If you missed part 1 click here.

Christian finally started to feel on the up and up after completing 10 days at the Centro Naturista DAR in El Grullo. When the kids and I showed up at the center to have lunch there and pick him up, it was nice to see some life and color restored back into him. In fact, I was so impressed with the center I signed up to do a few days as well. I did this mainly to detox and cleanse and get on the same track as Christian, so that I can help support his healing process.  So we switched places. I took his room at the center and he took the kids and a bus ride back to the boat in Barra de Navidad. 

The center was amazing! They feed you fresh fruit and veggies everyday. They make you fresh juices and herbal healing teas at specific times during the day. Throughout the day you receive specific detox, lymph draining therapies. All of this is based on an assessment of your irises and current symptoms. Pretty neat stuff. The diet they prescribe is suppose to be followed strictly for 45 days. I’m so glad I got to participate. I learned a lot of different recipes to make for Christian and got a jump start for myself to stick with the diet alongside with him. The diet. 

Cooking class, which was all in Spanish, but I understood enough to make sense of it all.

 They grow their own wheat grass, stinging nettle and aloe for treatments. 5 am stinging nettle brushing, 5:30 am steam baths alternating with a cold shower, barefoot walks on cold grass, coffee enema and lymph draining exercises, mud compress, and tea all before a 9 am fruit only breakfast. This was by no means a “retreat”, but it was in the sense of treating your body to what it deserves. Jicama con limón for breakfast. 

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The town of El Grullo was amazing as well. Quaint and clean. They have sugar cane farms all around the valley. Unfortunately they burn the scraps of the cane, so there is cane ash floating around. The fortunate side of it, is that everyone sweeps the sidewalks and streets. There is literally no trash around in the streets. A rare treat for Mexico. Many people ride bikes around or take the “Hubercito” (meaning mini über) . There are also a lot of herbal and natural food stores. There is a chapel at the top of the hill, which you take a “street” staircase up to.  Between treatments at the center, a stroll around town and up to the chapel was a good way to promote blood circulation and lymph drainage. Looking down at El Grullo from the Chapel.

There was a fresh water hot spring called Balneario nearby in the town of El Limón that a few of us “inmates” took a cab to go swim in. The hot wasn’t too active at the time, but the fresh water swim with not a soul around was nice. To top it off, it was only a $1.25 for admission. 

A few days in to my stay there I received an email with the lab results for the Lyme disease test that Christian had drawn in Puerto Vallarta 3 weeks prior. To our surprise it came back POSITIVE! It actually came back positive for 2 different tick borne diseases. One is the typical Lyme disease and the other is a type Rickettsia know to come from the Lone Star tick. Both of the levels were really high, indicating an active infection. He has most likely had it for a while.  Lyme is famous for hiding out in dormancy for a long time, then surfacing when your immune system weakens due to various causes. The good thing is that a lot of the treatment for Lyme is diet related, so we were already on the right track. The other good thing is that Christian is super strong, so he didn’t get as sick as some people do with Lyme. We promptly made a consult with the Lyme disease specialist in Puerto Vallarta just to make sure we were on the right treatment path, but we were pretty confident that we had the right tools to a full recovery.  

“Meanwhile, back at the ranch”, Christian was at the boat with the kids, in Barra, back to surfing, and making new friends with cruisers we hadn’t met yet. He was sticking to his diet of fruits, veggies and nuts, no caffeine, sugar, diary or alcohol. Our sailing life and health was in an optimistic trajectory. I returned revived and ready to support him and our family’s health. Apparently Lyme can be sexually transmitted, so I’m doing my best to keep it away or possibly rid it as well.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of the people who helped support us during this time both emotionally and through the “go fund me” post. Although medical treatment in Mexico is extremely affordable, it adds up. We wouldn’t have been able to do it and keep sailing if it wasn’t for your help. Muchos Gracias por toda sus ayuda!

That’s it for part 2 of the “La Cruz to Barra de Navidad and back, the trilogy. The Holistic Path to Recovery”

If you missed part 1, click here.

Stay tuned for part 3. “The adventure returns!”