Category: Uncategorized

First off, our internet problem has gone away as Starlink finally got us up and running again. I guess it was just a game of waiting. I’m disappointed with their support though. It was four days before I got any sort of a reply. Apparently, they had a large outage, so they would have been very busy.

It was the day that Martine came to do the cleaning. When she’s there we like to make ourselves scarce as she is a whirlwind and it’s not good to get in her way. A drive to Cihuatlán seemed like a good idea. We needed a new light for the kitchen. There wasn’t anything that would work, but then again, we didn’t look too hard as it was lunchtime and we were getting a bit peckish.

On the way home, our gas was getting low so I pulled in to get a fill-up—only our third since arriving. The attendant was polite and fun so he got a tip. Then I tried to start the car. Nothing!

I lifted the hood and saw that the battery terminals were very corroded. I cleaned them up with a bit of help from the attendant who got the hose and gave them a good wash. He also got a large adjustable wrench and used that as a hammer for a bit but still nothing. I shouldn’t have been surprised as I was scraping gunk off the terminal like peeling cheese. Obviously, the battery wasn’t getting charged.

It’s fortunate that there are some good friends here. One phone call and Jerry was on his way with his truck and some jumper cables. In the meantime, the attendant and another guy pushed us to a shady spot to wait. We were getting hungry but had some ‘yacca’ that we bought from the tianguis earlier so ate that to keep us going.

Jerry showed up after about fifteen minutes and our little old car was soon on the road again. Before we left the attendant got another tip for helping us out.

Back at the casa, I tried restarting the car and sure enough, it started just fine. I have to remember to check the terminals more often. Also, I understand that covering the terminals with Vaseline helps so I’ll do that.

After checking in with Martine and putting our stuff in the fridge we finally got our lunch at Resta-Rita by the lagoon.

The next day I cleaned the terminals and tried to start the car. Dead! Jerry came to my assistance again and I drove to ‘Cowboys Auto Repair’ where they installed a new battery. I also got the terminals changed as they were in bad shape. The total cost was $154 Canadian so not too bad and the car is running great again.

One morning I got into the shower, and after a while, I realized something was a little off as I wasn’t getting wet. Our water had run out. I checked everything I could but to no avail. I checked the ‘tinaco’, a huge tank on the roof, and it was empty. We called Castulo and he said he would be there in five minutes but showed up half an hour later.

Our water comes from a well and I haven’t quite figured out how it works yet. The water seems to be there for the house alright but I have to throw a switch to get water for the garden hoses. I don’t think I should get involved too much so I’ll leave that one alone. There was nothing Castulo could do, and as it was a Sunday, he couldn’t get the repair guy to come out. He told us that he would be here early the next morning, and would get someone to fill our tinaco that day, to hold us until the following day.

Our tinaco on the roof.

By the next morning neither the guy who was supposed to fill the tank, the repair guy, nor Castulo had shown up. We waited a while and then Rosalie called Castulo again and finally he and the repair guy arrived to do the job. This involved lots of back and forth in Spanish, borrowing some tools from me, and Castulo hopping on his motorbike and running uptown for supplies every few minutes. I also heard a bit of hammering and banging but didn’t dare look to see what was happening.

It’s a bit of a challenge living without water. It makes showering, laundry and flushing a little difficult. We have plenty of drinking water in 20-litre jugs so we got on fine. I used the jugs to fill the toilet tank and must have stirred up a lot of sand because when I flushed the bowl was full of the stuff.

That same morning we were expecting Eddie at eleven AM to hook up our IPTV. He didn’t show up either! It’s lucky that we have nothing better to do than sit around waiting for people. It was an Amazon delivery day so we had to stay in anyway. Not that we really expected them to show up on time, or at all, for that matter.

Finally, Castulo bought back the old noisy pump as the other one was being repaired. It gives us water and I only need to turn it on to water the garden. It’s been a week now so we are getting used to the new/old system.

StarLink update.

Our system stopped working five days ago so I sent a request for support to StarLink. They took their time answering and eventually answered that the WiFi was out in our area. I thought this was a bit strange but who knows?

Our problem is that we have a 30-day trial period and that is up in a few days. If we send the system back we have to pay for shipping. I have cancelled the contract so don’t have to pay for the service we aren’t using. However, when do we hook it up again? I hope they let us know when it’s ready again.

