Back In The Little Pitaya

Photo © Howard Dratch, 2007. My house in Bacalar is going on the market. Check the Bacalar House page which will be largely enhanced shortly.


Home again in Mexico, an alien land, after being home in the States where I have begun to feel a little lost in the brave new world. Home again in "little Pitaya", a title I just made up after actually having returned to The Big Apple itself. There was a lot of Miami too but I don't know if Miami has given itself a fruity name. I must stop to search to see one day when it really seems interesting enough.

Also when pitayas are in season I must photograph it to show off. It is a delicate red-skinned fruit that is the fruit of a viney cactus that grows around tropical trees. Around lime or mange trees I was told would be best. It is, like all cactus, slow-growing for here, mature enough to fruit a time to wait. I have not been able to raise them, but have managed to eat them happily. The flesh is whitish -- it almost looks like a whitish kiwi inside with its flecks of black seeds. The taste is not of a kiwi but similarly sweet-tart and juicy, the skin thick and waxy. The Mayan word for it is pi'tahaya I am told by Mayans who question why I would want to learn Spanish when I could be learning Mayan. This is one of the only words I ever seem to remember for some reason. The numbering system was fascinating with its dots and bars, the dots a 1, the bar a 5.

While in Miami I treated myself to a new watch suitable for life here on the jungle edge. A $50 Casio that will work sturdily like the last one I gave to my guard but will not tempt anyone to cut off my hand above the wrist to take it.
That type is collectible, incredibly beautiful but awfully tempting. Essential Watches has IWC watches as well as "pre-owned" Rolexes like the vintage "Paul Newman" Daytona for only $120,000 or the other quite acceptable model for $3100. Not for the jungle. The watch will probably function flawlessly but the machetes might just start flying too.



Since being home I have pulled the walls of the property, the steel gate and the walls of the house around me to retreat into myself. There was this crushing culture-shock of being shocked by both my cultures and the profound exhaustion. There was also the Mexican version of broadband to deal with. And the volatile stock market that does sap the energy watching and reading the roller-coaster days of fall.