Oaxaca, Day 1

We walked down to the Zocalo at about 11:00. It was about six short blocks all downhill. A couple of blocks away we found a vegetarian restaurant where we stopped for breakfast. It was very good and cost 120 pesos for the two of us. we will be back here.

We continued on to the Zocalo where we walked around and people watched. I found a stall selling men’s button up shirts and bought two, one red and one white. 320 pesos ($25) for both. That was full asking price, he would not budge. It actually took several stalls to find someone who had XG (extra grande) sizes, Oaxacan men are not normally as big as me, mediano was the going size.

By now it was 3:00 so we stopped at a curbside coffee shop and had an iced coffee to combat the 90 degree heat. After a quick stop at the grocery store we walked back home (uphill). We will head back to the Zocalo later for dinner at a street side restaurant we scouted out, but I think we might get a taxi for the uphill ride home.

The Road To Oaxaca

Before we left Cuernavaca I checked out the route on Google Maps and modified it a little to stay on main highways. It said 457 KM and 5 1/2 hours. As I expected, that was not to be. It was a great road, similar to many secondary roads in the US and Canada. The GPS kept telling us to go to Puebla and start the journey south from there, in fact it kept telling us to turn around and go to Puebla almost all the way! My friend Rob emailed me to say I had a setting wrong which makes sense as I had to do a reset on the GPS last week after it "froze up".

We drove all the way (8 hours) with only one half hour stop for lunch and gas. We found our Oaxaca apartment easily and it looks like it is only a five or six block walk to the Zocalo where all the action is. And there will be action as this is yet another holiday in Mexico (Constitution Day).We will head down there soon.

It is cool this morning at 55 but Weather.com says it will hit 90 by 2:00. The air smells very fresh. We are sitting on the private patio in front of our apartment with birds chirping and the dog hanging around looking for a treat.

These apartments are the deal of the century! Ours is one of the larger ones that they offer (3 rooms plus bath) and is only 2450 pesos ($190) for the week! I am sure a monthly deal could be negotiated for much less. We checked out hotels and few are under $80 per night and the rooms would be much smaller. It has a full kitchen so we will pick up some eggs so we can cook breakfast here in the mornings.

Oaxaca Road Trip!

We are leaving for Oaxaca in the Honda. Google Maps says it is 5 1/2 hours but I am thinking more like 8 or 9. We should be there tonight but if not then we will spend the night in a by the hour hotel. Humm... How many hours sleep do I need at 200 pesos per four hours?

Talk to you soon!

EDIT: We made it in 8 hours exactly, fighting with the $%#@! GPS all the way after it decided the only road to Oaxaca came from Puebla.

The three room apartment is very Mexican and spotlessly clean. The shower is tiny but the bed is huge, we will soon see how soft.

To tired to Blog tonight.

Haircuts Under The Volcano!

We both needed haircuts and Norma needed a manicure and pedicure as well so off we went to Cuernavaca. We parked in the same parking garage as last time and set off walking to find some place to get the jobs done. We found a haircutters right near the Centro where they could cut both of us. The young man who did Norma’s hair spoke English and gave her a very nice razor cut for 150 pesos ($12). My guy was a little younger and obviously thought I should have a much younger looking cut. I finally got a “normal” looking trim out of him but when he finished, he applied a hand full of gel and had my hair all sticking straight up in the air! I tried to push it down flat with my hand but to no avail, it sprung right back up. I asked to borrow a comb but he did not understand and combed it himself, but right back to the sticking up straight condition. Oh well, I can live with it until I get home. His charge was 120 pesos ($9.50). A regular men only barber in Mexico charges 50 pesos ($4). These guys were “stylists”.

Norma’s guy recommended a place for her nails so off we went again. We walked two blocks and found it, a small two person nail salon offering manicures and pedicures. They could do her right away and told me it would take two hours with both of them working on her. I wandered down the street and found the Hotel Bajo El Volcan (Under The Volcano), named after a 1940’s American novel that was written in Cuernavaca by Malcolm Lawry. It was a nice hotel with rooms renting for 1050 pesos ($83) per night, breakfast buffet included. I doubt if Lawry wrote his book about the dysfunctional, alcoholic British Consul here but you never know.

