Mazatlan

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Paradigm Shifts

Paradigm: a theory or a group of ideas about how something should be done

Quick poll:

1) How many of you wash your dishes in cold water?
2) How many of you are absolute in your belief that water has to be scorching hot to clean dishes properly?

My answers were no to the first, yes to the second right up to this morning.

I asked my neighbour, who had this suite last year, if she had hot water in the kitchen last year. No. She said that the water heater for my shower (doesn’t reach hers!) is a Gringo luxury and that most of the residents of Isla make do with whatever temperature their water is as it comes out of their taps.

That didn’t shock me too much. I know that hot and cold running water is a luxury only a very small portion of the world has. But what did surprise me was being told that the dish detergent down here is meant to be just as good in cold water as hot.

Never taking anything at face value, I headed off to do some research. I use blue Dawn dish detergent exclusively. Every time I switch to save money, I regret it. So I Googled “dawn dish detergent cold water” and found a page on Dawn’s U.S. website that had the following paradigm shattering information:

You can wash your dishes in hot or cold water, as our products are formulated to perform in any water temperature. Try helping to save energy by washing in cold water. You’ll find you get a great clean, with less energy used.

WHAT?!

HUH?!

Of course, I had to run an experiment and see if that was true. This was a good day for that because I had a lot of greasy plastic to deal with. I added my usual amount (less here than at Haven where the water is super hard) of Dawn to a bowl of cold water and proceeded to wash everything, rinsing again in cold water.

Guess what? My plastic got just as squeaky clean in the cold water as it does in the hot!

I find washing in hot water so much easier on the joints, but washing in cold is so much easier than heating pot after pot of water on the stove, like I’ve had to do at Haven in the past when I didn’t have running water! Imagine all the energy I could have saved, both personal and in terms of power and propane, if I had done that Google search then!

I came to Mexico hoping to gain a broader view of immense diversity of our world. Cold water dish washing is a small thing, but holds the promise of many even more shattering revelations.

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Geckos

One thing no one told me about Mexico is that I would have pets here, the common house gecko. They are super cute tiny tan-coloured lizards with big eyes.

As most of you know, I have absolutely no problem with reptiles, so I haven’t had a hard time getting used to my tiny housemates. They earn their keep by eating bugs.

I might not have expected lizards here, but I did expect bugs, and tons of them. Nope. I do have a fairly large spider in the office that has been hanging around for at least a week, but otherwise, I’ve had almost no issues with mosquitoes or other critters. I often catch my little geckos eating bugs.

I usually only see the geckos if I surprise them. They hide behind pictures, wiring, and headboards and scurry back into hiding when they see me. I once caught one on the (interior) window screen in my bedroom.

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It’s the largest one I’ve seen yet!

After one particularly cold night, I actually woke up to one in bed with me! I gave it quite a fright when I rolled over!

Geckos are named for the sound they make, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard it yet.

Between the geckos, the iguanas, and the guys on the beach walking their snakes,  this reptile lover is in paradise!

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You Don’t Need a Car in Mazatlán

I had a Skype call with my mother the other day and one of the things that came up was the cost of driving here versus my savings over the winter (which will merit a post of its own at some point).

One of the things I said was that I’m looking into flying here next year rather than driving to save some time, but that it’s a little more expensive than driving straight here and taking a hotel a couple of nights.

She was surprised by this, wondering if I really want to be here without a vehicle. The short answer is yes.

The only advantage of having a vehicle here is to go on day drips and explore the environs. But getting to Isla by The Road is such a pain that leaving that way isn’t very enticing, so day trips are pretty much out of the question. Besides, there is so much to do in Maz itself that it would take years to fully unravel the mysteries of the city. And you definitely don’t want to drive in Maz unless you have to!

What surprised my mother is just how accessible Maz is to me from Isla, that between a walk and a panga ride, I can be back from a proper grocery store in less than an hour, something I can’t do back home! There is an incredible amount I can walk to once I get to Maz and things that are too far away are easily accessible with very inexpensive and expansive public transportation. I’ll be exploring the buses very soon!

Much as I love driving, I prefer public transportation in a large city when the public transportation is inexpensive and easy to use. When I lived in Gatineau my last year in Quebec, I could take an Ottawa bus two blocks from my house. $1.50 allowed me to take a round trip to just about anywhere in the city. I’d frequently take a bus to a particular area and then walk to where I needed to go before getting on a bus home. I didn’t have to deal with parking and traffic and could make all the stops I wanted as long as I was on my last bus before the time limit for return expired.

