Mexico

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Off to The Beer Company, Mazatlán

Finishing at 2:00 continues to be worth the 5:30 a.m. wakeup time! I can go have an adventure, explore unfamiliar parts of Maz, get some exercise, and be home in three hours flat before dark!

Wandering Mike, Chris, and Juan went off gallivanting on Sunday, with their main destination being a place that Mike discovered in Guanajuato, a chain of stores called The Beer Company, which features beers from all over the world as well as tons of Mexican craft beers. Lovely souls that they are, they returned with a Mexican stout and some Veracruz coffee beans for me!

I couldn’t believe that I’d never heard of this place and when I discovered just how easy it is to get to (walking distance, even!) I decided to go check it out this week. The store is on Avenida del Mar, between Lola Beltrán and the turn for the bus depot, and only 6.4KM roundtrip from the embarcadero.

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It was a lovely hot and sunny day until I left at 2:00, when clouds rolled in and the wind picked up. It was very chilly crossing over to Maz on a choppy channel and the lancha’s engine cut off partway. What else was there to do but take in the scenery of a shrimp boat coming into port?

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We eventually got underway again and once I reached the other side, I decided to take Ejército Mexicano part of the way north so that I could do a withdrawal at Scotiabank. The bank was really busy today! There were two people ahead of me at the ATM and at least a dozen ahead of me in the queue inside. Needless to say, I was there a lot longer than I had planned on. I guess everyone was doing their end of the month stuff because it’s normally very quiet around that time.

Next stop was the Rin Rin pizza by the big Ley. It’s not as good as the one at Mega, but it’s a bit cheaper and you get a drink, all for just $25.

I then turned towards the water, turned right on Avenida del Mar, and very shortly thereafter, saw the bus turnoff sign:

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Which is when I figured out why I’ve passed The Beer Company so many times and never noticed it. There is just one sign and it is quite high up, to be seen from a distance. It wouldn’t be particularly visible from a bus seat.

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It’s a bar as well as a store, so you can sit out with a beer. I was tempted, but I wanted to get home before dark so I stuck to shopping.

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There are several fridges with dozens of different beers, including nearly two full of only Mexican beers. A very attentive clerk came to give me a hand. I first had him narrow the selection down to Mexican beers, then asked for something similar to Pacifico, ie. a crisp easy drinking lager. He handed me two, including one called Olas Altas that he says is the original recipe for Pacifico.

As a contrast, I wanted a stout and told him that my friends had bought me a very dark beer with a skull on the lid (not knowing how to say cap). He went, “AH!” and pulled out the correct beer. I asked for something similar and he recommended two.

I bought all four beers for a total of $281 (about 24CAD). The four-pack of beer just barely fit in my purse and was pretty heavy to drag home! Here’s my lineup with Sunday’s Imperial Stout on the far left.

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Here’s the “skull lid.” 🙂

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I’m drinking the Olas Altas now and it’s definitely hoppier/more bitter than Pacifico, but still very smooth. I’m optimistic about the others!

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Update on the Scotiabank Account and INTERAC e-Transfers

I’m really glad I made that trip up to Moose Jaw to open a Scotiabank account before coming to Mexico.

Last year, each bank withdrawal cost me an average of 30MXN (depending on the bank) and 5CAD. I averaged four withdrawals per month, so that came to about 30CAD a month just to withdraw my own money!

With my Scotiabank account, I have cut these costs down to just 3.95CAD a month as long as I don’t make more than 12 withdrawals per month.

When I want to make a withdrawal, I sign into my CIBC account online and follow the prompts to send an INTERAC e-Transfer to my email address. This is absolutely free. Not too long thereafter (never more than an hour), I get an email asking me to deposit the funds. There are several links in the email itself to the online banking page for a number of banks, including Scotiabank. I click on that link, sign into my Scotiabank account, answer my security question, and the funds are deposited to my account and immediately available. I can even do this on the fly, using my iPhone banking apps. It’s happened once that I had no intention of going near one of the Scotiabanks, then something came up to change my plans. I initiated the transfer through my phone and had access to the money by the time I got to the ATM.

Having this account and the ability to make up to 12 withdrawals a month means added security in a couple of different ways.

