It. is. hot.
It's currently about ten thirty in the morning, and I am covered in dirt, sweat, bleach water, dog hair, soap, more sweat, and more dirt. It's also a blistering eighty degrees in the sun. At ten thirty in the morning. In December - nearly January. I am more and more convinced that I picked the perfect timing for this trip - I don't even want to know what July feels like here.

Yesterday was a lovely day - we were all lethargic and dizzy from the heat and deserving of a day off, so Elaine and I went to the beach in the morning. The water is bathtub warm and I finished my book in about an hour. Feeling quite accomplished, I figured a nap was in order. We dozed and woke, dozed and woke, stirring only to take the occasional sip of water, and spent three sun-drenched hours doing absolutely nothing.

We made our way back to the ranch around mid-afternoon and decided to cook a bit. Elaine made a really yummy banana bread with raisins, and I called up Mom to refresh my memory on her outta-this-world quiche recipe. I handmade the dough for the pie crust, rolled it out, and then chopped up peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic and brocolli. Stir-fried the veggies with some spicy chorizo sausage, then mixed in the sharp cheddar cheese, eggs, and milk. We put both pans in the oven to bake and went for a nice long sit on the rooftop balcony, tanned and sleepy and covered in handprints of all-purpose flour.


This morning, elaine and I have been beating/washing/bleaching/wringing/drying the dog blankets and doing a bit of clothes washing too. This is my first load of laundry since I've been here. :) Hopefully that gives you some olfactory insight into what my aroma is like these days.
I suppose 'healthy' is a good term. Although 'smelly', 'stinky', 'ripe', 'sour' and 'hippy' are also all applicable.

What else...
I planted jalapeno, habanero, and serrano peppers a while back, along with a full packet of cilantro seeds, and they're shooting up like weeds. Hopefully I'll get to reap the rewards of my efforts before I leave here. Nothing like saying, "I think I'll put some basil in this pasta primavera", and then stepping outside to snip a fresh bunch from the basil plant!

I'm heading to Belize tomorrow for four days (!!!) ... Happy New Year to all - be safe and be merry!
Love,
Suzy

Hello again!
I hope the holidays were wonderful for all of you - filled with comfort foods and families together and wee ones and old ones and all that. Christmas here was my first away from home, and apart from seeming just like any other Thursday in Mexico, it was a good time. Christmas Eve, Simon and Elaine and I all went out to La Cueva - a bar/restaurant just off the beach that's tucked in a little shady grove of palm trees. We had drinks and took a few photos and played a few games of pool with the grown kids of the families who had stayed on for Christmas. It was funny, because the guys we played pool with were from New Jersey and New York, respectively, I figured that most of the folks who didn't go home for Christmas were probably either renting houses for a few months here or were Jewish.... and these lads seemed to be the latter. But they were sauced enough on daquiris and margaritas that when I bid them a Happy Hanukkah, they just blinked at me and managed to say quite thickly, "hows'at you knew?" Nevermind that they'd been drunkenly singing Hava Nagila just a few minutes earlier. :)

We ended the night back at Lucy's ranch on her rooftop deck. The sky here is absolutely unreal. I've never seen so many stars in my life - so many that the sky looks more like a shimmery net of lights, with just patches of black here and there. Gorgeous.

Christmas morning, Elaine let us sleep in until 10 am - although the dogs woke me at 7 anyhow.. just like they always do. The pups don't quite get the concept of days off. She walked the dogs and did all the morning duties and made coffee and breakfast to boot! After that, we headed down to the crowded beach and spent nearly three hours just lazing about, reading our books, and soaking up the sun. We arrived back at the ranch around 4 and set about making sushi! The last time I made sushi was in Mexico, which I thought was quite funny...
I made a tempura batter to fry up the white fish and the shrimp that we had, and Elaine cut long slices of avocado, cucumber and carrot. We ended up with about five fat rolls of sushi (the rice was PERFECTLY sweet and sticky) and yes, I did take photos of it all cut and arranged on the square plates and garnished with hibiscus flowers. We ate until we couldn't move. :)

Lucy returns from the States on Tuesday, which is coincidentally the very same day that I leave for Belize! I'm so excited and giddy and nervous and glad to see Jacob again after four and a half months.. I can't even believe it's only three days away!

