Month: November 2017

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I Got a Letter Today!

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. 🙂

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A Good Fit

Monday was pretty much a lost day for me since I’d taken it so easy over the weekend. I worked straight through a very, very long (close to 14-hour) day. My only “break” was a Skype meeting with a client mid-afternoon. I finished close to 9PM, opened a bottle of white wine, and actually made a proper dinner that included chopping vegetables.

No, that’s not eggs. It’s tofu! I found a brand of tofu the other day that is shelf stable (!). I wish I’d bought a few more containers since it wound up being so good. I thought I preferred a really firm tofu to make a scramble, but this was wonderfully silky smooth and probably close to the texture of scrambled eggs. I added onions, carrots, and snow peas (the yellow colour and all the flavour come from turmeric). Breakfast for dinner, but with wine instead of coffee. 🙂 I then enjoyed on Netflix the latest episode of the newest Star Trek series, which I’m thrilled with. I still can’t believe that I would have had no legal way to watch it in Canada but I do here.

Tuesday morning, I took a gamble and made a deposit on a custom furniture order. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I got scammed, but if I didn’t, it will be a fantastic purchase that will go a long way towards finishing the setup of my kitchen. The correspondence I had with the guy tonight didn’t inspire confidence, but I will know Friday.

Then, around noon, I headed out to our little village market to meet an expat lady and help her order a turkey. She’d done it on her own the last time and wasn’t entirely satisfied, so she was thrilled when I offered to go with her as a translator.

Here’s the outside of our market:

The city is working on the market and the park around it. It will be a wonderful space once its done. The lady and I aren’t the only ones who think the Mérida central market in centro is an absolute disgrace for Mérida and overdue for a complete overhaul like this.

The turkey ordering went smoothly. I had a printed out instruction sheet to give to the vendor, but I still discussed it with her. I find that it’s sometimes easier to get what you need if you explain why you need it. For example, last time, the expat didn’t get the skin she wanted around the neck and butt of the turkey. I was able to explain to the vendor that the skin is needed to seal the openings after stuffing the bird and was rewarded with a “AH!” of enlightenment in response to that.

Transaction complete, we got some veggies, gabbed, and then I went to see what the Chinese place had to offer. Wonderful grilled chicken, noodles, an egg roll with filling tasted like egg roll filling, and potato wedges made two nice meals for me for just $45 (3CAD).

Today was going to be another big work day, but this morning, I had to go pick up something I found on the classifieds last night. It was one of those things that was too good to pass up and that I can’t believe I spotted.

There is a little nook on the kitchen side of the breakfast bar that is really just wasted space. It’s not even deep enough to put water jugs. I thought that I should have some shelves made to give me more pantry storage space without having to use up “good” floor space.

This is pretty much what I had in mind:

In the photos, it was filthy and hanging from a wall. I’m convinced that if the seller hadn’t posted the dimensions, I would have scrolled passed it. As you can see, the depth is absolutely perfect, the height is such that the top gives me a long shelf, and the length just about perfectly fits the space. What a find, especially at only $350! Yes, I will be painting it. 🙂 I’m going to wait until Friday to see if my custom order comes in as that will get first priority on the turquoise paint I have left. If I don’t have enough turquoise for both, I’ll go get some orange for this one. 🙂

The pickup point for the shelving was actually quite near to me. I headed out around 11:00, pleased that I’ve finally figured out where to aim my garage door opener to have it open the doors at my first click. I’m still unable to do that reliably while sitting in the truck (meaning I have to run into the yard to open and close the door) and am going to try to have the battery changed as I think that could be the problem. But at least now, I’m almost not concerned that a day could come that I wouldn’t be able to get my truck out when I need to. I am going to have to ask the landlady if she knows who set up the system because, surely, there has to be another way besides the remote to open those doors!

Since I was already out, I decided to swing north to Home Depot in the hopes of getting anti-ant stuff as I haven’t had luck at the few places locally where I’ve looked. Ants are pretty much a given down here. I don’t consider them a problem if I forgot crumbs on the counter while cleaning up in the evening and come down in the morning to find a few ants enjoying the unexpected buffet. That’s just a great incentive to keeping a spotless kitchen. But when they start coming out when I’m preparing food, that’s a real problem.

Home Depot not only had the pellets I needed for outside, but also Terro liquid ant baits, which are the equivalent to using a nuke against ants — they work that well.

Getting home from Home Depot is easy, but a detour since you have to go north to the roundabout at the Chedraui and then come back south again. I did quite a loop this morning, but was only gone an hour:

I got in and set the traps out. The ants were in them within minutes. Now, I have to wait a few days and see if things improve. I still have outside to treat with pellets and hope I won’t have to call an exterminator. Again, I don’t consider ants a major issue, but they are a pain and they do bite, so I like to keep them under control. I’m much less tolerant of things like cockroaches. I caught a few here before I moved in (I think they come up drains, which I saw in Truth or Consequences), but I keep a clean house and have never had a roach problem.