I often need something to do other than read and drink wine so I do a few odd jobs around the place; before drinking the wine, of course.

The washing machine wasn’t filling up very fast so I cleaned out the filters. It made a slight difference but not much. After I put it back together, the hoses were leaking all over the floor so I ran up to the town for some new washers. Saying ‘new washers’ suggests that there were old washers, but there were none. It fixed the problem though.

The light over the patio wouldn’t light so I put in a new bulb. It still didn’t light.. I pulled the fitting and the whole thing fell apart in my hand. Another trip to the hardware store for a replacement. It works now.

The stairs to the roof have cute sconce lights to illuminate the stairs. There is a switch at the top and bottom but only the top one works. I discovered that the lights ran off the main breaker which was located at the bottom of the yard.

The wall running down the side of the garden has lights and creates a really nice ambiance in the evening. However, just after we got here there was heavy rainfall and they haven’t worked since—another job for Sparky Wells. When I took the switches apart they were all corroded and I had to replace three of them. The one for the stairs works agin now but the garden lights are going to be more of a challenge.

I was waiting in the hardware store with the old switch plate so I could show them what I needed and realized that it was modular. You can take out the switch and either replace it with a new one or an outlet socket. And the plate takes up to three units. Very convenient.

The biggest problem is that all this stuff is outside without proper protection. Even the main breaker for the house is on an outside wall and exposed to the elements.

Rosalie thinks the light in the kitchen isn’t good enough and I have to agree with her, even though it means another job for me. I pulled the old one down to see what I was in for and found that it was a very low-energy LED setup. I now have to find one on Amazon or maybe uptown to replace it.

Me, after fixing all that stuff.

Our shade cloth on the roof is a bit of a challenge as it’s quite big (16′ X 20′)and tends to sag in the middle. I’ve ordered some clips to see if I can pull it a bit tighter to raise it up a bit more. Unfortunately, the delivery is caught up in Amazon neverland and I see that the expected delivery date is yesterday.

I put up all the wire mesh to keep the cats, dogs, small kids, goats and turkeys out. That worked out well. Now I wait until a cat comes in over the neighbour’s wall and I chase it. I want to see its expression when it hits the mesh. Boy! I’m evil.

We’re still waiting for the rest of our buds to come down and join us so in the meantime we try to connect with other people we know here.

Rosalie has taken to trying to stretch my brain by inviting a neighbour over who speaks no English at all. Her name is Fidelia. At first, we thought she was being nosy because she asked a lot of questions, but I think that the locals have a genuine interest in us and like to find out about us and our way of life. She speaks no English so it was a good learning experience for us.

A lot of Spanish verbs end with ‘arse’ (ars-a) Rosalie seems to think it’s funny and giggles whenever she has to use it. I tell her it was quite disgusting but I also make sure she doesn’t see me grinning.

The guy who runs one of the travel agencies here, Dan, has a sister, Charlie, who married a Mexican guy. They now live in La Manzanilla and run a deli. They have a new baby boy, nicknamed Nando, and while delivering some food to us brought Nando with her. Rosalie now has an adopted grandkid.

Walking through the tianguis (market) we were greeted by a lot of the vendors as old friends, which in a way I suppose we are. I was greeted by Jorge, the son of the guy I buy my T-shirts from. I couldn’t remember his dad’s name so I apologized and asked his dad again. It was Liborio! As soon as I asked I remembered it again. I think it goes a long way when you try to speak to the locals in Spanish even though many of them speak some English. Jorge does, but his dad doesn’t.

Jorge likes to collect the new twenty peso coins. I happened to get one so thought I could sell it to him for 50 pesos, but no, I had to let it go for face value. I was reluctant as it was nice and shiny.

Update on Amazon craziness. We were expecting a delivery on Thursday and another two on Tuesday. When the Thursday delivery came, one of the Tuesday ones came with it. Also, the other one expected on Tuesday is coming today with one expected on Monday. No idea when the one due at the end of the month will come, probably yesterday.

We got our rooftop shade cloth set up but learned the hard way about how plants survive here during the dry season. The first morning we went up to have our morning tea, we found all the cushions wet. The dew had soaked through the shade cloth. We can work around that and slide the cushions under a table for the night and cover our little TV with plastic. I just hope it doesn’t rain anytime soon.