Hope everyone is doing well. Family - send me pictures of Brennan's first Christmas, would you? I know Kiley probably took a billion... :)

xox

Just a quick update before I settle down for Movie Night with the other WWOOFers...
I'm using Lucy's internet upstairs in her loft this week while she's away in Seattle visiting her parents. We also get to take hot showers and watch movies on a proper telly, so life feels pretty privileged right now.
Work at the kitchen is good, however it can be pretty frustrating trying to communicate with the women who work for Lucy.. they're all really, really nice, but they speak so damn fast and in such heavily accented Spanish that I spent most of my time just shrugging and saying "no entiendo" or struggling to decipher what they want from me by repeating the words "mas, mas, mas despacio. por dios! mas despacio!" All in all, I managed to make two batches of ice cream and serve fifteen tables their lunches without getting scolded too much, but I'm just frustrated by the fact that I can't make small talk with these women. I don't have enough words under my belt to say what I want to say, so I end up either remaining silent or phrasing things like a child. I come across as dull and unintelligent, two things that I know I'm not. Oh well. We're all novices at some point, and this is my time to just sit back and try to learn.

On a totally different topic, I'm becoming quite the master of on-the-fly meals. With limited groceries here, I've had to get a bit creative when it's my turn to make dinner, and tonight I managed to put together a pretty good meal... Roasted tomatoes cut in half, and stuffed with curried mashed potatoes, cilantro, onion, garlic and the insides of the scooped-out tomatoes. Baked for a few minutes in the oven with sharp cheddar cheese on top. Yum. Simon also threw together some hummus and we warmed pita bread and then cut it into triangles for our Mediterranean/Indian dinner. I'm going to be quite the thrifty cook when I come back.
For dessert tonight during our movie, it's fried plaintains with dark rum, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and nutmeg.
(side note: Jacob, you can no longer accuse me of 'never cooking'. :)

Alright! that's all for now. more to come this week before Christmas festivites begin!
Abrazos y besas,
Suzy

Hello again! I've had the good fortune of being in town during the day for the past few days, and in addition have had time to spare at the internet cafe! Que bueno.
Little update... Misty, the new WWOOFer, ended up leaving today after she figured out that the ranch life wasn't really suited to her tastes... which is totally fine. The living accommodations are more rustic than other places, the work is hard and sweaty, and it's an incredibly communal arrangement. You work, eat, drink, talk to and sleep alongside these people and if you really like being alone, it's not the best of situations. C'est la vie.
In other news, I woke up a few mornings ago with what I thought was a weird sunburn on my lower back. It was raised and red in a large spot, with fingers of blistered skin reaching all the way around to my navel. I asked Lucy about it and she thought maybe I'd had lime juice on my hands at the beach the day before (entirely possible, as limes come with everything here) and maybe I'd just wiped my skin with my hand and then laid in the sun for too long. Thinking she was probably right, I decided to let it go, but keep an eye on it. However, yesterday morning it looked worse and was spreading, and the skin started to blister really painfully. I showed Lucy, and our resident nurse/horse trainer/wwoofer Elaine, and both of them agreed that I'd brushed up against a chechen plant. It's essentially the jungle version of poison ivy, times 10, and takes a couple of weeks to heal. Interestingly enough, however, there's another plant that is almost always found growing right next to chechen, called chaca... Chaca is the antidote to chichen's poisonous sting, and so we mashed up the leaves with some salt (ouch) and water, and spread it over the area. It's a little better today, but still not so fun. Lucy says I just have to let it run its course, but it makes sleeping and sitting and bending and generally moving in any way pretty painful. Yikes.
Que mas... I worked at Lucy's kitchen in the puebla today, waitressing and chatting up all the Canadians and Americans that come for caribbean rum raisin or nutella or fresh coconut ice cream, and it was nice to be back in the service industry for a day. I'll be working there all this week while Lucy's away in Seattle, and with the sheer number of people in Akumal that have come for the holidays, it promises to be pretty dang busy.
Lucy and I picked up another dog last night (that makes 18 at the ranch now!) who had been run over and then chained to a tree since the accident last week. The dog's name is Estrella (star), and she's the tiniest, shiniest, glossy black puppy ever. Her leg gets fixed tomorrow and she ate two entire bowls of puppy chow last night. Lucy sighed heavily when we picked up the dog and muttered something about going broke because of dog food, but when I asked her if she wanted to try and give it away, she just said, "Nope. We'll just cut back on bacon and booze. The perritos come first." :)

