Laundry

We picked our month’s worth of laundry up yesterday morning. Everything was spotless as usual. The pasta sauce stains were off my new shirt, in fact all the stains were gone off everything! All 22 kilos of laundry was perfectly folded and wrapped in easy to handle sized, clear plastic bags. These bags made a pile about three feet high. $220 pesos ($10 pesos or $.90 CAN per kilo) paid in advance and I gave her a $30 peso tip when we picked it up. It was 90 outside and probably well over 100 inside the laundry. The two of them were smiling and content. I am sure we pay a little (maybe a lot) more than a Mexican would if they came in with the same load but for us it is very cheap and worth every peso.

There are few, if any traditional coin operated Laundromats in Mexico. Some RVs have their own laundry but to get a washer and dryer in, you have to give up something else and to us, we would rather not make that tradeoff. Other people do their own laundry in buckets and hang it on makeshift lines outside. This too is too much of a bother and too time consuming for us. We have better things to do and we certainly do not mind helping a hard working Mexican family earn a living. Twenty bucks for a month’s worth of laundry is a bargain!

Club Nautica

Club Nautica is a private membership park with an RV park. It is in a beautiful setting with 30 amp power, an infinity pool, saunas, restaurant and clubhouse with Internet. The RV park is great, but like RV parks all over Mexico this year, almost empty. Out of about 30 spaces, four are occupied, one with a stored unit.

Telcel Comes Through!

The nice lady at Telcel must have successfully convinced her boss that I was too stupid to follow the instructions properly to initiate the 3G Internet service. We went downtown to drop off a month’s worth of laundry ($220 pesos for 22 KG of laundry! Cheap!). We then had lunch at a little waterfront restaurant while we waited for the phone call to tell me how her meeting with the boss went. The call did not come so I thought I would try to use the card anyway and it worked! I have 15 days of service that will see us out of the country. Here is the lavanderia where we dropped off the laundry:

This is just another example of how easy it is to start up a business in Mexico if you are not afraid of (hot, sweaty and long hours of)work. Their equipment consists of three non matching sets of used washers and dryers, a scale to weigh the laundry on, a sheet of painted plywood for a folding table and a calculator. It is run by a couple who appear to be husband and wife. They will never get rich but they will earn a living and buy lots of tortillas for their kids!

Today we will try out the new infinity pool here at Club Nautica and go into town for dinner later. They say Campeche sunsets are spectacular…

Here is lunch! Nice hat, eh?  (it is on loan from the waiter.

Limonada:

Crab and shrimp salad to share, free ceviche:

Rainbow RV Park - Merida

The Rainbow has changed a bit since last year. Many new sites have been added but sadly, infrastructure has not improved. Every four sites still share a single 15 amp breaker so even if you are by yourself in that group of four you cannot run the air conditioner, even on low. We ran the fan and when we tried to heat coffee in the microwave at the same time, the breaker tripped so I doubt the breaker is even delivering it’s rated 15 amps.

The park was almost empty while we were there with a MH with two Swiss couples were there for a couple of days and when we left there were three other rigs, all from Canada. The pool was empty and showed no signs of recent use. The park is under new management and there is someone living on site and the rate is still $250 pesos per night. There is little shade and Merida can be HOT, especially without air conditioning!

I am sure the only thing that keeps it open is the fact that it is the only park near Merida, one of the cities that cannot be missed!

Across the street is a Liverpool Shopping Center. Liverpool is a high end department store. Very few regular working Mexicans will be found there as it is mostly used by wealthy Mexicans and ex-pats although the ex-pats we know do not shop there either.

We walked over a couple of times, once for dinner at Chilies Restaurant and once so Norma could buy a new bathing suit and some English magazines at Liverpool. In the middle of the mall is one thing seldom seen in Mexico. A skating rink!

And a 12 screen theatre!

We Left Merida

We got up fairly early this morning and started packing to leave. Norma has not been feeling great the last couple of days so we were prepared to stay another day if she needed it but she was OK so we left.

We did not get to do many of the things we wanted to do and see so we will be back next year for sure. We got to say “Goodbye” to Jonna when she drove me to pick up the car but Mimi was at home supervising the workers in the garden. So… bye Mimi and thank you so much for everything! We really enjoyed ourselves during our stay and look forward to next time.

These women are such a lot of fun there is rarely a dull moment when they are around. If you have not checked out their Blog, do so. I will update this post with a link when I get online so drop back to get it. Link to Jonna & Mimi's Blog.

We headed out on MX 180 toward the old seaport of Campeche, passing through rural countryside. Three hours later we hit the Campeche bypass and follower it to the Club Nautica RV Park. This is a classy place with ocean, a new pool, 30 amp power (yes 30 amp!) and WIFI in the clubhouse. We are back to WIFI as there is no cell signal out here. There was another problem with the Telcel 3G which I will explain in a separate post.

I set up the tripod and mounted the StarChoice dish. I got the rough coordinates from a file in the computer and as Norma watched the signal, I swung the dish to start the fine tuning process. I started with it pointed almost due East and swung it to the South. Suddenly Norma yelled, “Stop! Go back a bit, it was 36!”. I moved it back a little and there was the satellite! I locked it down and the signal dropped to 28 but that is very good and not worth trying to get it any better. Total setup time, about ten seconds! This is a Personal Best!

Now I will walk over to send the Blog and we can check out the pool for tomorrow. We will spend three days here as we have a ton of laundry to get done and Campeche is known for it’s seafood restaurants so we have to try out a couple!

