Surviving Mexico

January 11, 2018 · 1:00 pm

Road Construction

Last year I got my solar light hopes dashed by the installation of a huge, green, interstate highway size sign at the crossroads. Well, this year, the powers that be decided that the two-lane slightly crooked cowpath that runs past La Yacata needed to be as spectacular as the new signage.

The entire construction process was hair-raising, to say the least. Every day, huge construction vehicles rolled up and down the road that I, on my piddly little motorcycle, used daily to get to town. Sometimes hot oil was spraying off the side, sometimes stones were pouring from the back of dump trucks, sometimes the backhoe was swinging its huge arm over my head.

So where were the construction guards, those guys that are supposed to signal danger ahead with little flags? Over there, in the shade of the mesquite. It was too damn hot to stand where they could be useful.

For weeks, it was always a surprise to come home after dark. See, in the afternoons, the huge dump trucks poured the next days’ rockpile on the road. Even if you thought you could jump the first mound of rocks, the piles were graduated in size, each progressively higher. Since these rock piles were not there when I went to town, the trek home after dark was a full-fledged adrenaline rush as I wove and swerved and attempted to stay somewhat on the road or at least keep from crashing. I suppose we should count our lucky stars that there were only two fatal accidents during the whole revamping.

The intersection has become this behemoth entranceway, fully capable of funneling at least 8 lanes of traffic.

After months of work, they have finally finished. Since completion, there have been four fatal accidents, one involving a donkey and his rider, at the intersection because THERE ARE NO LIGHTS! I can hardly wait to see what new improvements the benevolent government will bestow on us next year.

2 Comments

Filed under La Yacata Revolution

Tagged as construction in mexico, road construction in Mexico, road repairs in Mexico

January 8, 2018 · 1:00 pm

Blogs About Mexico Worth Reading–Letters From Mexico

Don writes Letters From Mexico about his experiences living in Mexico since 2003.

What brought you to Mexico?

I was invited by a guy I met while volunteering at a folk fest. He lives in Connecticut and Mexico and invited me to come to the 1st Turtle Island Bioregional Congress. I did and then had two follow up visits, staying in the community that organized it. On my third visit, I was crying when it was time to go home (back up north). This signaled to me to begin the process of getting ready to move to Mexico.

What was the inspiration for your blog name?

Letters From Mexico was inspired by a previous blog I started when I moved here in 2003, to keep in touch with family and friends in El Norte. I did a Google search, and the only Letters From Mexico was by Cortez.

What area of Mexico and topics does your blog primarily focus on?

I live in the volcanic region of central Mexico, south of Mexico City and East of Cuernavaca, called Tepoztlan. (Try and pronounce that one!) Most of my topics relate to the Mexican culture, and how this differs from the US.

Why do you blog?

My blog is primarily for retirees in the US who are interested in moving to Mexico.

The site has some information and a lot of my personal experiences about travel and living in Mexico. Hopefully, it will help make the decision about coming here.

What is your favorite blog post?

Maybe because it was my first post—Get Lost! Is my favorite. It was inspired by some experiences, and by the image of a T-shirt that’s pictured on the blog.

What has been the most difficult for you to blog about?

My Daily Life in Mexico was the most difficult. I feel that topic is what my audience wants to read about, but I prefer living it to writing about it.

What has been the best experience you’ve had in Mexico?

I play in blues bands. We had a gig called Scorpio Dance Party. It was to celebrate my birthday and that of a friend. I promoted it for a month, working every day. I’m proud to say it attracted 70 people and all had a blast! I learned that I was able to organize and carry out a project.

What has been the worst experience you’ve had in Mexico?

I spent a night in an immigration prison cell in Acapulco. I learned it’s important to have my papers up-to-date.

What advice do you have for those planning to move or travel to Mexico?

I think preparation should include research: reading books, online material, and talking to friends and relatives who have traveled or live in Mexico.

It’s best done in small steps, in my opinion. For example, don’t buy a house during your first week traveling in Mexico.

If you are currently in Mexico, how long do you plan on remaining?

Although I am flexible, at this point I consider Mexico my home base. I’d say I’ve not been around a lot. I explored living in Guatemala, but find Mexico more diverse, with hotter music and food.

I’ll stay here until and unless I find something I like better.

Where do you see your blog going?

My goal is to have the site be interactive, and with the help of my audience, become a published book. I published a memoir and am now revising and updating it. I have plans for two other memoir related books, for different audiences, and these may have blogs.

Where can you be found?

Twitter and Facebook

A bit of remodeling–Upstairs

Although I had my heart set on a solar electrical system, even gone so far as to price it, I realized I was putting the cart before the horse. Before we make manifest electricity (my home improvement goal for 2018), we needed to finish the upstairs. So since my husband decided not to return to work in September, that’s what he’s been doing. Of course, it’s now January, and we still aren’t completely finished, but we are closer than we were.

In 2016, we were able to put the roof on the second floor and then put in windows but for quite some time it remained uninhabitable. We used it to store junk. It was dark and dusty. But all that was about to change!

The first step was to patch the walls. This is my husband’s least favorite construction activity, so it took about 2 months for him to complete it, one buto (bag) of cement at a time. Not only did the walls need to be patched, but they needed afinado (refined), which meant a second round of patching, only this time with beach sand rather than brown sand.

The sand is sifted. It isn’t the same sand used in construction.

The mix for patching is gooier than the mix used for construction. No gravel is used.

Wall to the left is one layer. Wall to the right is with a second layer.

As for flooring, oh my, was this a hassle. When we built the house 10 years ago, we installed a lovely brown tile in the kitchen, both bedrooms, and bathroom. The outside porch eventually became an interior room but did not have any tile. Therefore, we hoped we could find something similar to it to tile the back room, stairs and then continue upstairs. No such luck. The tile we had used had been discontinued. We went to 10 flooring places and looked at floor models and books until we were cross-eyed. We’d find something we liked only to be told that they only had 3 boxes left. Or the color was good and there were enough to complete the job, but it was WAY out of our budget. We weren’t just tiling one room, but an entire floor, steps, and the back room. Finally, we found something that had similar tones although was completely different in the patterning and went with that.

69 boxes of tile

The tile we chose.

Buying all the tiles at once was a major purchase and construction had to be delayed just a bit since we also needed to buy the pegasolejo (cement for laying the tiles) and bujilla (grouting). But just like the wall patching, little by little it got done.