I hope everybody's doing well, and family.. I'll be a little late with the Christmas presents, but y'know. That's the Ayliffe way. :)
Love and abrazos,
Suzy

It's hard to explain what it feels like to want personal space from mosquitos. People generally understand the idea...even dogs can sense when you're not up for playing, but mosquitos are the newest annoying tagalong species in my daily life. First thing in the morning, they swarm and chomp down on my sleepy sweaty skin on the way up to Lucy's house, then gorge themselves throughout the day while I work in the sun or shade or even indoors, and at night, when I am tired, fed, and retired to the porch with my book and a glass of vino, they sense their opportunity to feast upon a vulnerable walking buffet, and after ten minutes of frantic slapping and swatting and scratching, I finally concede defeat, breathless and covered in welts. 

I do not like the buggers.

Moving on. Hello from Akumal! Ranch life is picking up a bit, and I've got a nice rhythm and routine to my days now. I spent most of yesterday deconstructing Lucy's compost bin...which had been shoddily erected by a previous WWOOFer using rotted wooden planks and rusty wire. I built two new ones with concrete and cinder blocks and moved the compost to them, then mixed it with the manure from the horse corral. Sweaty work, but ultimately rewarding, since now Lucy has a rich and nutrient-laden mound of dirt to pull from when she wants to plant new seeds. 

Simon, my fellow WWOOFer from Ireland, has been my main company for the last ten days while his sister Elaine (also a worker) went back to Europe for a few meetings. However, life got really interesting yesterday when Lucy announced she'd forgotten that we were getting a new worker that very same day. Misty arrived, covered in tattoos and scars with tattooed raised eyebrows and a tongue ring. She's from Seattle and has a lot of experience with forestry and horses, and despite our first physical impression of her, she's turned out to be really down to earth. It's nice to have another girl here from the States, especially one that is as young, transient, and stick-out-like-a-sore-thumb looking as me. Hey, if I'm not going to "blend" in Mexico, at least there's safety in numbers, right?   :)

Que mas... Tomorrow I'm working in Lucy's restaurant across the highway on the beach in Akumal proper.... which we've dubbed Gringostan, as it is populated mostly by vacationers from Canada and the States that all walk around scratching their pale, pasty heads and saying things like "Boy, that beach was sandy."

This weekend I'm heading to Tulum with Misty and Simon and Elaine to stay at a super cheap hostel and go salsa dancing... Finally! After all the contra and waltz I'd been doing in Asheville for the last few months, this two week hiatus feels like a million years. At least I'm still using my legs to bike the 2.5 miles into town and 2.5 miles back every day.

Okie doke. I think that's all I have to report for now. More to come as things unfold. Love to you all and an early Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, and Feliz Navidad tambien!

Hello again from Akumal! I can't stay long, as just about everything I do is dictacted by the hours of daylight I have left...and the bikeride back to the ranch would not be fun in the dark. The road stretches for two miles and looks as though a meteor decided to crash into it every ten feet. Even more fun after last night's rain! things are good, hot, sweaty, drippy, buggy and blissfully quiet. I worked in the garden early this morning, groomed dogs (there is nothing less fun than pulling a tick the size of a cashew off of a poor pup and watching it leak out. I'm sorry if that's graphic, but thats how it goes.) Afterwards, Simon and I groomed the horses, let them out to run, walked the dogs, and planted a few chaya trees. All in all, a good day... made even better by the frequent, brief rainshowers that cooled everything off. I'm settling in well, and looking forward to more and more time with the dogs, the horses, and with my hands in the dirt. :)
I miss you all and love you all.
More soon.. I'm getting to the internet about twice a week, maybe less. and Jacob and Dad and Kiley, I'll find a way to call you three soon!
xo

soy aqui!

