We Are In Merida!

We made it to the Yucatan! It was an easy three hours or so today and we made it to the RV park in Merida. We parked close to Whit and Jan because that is where the shade was. They were not home but soon appeared with Jonna and Mimi. We had hugs all around and then relaxed with a refreshment or two.

Whit brought over a bottle of his newly collected Mescal for me to try and it was wonderful! A subtle smoke flavour not unlike some fine single malts. We shall explore his collection a little deeper in the next couple of days.

Jonna is still not up to par and Mimi pulled her away from the party to go to her latest doctor’s appointment. There are two forms of Denague Fever, the bad kind and the really bad kind. It turns out she only had the bad kind! She will recover!

It is going to be a busy couple of days.

Oh yes, my Banda Ancha works well here and is on the faster UMTS system. However, when I turned the computer on when we arrived a really strong, unsecured WIFI signal appeared. I logged onto it and it worked great. I told Jan about it and she said it was not there when she checked in. I just checked again and it is gone now.

High Definition Debacle

I may have discovered the problem I have been having with not getting the HD channels on our StarChoice. The website I have been using to help me aim the dish was recommending “Skew” settings that are totally different from the reference document I have used in previous years. For instance, here in Campeche I set the skew at 115 degrees. When I compared this with the old document, I found the old document recommends 134 degrees!

The skew setting ensures the dish is able to receive data from both satellites. Having the skew this far off may mean I am only “seeing” one satellite and all the HD channels are on the other one! I am not going to temp fate by trying to rotate the dish today but when I set it up in Merida tomorrow I will use the readings from the second document.

Here are a couple of shots of the RV Park here at Club Nautico where it is currently 81F at 10:30 AM. Another pool day.

Company

Yesterday Tobey and Sue commented that they were catching up to us. Today they pulled into the RV park! They are a young retired couple from Colorado on their first venture into Mexico. They joined us at the pool and then came over for “Happy Hour” before heading into town on their scooter. It was great meeting them and I am sure our paths will cross again.

We may spend another day here as we have not heard from Whit and Jan and Jonna is still getting over her bout of Dengue Fever. It is much nicer here than in the RV park in Merida where we share a 20 amp breaker with two other spaces.

And, for fear of forgetting, Happy Martin Luther King Day! I will never forget my visit to his Martin Luther King’s Center for Human Rights in Memphis. It was very moving!

While we remember MLK today, let’s also remember the reason for his execution. Dr. King was opposed to the Vietnam War and had the backing and support to force the USA to withdraw from Vietnam. He was planning a massive demonstration in Washington to force them to do just that. This was unacceptable to the war profiteering establishment and they had to stop him. MLK was also planning a run for President Of the United States and there was a better than good chance he would have succeeded. This was the second strike against him and as a result, Doctor King was in many crosshairs that day and he was not leaving Memphis alive.

Waiting for Merida

We are spending at least one more night here at Campeche. Our American friends Whit and Jan are heading for Merida and we want to meet up with them but we have not heard from them in a few days. We would rather wait here in Campeche where there is 30 amp power, a pool and great showers. The alternative is the RV park in Merida with poor sewer lines and very poor electricity. No creature comforts there!

We have also not heard from our friends Jonna and Mimi in Merida for a while. The last we heard from Jonna, she was under the weather and we want her to be in good shape when we are there.

So here we sit. Tap, tap…. Is this thing on?

WOW! I went to pay for another night and the price has gone up! We paid $250 pesos for each of the first three nights and today it is $350. There was a sign on the wall and everything! I argued but did not win. Oh well, the average cost is still pretty reasonable.

Rainy Days and Sundays

I awoke in the middle of the night to an almost forgotten pitter – patter of rain on the roof. It only lasted a couple of minutes but then started up again near dawn for another few minutes. As we were thinking about getting up, it started again. There was not enough to dampen the ground but the windshields are spotted with water marks.

It will be a lazy day today. Norma has a couple of cleaning projects she wants to do and then there is some awards show that she wants to watch tonight. Myself, I will do nothing except walking over to the clubhouse to send this Blog.

Yesterday we drove downtown to do a little shopping and then came home. We both had showers in the beautiful shower rooms and Norma had a sauna. For me it is a little too warm for saunas but she perseveres. Today I am going to try out the infinity pool, rain or not. Even though there is a little rain, it is still 75F.

A Swiss couple pulled in the night before last and we talked to them for a moment yesterday but they pulled out to get some muffler repairs around noon. They said they would be back in time for happy hour but never showed up and are still missing this morning. Their Swiss motorhome has a flexible exhaust pipe and this is what he needed replaced. I am pretty sure he would have trouble finding one in Mexico. I can envision them parked overnight in front of a muffler shop while parts are brought in from Mexico City. Hopefully they will be back by happy hour this afternoon.