I continued on to the Centro where I found a small restaurant where I got enchiladas de queso, ensalada chico (small salad) and a limonada for 70 pesos. Good deal. I ordered another limonada and people watched for an hour.

I wandered back to the nail place and arrived right as the two hours expired and they were done. Everything was to her satisfaction. Mexican women get little stars, flowers, stones, etc. added to their nails but Norma was careful to stop him from doing that to hers. It was only after we got home that she noticed he had snuck a few sparklers onto them without her noticing. Oh well, her sparkling nails go with my sticking up hair for the punk rock couple look. The charge for her nails was 300 pesos ($24) after tip. Remember there were two of them working for two hours = 4 man hours labor plus material. No machinery or grinders were used and you really have to look to see the sparkles. Norma says the same job back home would have been $100 (more with sparkles).

This is the view from my restaurant. My table was on a small balcony.

Telcel Visit

Our Banda Ancha is going to expire at 3 PM February 1. Usually this just means going to a Telcel store or even an OXXO and buying another 500 pesos of time. This time however, I got a text message from Telcel reminding me to renew but also telling me I had sufficient credit in my account to renew. Hoping to save about $40 US we drove to downtown Cuernavaca and went into the Telcel customer Service office. We were lucky once again and found an English speaking rep. I showed him the text but he replied that yes, I had over one thousand pesos in my "gift" or "rebate" account but I could not use it to renew, the money was only to be used "for making phone calls". I do not understand as Banda Ancha is not a phone, only an Internet connection device. I do not think our rep was all that familiar with the product. I will try again next month from Puebla or San Miguel de Allende.

Our friends Jan and Whit have been having the same problem. It must be one of those "Mexican things" that is beyond understanding. I paid my 500 pesos for another 30 days.

We also have a Telcel phone that we keep for emergencies. When we got here in early December, I bought 100 pesos worth of time. We have used none of that time but it expires after 60 days and if you do not add more time before it expires, you loose your unused time. They had also added a "gift" of 50 pesos so I added another 50 pesos and now I have 200 pesos worth of time.

Traffic was very heavy so after we had found the Telcel building and finished our business there, we only had time to stock up on Krispy Kreme doughnuts and head home shortly before dark.

At about 7, Humberto knocked on our door to invite us over to their house for a visit. It is a great honor to be invited into a Mexican home so we were very pleased. They have a beautiful house with walls covered in art and mementos. We sat and talked, munching on snacks and sipping drinks until almost ten. It was a very enjoyable evening! I was fearing we were overstaying our welcome but every time my beer bottle looked empty, it was replaced with a full one! We had a great time!

Short Term Goal Rethinking

Our reservations in Oaxaca got pushed back a couple of days due to confusion at their end so that got us thinking, usually a dangerous thing. We are running slower this year and are nowhere near as deep into Mexico as we have been in previous years by this time. That is OK, we are in a beautiful part of Mexico and are poised to visit Oaxaca, the only Mexican State we have never been to. The Mexico map in the side panel will soon be completely colored in. We will be in Oaxaca for a week starting on February third.

Norma is having a hard time shaking her cold and is very much enjoying just sitting around and I must admit saving the $100+ per day we put out in gas and tolls while we travel is nice as well. So, we will stay here another two weeks or so, one week of which we will spend in Oaxaca. We will then head east to Puebla for a week or two and explore around there before starting to head north (sob). We have been in the Puebla area many times but have only been into the city once. There is much to see around here so it will be nice to stop and smell the bougainvillea's for a change.

We will forego visiting the Yucatan this year. This will let us continue our slow pace and will put us back in the USA a little earlier than usual so we can spend a bit if time in Texas. Our friend Rae is there right now and Reading her Blog has reminded me of how much we like that State. I need a few feeds of Gulf shrimp and oysters! Life is slower this year, but still Good! We are not sure where we will end up in Texas but it will be somewhere on the Gulf Coast, maybe near Corpus Christi.

