Lyle, Lyle Crocodile

Tried to go to the beach here in La Manzanilla the other day but alas…there were 2 crocodiles in the bay. Rick and I were having a beer, Lyle runs into the water and 5 secs later a fireman is running toward him waving his arms yelling, “get out of the water,” a little unnerving to say the least. Images of Jaws flashed in my mind as I catapulted out of my chair and ran toward the water screaming “Lyle get out of the water.” He couldn’t hear me but he must have been able to tell by my face that something was wrong and he quickly scurried out. The crocodiles were nowhere near our location, but so much better safe than…well you know.

The rains have filled the lagoon and it’s spilling into the bay with an occasional croc going as well. The locals say it happens most summers and when the water goes back down in the lagoon so do the crocs. If one of the crocs gets to be a nuisance then the fishermen take a boat out, lasso the beast and drag him back into the lagoon.

There is a viewing platform at the end of town where you can view the crocs and if you want buy fish and toss it to them. Locals swear the only bad human/croc encounter happened when a tourists was feeding the crocs some fish, got too close and lost his hand. Because the crocodiles here are protected there are a lot of them, probably close to 300, I sure hope as the numbers of crocs as well as the number of humans increases our luck holds and nothing tragic happens...but I think it’s just wishful thinking.

We're Back in La Manzanilla!

We arrived in La Manzanilla Saturday the 4th at 5:00 PM to cloudy skies and drizzle. Around midnight it stared really raining and thundering and lightening. At 6:30 we had water seeping into our bedroom from the lot next door and a river running down the street that nearly as wide as the street. The river ran for 24 hours.



After the initial shock dealing with the seeping water and worrying about the chance of the water jumping our sandbags and really flooding the house we joined in the fun of the river! In the afternoon the kids built dams and played in the pools of cool, clear water. Video was shot in the late afternoon on Sunday, the flow was about 1/4 of that in morning.

Monday morning the river was dry but the street and those streets around us look like a war zone with huge crevices, some as much as 7 feet deep. We can’t get our truck out of the car port and even if we could it’s doubtful we could make it off our block without falling into a crevice. So, we walked Lyle to and from his first day of school in the rain, walked to Juan’s to buy tamales for dinner and were happy we still have electricity and internet! It’s the little things after all….