I decided to take Sparky for a walk, and see how the sculptures were holding up. Not well in many cases.

Sparky - September 2018

Neither have the wooden railings that line the pathway leading down to the famous, if somewhat battered sign declaring the location as the most eastern point in Mexico. 

This is the first place in Mexico the rising sun strikes. The location where still-partying New Year’s Eve revelers toast the dawn of the new-year.

I have many photographs of the railings, painted a brilliant turquoise blue, then black, and then a muddy brown. Now the railing are almost non-existent, broken or missing altogether.  

Punta Sur railings - 2012

This is Mexico. You are responsible for your own actions. You can’t sue anyone if you get hurt.  I repeatedly remind visiting family members not to lean on railings, any railings, there is no guarantee that they will hold your weight.  The inside of the wooden railings could be hollowed out by termite infestations, but painted to look pretty.

This country’s safety standards are somewhere back in the 1940’s or 50’s as far as most North Americans are concerned. In a weird way I find it refreshing as opposed to the over-protective, litigation-prone society that we left behind. 

September 2018 - statue garden

The southern tip of the island is also famous for two more things – it is the highest area in the exceptionally flat State of Quintana Roo, and it has an authentic Mayan ruin probably used as a lighthouse or watchtower structure. 

The centuries old ruin has survived storms, salt, and water far better than the modern day metal sculptures.

May 2018 - Mayan ruin in background

~

Isla Mujeres Mystery series

A big thank you to one of my favourite authors, Jinx Schwartz for her review of 

Tormenta Isla, Book #3 in the Isla Mujeres Mystery series:

 Click here to purchase

Jinx Schwartz

Author @JinxSchwartz  Click here to connect to Jinx

Recommended

Reasons I enjoyed this book:
Action-packed Easy-to-read Entertaining Page-turner

Photo credit - Linda Madden

Tormenta Isla:

Murder and mayhem on a tiny island in paradise (Isla Mujeres Mystery Book 3) 

Lynda L. Lock

.
Crime Fiction, Action And Adventure
A mysterious disappearance of a local man and the looming threat of hurricanes headed towards the peaceful Caribbean island of Isla Mujeres create havoc in the lives of Jessica and her rescue mutt, Sparky.

Available on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, iBooks and paperback here on the island or via Amazon.

Celebrating the arrival of the New Year!

Fireworks at midnight on New Year's Eve 

The best place to bring in the new year has to be on Isla Mujeres where everyone, young and old, knows how to welcome in the New Year. The square in front of the Palacio Municipal (City Hall) is typically jammed with thousands of celebrants ready to party until dawn.

The fun starts around 11 p.m. ish, this is Mexico don’t forget so everything starts close-ish to the advertised time. 

Food and drinks for party-goers

Drink and food stalls are the first to open, and then the warm-up band blasts rock tunes or salsa over the crowd until the fireworks display at midnight.

Amid laughter and shouts of Happy New Year in several languages, people hug, kiss, rattle, or honk their noise makers while dodging the burning embers raining down on the square from the overhead display of pyrotechnics. It’s a fantastically fun evening.

Fireworks at midnight NYE Isla Mujeres

Next, the dozen-or-so headline entertainers crank up their amplifiers and rock the downtown area with horns, guitars, percussion, singers, and dancers. You can dance your socks off until after sunrise. 

Sleep is not on the program tonight, for anyone within hearing distance of the celebrations. Entire families spend the night dancing, eating, and drinking. Even the youngest ones outlasted Lawrie and me.

Lawrie, Canadian New Year's Eve

Over the past thirty-something years Lawrie and I have celebrated this special time in a variety of ways, from boisterous dinners at our home in Canada, to just the two of us sharing a bottle of good champagne, or a dinner party on Isla with rooftop drinks to watch the fireworks in Centro. 

And, we have participated in an odd northern custom of swimming in near-freezing ocean water early on New Year’s Day. 

Isla Mujeres Navy helping with crowd control

Here on Isla Mujeres, there is a much warmer, interesting custom that started a long time ago, perhaps when the footpath to the southern end of the island became an actual road. 

Hundreds of people drive to Punta Sur to welcome the first light, to greet the dawn of the brand new year. Punta Sur is the most easterly part of Mexico and receives the first rays of sunlight.

It’s an intriguing sight to see hundreds of cars, trucks, motos, and golf carts arrive with an assortment of people still dressed in their party finery. Sleepy kids snoozing in the back of pickup trucks are carried by their parents to the edge of the starfish-shaped plaza. Women teetering on stiletto heels clutch bottles of champagne. (Trouble Isla book #2 of my Isla Mujeres Mystery series)

First Light - January 1st, Isla Mujeres

Most people look spent, tired out, and ready for bed but it’s the perfect end to a perfect party. Others arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed having slept soundly, far from the crazy celebrations in Centro. 

Everyone cheers the arrival of the new dawn then finally makes their way home to sleep for a few hours before the normal sounds of island life wake them up again.  

Max, Lawrie, Sparky NYE 

As we were out walking our two dogs on the morning of January 1st we could still hear the music pounding from over a mile away, then at 7:30 a.m. it stopped. 

Yes, that’s right 7:30 in the morning the band stopped and the party officially ended.

Start making your plans now if you want to start the next year on Isla Mujeres, a Pueblo Magico, a magical town. You should book your accommodations and dinner at the popular restaurants well in advance. 

We know it’s hard for you spur-of-the-moment folks, but it is really worth the effort to plan ahead.

This is the time of year to enjoy being alive, to create fantastic memories, and to look forward to another good year.