Our ‘TV’ is actually a computer monitor that I use when doing our investments. I plugged in a Firestick and a Bluetooth speaker and it works just like a smart TV. Nice! Now we can watch Netflix on the ‘Big’ screen, but with the OTT app operational soon, can cancel Netflix, Prime video, Brit Box as well as others we won’t need anymore…we hope.

As you know I have been whining and complaining about the internet service down here. Well, a lot of people we know are signing up with Starlink.

It’s a bit pricy but well worth it. Our biggest question was whether we could suspend service while in Canada. Well, we can as there is no contract and we will own the equipment. We decided to bite the bullet and ordered it. It’s a bit cheaper here but still $575 CDN for the equipment and then $75 a month. The download speeds are up to 300 megabytes so it is pretty fast—also, very few interruptions even through bad storms apparently; not having experienced that ourselves yet.

They said delivery could take up to two weeks but John and Ronda got theirs in about three days. So we wait and see. We have nothing but the sky here so should get a good signal with no problem. I’m not sure how I’m going to run the wiring yet but I’ll figure that out when it gets here.

We asked Blanca about anchoring it to the wall. She said to drill all the holes we want as Mexicans don’t worry about things like that. That makes life a little easier.

Then we may look at an OTT+ service to provide live tv. They cost about $20 a month and provide about 8,000 channels from all over the world.

Update

Our Starlink receiver arrived after four days and was really easy to set up. Just use an app to find the best location, plug it in, turn it on, and wait for the dish to align itself. I had to do a rough run with the wiring as there was a game on and I had to watch it, although I shouldn’t have bothered. At first, the download speed was only 1o-20 MB. Even at that speed, we noticed how much better things were.

The following day I changed the location and got 75 mbps…much better. The download speed depends a lot on how much of the sky the dish can see. Ours covers about half and has a clear view of most of the sky. The dish will realign itself to find a better signal. Before we got the dish I had to reset my laptop every time I wanted to log on. Now, no problem.

I’ve moved the dish several times to get the best location. At the moment we are getting up to 170 mbps. I’m reluctant to move it again as this is a pretty fast speed. But we’ll see.

I’m a dog and I live in Melaque, Mexico.

Life here is pretty easy, I lay in the dirt most of the day, that is until one of those big auto whatsits comes by and tries to run me down. I just lay here in the shade or sometimes in the sun because I’m too lazy to move. I spend my time trying to bite fleas as that gives me some food to eat.

When it’s not too hot I get together with some of my amigos and we wander the neighbourhood looking for undefended garbage cans. We like to turn them over, not just for the fun of it, but because we may find a little food.

I’m mostly ignored by the people who own me. If the family has food I am the last on the list to get some. But somehow I get by.

Some of my friends have nice owners. They get taken care of and visit the vet for medicine to make them better. Some come back barking with a squeaky voice because they have some part lopped off which doesn’t sound like too much fun. They get fed well and some of the lady perros even get to wear little dresses.

The best time of the day for me is in the dark hours when humans are asleep. Then I can howl and bark all I want because they are too sleepy to try to shut me up. Sometimes, I howl because I stepped on a scorpion, that’s also not fun.

I hear that some humans like to “rescue” us and take us to Canada so we can have a better life. I also heard that they only keep us for a while, then get tired of us and put us with the SPCA where, after a while, because they can’t find enough homes for us, we get put down. I don’t know why that is, but it doesn’t seem like too much fun either.

I think I’ll take a pass if possible. I’ll keep myself clean and tidy so that the do-good people don’t pick me up and haul me off. Some of my friends have been adopted by Norteños and found nice homes but most of them end up dead.

It’s a fad to say “I have a rescue dog” but really it’s only making that person feel better about themselves for a while and we perros pay for it. Perhaps we need a union. I did finally take a chance and got adopted and am happy now.

Or is it there and here?

Amazon.ca

I noticed that we have been ordering a lot of stuff on Amazon lately. It was a bit of a worry at first until we realized that we would buy the same stuff if we were in town. We like to support local businesses but we are out of town a bit so getting it delivered is great and saves a lot of driving time and gas.

