Mazatlan

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The Call of the Tacos

I’m in the middle of a huge litigation trial where, for the next couple of days, I can take as much work as I can handle. I’m motivated to stay busy because the beginning of the month was so slow. Thankfully, the work is easy, so it goes quickly.

I did two hours this morning to meet an 8AM deadline, had a short pause for breakfast, took an hour and half to do an urgent request for another client, and then continued with the trial. By 1:00, I was where I expected I would be by 5:00. Great, I was going to finish early!

Not quite.

It’s sunny. I’m near the beach. I’m in Mexico. I spent 18 months in a Saskatchewan backwater (beloved backwater, to be fair), cooped up in a tiny RV, working to make a winter like this possible and to invest in my property. There were few outings. It’s going to be the same way when I get back home in a few months. I don’t care how busy and broke I am, I am not spending my first Mexican winter cooped up so I can finish work ‘early’ and miss the sun!

So I headed out to the El Velero (sailboat) restaurant to enjoy the relative quiet of the mid-week beach. I ordered a Pacifico and perused the menu, opting for chicken tacos. The server asked if I wanted ‘dorados o suaves’? I knew that dorados means fried, so I assumed suave would be non-fried since it means soft and went for that option. Next, I was asked if I wanted flour or corn tortillas and I picked the latter. The server grinned and said, “Ah, you want real Mexican tacos!” So I’m assuming that real Mexico tacos are made with soft corn tortillas. 🙂

I’d brought along my Spanish Reader’s Digest magazine to read since I knew there would be a wait for the food and couldn’t help chuckling out loud at some of the jokes. My word of the day is ‘pozo’, well (as in the kind from which you draw water), from a story about a heroic rescue of a boy from one.

The food came on a platter and was crazy generous, with four tacos, lettuce, onions, refried beans, rice, and sides of super spicy hot sauce and fresh pico de gallo. But since the tortillas weren’t fried and there was no cheese or sour cream like you’d get NOB, it really wasn’t that caloric of a lunch and was probably on the healthy end of the food scale. I ate all the pico de gallo and am I’m happy to say that I am definitely getting used to cilantro!

My beer came with lime wedges, which I gobbled up. I refused more from one server, but another server brought me another plate of them. I must have had six whole limes with my lunch. I am not going to get scurvy here!

Replete, I paid the 90 peso (plus 15 peso tip) cuenta and headed home. On the way, I heard a voice yell, ¡Mira, señora, mira! I turned to see a little girl of about eight and another of about six on a trampoline. They gave me a five minute acrobatics show, took a bow as I clapped, and then headed into their house. Imagine missing that!

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Nom Nom Nom

I’ve stopped buying meat to make at home, opting instead to eat vegetarian when I cook and spend the money I would have on meat on meaty meals out. I’m so out of practice at cooking meat that I really don’t do it as well as the pros do and restaurant meals in Mexico, if you know where to eat, are cheaper than anything I could make at home anyway.

So all that to say that I went to Miguel’s tonight to get a chorreada, a pork and cheese concoction over a thick crispy tortilla, to go. I would have had pictures except that Contessa and Colin were there and invited me to sit and since I was going to end up eating there and worked up an appetite waiting to order since they were slammed, I added a shrimp burrito to my order. 🙂 The meal came with salad and these really tasty whole grilled green and white onions that were absolutely divine (I’m a fan of onions).

Dinner came to a grand total of 60 pesos with a tip, or about 5CAD. Absurd in a great way. I’m going to have a hard time justifying eating a 15CAD restaurant meal when I get back to Canada, knowing just how far that money would go in Mexico next winter!

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More Thoughts About Mazatlán

I remember doing some research about Maz this past summer and getting a figure of over 1 million for its population. I have no idea what I was looking at. The population of the city is about 440,000 and if you add in the metro area, it’s still less than half a million. That puts it at twice the size of Regina, but fully half the size of Calgary.

In terms of actual landmass, the city feels very compact. I’ve covered most of the core of the city. It’s a very easy city to get around in, thanks to great public transportation and high walkability, so you can quickly and cheaply find yourself from one end to the other. I would do very well here without a vehicle. In fact, I am toying with the idea of flying to Maz next year since I really do not miss driving this winter.

I’m already playing the ‘could I live here?’ game that I played through my travels in the U.S. and Canada. I do intend to live in Mexico for a few years if I can get a long term residency visa, so I think that getting a start on answering that question is worthwhile. It certainly paid off in Canada because it enabled me to buy property smartly.

I know myself really well now, know what is important to me in a long term home and what is a trade off I’m willing to make. Maz has a lot going for it, being a so evocative of the central core of Ottawa, which I still maintain is the perfect Canadian city for me except for one key detail. I’ll get into that in a moment. If I were to choose Maz as a permanent residence, I’d probably want to live on Isla to continue getting the best of both worlds.

But Maz has one big ugly issue that would make it utterly unsuitable for me as a permanent residence: its climate. I can hear all of you say WHAT?! Maz has a humid tropical climate. I do not ever again want to live long term in a humid climate. Humidity makes the cold colder and the heat hotter. You also have to deal with food spoilage, mould, odours, condensation, rust and a host of other issues. I cannot believe how much of my stuff, including bags in storage, the top and sides of my fridge, clothes hanging in the closet, and even computer parts are getting fuzzy with mould! Soon as I get half a day off, I really need to empty everything out of the closets and cabinets to make sure I’m on top of the mould issue.

