La Dulce Vida. The Sweet Life.

A few days at a beach hostel for post-dental work "recovery" has turned into a three-week stay...so far, with another month of work exchange planned. We have been adopted by a colorful crew of fabulous world travelers and have loved waking up each day to lots of sunshine and surprises. 

So far, on this trip, we have met folks from Canada, USA, Spain, Chile, Mexico, Holland, Denmark, UK, France, Germany, Poland, Italy, and probably other places I am forgetting. It's wonderful to hear different languages and see different customs and smell the aromas of mixed-culture cuisine in the hostel kitchen. (Coffee is universal.) We had the pleasure of being on the breakfast cook team for a few days this week. It was great to help put smiles on faces with a tasty breakfast and a hot cuppa java. 

The regular use of a kitchen at our fingertips has allowed us to start up a small raw snacks business to offset some traveling expenses and to share the deliciousness of raw vegan foods. We made two different kinds of snacks and shared samples with the hostel staff and guests. They have been a huge hit. So we then approached several local artisan mercados in the area and had our first market day last week. We have two more coming up this week! We have been learning more and more Spanish through our varied adventures. There are many people here eager to help us learn it. It's a lot of fun!

This mural is in the town we are staying in. The port here has been a major cacao trade route to Europe, known as the Chocolate Pier. This quote says that cacao is a food of the Gods.

In addition to raw snacks, we have been offering cacao ceremonies each Saturday evening for the last 3 weeks and have met many wonderful seekers through these gatherings. We have learned ad experienced that cacao is a powerful healer and teacher and helps us to open our hearts to knowing ourselves and to connect with others on a deep and honest level. We have also attended several  temescals, a traditional Mesoamerican sweat lodge ceremony with prayers, songs and meditations for deep cleansing and personal and global healing.

We have been helping the crew here to beautify, clean and promote the hostel as part of our work exchange. I have had a lot of fun with some small sign painting projects. 

I have also began leading small groups through classes of yoga and meditation twice each week in exchange for a small donation. We purchased the hostel a handful of yoga mats and they have been fully occupied almost every single class. Speaking of yoga, we have reserved our places in a one-month 200 hour yoga teaching certification program in Oaxaca beginning mid-March. Yippee! We are so excited to further expand our spiritual knowledge and to deepen our personal yogic practices. 

We feel so grateful for the magical people and experiences that are finding us every day. The challenges of communal living are abundant and are also wonderful opportunities to move into clear and heart-centered communication. 

Gracias por La Dulce Vida!

How Much Food is Enough?

Food. It's a tie that binds humans. It's what brings us together daily and what many of us have undiagnosed addictions to. That's right. I said addiction. To food. Allow me to elaborate.

For us, since crossing into Mexico, it has been quite a challenge to continue with an organic vegan (or even mostly vegan) diet.  Organic food is not a commonly seen thing here. So we buy the best-looking produce that we can find at local mercados and wash it well. We peel when necessary and cook what needs cooking. We have a cleansing spray for fresh herbs and things that are eaten raw and unpeeled.

For the first couple of weeks here, I tried to just relax about what I ate and to accept what was so kindly offered to us by all of the loving hosts that we encountered. Our first night over the border, our couchsurfing host offered us quesadillas made with wheat and cheese, neither of which I have eaten much of in recent years. We graciously accepted and enjoyed them very much. Yummy!

Well now...this began a descent down a slippery slope of eating foods that my body wasn't very fond of. I noticed right away that my digestive system was a bit confused. It took me a couple of weeks to finally pull the emergency brake and get off that freight train to wheat, dairy and sugar land. What was I thinking? Somehow the romantic idea of being in a foreign country made it all ok in my mind. "I'll be fine", I told myself, "Stop worrying so much." Well for many subtle reasons (and some not so subtle) I decided to speak up and say "no, thank you/ no, gracias" when someone offered me bread, cake, or tacos, quesadillas, snacks or pretty much anything that is a traditional Mexican dish. Wheat, dairy and meat are the three main ingredients on most Mexican plates. Corn is a close fourth. I don't mind corn and it's darn tasty. Although, it's not so easily digestible and then there's the whole GMO topic to boot...UGH. I can't erase what I know, however, I can listen to the whispers and shouts that are coming from my body and spirit, and respect them. Think that wheat and sugar don't have a hold on your mind and body? Try quitting cold turkey for a few days and see what happens.

We just so happened one night last week to stumble upon the research of a man named Arnold Ehret on Google.  He lived in the late 1800's/early 1900's and basically believed that humans do not need much, if any, food to thrive. I know. It's pretty far out! However, we are a few chapters into one of his most well-known books, the Mucusless Diet Healing System, and it's extremely thought-provoking. He begins by stating that anything other than fruits and non-starchy vegetables cause a state of chaos and illness in the human body over time. He also studied the science of fasting and how well the human body heals itself of nearly all disease when left to its own accord. No food. No medicine.  No medical intervention. Only its own innate brilliance. 

Parallel to us beginning this book, I was scheduled to have two amalgam fillings removed at the dentist. I brought a canister of chlorella powder with me from Canada, knowing that it is a key food in the detoxification of heavy metals in the body and not knowing if I would find it here. In further reading, I discovered that pairing it with cilantro makes a powerful combo that is more effective in binding and flushing the metals from the body. I have put myself on a daily Rx of a green drink to help my body eject those unwanted metals. About 40 days of detox is recommended. 

A key part of toxin elimination is properly flowing digestion. Of which mine seemed to go on a separate holiday than the rest of me is on. So we embarked on a fresh juicing and whole fruits cleanse and in a few days we were both feeling a bit more like ourselves.  Detoxing can feel pretty icky at first. Tiredness, headaches, brain fog and other symptoms can show themselves first as your body begins to purge out what it doesn't need in there. It's been 5 days so far and I'm feeling much better than a week ago. I feel like I have a ways to go yet...I have moments of dreaming of nachos, or pizza or other fun snacks, but then I remember how long it can take to cleanse my body of these things and to feel like me again. It's not worth it! I personally believe that these food addictions are about 99.99% mental. We must simply realize that we value our long term well being more than the fleeting pleasures of food.  

Luckily for us, a liter of fresh juice of our choice is just 15-30 pesos ($1-3) at the mercado. So we have made a routine of a morning 5km beach walk to downtown and back for a daily juice.

We retreated from the busy city of Merida to a nearby beach community where there is Zocalo Beach Hostel (aka Hostel Progreso) full of wonderful people to stay with. We have been here just a few days, and it feels like a home away from home. The new managers are from Chile and they are lots of fun. They came here as travelers for a few days and were offered a long term position as management. So here we all are! There are lots of Canadians here too, as well as Dutch, Spanish, Americans, and more. We are all practicing our Español together over meals and card games. 

Last night, a group of 9 of us enjoyed another temezcal, or sweat lodge, in the hostel's sandy backyard. It was a great addition to our cleansing process. We sang and shared stories and sweat out the old stuff. At the end of the very intense ceremony, we all walked across the street in our bathing suits and had a night swim in the ocean. Together we marveled at the starry sky above and the magic of the dark waves surrounding us. How wonderful life is.