Hello!! Sorry it's taken me a bit to find internet and find time to update..
I'm alive here in Akumal. I have only a limited amount of time, as this internet cafe es MUY expensive. However... quick run-down... Got to Lucy's place after a hellish day on Thursday and a very comfy, unexpectedly expensive night's sleep in Akumal.. I arrived at her Ranch late Friday afternoon.
Lucy lives on 35 acres in the thick of the jungle. I swear. It's about a twenty minute bike ride to the highway, cross the highway, and just a short jaunt to the beach.. So. Lucy looks like our old family friend Dana McClintock but a little more high strung, and the ranch is just beautiful. Really rustic accommodations - roomy palapa-roofed one-room structure with a bed and mosquito net, table, water jug, dresser, and nada mas. Her house, up the driveway, is where I spend most of my day... Or at least, have so far. I am up at 6:30, go make coffee in her kitchen, say hello to the pups, and then read for a while until 8, when my workday starts. I've finished two books already. Yeah. Then I feed the dogs, feed the horses, feed the chickens, water the avacado/lime/banana/papaya trees, take the dogs on a short hike through the jungle, and then come back to the house to do whatever Lucy needs me to do. Yesterday I spent two hours rebuilding her compost area and turning it with a pitchfork to aerate it. Afterwards, I weeded and piled rocks, then cleaned out the horses' little lean-to, played with the pups some more, and settled down with my book. I am relatively tan already, which surprises Lucy (and me, actually..) When I first got here, her employee Rudolfo jumped up and exclaimed "she looks like she's been kept in a box all her life! so white!" and in some ways, I guess that's kind of true. Not that I was sheltered, but this ain't Kansas anymore if you know what I mean.
Anyhow. Things are really good, the days are full of rewarding work, and I have two other WWOOFers here to keep me company! On my first day, I was picked up by an Israeli volunteer and his English girlfriend and brought back to the ranch, but they left that same day to go to Guatemala... so the two left are Simon and Elaine, a brother and sister duo from Ireland. Simon is younger and works mostly with the land... Elaine is thirty and works for the Irish equivalent of Doctors Without Borders, but is on leave right now to flex her veterinary skills with Lucy's 17 dogs.
Que mas.... I had my first visit to a cenote today (bushwhacking through the jungle with a machete. Very Lara Croft) and then helped Lucy out with her shopping for the restaurant and the ranch.
Ay yi yi.. So much more to tell but I have to hop off or I'm gonig to break the bank with this session.
Love to you all. :)

Hello all,

So, I depart from Charlotte at 7pm on Wednesday, just two short days from now, and I'll be flying in to Dallas, where I'll be picked up by my always entertaining and incredibly wonderful Uncle Scott! We'll have a nice little reunion that night before I fly out at 9AM the next morning and land in sunny, expensive Cancun! From there I'll take a bus to Playa del Carmen, and from Playa, yet another bus to Akumal. Once I'm in Akumal, I'll make the short walk to Lucy's restaurant, and wait for her to get off work... at which point we'll head to Rancho Mariposa! She's still got four other workers staying with her at the moment, which I'm really excited about. It'll be nice to have some company in the first few days/weeks... folks that can give me an idea of what life consists of at Lucy's ranch. At this point, I'm just packing, repacking, wandering aimlessly around for lack of anything better to do, and continuing to have my sleep interrupted each night by a whole mess of anxiety, stress, apprehension and excitement. :)

More to come! I hope everyone is doing well.

Love,

Suzy

Hello all! For those that aren't already aware, I am headed out of the country! I'll be departing Asheville, NC on December 3rd to fly into Cancun, where I'll then travel south to Akumal (about halfway between Playa del Carmen and Tulum). In Akumal, I'll be working on a ranch/farm for a woman named Lucy James. I found Lucy through the Willing Workers On Organic Farms website and contacted her about work availability. The WWOOF program is merely a networking tool to put hardworking travelers in contact with farms and families all over the world. Most farms operate on a work-trade basis, meaning that your meals and lodging are free in exchange for manual labor 5 days a week. Some farms also pay a weekly stipend on top of that, but mostly it's just barter.

After my time in Akumal, I'll be traveling further south  for a month or so, where I'll be staying with my disarmingly handsome and incredibly smart significant other, Jacob, who is currently serving in the Peace Corps in Belize.

These are big plans and big events and big places, so I thought I'd make the whole thing a little more digestible by keeping you up to date with the daily adventures of life abroad, via blog. :)

Happy reading and thanks to all of you who have given me such incredible support throughout this whole planning process!

Best,

Susannah