After another big work day (for which I am so grateful), I decided to head up Calle 21 to a restaurant I spotted the other day that’s only open in the evenings. I was pleasantly surprised as it looks brand new. The decor is like what I’d expect a Mexican cantina-type restaurant in a tourist town in the US to look like — lots of dark wood, bright colours, tin roof, tasteful decor. It was absolutely impeccable and super cute. Sorry, I forgot my phone or I’d have a picture. The prices and food were both good.

I ordered about the closest you can get to fajitas in the real Mexico, alambre, which is meat (turkey tonight) grilled with onions, poblano (green non-spicy) peppers, and cheese that you can put into a tortilla and doctor up with stuff, which included Tex-Mex style guacamole. I was even brought a grilled sausage (looked and tasted like a fancy hot dog) as a free appetiser. With a drink and tip, I was out of there for under $85 (5.65CAD) and I didn’t even finish everything! I suspect that I may have found my local Miguel’s, but I still have more exploring to do. At any rate, I can’t wait to take guests there.

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The Year-Round Road to Tuktoyaktuk Is Finally Complete

Long-time readers may remember the heady days of my Klondike summers, when I finally fulfilled my dreams of seeing Canada’s far north. Oh, those days seem so far away now, but they are some of the months I will remember most fondly in my old age. They taught me that dreams really do not have deadlines and that achieving them is particularly sweet after you’d given up hope. I may never again drive the Alaska, Klondike and Dempster Highways again, may never again see a show at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s or fly over Tuktoyaktuk’s pingos, but I did it!

Exploring the north is going to get a little easier for tourists because this coming Wednesday, November 15th, 2017, after years of delays, the all-year gravel road between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk is finally going to open. For the first time in Canada’s history, it will be possible to drive year-round to each of our three coasts.

I would like to invite you reread my series about Driving the Dempster Highway and to revisit the towns of Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. I feel privileged to have done so and to have spoken to locals so that I know that while this year-round road will change life in Tuk, in some ways not for the better, this road is ultimately a Good Thing worthy of celebration.

Standing in the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk, NWT, August 2010

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Cocooning

I seem to have lost a day…

I cannot for the life of me remember what I did on Friday besides do an inordinate amount of typing. Perhaps that was all. I do remember that as the time crept to 7PM, I discovered that one of my Saturday jobs was so easy I still had energy to do it, which would reduce my Saturday work load, which would reduce my Sunday work load, which would reduce my Monday work load…

So I decided to order a pizza from a place that left a flyer in my mail box. $100 plus a $10 tip got me a surprisingly good humongous pizza (and by that, I mean I got FOUR meals out of it!) with three toppings. In the hour that I would have stopped to make dinner, I was able to do the easy job, finishing literally as the doorbell rang.

So now, I’ve found a good cheap pizza place nearby. 🙂 Sometimes, I want more American-style pizza (think Domino’s, Costco’s or little Caesar’s), but sometimes the cheaper Mexican style is fine. This one’s crust was particularly good, even if the cheese wasn’t quite right, and they sliced the onions the way I like them.

Saturday, I was up stupidly early for some reason and got a mountain of work done before noon. I was just done after that. There were so many things I could have done with my day, but I wasn’t going anywhere or in the mood for chores. I broke out the LEGOs and a series on Netflix and wiled away a very rainy afternoon enjoying not having the pressures of maintaining someone else’s home for the first time in a long time.

Today was another heavy work day, but there were things to do. I managed to get the truck out mid-morning (my automatic garage door opener is giving me grief) to go around the block to the Extra (Circle K in the US) to get two 5 gallons of water since I still haven’t figured out home delivery yet. One block closer and I would have walked them home. If delivery doesn’t get figured out soon, I need to find myself a dolly or something because getting the truck in and out of the parking bay and the doors open and shut took about twice as long as the actual purchase of the water!

Around 1PM, I headed out to the sushi restaurant I recently discovered to try their Sunday buffet. It was decent and good value, but I’ll stick to à la carte from now on. I really must be starting to develop Mexican sushi tastebuds because I found their smoked salmon and cream cheese roll quite good!

Then, I went to Superama to see what treasures I could find. It’s really not a place to buy your basics available at any Mexican supermarket, but it is a great place to find good quality butter and imported veggies and cheeses. I had to laugh as I was looking at the cheese when a lady asked if I wanted to try a sample. I ended up buying a nice hunk of Port Salut for a fraction of what I would have paid in Canada. What a treat that will be!

Going through the small home goods section, I found a lightbulb I thought might fit my bedroom lamp (kept forgetting to look for one!) and I also found, to my immense surprise, something I expected to have to hunt for, a two-prong to three-prong adapter:

Even more surprising, it was only $21 for a pack of three!

These will let me plug my three-prong power bars into the house’s myriad of two-prong outlets.

I contacted APC/Schneider Electric, the manufacturer of my UPS (uninterrupted power supply) to ask them about using their equipment in my high voltage power situation. They really came through with their reply. Based on the info I gave them about the new outlet and how it is grounded, they say that the UPS and its surge protection will still work despite my getting the “building wiring fault” warning light. So I should absolutely keep using it and should favour it for plugging in any of my electronics. I can use the other outlets in the house, for example to plug in an iPad charger overnight or a TV, but the high voltage may damage things over time. So I’m best off to only plug in when I need to. I don’t have an expensive TV or stereo, so now I know I don’t have to worry about the high voltage.