We have had a few instances where something comes by Canada Post but as we have no mailboxes here we may be lucky to get it. One item they sent to us last year was sent back so I re-ordered. It arrived okay but so did another one this year. If we do have to get it by Canada Post, I get it delivered to our mailbox in Nanaimo. So, from now on I only try to order if it’s prime delivery. That way I know it’s coming by courier and we’ll get it sooner.

I love shopping online. Not just Amazon but any other company that wants to sell me stuff. I ordered our heat pump online and had to pick it up in Nanaimo. It was very satisfying when I showed up and it was sitting outside on a palette. That was some order.

We try not to return too much stuff but once in a while we have to. Amazon has made it much easier now. Once you make the request online they have a courier pick it up the next day. You don’t even have to re-label the package. Awesome!

Amazon.com.mx

Amazon.com.mx is also a good way for us to get our stuff down here. We can’t always find what we want locally so buy online. I needed a new keyboard so ordered one. They have fairly fast delivery even though our prime account doesn’t work here. My keyboard arrived in about a week. We got a bit of a hassle from the delivery guy because we didn’t have a number on our casa, but I soon took care of that.

One item I ordered was delivered while we weren’t home. It seems that if you aren’t home they don’t leave it but mark it as delivered anyway. I contacted Amazon and they said to give it a day or two. Sure enough, it turned up so we ordered a lot more stuff. I keep track of the delivery dates now so we can stay home that day.

Like our last location, we have a lot of critters to put up with. No, I don’t mean the tourists… or do I?

The first thing we noticed was that a cat had been sleeping on our outside cushions during the night. Not only that but he had the nerve to jump up on the wall and casually wander through the patio while we were sitting there. By the time I grabbed my water sprayer with vinegar in it he was gone. I did get some revenge though, I put up a grill from the BBQ where we saw it jump up. Early one morning I heard a crash and suspected that the cat had met the grill. I got a smile out of that.

Again, sitting and minding our own business when I happened to look up and see that some dogs had gotten into our tall garbage can. How they got in there I don’t know; it wasn’t even turned over. A few badly thrown rocks later and they wander off with a look of contempt. I’m sure they will be back.

It’s not so bad if the local gang of turkeys wander in as… well, you know, Christmas. We also get the odd chicken or two but we mostly ignore them.

The wander inners are the biggest problem so I ordered some wire mesh to put up to keep them out. It won’t be delivered for a week or two so I’ll have to just cuss until then.

We are planning to develop the roof so we ordered a large shade cloth and some bits and bobs to put it up with. It’s rectangular but we only have three anchor points. There is a large umbrella with a heavy concrete base, so after discussions with Blanca, it was decided to use that as the fourth anchor point.

I had to move the thing so gathering all my puny muscles together, I gave it a mighty heave and a scorpion ran out from underneath. I dropped the heavy base but unfortunately for the scorpion, it chose that second to run back underneath. It left a tiny baby behind about 1/4″ long so I got Rosalie to dispatch that as I didn’t have any shoes on.

Getting up one morning I went into the bathroom and saw a small cockroach. I went and got my awesome roach-killing spray bomb and taught it a lesson it won’t forget, mostly because it’s dead. I looked in the shower and there was a spider. I grabbed the bath mat and thought I was in for a swift kill. Boy was I wrong! The thing took off like Donald Trump going to a republican rally. It even went straight up the tiled wall. I happened to have the spray bomb still handy so gave it a squirt and hoped that I killed it.

One night, I woke up as something fell on my face. I batted it off hoping it wasn’t a spider. Things started to settle down again when I felt something touch my arm. I lept out of bed and found my flashlight. I didn’t want to wake Rosalie by turning on the overhead light. It took a while but I finally tracked the beast down. It was a bug about the size of a pea. I evicted it from the bed and went back to sleep.

If this wasn’t enough, some sort of wasp was starting to make a nest right above where we sit outside. A can of Raid and a broom soon took care of that.

We had a few ants when we first got here but after a few drops of Ant B-Gone, they went.

We have sprayed enough toxic chemicals around this place to warrant a Hazmat team. I don’t think it’s worth bothering about though: this is Mexico after all.

Since I nearly destroyed my MacBook by spilling wine on it and having to get it repaired; I still had a problem. It’s the new generation with only two USB-C ports and one of them had stopped working. I couldn’t charge and transfer data at the same time. I took it to the repair place in Canada and they told me it was too dangerous to try and fix it. I decided to try down here.

