It’s early Sunday morning. I am alone on my porch at my house because my husband is traveling and won’t be back for two more days.

It’s very still out here. The village we live in has not awakened.

Traveling with our RV in 2004, we found PaaMul, which was an RV park in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It was located south of Playa del Carmen, a small beach town that catered to tourists on the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. We were looking for a place to camp that would have access to a dive shop, and PaaMul fit those needs.

“She was frightened of me at first, until I mentioned that I’d seen her at the dinner tent in El Cameron the night before, and the realization dawned on her who I was. I could see that she also realized how much help I might be to her because she gave me a hug as if we were long-lost friends.”

She froze. Two women dashed toward the girl and grabbed her arms pulling her toward the group. I could see the women scolding her as if she were a child and then came the tears. The women put their arms around the girl to soothe her or to hide her, I wasn't sure, but before I could assess the true situation the men came back with a couple of blue vans, and they all piled in and drove away.

The women were plain of face with dull brown hair under their caps and some carried babies of various ages. But one young woman was pregnant and looked nothing like the others. She was naturally pretty with a peachy complexion, blonde hair, and big, blue eyes. She seemed to be looking for something. Without turning her head conspicuously, her gaze was darting about almost frantically.

The Doctor said, “Alas, but no,

The flu should now be done.

I suspect that it has slowly turned

Into an in-fec-ti-on.

For the next six days, you’ll need a shot

In your fleshy bum

As you wait to see what transpires -

You might want a shot of rum.”

One of our heart-stopping Mexico adventures was when we decided to stay a night not far from the growing town of Bacalar, located on the lagoon side on the southern end of the coastal state of Quintana Roo, which is on the Caribbean side of the Yucatan Peninsula.

My husband Marty, our daughter Bella, and I had been traveling in our pick-up truck pulling our tiny RV along the southern coast of Mexico for a few weeks and had just come into Quintana Roo. We needed a place to stay for the night. In our ‘RVing in Mexico’ guidebook, we read about an RV park located down a dirt road just before Bacalar that had been dubbed ‘The Goat Farm’.

"I thought that because both my wallet and phone were still missing, it was likely a somebody, not something, stole my things, and that made me feel very ill.”

We thought we'd found our piece of paradise at an RV park in the tropics of the Yucatan; however, it didn't take long to realize that the 'paradise' part may be a myth.

I wasn’t going to worry about their situation, as our next challenge was Harvey and his wife Alice. As we drove to Cancun to pick them up at the airport that January, I kept wondering what they would be like. Harvey, and likely Alice also, had lived their whole lives in the same small community as Carol, so I braced myself for more cracks about the number of Mexicans, showing distaste for the area, and not liking our open-air palapa.

After my class reunion, I told my husband Jonny about the invitations I’d extended to practically the whole class to visit us in Mexico. He just laughed and said, “Well, babe, you can get yourself, or us in this case, into some pretty good predicaments. I hope they don’t all come at once.”

At a recent class reunion in Kansas, when a group of old friends gathered, chatting about our lives since we’d last met, our families, new interests, hobbies, and jobs — or lack of because of retirement — the usual ‘catch-ups’, I mentioned that we live in Mexico during the winter months. Most were interested in that concept and asked lots of questions about where we stay and what we do while there for such a long period of time. Some even seemed interested in possibly doing the same thing. Yet there were a couple of friends who looked at me as if I had just sprouted a tail, from the flummoxed looks on their faces.

A scream pierced that quiet night as I ran from the church in search of my beloved Maria. She was to meet me after mass for a clandestine night alone, away from our families — even though we knew it was wrong — because we were deeply in love and tried to find every opportunity to be together. But she did not show up at our meeting place after waiting and waiting.

Being an early riser, not having a clue what time the sun would decide to pop up, that first morning I went out with time enough not to miss a single minute of its arrival. After I got dressed and eased quietly out the door, I was surprised that it was still dark. No sign of possible daylight as I walked across the street to the beach.

What is a palapero? One might ask.

A builder of palapas honed for the task.

But what is a palapa, they then say.

An open-sided dwelling in which to play.

A roof that is thatched with dried palm leaves

Or grasses that are bundled in small, dried sheaves.

One of the men walked over to us. “Cállete!” he yelled, sticking the barrel of the rifle in our faces and then moving it and the stock to beckon us to start walking. He took us over to where Cecil was standing with the Federale’s gun pointed at him and bound the three of us together. The two women were further away tied to a tree, which made me really angry to see. I needed to figure out a way to get us out of this mess.

“Likely, if the Federales are really part of the whole trafficking cartel, we can easily spot that fact by how they respond to the men coming out of the cave. If they turn out to be on their side, then I can try to disengage them with my taser and your shovel, the flare gun, and so on. They are good weapons if used right and in a timely manner. We don’t want to be stupid and put ourselves in the line of fire, but if we sneak up on them when they are preoccupied, then I think we can do some damage until the other help arrives.” Cecil told them.

I nodded my acceptance of his order. "Just bring back my wife and stay safe doing it," I pleaded as they turned and left to make their way to the bottom of the earth's rocky opening.

I waited only about fifteen minutes when I heard stomping feet and bodies charging through the underbrush behind me voices that sounded like cursing. The Federales had arrived.

“They wouldn’t have access to firearms, and even if they did, they’d not have ready access to bullets, so they likely wouldn’t bother with that kind of weapon. They are masters with a knife, which they probably make from obsidian found in Chiapas, as well as handmade axes, and machetes. They’d get by and would do a lot of damage with those tools, their meanness, and their hands.”

The more dangerous wildlife came out at night to feed, for one thing, and another, we didn’t know what kind of two-legged creatures were lurking about. Rumors had milled around the community that there was some kind of encampment, deeper within the jungle’s density, of men who were less than civilized. Meaning, I had assumed, that they didn’t care what they took or who they hurt when it came to wanting something for themselves. No one had actually seen this camp, so I thought it was a made-up story to keep the masses away from the better swim areas.