I didn’t buy property in the back end of nowhere Saskatchewan just because it was cheap or because I had easy access to a lovely city (which I don’t…). I bought property there because of a generally dry and sunny climate, year round. As it turned out, my biggest priority wasn’t being able to walk to a bar or coffee shop or a movie theatre or a good grocery store, but to be in a climate that doesn’t make me want to curl up in a ball and sob three quarters of the year and keep me glued to an AC vent the rest of the time. Climate came first, cost of living second, and everything else was negotiable. That was as shocking revelation.

I love Maz very much and look forward to returning next year, but after that, I’m going to seek a different location to try to find that magical combination of hot and dry winter weather. Being near the ocean isn’t important to me (rather obvious if you look on a map where Haven is located, about as far away from an ocean in all directions as is possible anywhere in North America!), so I wouldn’t mind venturing further inland, although I will have to watch the elevation!

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Relocating the Hurt

There is a québécois expression that says, “changer le mal de place.” Literally, it means relocating the hurt. More figuratively, it means taking a break from a tedious routine. Having had a few tough work days, knowing that the week ahead is going to be brutal, and being blessed with easy files for today, I decided to take a long lunch break in Maz.

How wonderful it is for the city to be so close by that I can get there, meander around, have a meal, shop, and be home in just two and a half hours!

This was the first time that I went out with several stops in mind and didn’t at least glance at a map before leaving. I know where everything is now and actually getting quite good at finding the most direct route between A and B.

My first stop was the Santander bank in front of the Cathedral on Angel Flores. A few donations and an unexpected prepayment on a translation project meant that I could take out 1,000 pesos, which will go a very long way if this past month is any proof of that. I still had 200 pesos from my early January withdrawal!

From the bank, I went to Olas Altas to get sushi, but, alas, they were closed. 🙁 It was past 1:30, so I was quite surprised. I decided to instead check out a recommended burger joint, but they, too, were closed! Since I was in the Plazuela Machado area and have been craving chocolate for days, I decided to get dessert first and stopped in at the gelateria where 25 pesos got me a teeny scoop of craving busting goodness.

I then headed out towards the Mercado and decided to try lunch at Panamá’s bakery, which looks a lot like a Smitty’s restaurant or a Denny’s, a very Ameri-dian diner-style spot. I was given both a Spanish and English menu and had time to compare them.

As suspected, they were quite different, with the English menu omitting many of the Mexican dishes and adding more American dishes. The average price point on the English menu was also higher than on the Spanish one. I ordered the chicken enchiladas with creamy green sauce from the Spanish menu, hoping that they would be similar to the ones I had in Texas.

Unfortunately, no. And the Texas ones were actually much more authentic Mexican fare than Panamá’s version, which were rather bland and featured processed American cheese!

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Now, don’t get me wrong, the meal was fine. The sauce, while not super flavourful, was good and the roasted chicken filling was incredibly satisfying. Add in the huge helping of beans and I was stuffed. The meal was worth the 83 pesos I paid (plus tip), but it wasn’t one I’ll repeat.

It was getting close to two by this point, so I decided to head home by way of Ley. I really didn’t need anything, but I keep going to Ley in the hopes that they’ll have restocked an incredible all natural pineapple-coconut yoghurt I got there way back in late November or December. Today, they finally had some!

My knee was really bothering me today, so I decided to go home by Zaragoza rather than Leandro Valle, but then decided to instead meander through the small streets to create a more direct route to the embarcadero. That worked splendidly and I really enjoyed making my way through a warren of narrow cobblestone streets, so reminiscent of ancient Scottish cities, to emerge right in front of the entrance to the dock.

I spent just under 200 pesos today on public transportation, lunch, dessert, and groceries. Mexico continues to be incredibly affordable and I have succeeded in ‘changer le mal de place.’ Now, back to work. It’ll be a bit of a marathon session!

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Peaks and Valleys

After several days of thumb twiddling, I just had a crazy full day and will have the same tomorrow. I am absolutely wiped tonight! It really would be nice if the work could be spread out more evenly over the course of the week!

But I’m glad that things are picking up even if I’m still worried that I won’t be able to meet my February obligations. My government contract still hasn’t started and when it does, I am going to be slammed with overtime on it, but that’s not much help to me if it doesn’t happen till the next month. At least, I know it will eventually come.

I was up super early today to get a head start on the day’s work because I needed to quit early to go to Dale’s going away happy hour. Thankfully, the bulk of the day’s work was super easy and I made really good inroads into tomorrow’s work. Thankfully, because another project due tomorrow came in as well as a non-transcription project for tonight. I’m not in a position to turn anything down at this point!

Contessa and Colin came by mid afternoon so I could scan and email some documents for them. I’ve been doing scanning or printing for a number of people, including the English teachers for the colonia, a service I’m very glad to offer.

I headed over to the happy hour around 4:40 and there was a big crowd! Dale is such a kind and fun person that you can’t help but adore her, hence her popularity. There was tons of food and I doubt anyone went away needing supper! Someone even thrust a plate of dessert in my hands at one point. It wound up being a pie that I could eat as it wasn’t too sweet, featuring tons of a tart green fruit (unripe guava?), a cream or possibly cheese filling, and a graham cracker crust, plus the portion was reasonable. What a treat!

Even though I had to go back to work after, was in no hurry to get out of there. I gabbed with a number of people about restaurants, the border crossing back into the US, life on Isla, and Maz attractions. I left around 7:00 as the gathering was winding down and Dale was ready to head off.

Thankfully, my job for tonight was not too arduous and I was able to call it a day by 8:30ish. Now, I’m thinking hot shower and bed early so I can start all over in the morning.

I’m not complaining. Yeah, the vagaries of freelancing can really suck, but look at where they allow me to be! It’s hard not to feel like the richest and luckiest person in the world when you’re living in the tropics instead of enduring a brutal Saskatchewan winter!