Isla Aguada to Campeche

This morning I felt much more ready to travel than I did yesterday. We hit the road at 10:00 and followed the Gulf of Mexico to Campeche’s Club Nautico RV park. It was about three hours of slow paced driving on narrow secondary roads. We made one little unplanned detour through a small beach front fishing village but ran into no problem. We found a great little seaside restaurant where they were happy to pull out the breakfast menus even though it was actually lunch time. This is very common in Mexico, unlike in the States where you cannot order breakfast at 11:02 AM.

Club Nautico is a private tennis club with a beautiful infinity swimming pool and beach. There is a gate and guardhouse at the entrance where we paid for three nights. We parked in the same space we parked in two years ago and set up the dish. It took a while but we have all the standard definition channels but no high definition channels. I would be curious to hear if anyone is getting the HD channels at these latitudes (even with the larger dish).

We drove the ten KM or so into Campeche for dinner and stopped at the group of six or seven palapa roofed restaurants at the far east end of the malacon. The waiters are very aggressive in trying to get you into their place but we resisted until we found the right combination of white tablecloths, live music and menu. Norma ordered Paella Mariscos and I had Pescado Veracruzana. It was probably the best meal I have had so far in Mexico this year! Norma really enjoyed hers as well and actually ate 3/4 of it. It was that good and for only $280 pesos with beer and wine. It was dark when we got home. The end of a great day.

Lost Day

Wednesday night was supposed to be our last night at Isla Aguada. After getting things ready to leave in the morning we went over to the restaurant for dinner. Another couple staying in the RV park walked over at the same time so we all sat together. They are from France and have been RV’ing in Mexico for two winters now. They are going around Mexico in the opposite direction than us. Luckily their English is much better than our French but on a few occasions we had to fall back on Spanish. It was a fun meal and after we ate we invited them back for a nightcap. Well, that was the beginning of the end!

I poured some wine and then we got into the single malt. Andre went over to his motorhome for a bottle of Ricard, a licorice flavored liqueur from France that turns cloudy with water added and really tasted good to me. Too good! It was well after midnight when we finally went to bed and when I woke up Thursday morning, I was not all that anxious to face the open road. Norma walked over to pay Thelma for one more night. We spent most of the day laying around watching recorded TV programs.

One great subject came up! They have a house in the south of France and asked if we would consider trading houses and a car for a month or so in the summer! I know this goes on but have never given it much thought but they have done it a couple of times and it has worked out well for them.

That reminds me, we have not had StarChoice here on the Isla. The RV park has a canopy of trees that prevents any chance of getting a shot at the satellite. When we were here two years ago I set the dish up on the beach outside the chain link fence where there is a pretty good view to the west. It worked last year but was a pain because the cable went across the sidewalk where someone could trip and the beach is very public with kids playing. The dish would be vulnerable or people could get hurt so we just did not bother. We had several hours of recorded programs so that sufficed.

Anyway, we spent our lost day watching TV and snacking. By Friday morning I felt much better! Here are the two who got us in so much trouble:

Here is Thelma:

Random Shots From Isla Aguada

Walking around town:

RV Wash

Norma went over and asked Thelma if she knew of anyone who would come over to wash and hand wax the motorhome. She suggested the kitchen staff might want to do it to earn a little extra money so that is what happened. At various times there were as many as four energetic young people washing, scrubbing and waxing the motorhome. Over several hours the job was done, and a fine job it was! The front cap that was dulled by thousands of miles of wind and sand is shiny once again.

And what was Norma doing while all this work was going on?

BTW: We finally have access to good WIFI so I am posting a couple of posts I had saved on the computer. Read them below.

To Glass Or Not To Glass, That Is The Question

I don't know, maybe it is just me but I like real, old fashioned, solid glass wine glasses. The kind with the long stem and large size bowl on top. Wine just tastes better from it. Others sacrifice this luxury while on the road and use the plastic variety. Not me! I will accept the odd (or not so odd) breakage and cleanup to be able to savor my wine the way it was intended to be savored, from real, crystal clear glass! Price is no object, I have my standards! A wine glass must be made of glass or it is not a wine glass. It is a "plastic" glass.

I have recently been experimenting with the newly popular "stemless" wine glasses and find them a reasonably acceptable substitute. They do not break too easily in the cupboard after hitting a tope at too high a speed and they are not as quick to do a belly flop out of the cupboard when opening it after a day of driving. I drink red wine so the transfer of heat from my fingers to the wine is not at all bothersome to me, in fact it may be an advantage, I bought four of these stemless variety from Walmart when we got to Mexico and after seven weeks actually have three left. An acceptable casualty rate as they say in the army. Of our four long stemmed wine glasses, only one remains, a solitary orphan. The last man standing. Warm up the bugle for Taps.