First, I only carry my Scotiabank card, which only has a few hundred dollars in it at any give time, rather than my CIBC card, which is linked to my main chequing account as well as my USD account, my line of credit, and my Visa. Getting mugged for my Scotiabank card would be an inconvenience, but not devastating the way it would be to lose my CIBC card.

The other security advantage is that since I can make several withdrawals a month, I can make smaller ones and have less cash on me. Last year, I would try to maximize every withdrawal and find myself walking around with more cash than I could afford to lose if someone grabbed my purse.

These benefits will continue when I travel through the U.S. in the spring, only at Bank of America, and when I go to Europe this summer if wherever I land has a bank that is affiliated with Scotiabank.

If you’re a Canadian bummed out by the exorbitant cost of withdrawing your own money while abroad, it’s really worth opening a basic account at Scotiabank.

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Handling a Power Outage with Aplomb

There was a planned power outage scheduled from 6AM to 2PM today. My laptop battery can last most of a day if I do a few tweaks to conserve power, so my only concern was internet access since my modem needs power. Of course, if I was home, power wouldn’t be an issue, but I’m not so well equipped in Mexico.

In case TelMex was also down, I made sure last night to buy some data for my phone so I could get internet through Telcel today. I picked their 1GB package good for a week as that would ensure enough bandwidth for the day while not being a huge investment if I ended up not needing it.

The first thing I did today was string an extension cord to the truck from my office window. The power went out at about 6:40, so I plugged my modem into the extension cord, went out to the truck, plugged my inverter into one of the truck’s 12V outlets, and came back in to see if I had internet. I sure did! That was fantastic since it meant that I could keep working from my office instead of having to do so outside with all the mosquitoes! As a reminder, that’s because I only have TelCel internet with a cellular booster, which needs to run off the truck battery as well.

To preserve computer battery life, I left the computer in sleep mode when I wasn’t actually working and instead checked my emails on my phone. This meant that by the time the power came back on at 1:30, I still had 10% computer battery life left (about one hour of run time if I kept it in power saving mode or 30 minutes if I had to work)! If the outage had gone on, I would have used a bit more truck battery capacity to charge my computer, no biggie.

The only thing I would have needed for today to be totally stress-free is small solar trickle charger to keep my truck battery topped up during the day. It’s one of those things I keep forgetting to get because I’m still so used to having everything I own with me at any given time. But I knew that one day of running the modem wouldn’t kill my battery (I mean, I ran my booster for several days when I first arrived), so, really, I wasn’t particularly stressed today.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook know that I did have one power-related emergency today: I forgot while I still had power to grind coffee beans for my second cup of the day. My solution to that was not a joke. I put some beans in a baggie, put a cloth around the baggie, and then put the cloth-wrapped baggie on a smooth rock from my yard. I then used a rounder rock to grind the beans. The cloth kept the rock from going right through the baggie and getting ground beans everywhere. My ‘primitive’ grinder worked perfectly!

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So I Finally Had a Shrimp Burger at Tony’s…

Today was another very full day! I got my work done ahead of the deadline and waited for my client to confirm that he had received it, which he normally does promptly. Half an hour later, I got an email asking where the work was. I had successfully sent it, so I went to downdetector.com and learned that Gmail was having serious issues. So nothing I could do about it other than slip the job into a shared FTP folder on my server, Skype my client to let him know where to find the file, and to wish him luck with his email issues.

The not fun part of the day done, I had a late breakfast and then greeted Janet around 10:30. It was just the two of us again today for riding, but we didn’t go out on our own. Daniel was in a feisty mood, with today’s Spanish lesson being fall of naughty words! That Monday morning hour and a bit is so special and magical. As if riding on a beautiful tropical beach wasn’t enough, we get the linguistic lesson thrown in as a bonus. I really treasure my Monday morning ride.

I got in around 12:30 and put together a few things so I could run a very specific errand in town. First stop on the other side was lunch! I’ve been hearing so much about the shrimp burger at Tony’s in the mercado from several unrelated sources, including Chris and Juan, that it was time to have it even if the last thing I needed after all that holiday food was a burger!

