[flowerBill]

As an update to those that follow this thread, I was at Sacbe for 11 days with my brother-in-law. We camped at the site. First nite or two were rough until we got some land cleared and were able to better level the ground for the tents and get things set for a comfortable camp. Jose Louis hooked us up with a young man who helped clearing the lot. We left some of the perimeter of the property with trees, bushes unthinned as a buffer. Also, left most trees over three inches in diameter- wow what a wide range of plants there are. I'm a horticulturist, but live up north so almost everything is new to me. We started labeling trees with pieces of soda cans on strings.

Got a good case of Chechen (like poison ivy on steroids). Walter, a very nice fellow who lives there and works for Ted took pity on me and came by one evening and cut down all the Chechen on the property. Bill, Lynn and everyone else coached me on treating my blisters with sap from the Chaka. It really does work. The blisters were largely dried up in a little over a week.
I still have some scabs from it but not a big problem. My advice to anyone else who plans on camping and clearing would be to find a place to stay the first two nights and work clearing the site as needed and building/setting up a camp before you stay there your first night. By the way the bugs weren't bad.

Also on the property we found several large zapote logs that are still solid and useful that were remnants of the 1982 fire. We'll probably use them for porch poles. We also found to our delight that the southwest corner of our lot is covered with numerous holes going to what appears to be underground caves. We were able to get one hole opened up by burning wood in it (this softens the limestone). We didn't get to go in and explore though as there were still hot coals at the bottom when we left.

Our last day was the first day of the festival- it was great. Wish we could have been there both days. The park is looking great, we swam there everyday at about 11 AM. The water was great after getting hot and sweaty working. Generally worked until 11 each AM and then took Fred siteseeing- it was his first trip to the area.

We loved getting to know everyone we met there. Thanks to all of you for being so friendly and helpful. Lynn, I have some shots of your palapa if you would like, I'll post them. Contact me here with a PM and I'll send you my direct email. If others that follow this thread have questions, feel free to post- I love thinking about the whole thing. There were times I just sat on the big zapote log at our site and gazed at the trees, plants, land. It is very beautiful and I'm delighted more than ever that we decided to become a part of Sacbe. Probably not right for everybody, but it's near perfect for us.