After the rain stopped the sun came out and that night we experienced some of the most spectacular sunset colors we had seen here. The reflection of the already set sun onto the shifting clouds that were still in the sky was a photographers dream. I, not being a photographer, did my best...
Saturday, after a colorful sunrise, I drove to the airport in Cabo.
Sharon rode with me as she has a flight to the U.S. and I was going to pick up my friend Mary who was arriving from Minneapolis. (To learn about Mary read “Mexico 1982” posted July 2nd, 2010) I was excited that Mary was coming to see us! She had not been here for a year and we were VERY far from done last time. I swept, and vacuumed, and “poofed and floofed” the house. I was ready!!!!
After I picked up Mary we did the normal Costco and Wal-Mart stops, calling Maurice along the way to see if he needed anything. He appeared to be getting more stressed each time we spoke. He explained it was getting really windy and that there were lots of flies in the house. He said we should pick up some fly strips; you know those obnoxious gold colored sticky strips that you may see hanging in old restaurants or hardware stores. He said the fly spray we had was not working. The thought of hanging these ugly, gross strips in our house horrified me, but I looked for them anyway cause he sounded in such “need“. Happily, I could not find them.
Maurice called again saying he was bringing in plants because the wind was really picking up. He said a pool chair blew in the pool. He was very frantic sounding. We didn‘t really concern ourselves as there was no weather at all in Cabo. It was sunny and warm…no wind.
On his third call he said the flies were carpeting our bedroom floor. Did we get the fly strips?? How close were we to home? I told him no, we did not find them and that we would be home in about 20 minutes. We still could see or feel any wind….of course he must be exaggerating, right?
Finally, about 10 minutes away from our place we noticed the ocean was filled with white caps. The sand from the road that was under construction was blowing all around us. The truck was shaking slightly from the winds. WOW!!!
What was going on!!!
Finally, I get Mary to the gate of Arriba de la Roca. I had been so excited to show her everything. We were having grilled salmon for dinner……
But oh my!!! Opening up the iron gate was such an effort! It seemed that the winds were blowing about 100 mph!! It was insane!!! How were we going to bring the luggage and supplies up the cliff???? What was happening??
Maurice had gone on line and found out that hurricane Dora was about 200 miles directly west of us. Hurricanes are graded by their wind speeds and categorized accordingly. Dora had dipped under 74 mph so it had been downgraded to a tropical storm, he said. So it was no longer “Hurricane Dora” only “Tropical Storm Dora”. I cannot even imagine if it would have been a full-fledged hurricane! No wonder Maurice “sounded frantic”!! I would have been screaming like crazy!!!! GET HOME!!! Or…Aunty Emm…TOTO!!!!
When we finally got up on top I found our main room is open and it was filled with plants leaves, stems, and dirt that had flown in, and yes, flies. I have never in my life seen so many flies in one place. It was creepy and totally gross. They were everywhere!!! To open windows and doors meant more flies and wind. To close the windows meant being jailed in a hot room with 100’s and 100’s of flies.
Maurice had been busy!!! All the lawn furniture, umbrellas, decorative planters, was either laid down either flat or inside our house. Sadly, we lost two cushions down the cliff! There they were perched in the abyss, never to be touched again.
Welcome to Arriba de la Roca, Mary!! EEEGADS!!!! WHERE ARE THOSE GOLD FLY STRIPS WHEN YOU REALLY NEED THEM!!
We got stuff put away as much as we could. Then we decided to set up lawn chairs in the doorway of our main room and watch the wind. We pushed the doors open as far as possible and we sat there drinking margaritas and trying not to freak out.
After a couple of hours we decided that Dora was not as bad as we thought it was and that we could still dance a little. The wind was not strong enough to blow us off the balcony so we danced up a storm...so to speak!!!!! By then we were drinking wine and decided there was no way I was making salmon!! The flies were crawling everywhere!! The thought was absurd!!! I threw a quick snack together, flapping my arms about me like a crazy kook, and we kept on drinking and dancing!!
I had told Maurice there was not a chance we were sleeping in our room. Thank heavens Mary’s had been totally closed up, but ours had been open in the beginning and Maurice was not exaggerating when he said the floor was a carpet of flies. So he closed it all up and sprayed a can of fly killer inside. By the time we went to bed, I vacuumed up 860 dead flies, with only 100 remaining. EEWW!!! Nevertheless, we did sleep in there. I guess by staying up until one in the morning and sampling most of the alcohol we had in our bar we were actually able to sleep.
On Sunday we all woke up to a calm, lovely day here at Arriba de la Roca. We had lost some plants, destroyed by the winds, but really we were otherwise fine. A few hours of clean-up and it was like Dora was never here. Except for our headaches, and the pictures we have of our palms laying perpendicular to their planters, our first Tropical Storm was almost like a dream.
So much for giving Mary a lovely welcome to Arriba de la Roca. So much for the poofing and floofing!!! Well, for sure, it will be a trip that none of us will forget!
P.S. Maurice actually climbed down the cliff the next day and rescued our cushions! Can you see him down there??? Seriously, I was so nervous that I thought I was going to puke just looking at him!!
Or maybe that was the cocktails form the night before!! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment