The Mexican postal system Correos de Mexico is terrible. It is slow and unreliable. I once mailed my best friend a letter from Mazatlán and it never arrived. So when she told me that she mailed me a letter to Mérida on October 5th, let’s just say that I wasn’t holding my breath about ever seeing it.

A month and 10 days later, I went out to look for mail, something I do almost daily because 9 times out of 10, mail ends up wedged into a door grill or slipped under a garage door instead of in my mailbox. But today, there was something in my mailbox:

I teared up as I clutched the precious gift to my chest. I could not believe that it had reached me!

(I was amused by the purple stamp on it, “remember that November 12 is mail carriers day,” when the letter arrived four days after it!)

As always, Bast’s letter had a funny sticker on the flap, this one related to the sticker that she put on the letter that took just 10 days to reach me in Bulgaria:

Now, I’m feeling motivated to find a post office here and to try again to send her a letter. My limited experience so far with Correos de Mexico really gives me a sense of what it would have been like to send mail in ancient times!

It’s been a pretty good day. I had my best night of sleep here so far, which meant I got a bit of a late start. But I still met all my deadlines and work wouldn’t stop pouring in. I remain eternally grateful for that. Cashflow this month is tough, but I think that things really will be better starting in December.

Late afternoon, a couple came by to pick up all the moving boxes I had stored in the maid’s room. In a less humid climate, I would have broken them up and stored them for use in a few years, but they would have likely been mouldy, smelly, and possibly even too damp to use by that point. Better to let someone else use them while they are still in good shape. So now, what to do with that room? Hmm…

After, I paused to make a really nice dinner that included the packet of butter chicken sauce my hosts in Chelem brought back for me. What a treat! I had to go back to work after, but it was nice to stop to make a full dinner and then eat on my pretty china.

I hope I’m going to start catching up on sleep as I’m too exhausted in the evenings to go enjoy all the wonderful free stuff going on in Mérida, like movies, concerts, and dance shows. I have to keep telling myself that things are likely not going to slow down until January, but that after that, I’ll still have 21 months (at least) left to enjoy all that Mérida has to offer. I just need to get over this last hump — and remember that I’m here a year earlier than I thought I would be after spending 10 months in Europe. Of course, things are going to be tight. At least, business is very good and my house is very comfortable! So really, I have no complaints. 🙂