Ottawa has, I believe, the absolute best public transportation system in all of Canada and I made heavy use of it when I could. Even when I lived in the country, I knew where to drop my car cheaply so I could grab a bus instead.

Mazatlán is offering the same vibe as my favourite Canadian city. Walkability and public transportation make it so accessible that I would not feel handicapped being here without a vehicle. I just have to decide if I could bring everything I need in a couple of suitcases!

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My Isla Kitchen, Revisited

I’m someone who needs to cogitate a problem before finding a solution. My Isla kitchen wasn’t working for me and I’d identified a lot of the issues in my post about it, but what to do about them? I thought long and hard about my kitchen in Miranda and what it’s taken to make it just about perfect for me. What lessons there could I apply to the kitchen here?

The first one was a huge duh: PURGE. There was tons of stuff in the cabinets that I don’t use. But I can’t throw anything away… No. But there’s a huge empty space under the sink and I have a couple of empty Rubbermaid totes…

After writing my last post about my day in Maz, I went back to the kitchen and emptied everything that I don’t use, right down to the toaster, into a single tote, which I tucked out of sight. I then arranged everything I do use into the cabinets and, low and behold, there was room for food!

I was able to clear off the top of the microwave and move my food processor to a more logical location. The end result is so much more functional for me and all it took was five minutes! I’m glad I didn’t throw money at the problem, although I will now spend a little to get an extra shelf for the far cabinet (to double the space in it) as well as a basket of some sort for the spices.

I know it's not ideal to store spices and such next to the stove, but this works. I will pick up a nice bucket at Waldo's at some point to store them in to make clean up easier.

I know it’s not ideal to store spices and such next to the stove, but this works. I will pick up a nice basket at Waldo’s at some point to store them in to make clean up easier.

Look at that!

Look at that! Middle bottom shelf, you can see on the far left my big box of powdered milk for the coffee and right next to it is my jar of yummy Isla honey. And then, lots o’ coffee. 🙂

The kitchen looks so much less crowded and cleaner now. I do need to get rid of the duck between the stove and crock (it holds matches).

The kitchen looks so much less crowded and cleaner now. I do need to get rid of the duck between the stove and utensil bucket (it holds matches).

My crock is full of not just the large cooking utensils, but also the eating ones, my can opener (glad I brought one!), and my BBQ lighter. During the purge, I found a large chopping knife that looks pretty sharp.

My utensil bucket is full of not just the large cooking utensils, but also the eating ones, my can opener (glad I brought one!), and my BBQ lighter. During the purge, I found a large chopping knife that looks pretty sharp that should be better than the steak knives for chopping veggies. One thing I forgot to pick up today is a couple of butter knives for spreading things like cream cheese. I can’t believe there isn’t a single one in this kitchen!

One thing I miss is my tiny strainer for collecting the pits from limes and lemons. This set was overkill, but at just 150 pesos, it was worth it just to never have to bit down into another lime pit again this winter! They should be good for jalapeño seeds, too!

One thing I miss from home is my tiny strainer for collecting the pits from limes and lemons. This set was overkill, but at just 15 pesos, it was worth it just to never have to bite down into another lime pit again this winter! They will be good for jalapeño seeds, too, as well as rinsing rice and lentils! I use both a colander and two sizes of strainers at Haven, so these will bring some sense of normalcy to my kitchen. 🙂

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Mazatlán Driving Adventure

Today was the day to pick up my new neighbour at the airport. I decided to take advantage of the fact that I’d be past The Road to go to town with my truck and pick up a computer chair.

I left around 11:00 and it took exactly 40 minutes to drive the 12KM/7.5 miles to pavement. The Road was much better than it was a month ago!

I had written down the instructions to get to Walmart, which should have been an easy off of MX-15, but, of course, there was construction and whatnot and I never saw a sign for the exit I needed to take. I pulled over and asked Siri for directions. For whatever reason, she can’t find the closer Walmart and Google is incapable of routing me anywhere, so I just followed the Siri to the farther out Walmart, where I was pretty close by that point.

