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