This is what I got for $60:

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I like how they avoid having to wash dishes…

It’s pretty clear from the picture that the burger is all about the bun. There were barely any shrimp (related, I’m sure, to the shrimp fishermen having a hard time this winter), but what was there was perfectly grilled and fresh, so points for that! There was also lettuce, tomato, and crema. I found that it was missing something and I was about halfway through when I realised that all reports of the shrimp burger had it with avocado on top. What was there was delicious. I like how the bread was toasted and there were definitely some spices or seasoning, plus the veggies were very fresh. I’ll have to try again on a day when Tony himself is cooking because while it was good, I was underwhelmed after all the hype.

Next stops were the two Parisinas (fabric stores) near the Mercado. One has more fabric, the other has more notions. I was looking for fabric for head scarves. I was a bit disappointed by the selection of fabric at hand, not finding any stretchy cotton, only polyester, but I came out with enough satisfactory material for eight scarves for just $120 between the two stores. I’ll have three in solid colours and five with patterns.

I was carrying a rather heavy bag with a scarf pattern; sample scarf; and two dresses, one of which I was hoping I could add to my order (hemming and straps) and the other being the model, so I didn’t do any other shopping and instead headed straight for the seamstress. It’s not my fault that my favourite nieve de garrafa vendor was on that route… 🙂 I haven’t been there much this year and I was still recognised! The owner told his helper to give me two scoops of prune and one each of my two other choices even before I had ordered! So that was four scoops for the price of three. They are small! Four scoops is less than a standard scoop of ice cream, and not nearly as rich since there’s no cream in them. I sat on a bench in the Plazuela Machado for a break to eat my treat.

From there, it was a few blocks to the Costura Express on Carnaval. The lady I had spoken to last week wasn’t there, but her sister was. Between my Spanish and her limited English, we figured out what I wanted and she even called her sister to confirm my order and find out if she could do the dress, too. Yes, for $80, which puts that dress at the same price I would have paid if I had bought it finished. Perfect! I really understood their conversation, including where she bargained the dress price down for me since I had the fabric for the straps. I will get to pick up my order on Saturday! I’m so excited since I’ve been wearing the same three scarves for ages. The new scarves will be $70 each, plus $15 each for the fabric, for a total of $85 each, 5USD at the current exchange rate. I paid 30USD each for my current scarves! It will be nice to have that dress finished, too. I’ve worn it strapless around Isla, but it’s way too casual to wear into Maz.

I then headed back to the mercado to pick up some fruits and veggies, stopping at a few vendors until I got most of what I wanted. I was ready to drop by this point, but still stopped in at the Ley on Melchor Ocampo, which has been totally revamped! I got some more fruits and veggies (half each of a cabbage and pineapple) and meat.

Thankfully, my friend Sue was on the lancha coming home, so we were able to walk a good part of the way home together, giving me something besides my exhaustion and heavy bags to focus on! 🙂 I got in, had a break, then made a ginormous veggie and beef stir fry for dinner. I really like how the beef is sold in such thin strips here since it marinates in no time. I just threw it in a bowl for about 20 minutes with a minced clove of garlic, the juice of two (tiny) limes, soy sauce, and sushi vinegar and it came out so tender and flavourful!

No map of my day, sorry, since Google Maps aren’t cooperating. It was about a 5KM excursion.

Now, time to unwind so I can get to bed on time and be up and at ’em for 5:30. It is going to be a tough day tomorrow because there will be no power on the whole Isla after a transformer blew up in the Colonia yesterday (a guy who lives two doors from where that happened told me all about that on the lancha coming home). Needless to say, I’m worried about work. Hopefully, TelCel will work well enough for me to get through my day. I am also going to try plugging my modem into my inverter to see if my TelMex connection could work that way (the only reason it would be down, I’m told, is for lack of power, so…). My truck battery has a full charge, so I’ll have enough power, even if I have to charge my laptop for a bit. There’s no sense fretting about this until power actually goes down tomorrow. I’ve been told the outage will officially be 6AM to 2PM (my entire shift!), but that, in fact, it shouldn’t take more than three to four hours. We shall see!

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What a Week!

Let’s see if I can recap the last week… I ended up taking a lot more work than I had planned for the week because it was from a good client I’ve been saying no to a lot lately and then I had a bunch of social engagements!

