The days are so ful they are vanishing before I can record them. Yesterday morning we woke at casa de ________ and had breakfast. Then we played cards with the wager that the loser had to have sex with the winner. Luckily, I lost.

Afterward we walked the kilometer or so to Zopilote, the permaculture farm. The place was less communial than I'd imagined- more like a farm with a hostel. We stayed the night on the very uncomfortable cots of the dormitory then bummed around until lunch.

We had lunch at the cafe where we'd had dinner the night before. It was really just the house of this family. They put out a sign and lived off of cooking the ocasional meal for a passerby. We were the only customers we ever saw, and in fact the place had only two chairs. But the food (eggs with rice and beans for dinner, eggs with beans for lunch) was delicious and the prices were unbelievably cheap. Two full meals and three liters of tonya for dinner were about $7.50 for dinner and two meals and one liter of beer were $2.50 for lunch.

After lunch we started the five kilometer walk to Merida. We smoked a jay at the begining of this walk too and it was equally delightful. I would never have believed how much I enjoy walking, even, or maybe especially with a heavy backpack. I kept wondering about endorphins and whether or not I was experiencing a runner's high. I was, however, glad when Playa Volcan was in sight, since I was getting tired and the damned fan was getting heavy. It broke on the way and we had to strap it to the outside of the backpack I was carrying.

We fell into step with the eldest daughter of the family with whom Keli and Hany have been staying for the past two weeks. This was awkward as Keli didn't introduce me and didn't say much at all. Eventually I introduced myself for a tiny smile and an unenthusiastic reply. I asked Keli if she always talked so little with this girl and she said yes, but made a good faith effort to start a conversation, asking about school, homework, etc. The girls answers were one word, and I got the idea that she didn't want to talk. Keli did too and we walked the rest of the long way in lockstepped silence.

We put our bags down in the house and went off to Alviro's place in search of Hany. We found him resting in a hammock, surrounded by the sleeping Alviro and other sleeping tourists. His eyes were alight with joy at seeing Keli but he had not a second glance for me. This was the begining of a difficult evening.

We walked up to hotel oja where we had food and conversation. A local boy named Edwardo hung about and drew enough to be a good sport when Keli offered him her pad and pen, but I think what he really wanted was our leftover food and once he'd gotten that he went away.

Our conversation, or rather, my conversation with Hany, since Keli mostly hid her face in her drawing pad and remained silent, was about how and whether to broach the subject of our relationship and polyamory in general to the family. Hany had feeling about how this was to be done, but the most concrete ideas I could interpret from him were "gently" and "tacktfully". I was a little alarmed when he suggested that it would be innapropriate for Keli and I to kiss or hug until we'd had some conversation about it, but I was struggling to reach the deeper feeling that lay underneath.

After we payed our bill and started a little way toward the family's house I pointed out that it was getting late to find a place to stay for he night if I wasn't going to stay with the family. Keli and Hany both seemed to jump on this idea and we turned back around to make reservations for three for the night.

Hany still wanted Keli to go back to the family and say hello since they'd been asking about her, but we got involved in a heavy conversation about our reunion and how it was less than we'd all hoped for. I tried to express my own feelings of dissapointment that Hany didn't seem happy to see me and encourage him to express his own, but this resulted only in an expression of frustration that I seem