I was pleased when the kid at the cash asked me if I wanted to make a withdrawal with my purchase. I forgot to go to HSBC before going to the sushi restaurant and figured that if I needed cash this week, I could just walk to the bank then, not remembering that cash withdrawals are available at some stores. So the kid saved me some time.

My shopping done, I called my second Uber. It’s pretty funny how it’s almost twice as far to get home from Superama by car as it is to walk, but I wasn’t going to walk since I had heavy things like wine in my bag. The trip only cost me $30, so it was well worth it. I think calling Uber will eventually start to feel part of my routine instead of something still a bit dark and mysterious. I don’t know how much fuel I would have spent driving Moya to the restaurant and then Superama and back, but I do know for sure it would have been more than 2CAD! Plus, I didn’t have to worry about getting her in and out of the garage or parking, I got some exercise walking over there, and I got to enjoy the AC in the Uber car!

When I got in, I tested my lightbulb and, yay, it worked! It’s also similar to the bulbs in the ceiling so now I know what I need to buy to replace the ones that don’t work. Poco a poco… 🙂

Then, extra work came in and I had to get cracking or having a 15-hour day tomorrow. I really need to do at least another now and it’s 8:30. Zzz…. I’m so tired but, thankfully, I’m slowly starting to sleep longer stretches here and might be able to get back on track to solid nights. Hopefully!

I’m approaching the two-week mark of being here and still can’t believe how easily I took to the house. It does help that I had access to it for two months, but still, there has been almost no adaptation period and even with all that I still want to do with it, it’s already home.

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Shopping Locally

It was a very late night and a ridiculously early morning. By 12:30, I was falling asleep at my desk. Instead of taking a nap, I went for a walk to get some sun. I made it back to “downtown” Chuburńa de Hidalgo, which was bustling at that hour. There was brisk business being done at the market even with the construction going on and I was lured in by a rack of sandals.

I have the bad habit of being barefoot all day if it’s safe to do so, regardless of the type of material I’m walking on. Here it’s just tile and more tile and cement — my feet are sore. I’ve been wanting to pick up a very specific type of sandal in a foamy material. The name brand types are pricey, the cheap ones are really inexpensive, and then there are mid-range models. That’s what I wanted and I haven’t had much luck the few times I’ve been out and about.

The shopkeeper had quite a variety of styles and sandals and he had me try on a bunch until we figured out my Mexican size (somewhere between a 40 and a 42). I came to the rather amusing realisation that my “tiny” feet for my stature by US and Canadian standards are actually quite large here. Nothing was fitting right until he pulled out a foamy material sandal that was like sinking my foot into a cloud. Absolutely perfect. Bliss even. I wasn’t crazy about the mint green and they were a bit dirty, but they were going to be garden sandals anyway. And then, he said, “Oh, I have another pair in pink…” My house sandals! 🙂

The price was $65 per pair and when I asked him the price for two, he looked at me like I was an idiot and said $130. I gave him a squinty look and said, “But I’m buying two…”  He hemmed and hawed and finally knocked off $10. 🙂

Here they are. I can’t believe I found exactly what I wanted so close to home!

I’ve been wearing the pink ones all afternoon and they are making such a difference. I’m reminded of just how sore I was working at the store in Campbell River until I stopped caring about the dress code and put on my hiking boots.

After buying the sandals, I went to pick up half chicken for lunch. I’m still struggling with the fridge (more below) and preferring to shop daily. At $75, a half chicken is good value as it gives me two meals. The owner started to bag up my meal and asked if I’d bought my sandals in centro. I replied, “No, at the market here. It’s important to shop in your neighbourhood.” She gave me a huge grin at that and added extra bags of rice and coleslaw to my bag!

I came in and enjoyed my lunch. I’m getting used to the Yucatecan-style rice and coleslaw and find that the two mixed together is really quite nice. The coleslaw is made with the juice of sour orange, a staple here. Once I identified that still relatively new-to-me flavour, I found the coleslaw more palatable on its own, but it is really sour!

The fridge is cycling between being a good temperature and being way too cold and freezing everything. A very nice guy on a fridge forum had me troubleshoot a few things and he’s pretty much convinced at this point that I just need to get a thermometre and be more patient as I play with the settings as it can take a full 24 hours for a slight change on a dial to take effect. So far, I haven’t lost anything, but I obviously want to be 100% confident that the fridge is fine before I really fill it. It is such a nice model with a lot of neat features that I don’t want to give up on it. I do think I wouldn’t have trouble making my money back on it as it would make a really good beer fridge, but I can’t afford to replace it right now until I sell it and I don’t want to sell it because I have so much in the freezer. Anyway, in the meantime, I make it a point to shake my almond milk several times a day to make sure it’s still liquid in the morning!