Tuesday started with my landlady’s mother and the handyman coming over to work on my lack of hot water and water pressure issues. She said that they guy who did the plumbing for the house completely messed it up and they really need to start over. They lifted up the tinaco (rooftop water tank) and that helped a bit with the pressure issue. But hot water will continue to be hit or miss until they can upgrade me from the crappy ancient water heater to an on-demand one that will be installed in my shower. While they were there, I asked if they could lift up my clothesline since it had gotten slack and my sheets were almost touching the ground. Not a problem and they put it up almost too high, knowing that after a few loads, it’ll get slack again and come back down a bit. So many of my friends here with Mexican landlords complain about how slow things are to get done, but I have no problems and am thoroughly spoiled!

Shortly after they left, Wandering Mike arrived. I settled him into his suite and then went back to typing because we were going out to dinner at Miguel’s with Contessa and Colin at Miguel’s around 6PM. I didn’t know what I wanted, so I opted for both a chorreada and a shrimp burrito, and I tried their limonada for the first time. It was, of course, a good meal. We’re lucky to have Miguel’s!

Wednesday started off badly. I was really over scheduled with work and the internet kept going down in the first hour of my day (6AM to 7AM). I couldn’t even get data on my phone to send and receive emails, and even if I could have, I had too much transcription to do to spend the day sitting in my truck waiting on emails! Thankfully, the issue resolved itself and I was able to work the rest of the day without any more problems. I had two Skype calls, one to a client and one to my mother. It’s nice that the internet here is good enough that I can video Skype!

Part of the reason that work was so overwhelming that day was that I was meeting a bunch of friends on the beach for a late lunch, including L&N, whom I hadn’t seen since I arrived. I got there around 2:00 and was back home by 4:00. It was a coconut shrimp and coco (chilled green coconut with the top lopped off so you can drink the water inside) kind of day! I don’t really like the restaurant we met at, El Velero, but this was the best meal I ever had there.

I paid for my lunch with having to type until past 9PM. I did something like a 13-hour actual day of work (plus the break). I can’t believe that used to be a normal work day for me.

Thursday started off fun. I didn’t have a proofing shift, so I went to town with Mike to get a cake at Panamá’s for Christmas dinner. We took a pulmonía from the embarcadero (a real treat!), got the cake, and came right back. It was just over an hour door-to-door to run the errand. I then had to do a small job and then I got to work preparing an appetizer for happy hour at Contessa’s (guacamole).

Mike and I headed over to the RV park around 4:00 and met up with Chris and Juan. Happy hour is meant to be just that, but it always runs late and there’s enough food for it to be a meal!

I got a late start on Friday and headed down to the City Deli to pick up some crema (sour cream) for one of the dishes I was making for dinner as well as beer.

Most of the day involved cooking. I put together scalloped potatoes in Contessa’s crockpot liner and then brought it over to her place to cook all day. Then, I came back and got a ham cooking for the meat eaters at dinner. Even though it was a small ham, it was way too much and I have a pile of leftovers to fill the freezer with, and this is after giving away as much as I could!

Dinner was great, with everyone bringing a dish or two. We all ate our fill and there was tons left! We sat around till about 9:00 gabbing and having drinks and coffee.

Saturday was pretty much a write-off. I was up shockingly late, nearly 11!!! I was just exhausted and stayed in. I wouldn’t have gone out at all, but Contessa organized a blogger convention thing for 5:00. So I headed out around 4:30 for a long walk around the Isla and then met up with the gang at Lety’s restaurant on the beach. Service was slow and the other blogger joining us was super late showing up, so we would have been better off going to dinner in town. But I had a wonderful meal even if some of the others didn’t feel that way. Their shrimp quesadillas never disappoint and, this time, they came with a side of really good guacamole! I also treated myself to a piña colada!

Sunday was chilly. I was working yet again, so I only took a break midafternoon for a beach walk. There was an impromptu happy hour in the late afternoon and then Mike and I went to Miguel’s for dinner, where I had their steak platter (orden de carne asada) for the first time. Very good and surprisingly inexpensive!

Which brings us to today. Mike left early to catch the Baja Ferry and I finished up a small job this morning. I’ll be heading out to ride soon and then I’m going into town.

WHEW. I’m all social engagemented out and don’t plan to do anything for New Years! But it was a fun week and it was nice to spend time with everyone.