Telcel 3G Confusion

The month was about to expire on my Telcel service so I went down to buy another two weeks to get us out of the country. All went well as I bought a $300 peso, 1.5GB package that would last until the end of the month. The agent set it up and gave me a number and code I had to text within 24 hours of the end of my service to activate the new time.

Well I sent the text message and assumed all was well. 12:35 the next day came and went and I still had Internet. At sometime around 5:00 it was gone! No Internet! What happened? It was too late to do anything about it so I waited until they opened at 10:00 this morning and drove down to the office.

I explained my problem (no Internet) to the agent and she looked up my account and informed me that I had no service as the month was up. I went through it again and she looked at it closer. “I see the problem”, she said. “You activated the new time before the 24 hours. Our computer assumed you wanted to add $300 worth of bandwidth to the account that was about to expire. That is what we did and it expired shortly after.” “Why would I do that?” asked I. “Lots of people do that if they decide to download some large files or send some videos or photos.” “Well you can see I did not do that. That $300 pesos was to be used to extend my time by 15 days.” “I know”, she said,”and if you had sent the message a couple of hours later, that would have happened.” “So what do we do now?, I asked. “If you want another 15 days you will have to give us another $300 pesos.” I asked her if there was another way out of it as my account clearly shows I used none of the new time before it expired. She said the rules were the rules and they did the proper thing. I gave her my “whiny” look and she said there was one possibility. She could talk to her supervisor after the store closed and ask if an exception could be made for me. She said she would call me before noon tomorrow with an answer. The problem is, there is no cell service here at the RV park! We will have to go downtown for lunch and await the call. MEXICO!!!!

Gas Station Rip-Off

We have heard stories of dishonest attendants but have not experienced any ourselves except for one case where they “had no change” and I paid $900 pesos for $860 worth of gas. In that case maybe he actually had no change, but I doubt it.

Today, we pulled in for gas just West of Campeche. I got out of the cab, pulled $1000 pesos out of my wallet and ordered $1000 pesos of Magna (Regular). He zeroed the pump and started pumping. Immediately his partner called to me to look at my tire. He was standing there pointing at it and speaking rapid Spanish. As I went to look I heard the pump stop and the ding as it was zeroed. I came back as the guy was pulling out the premium nozzle. He said he forgot I wanted premium but said he had only put in $158 pesos worth of regular. I said no, I wanted regular. He said he would give me the $1000 pesos less the $158 he had already put in.

There was no way he had time to put in $158 pesos of gas and he did not show me the meter before he zeroed it. Maybe $50 pesos worth had gone in so I was getting ripped off for $100 pesos. It was not worth arguing about it as he had several “witnesses” so I handed him the $1000 and openly put the $10 peso tip I had in my hand for him back in my pocked. “I think you already got your tip”, I said. He looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about and I drove off.

After probably 200 gas stops I got ripped off. Sad.

Mexican Body Work

Jonna picked me at about 1:00 up to take me over to the body shop. He had told me it would be ready at noon and it was! We had a quick look at the repairs and everything looked good. We went into the office to talk to Miguel. His estimate was $1900 pesos and that was what he charged me. No muss, no fuss.

When I got the car back to the RV park, I had a close look in the sun and again in the shade. The repair was smooth and a magnet stuck everywhere indicating he actually pounded the metal out and used very little body filler. The paint match was perfect. Red is the hardest colour to match and 23 year old paint is worse. I am very happy with this job and can highly recommend Miguel.

They are:

Talleres Las Americas Hojalateria Y Pintura

Miguel Tajardo Ramirez

Calle 16 No. 197-A x 17

999 185 3681

Before and after:

Telcel 3G Renewal

My month is up for the Telcel 3G card. I was allowed 3GB of data transfer and used under 2GB and this included a full online reinstall of Open Office. The 30 days is up tomorrow so we went down to the Telcel office to renew. It is not easy to manoeuvre through Carlos Slim’s empire. 1) You enter the building and stand in line at the registration desk. There you explain what you want and are given a slip of paper to take to an agent. 2) You then go and stand in line until an agent (again one who spoke a little English!) comes free and signals you. She does whatever it is you need, gives you another piece of paper which you 3) take to the caja (cash) desk where you join another line to see a cashier. The cashier takes your money and gives you a receipt which you 4) take back to the agent who is waiting for your return, regardless of how long the line is waiting for an agent, she waits for you. The agent then completes the transaction and, in my case, explained that I must send a text message to a particular number to activate my extra time. This text message must be sent within 24 hours of my time expiring I went today because I thought it expired tomorrow. I was wrong and it expires the day after tomorrow so she could not activate the account. I must do it myself and I hope I can navigate through the Spanish involved. I will attempt this sometime after 12:35 tomorrow afternoon.

In the meantime, Telcel’s Carlos Slim had a very good year and made $15 Billion personal income last year. This puts him ahead of Bill Gates and he is now officially the richest man in the world with a personal fortune of $57 Billion or something. At this point numbers become meaningless!

The additional 15 days Internet I purchased cost me $300 pesos so I am happy to have contributed to Carlos Slim’s campaign to top Bill Gates.

Well, I sent my text message and got an immediate response in Spanish saying something like the new time will commence after the old time expires. This better mean I will still have a connection after 12:35…

Desmond Tutu on Gay Rights In Africa

I am not in the least religious but I appreciate a friendly voice!

Desmond Tutu:

"Uganda's parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi. These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa. Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.”

"And they are living in hiding -- away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God." - Desmond Tutu, in an editorial published in today's Washington Post.

And what has the “Christian” Pope said about Uganda? NOTHING, as he DOES worship a homophobic God. Maybe it’s time to redefine “Christian”.

And now for some good news: The first same sex marriages are taking place in Mexico City. Small steps.