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I just spent an hour on Skype with my Financial Adviser back home. We were talking about our precious metal (gold) shares. They have shed about 20% of their value over the last couple of weeks. He told me that hedge fund giant George Soros has dumped about half of his gold shares and this combined with a downward trend in gold succeeded in pulling the rug out from under the share price. His sale has affected the price of gold and put an excess of gold shares on the market. The 20% loss is about what I was planning on spending on a newer used Honda this year. It is a good thing the old car got revitalized, I will have it for a while longer.

It was a tough decision but we decided to ride it out. It is a substantial amount of money but a relatively small part of my total portfolio, which has been showing a 6% per year gain even with the gold shares. He says this puts me in the top 10% of his clients. What I am losing in the gold I am more than making up for elsewhere.

We also took some substantial profits out of our gold shares last October just after they made big gains so things are not that bad. They may continue to drop in the short term but neither of us can see them tanking. After all, it is GOLD and gold is what offers stability in the market. Darn you George Soros!

Chris and Juan, since you are near Wall Street, could you have a word with George Soros for me?

Thanks George:

Trailer Park Las Americas, Puebla

Here some photos of the park. We are pretty much by ourselves, the other rig from Washington State just pulled in and the young couple walked to the local mall for dinner.

When the WIFI is working, it is available in the common room. It is not working now but Banda Ancha works great here.

The back area. We have never seen anyone parked here.

Genset Problem Solved.... Maybe

We took the bull by the horns and drove out to the Cummins offices. We found the fellow who wrote the order and he found an engineer who spoke English.

The part has to shipped in from the USA and shipping takes 5 - 10 working days. We asked if we could pay for expedited shipping and they said that would be 3 - 5 working days. So that is what we did. We paid for the part and the service call, 1720 pesos ($138) and they will call and email us when the part arrives, probably next Tuesday or Thursday and will come out to install it. They ended up not charging us for the expedited shipping.

Maybe a little expensive but it will be done by Cummins-Onan and will have an international warranty.

I emailed our Mexican friend Manuel and thanked him for everything he did for us.

The exploring can now officially begin!

Onan Saga Continues

Our young Mexican friend got called to Mexico City yesterday for business. He will make a call for us from there to try to make things easier or at least clearer. In the meantime I will try my friend Eric's suggestion and tap the solenoid with a wrench. We may drive out to Cummins and see if we can find someone who we can communicate with.

We are tired of sitting here, we have to get on with the adventure!

Onan Repair No Show

The service truck did not arrive today. We stayed here all day but no show. Our young Mexican friend made an inquiry for us by email and forwarded us the response. As near as I can make out it will take five to seven days to get the part, They also sent a quote or invoice and it looks like they want us to pay before they do the work, maybe before they even order the part. They want "100% deposit" to be made as a deposit to their account at a bank.

We have asked our friend to come and see us to help us get through this. We do not even know that a bad solenoid is the whole problem. That is what the service guys are supposed to determine.

Mexican business practices are a mystery to me.

Rotel Visit

Rotel Tours is a European tour company that tours North America with huge red buses that also have sleeping and cooking facilities  They carry a driver, driver's helper and 24 passengers. Sleeping is done in three banks of "drawers" in the back. Each sleeping drawer has a small window as you can see in one of the photos. They arrived at seven o'clock last night and started preparing to leave at six this morning. The road outside the park is so narrow they had to back in and back out in the morning. The power lines rubbed along the top as they backed through the gate. I would not have thought they could have made it.

Here we are!

Can we drive in straight? Nope!

I can back in though! 

Made it!

This looks like a good spot.

Right beside these friendly Canadians.

Everybody helps set up. This is the deck outside the three levels of sleeping drawers.

The kitchen slides out on the other side.

The kitchen.

One of the sleeping drawers. They call them "Suites".

Everyone has a job. It was almost dark when they arrived and a bunch of men started setting up the deck used to climb into the individual sleeping drawers while a ten foot long table was set up on the kitchen side and women started cutting up meat and vegetables and making salads while other men grabbed buckets to get water. Huge pots were put on the stove and within minutes a stew was brewing. They made stew the last time we ran into them as well. I do not know how varied their meals are. Their cooking facilities do not seem that extensive.

