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.

Traffic Jams

Merida is a large city of 800,000. Many of these people work in the downtown area and the tradition in Mexico is to take two hour lunch breaks. This means most people go home for lunch and this means four traffic jams per day! People like us have to learn to pick out times to hit the road to avoid these times.

This is irrelevant for us right now because we have no car! It is in the body shop until Saturday afternoon. Jonna and Mimi offered the use of their pickup but we turned their generous offer down. We are stocked up on groceries and there is a huge mall across the street if we really get bored. In fact we walked over there last night for dinner at Chilies Restaurant.

Norma is under the weather after waking up at three with stomach problems. She is finally back to sleep now at nine. We had been invited out to a local artist's showing tonight by Jonna and Mimi but had to cancel. We have each gone through one of these stomach bouts this winter now. It is just one of those things we expect to have to deal with. At least it is only once a year.

Dinner And Car Repairs

Last night we went for a nice Italian dinner with Jonna and Mimi. The food was great, the conversation enlightening and the drinks were two for one. What could be better?

We still had the body damage to the Honda from the altercation in Playa del Carmen to deal with. Both drivers side doors are pushed in a little but there is no structural damage. Jonna took us to her mechanic to see what he thought about it. He sent us to his friend Miguel Tajardo Ramirez and his Las Americas Hojalateria y Pintura (Metal & Paint) Shop. This morning I followed Jonna to Miguel's where he inspected the damage and set about writing an estimate. The estimate was for one hour body work and two hours painting. Total price? $1900 pesos plus tax, total. This is about $150 CAN! It is what you would call a deal and he can start work right now. We left the car there Thursday noon and it will be ready to be picked up Saturday noon. He said to bring it back in two weeks and he would polish the paint. I said that would be impossible as we would be gone then but that I would come back next year and maybe get him to repaint the whole car. He said he would give me a good deal.

The "body shop" is all outdoors with no paint booth. Hey, it's Mexico! How much would this cost me back in Canada? Probably more than the car is worth.

Merida

This morning we went down to the Centro. We found the Main Street Cafe, a nice spot off the Centro for breakfast and had some very nicely poached eggs. We then walked over to the Mondo Maya, the Mayan Co-op where the best of Mayan goods are sold. The price is a little higher but quality is assured. We had orders to buy a Panama Hat for a friend of ours back in Canada so that was the first order of business. We then picked out a nice Guayabera Shirt for me to wear to my great niece Crystal’s wedding in July. I hate wearing ties and these shirts are the perfect substitute! While we were in the clothing department, Norma found a dress in the same Guayabera style. Upstairs we found a large serving bowl to replace one we gave away last summer. This was the forth item on our list yesterday that the little shop did not have. It hangs on the wall until it is needed for serving. Very beautiful and multi-functional. Norma again had a chance to show her negotiating skills and managed to get a very nice discount on our pile of goods!

Merida Street Musician:

Mayan Rug Weaver:

After the Mayan Co-op we called our friends Jonna and Mimi who offered to pick us up downtown and take us over to their nearby house. This is a beautiful house that is still a work in progress. There is work going on in the back yard where a pool, walkways and ponds are being constructed. The house is made out of concrete and stone, the perfect materials for this climate and keeps the house at least ten or fifteen degrees cooler than the outside temperature. It is so cool inside that Jonna and Mimi have not yet installed their air conditioning and may not ever do so. One great feature of the house that I quickly asked to use was the Molly “Pedicure Pool”!

First, a little history: about thirty years ago I broke my left ankle into six pieces. It was all put back together and the bones healed. The problem however was most of the veins that take blood out of the foot were severed causing the blood to “pool” in my lower leg. This circulation problem has caused a skin condition that has changed the colour of the skin and also causes the skin to peel into very small scale-like pieces. When my leg tans in the sun this flaking skin is very noticeable.

WELL, as luck would have it, Jonna and Mimi have a pool full of Mollies that simply love to nibble on dead skin. They have a flat stone beside the pool where I sat and hung my leg in the water. It was immediately covered with these little fish who went to work on it. It is really a weird feeling having them pick off all that skin! They were everywhere, on my legs, the soles of my feet, between my toes, everywhere! After about ten minutes, I pulled my leg out and it was like new!

The hallway and water feature:

The Pool:

The Pedicure!

I Love Mayans

I really do! They have a attitude towards life that is hard to find elsewhere. They are always smiling. We stopped at a roadside stand where we bought a beautiful tablecloth last year but gave away during the summer. It had to be replaced and what better place to buy another! We had a list of four things we wanted to shop for and this shop had three of them. We asked the prices and she gave us her opening bid. We countered with a ridiculously low counter offer and the game was on!

We bought all three items for quite a bit less than her opening price but as usual, everyone walked away happy. She was a tiny woman but a tough bargainer. After we finished and she was wrapping the goods she told us she had three children, all in university. She held up the money we had paid her and told us it was for their studies. This was all done with neither of us understanding the others language very well. As we were leaving town we drove past her shop and she gave us a big wave. We were possibly her biggest sale of the day.

It was still fairly early and I had no huge desire to walk through the Chichen Itza ruins again this year so we continued on to Merida. We found the Rainbow RV Park where we stayed last year and like last year, the power is terrible. The air conditioner trips the breaker, even on low, and no two things can be run together. This means the coffee maker and the microwave together will trip it. It is very frustrating!

StarChoice setup was easier than usual and we had a good signal of 30 within a few minutes.

Today we will try to contact Jonna and Mimi and make plans to meet them. It is suposed to get up to 40 degrees today which will be lovely without air conditioning!