Wishing you and your families a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year

~

Get your Isla 'fix' with the exciting Isla Mujeres Mystery series!

There's Trouble on Isla, Big Trouble!
  

Book #2 in the Isla Mujeres Mystery Series

5.0 out of 5 stars

Fast and furious

By CA reviews on September 26, 2017

Yasmin and Jessica are back and the gold they found in Treasure Isla is still haunting them, especially when Carlos, their boss at the Loco Lobo, and Yasmin’s new lover, is kidnapped. No spoilers here, but his captivity and the girls’ efforts to free him, with the help of Carlos’s pals—including local Isla Mujeres fishermen and a Mexico City cop—are the crux of this fast-paced story. Lock has created not only a compelling and authentic setting, but a well-developed ensemble cast. The next Isla mystery can’t come fast enough.

 Treasure Isla - where it all began!

5.0 out of 5 stars

Captivating and authentic

By CA reviews on September 26, 2017

This was a truly fun in the sun kind of mystery, with an authenticity that was simply captivating. Set on the island called Isla Mujeres, not far from the better-known Mexican resort of Cancun, it follows the misadventures of two girlfriends, who on a drunken binge manage to wander onto the grounds of a cemetery and find a treasure map stuck in a crevice of an old pirate tomb. Jessica, from Canada, and local pal Yasmin both work at a tourist bar/restaurant called the Loco Lobo. Soon their boss Carlos and a handsome attorney named Luis are involved in the girls’ illegal hunt for pirate gold. Toss in a bad dude running from a string of crimes in Key West, and it’s the start of an addictive new mystery series.

First light of the New Year

Fireworks at midnight in centro

Mexico really knows how to party.  The festivities for celebrating the arrival of the New Year in Mexico begin late in the evening on December 31^st, and romp on into the first hours of daylight. 

Tony Garcia photo - Dancing the night away

We have several times in the past nine years joined the party in centro on Isla Mujeres for the fireworks and the beginning of the dancing. We usually give up around two in the morning, leaving our reserved table and chairs for hardier friends to use.  A few times we have noticed the three and four-year-olds still dancing with their siblings and parents as we slink off to our beds. You have to be born into this culture to have kind of stamina!

New Year's Eve celebrations - Jimmy Picuri photo

This year we didn’t make the trek to centro, instead we celebrated quietly, just the two of us and our little mutt, Sparky, with a toast to the New Year and a few tasty snacks.  We were in bed well before midnight. When the booming explosions started I woke up briefly, thought about climbing to our rooftop to watch, then turned over and mumbled Happy New Year to my slumbering hubby. Maybe next year.

Waking at o-dark-hundred at six in the morning, Sparky and I decided to leave Lawrie snoozing and join the group that gathers to welcome ‘first light’ at the southern end of the island – the very first place in Mexico for the sun to strike.  I had an ulterior motive.  The event is featured as the opening scene in my second novel, Trouble Isla, but I had never actually dragged myself out of bed in time to participate.

Road blocked off at Punta Sur - no more room for vehicles

The pooch and I bundled into the golf cart and set off driving south to Punta Sur.  Passing through the colonias I waved at neighbours who were still happily partying in courtyards or spilling over into the roadways.  Loud music, laughter, the clink of glasses and the occasional small explosion from handheld rockets.

The farther south I drove, the more traffic joined the procession. Pickup trucks with mattresses laid in the back were piled with sleepy children. Motos with two and three laughing celebrants whizzed past. Groups of young men and women waved and greeted me with Feliz Año Nuevo as they trundled past, crammed six, seven or eight to a golf cart.  Almost everyone was still dressed in their party finery, vastly different from my jeans, sweater and athletic shoes. 

El Presidente Juan Carillo and his wife Pao Orrico first sunrise

Passing the landfill site I saw the flashing red and blue emergency lights of two police cars. Thinking I had come across an accident I fervently hoped no one was seriously injured. As it turned out, the police were controlling the traffic for a side road, where a large group complete with tents and chairs had set up along the edge of the cliffs, facing south. This is new. It could have been the new Presidente Juan Carrillo Jr. and his wife Pao Orrico with a large group of friends, or it could have been a church gathering. It was difficult to know with the quick glance I had before the police officer waved me on.

Arriving at the turnoff road to Punta Sur, I was surprised to see a police roadblock. The officer waved me through then replaced the traffic cones behind me.  Everyone arriving after me had to park along the main route, cluttering up both sides of the road. Sparky and I parked the golf cart and began to walk the block and a half towards the large palapa near the entrance to the park. There were cars, trucks, golf carts, motos, people, pets, and more people. An enterprising food vendor had set up near the palapa.  Music blasted over the crowd from a nearby DJ. Every available space was crowded with bodies; the tops of the stone walls, the seats in the seldom-used amphitheater, the gardens, and the plaza. People arrived with coolers of adult beverages. A few carried open bottles of champagne.

First light at Punta Sur January 1st 2017

I edged my way through the throng, heading towards a space where I might be able to snap a few photos and met up with two friends, Harriet and Richard Lowe, who have been making the ‘first light’ trek for a number of years. They were astounded at the number of people. In years past the small group was a combination of party-goes and sleepy early-risers, still wearing their pajamas.

Sparky and I hung around until the sky began to lighten with ‘first light’ and then I took a serious look at the number of vehicles parked in the area and decided it was time to go.  

We arrived back at our casa just as the sun was clearing the horizon. I brewed our morning coffee, then headed upstairs with two steaming cups of liquid brain-food to share with my sweetie. It’s a pretty great way to start the New Year.

Happy 2017, Feliz año nuevo

Lawrie & Lynda

and Sparky