I took it to the PC Doctor and he said it would take two days. I called when the two days were up and he said he didn’t fix it exactly but had a workaround. I was a bit apprehensive when I went to pick it up until he explained what he had done. He had repaired half of the port so all I had to do was to make sure I had the USB-C in the right way up and it worked just great.

I, as always, was concerned about the cost but should have known better. He charged me $400 pesos, about $28. So now I’m happy to have my baby back.

While I was sitting enjoying my Macbook a guy came to the front gate. He only spoke Spanish so Rosalie had to deal with him. He was pointing at our coconut palm and asking for 150 pesos. I didn’t know what he wanted so we decided to go ahead and see what happened. I suspected that he was going to prune the palm tree.

First, he gets a coil of rope and tied a machete to one end. Next, he takes off his shoes, dusts his hands and climbs the tree barefoot. Then a whole bunch of dead palm leaves come cascading down. After about 15 minutes, he comes down and askes for some water. Rosalie filled a jug and gave him a glass.

He climbed back up and the real work began. He cut and hacked for about half an hour and the coconuts and dead branches came hustling down. He was doing a very thorough job. The problem was, what to do with the cocos? They would go to waste if we kept them so we decided to tell him to take them. He would either turn them into ‘coco locos’ or sell them.

He was asking $150 pesos but we decided to give him $200 as it was hot dusty work. The only problem I had was that after it was all done, he wanted another $200 pesos to haul the garbage away. If he’d said that in the beginning it may have changed things. I refused and he took it all, to a vacant lot next door and dumped it there. I suspect he was going to do that anyway. Besides, he got the cocos. When we told Blanca , she said that she would have taken them. We did try to contact her but with no luck.

We’ve only been here less than two weeks and the place is turning into a menagerie.

There is the inevitable cat that likes to sleep on the chair cushions at night. It leaves a cat smell so I have to do something about that. All our property is mostly surrounded by iron bars so anything can wander in. I’ve ordered some plastic mesh from Amazon so that should help a lot.

The other evening, the lot next door was invaded by eight cows wandering through. We have no idea where they came from or where they were going; it was fun to watch though.

I had to chase a tiny frog from off the patio as he would have gotten stuck there and died of dehydration.

There is a herd of turkeys that lives somewhere on the street and we often hear, and sometimes see them gobbling up and down the road. There may be one less soon as Christmas is coming and I’m sure they’ll wander into the yard sooner or later.

We get the odd dog wandering in too, so I think we really need the plastic mesh.

On a different note: After the sad circumstances of our landlady’s husband being killed, there was a brief rumour that her nephew, who owns our house, wanted to sell it to save her the responsibility of managing it. We had a nice conversation with Blanca and she told him to hold on to it and that she would manage it fine. Phew! we really didn’t want to move again.

Blanca is a very tough and courageous woman. Her husband was murdered in Oregon last year and she now has to handle things alone. When she came down here, two of her suites were badly damaged by water leaking in somehow. She has help from a neighbour and I’m sure when her tenants get here they will help also. Two of the couples are Jim and Ylda as well as Art and Linda. We also offered to help if she needs it.

I fancied a steak so on the way into town for groceries we stopped at the new butcher shop that had opened up a few years ago. We ordered two Angus t-bones. They were huge and costly. I lit the BBQ and cooked one of them over charcoal; it was delicious. It was way too big for just one of us so we shared it and still had some leftovers for a stir fry the next day.

The roads are still wet from the rain storm the other day but are drying up rapidly. We almost got stuck trying to go to the store the other day.

Papa Gallo’s isn’t open just yet so we found a very nice alternative that makes great margaritas. We don’t go every day but it’s tempting as there is a nice breeze blowing in, off the ocean, and of course, there are the margaritas.

It feels as though things are starting to open up here. We enjoy this quiet time before the tourists come. We have been meeting up again with all our Mexican friends and a few norteño friends also.

The temperature has been 30C every day so far but it’s not as bad as we expected. We manage it with a fan on the patio and one in the kitchen that we move to the bedroom at night. It’s very pleasant in the mornings and evenings. We won’t be getting our palapa this year but I asked for a shade cloth, so we will wait to see where that goes. If we don’t get one by the time Blanca goes home in a few weeks, we’ll buy one ourselves and put it up.