They have a huge battery bank that charges while they drive so they do not have to plug in. The only thing they needed outside power for was for the passengers to charge their phones, laptops and cameras. I did not check but I suspect they have their own WIFI. Quite a few of them were using hand held devices and the park WIFI is not working.

This tour was all Germans. Mostly older people but also a pair of young couples. The last time we ran into them a couple of years ago there were Germans, French and Austrians. These tours are very popular with Europeans. We have also seen them in Canada touring Banff and Jasper. Not for me.

Solenoid Problems!

Well it turns out the local Cummins-Onan dealer thought we wanted the generator (alternator) on the Ford truck engine worked on. I did not explain the problem clearly enough to the person who made the call for me so no wonder Cummins-Onan refused to work on it. It was my error in translation!

One of the other young men who works with one of the park owners came by and he speaks excellent English. He called Cummins-Onan back and they put him through to a service tech who had him do a bunch of stuff including jumping across the starter solenoid. As soon as he did this, the engine started!. It is a bad solenoid (or the initiator circuitry going to it). They have the parts and will send a service truck at noon tomorrow. I could pick up the part and change it myself but if the service guy does it he will fix it even if it is the control circuitry to the solenoid. They will also ensure the generator is functioning correctly.

They charge 800 pesos ($64) for the service call plus parts. The extra cost is worth it for the piece of mind.

I apologize for what I said about Cummins-Onan here and in a forum post. Once they got the real story, they did right by me.

Onan Woes

We have a built in Onan 4000 MicroQuiet gas powered generator in the motorhome. We have it serviced every year by our favorite service guy in Yuma, AZ. It has always served us well and has never failed. Last week there were power problems in the RV park in Cuernavaca and we used the generator for an hour or so. No problem.

Yesterday we stopped at the roadside to make lunch. I hit the start button and it started. About five minutes later the generator stopped by itself for no apparent reason and would not restart, it would not even crank. The battery was fully charged.

We filled the gas tank and parked in the RV park here in Puebla and plugged in. I tried the generator again and it would not start, not even crank. I tried the second starter switch on the generator itself but nothing, not even a click.

I can see what looks like a starter solenoid and checked it with my meter. There is battery voltage (13.8V) on one side and nothing on the other side, just as expected. When I push the start switch nothing changes on the solenoid. I would expect the solenoid to operate and apply voltage to the other side to initiate starting. This is not happening.

There is a Cummins-Onan dealer in Puebla so I had one of the English speaking Mexican workers call them but they said they could not help. The park has a mechanic they use and are trying to contact him to see if he can help. Stay tuned!

The Road To Puebla

Leaving Cuernavaca was a little difficult. Humberto and his wife have treated us almost like family these past five weeks and Humberto helped so much in finding an excellent painter and mechanic for us, Solomon and his wife also came over to see us off. He is Mexican and she an Israeli.  They live in Mexico City and have a son working at the University of Victoria. They are very nice people.

We headed out at about 11:00 and stuck to the Cuota's which cost us about $50 total. It is a good road all the way. It was a four hour drive with a half hour stop for gas and lunch.

We tried to start the generator to heat coffee but it would not start! No click, no cranking, nothing! A project for tomorrow!

We drove into the park and before we even parked, the woman came over from the office to collect. We told her we were staying for a week and would pay her after we set up. I wanted to make sure we had water and power before I paid. She came back twice more to ask for money. Norma walked over to the office to pay but she had gone for someone who spoke English to check us in. Not necessary, we can check in in Spanish. Anyway, it was 1540 pesos ($125) for a week.

Norma was anxious to get the StarChoice (Shaw) set up and we had a little trouble with it this time. It took us a good half hour but we now have a good signal.

It is Carnaval week in Cholula (hopefully the end of the week and not the start) and the fireworks have been going non stop since we arrived. There is no waiting until nighttime here in Mexico. Fireworks start early in the morning and never stop.

Off To Puebla

It is a day late but I got little sleep the night before and did not feel like driving so yesterday was a vegetating day of watching curling. That is the nice thing about being retired. Humberto came over last night and invited me over to his house where he and his old Mexican friend Solomon were playing Mexican Poker with dice. We had a blast and I will be buying a set of these dice! 

We are heading to the Trailer Park Los Americas in Cholula, a few miles west of Puebla, about a four or five hour drive, mostly on Cuotas. An easy day!