Late posting today. The Internet has been down most of the day.

Rolling In The Dough!

My CPP and OAP (Canada Pension Plan & Old Age Pension) were both deposited last night and I see I have gotten a raise of $4 per month! Thanks Canada, if this keeps up we might actually start bringing in more than we are spending some day! Just kidding! We live a pretty good lifestyle and could cut back quite a bit if we had to. We just don't want to. That $4 will buy a nice bag of peanuts every month ;)

My Union Pension is fully funded but not officially indexed. Every year the Trustees and actuaries look at the fund and decide if we can afford to get a raise. The last raise was over a year ago so it is time to put a little pressure on them. When I was involved in the Pension Plan back in the 80's we were told if we could only get the fund up to a billion $ we would be on easy street. At that time it was a "pie in the sky" dream. It is now at three billion $ and growing every month even though there are more members retired than there are working. We did some good planning back in those days and made some good investments and are now reaping the rewards! My hat is off once again to my friend and former Union President Bob Donnelly for successfully fighting to get control of our Pension Plan away from the company's greedy little hands.

Those efforts led to a three or four month strike in the winter of 1969 but we came out of it with a much better contract and our Pension Plan. Momentary pain for long term gain. Thanks again, Bob!

Oaxaca Booked

It was a lazy day of playing on the computer, watching TV and planning our trip to Oaxaca. It is almost 600 KM to drive so we decided to leave the motorhome here where it is safe and sound with Humberto, take the "shiny newly painted" Honda and stay in a hotel. A search on the Internet found that hotels in Oaxaca are quite expensive, averaging $100 US per night on Hotels.com and some of the other booking sites. I remembered that Bill and Dorothy Bell had stayed in a very reasonably priced apartment there a few months ago so I emailed them and got the information. These apartments are close to the Centro Zocala and although not huge, are certainly big enough for us. The price is the real drawing feature though with fully furnished apartments starting at 1750 pesos a week or about $20 per night. We booked one for a week and even if we leave before the full week is up, it is still a great deal.

You can find them here: http://www.oaxacapartments.com/

More Good Times

Humberto's employee came and knocked on our door Saturday morning. He tried his best to get his message across but we simply failed to connect. He went to get Humberto to translate and we learned he was telling us his sister was getting married that afternoon in the nearby village. He wanted to tell us that a great amount of food was being prepared and that he would like to bring us some later in the day if we were going to be home. How kind of him to think of us! (I actually had it pretty close. I thought he was trying to invite us to his house for dinner.)

He was the one who recommended his painter friend to us and I had failed to get his name. After he left, I asked Humberto but just could not get my tongue around the name. Humberto had trouble pronouncing it as well so I did not feel bad. He said it was the Mexican equivalent of "Roger".

At about 6:00 PM "Roger" and his gorgeous girlfriend (who also works part time here) came to the door with a container of meat in a spicy mole sauce along with a stack of warm tortillas as well as a linen place mat embroidered with the names of the couple, "Deme y Fany". The young people were both very well dressed and were happy to pose for a photo. What generous people! Typical Mexicans!

Later Saturday night Humberto knocked on the door to tell us there would be another bonfire. We poured a drink and walked over to meet the new weekend visitors. The Argentinian couple were back with their three kids plus another group of Mexicans. Julio is a lawyer from Mexico City and his wife is a Federal Police officer. His English is good and we talked for a while. While we were at the fire his mother and father arrived. They were obviously a close knit family and reminded me very much of myself and my son. He said his father is his best friend.

We exchanged cards and he said if we ever need help to call him any time, day or night. I hope we will never need his professional help but his card will be a very valuable thing to hold onto!

Here is Humberto's bonfire last night. Just to give you an idea of the size, the "sticks" at the base of the fire are four to five feet long! It is not the kind of fire you huddle around!

Gift From Carlos Slim

I got a message from Telcel today telling me my Banda Ancha will expire on Feb 2. They also told me I have enough credit to pay for a month! I have only bought time twice this winter at 500 pesos a month and yet I have accumulated 500 pesos in "gifts" and rebates! This same thing happened to me last year.