Walmart, to my immense surprise, did not have any furniture, only mattresses! 🙁 I was there, so I picked up some glass plates and a few things for the apartment. I wanted some cleaning products and found a really good deal on a bucket full of everything I needed for just 63 pesos!

I had no idea where to find a computer chair and struck out on Google searches the other night for Mazatlán office furniture. I decided to go to Home Depot and then Soriana. Of course, both Siri and Google were useless, so I used my own navigational sense and idea of where the Home Depot was in relation to the farther away Walmart (I’ve spent a lot of time looking at maps lately) and made it there by what was very likely the most direct route! And someone said to me recently that I don’t have strong navigational skills!

But right across from the Home Depot I saw an Office Depot! I ‘circled around the block’, which you can’t actually do in Maz, and eventually made it to the store. There, I quickly settled on the cheapest chair I could find that had a decent flexible back and cushioned seat, on sale from 1,400 to 1,200 pesos. A bit more than I wanted to spend, but this is a non-negotiable! (Remember, this is just a chair for the next five months. I gladly paid a lot more than that for the chair I have in Miranda!)

I was once again glad for my language skills because how to get the chair was not obvious. I noticed a yellow ticket behind the price tag and pulled it out. It had instructions to take said ticket to the till and the item would brought out for me. That was fairly uneventful. The (boxed) chair was put into a cart for me and I was left to my own devices to get it to the truck.

Soon as I reached my truck and had the back open, a man materialized and got the box into the truck and was gone with the cart before I even had time to blink! I went to him and offered five pesos and he refused! Wow! How nice of him!

There was a ScotiaBank right next door, so I thought that would be a good place to withdraw cash. HA. It refused my card, as did the HSBC in the Soriana on the other side of the Office Depot. Probably some sort of immature competition thing with CIBC.

It was getting late and I wanted to be at the airport by no later than 3:30, so I headed off in roughly the direction of MX-15 and, again, found it without trouble. And by ‘without trouble’ I mean I still had to grow eyes behind my head and drive super aggressively and whatnot, but there were not wrong turns. Driving in Maz is absolutely no worse than driving in the Montreal area.

I passed a Banamex and pulled in. It was a long wait, but I had no trouble withdrawing what I needed. From now on, Banamex has my business as it’s the only bank that has so far worked for me consistently.

It was then stop and go traffic through and out of Maz. Once I hit the open road, I pulled into a Pemex and put in 400 pesos of gas, which got me about a third of a tank of fuel. Ouch! (I’ve returned home with almost three quarters of a tank.)

The airport was not far at that point and I arrived at 3:15. I circled around to see if perhaps my neighbour was waiting outside, but no. So I pulled into the parking lot, 30 pesos for the first hour, and went in to wait.

The Maz airport is super super tiny. I had hoped to get lunch there once the AC had a chance to rev up my appetite, but there really wasn’t anything. The plane had landed, so I thought it would be a short wait, but no. I was there a full 45 minutes.

Before one more person tells me how nice I was to have gone to pick up my neighbour, I will say that I was very reticent at the thought of doing so, but willing to go if she had no other options, until she said she would pay me the same as she would a taxi. I knew it would be a long drive and a long wait and payment made it worth my while. She was glad to have someone waiting for her.

The drive home seemed a lot faster. We got her luggage out of my truck and she went off to see a friend. I told her I would make supper and if she was hungry later, she was welcome to come over and I would heat up a plate for her.

After a really yummy pasta meal, I attempted to assemble my chair. Of course, it’s the same story as with just about anything you buy these days, shoddy construction. There’s a part that I need to unscrew to fit in the back rest. It will be impossible to do so with hands only, as the instructions say, and I need to find someone with vice grips and a star screw driver. I’m kicking myself for not bringing a tool kit. I have big work job to do tomorrow and pretty close to angry that I won’t be able to use my new chair after all the energy spent getting it. 🙁

The only other thing of note today was that I went into the Soriana and had a bit of a poke around. It sure has a lot more than does the Ley! I didn’t look at prices, so I don’t know how they compare. I could easily walk there (5KM/3 miles) from the panga and take a pulmonía back.

Most of the shoppers at Walmart were Gringos (because we were in the Golden Zone). The only reason I felt compelled to go to Walmart was it was the first logical place to go in search of a computer chair. Otherwise, I have no strong urge to go there and am happy shopping at Ley, Waldo’s, the Mercado, the City Deli, etc.