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We are not coming home early!

We have been prompted by several people to come home early as the virus is spreading. These are our reasons for staying here at least until the end of April.

We think this whole thing is blown way out of proportion. People die from cold and flu year-round and nothing is done, life for most of us goes on. The fatalities so far seem to be the elderly and those with compromised immune systems. The death rate seems to be about 3-4%. but this is based on known cases. What of the thousands of people who don’t report. If it was in the 20% range we could see more cause for concern. But it isn’t. Most people who get it have minor symptoms such as a sore throat and cough. We would normally call this a seasonal cold.

I bet if the bubonic plague hit, the panic wouldn’t be this bad. And that’s the main problem. The media starts saying that the sky’s falling (it sells news) and everybody believes them and runs around in total panic buying up umbrellas and toilet paper.

Why toilet paper? If there was a run on fruit juice, aspirin or fruit, and veggies I could understand it. But T.P? I just don’t get it!

Every year when people come down here, they have colds, sneezes, and sore throats that they contract on the plane on the way down. They get over it and so will we.

When we went on the butterfly tour, we came back with those same symptoms and so did Mike and Pat. Because it’s cold and crowded in the interior we may well have contacted the virus. If so, it was gone in a few days. Just a sore throat, a minor cough, and no runny nose.

There is the chance that Mexicans who vacation here in Melaque have bought it with them from the interior. They are here now in their hundreds as it’s a holiday weekend. We have little or no contact with them. They stay on the beach. Sometimes sleeping there. They don’t use the same restaurants or grocery stores that we do, so little contact.

Also, Mexicans don’t panic. They believe that God will take care of them so if they get a cold they just get over it (or not) and carry on. I’m sure thousands of cases go unrecorded because of this attitude.

Why would we leave a low impact area and come home to utter panic? One of the best ways of avoiding this thing is to be in the open air and sunshine. We have lots both here and we live mostly outside.  Also, we have heard that the virus can’t take more than 26-27 c outside the body. Which means it’s less likely to be on door handles handrails and umbrella handles etc.

Of course, precautions should be taken as nobody wants even a cold. Hand washing, coughing and sneezing into your sleeve are just common sense. We will probably get face masks for the flight home as that’s the best place to catch any disease.

People are heading home in droves. They are waiting for hours on the phone to contact an airline and getting totally panicked if they can’t reach one. We’ve booked our flights and if they’re canceled we will just wait, in the air and sunshine, until they start up again. Besides, so far we have lots of toilet paper here and tequila kills germs.

Thanks for your concerns but we are fine and will be home soon.

Just after we got back from the tour we both caught colds. Rosalie’s went away fairly quickly but mine was a bit more persistent. After two weeks I finally caved in and went to see Dra. Rosa. It seems that I don’t have a cold just an infected throat.  I wondered about the cold as I didn’t have any other symptoms other than a slight temperature for a few hours. Anyway, I’ll get on the meds and see what happens.

Because of the cough, we haven’t gone very far for a few weeks. We did go to the house of some new-found friends, George and Sue. They live in Ontario but he is originally from Liverpool. They own their house here. There were a few more couples and we had a great time in the pool drinking wine and a little tequila. Only for health purposes of course.

Two more of Rosalie’s sisters have arrived. Delorie and Marina. So with Suzanne, we now have four sisters with one more pending. Giselle!

Oh-oh! Giselle and Gordie decided not to come because of the virus scare. They are in Cabo St Lucas at the moment and decided to go home from there. Both of them have a few health issues so maybe a good choice.

I’m not sure about this coronavirus. I checked and found that worldwide, one billion people catch the flu each year and between 300,000 and 650,000 die from it. I don’t see the stock market going down or people panicking each year. Having said that, this virus is 2% more deadly.

As of today, it’s been suggested that all Canadians return home. Why would we leave an area of the world where there are no cases reported because it’s too warm here, and return to an area where, according to news reports, we’re all going to die? Nope, we’re staying until the end of April and if things get worse we will just stay here for a while longer. One of the benefits of having ‘Residente Temporal.’

I hope this doesn’t interfere with Pub Day when we do get back!

We are getting the keys to our new place early on the 27th March but still have this location until the 15th of April. So we will have lots of time to move our stuff. We can also go and use the pool anytime we like which suits us just fine.

It must be getting close to St Patrick’s day as we are hearing more and more fireworks in the morning and evening.

The overnight temperature hasn’t dropped below 22c for about a month now. Things must be starting to warm up for Spring.

Rosalie’s still cutting my hair of course.

We are going to have to do something more exciting as this blog is starting to sound like a Facebook post.

The family decided to go out to the Albatros restaurant for entertainment. Rosalie and I had to go and pay our cover charge. While we were there the music was great so we decided to stay for a while.

A friend of ours, Carlos who works selling leather goods, showed up and we bought him a Jamaica. I wanted Rosalie to talk to him to improve her Spanish. As  I listened to the music Rosalie was engaged in Spanish with Carlos. I picked up some words of the conversation but I still need a lot more practice. Two margaritas each and we wended our way home. It was a great afternoon.

 

Rosalie was so happy about having a car here I couldn’t get the grin off her face.

Mike and Pat had also recommended Eddie so we knew he could be trusted. I called him and asked what he needed us to do, “bring your passport, Residente Temporal, and 4,000 pesos.” Which we did. The car was going in my name so I took all my documents.

A few days later we talked with Eddie and it turns out that the car has to be in Rosalie’s name as she is primary on our bank account. (Only because she spoke more Spanish than I did while setting it up.) Back over to Eddie’s to change up the paperwork. Our bank account is the only thing we have with our address on it.

After a few delays, Eddie informed us that he was ready for us to go to Autlan to get the VIN number checked. What! Us? We have to go?  Well, I didn’t have to but Rosalie did. I gallantly offered to accompany her even after Eddie told us to pick him up at 6 am.

Autlan is only 105 km away but a two-hour drive. It’s a beautiful drive through the mountains but the road is really twisty and there are often large potholes to be avoided. Also, large trucks use the route and often slowed us down.

We had an appointment at 9 am, and so did about seventy other people. They crammed all the cars, trucks and motorcycles into a large parking area and we settled in to wait. I asked Eddie how long it would take and he said between 4 and 5 hours.

After a while, a guy came by to verify Rosalie’s credentials. Then someone else came and looked at our paperwork and added a comment. The reason it takes so long to get started is that the inspectors start work at 8am but have to drive from Guadalajara, two hours away.

After about 2 1/2 hours they announced that they would deal with motorcycles first. They finally got through them all and started on the cars. As the inspectors got closer I noticed that one of them had a gun stuffed in his belt. Okay! now what? It wasn’t until he turned around that I noticed that he also carried handcuffs. A cop!

I assumed (unwisely) that as an inspection was done that person would get his stamp and go home. Not so! All inspections have to be done and then everybody lines up together to get their stamp. Rosalie was first in line but it didn’t make any difference as we couldn’t move the car anyway as we were boxed in.

I had asked Eddie to drive as he knew the road. I noticed that he went a bit quicker on the way back. After all this, we still weren’t finished. We now had to go to Cihuatlan to get our new plates.

I called Eddie the next morning and arranged to pick him up at his house in Barra. I rounded up Rosalie as she was out playing with her sisters at the market.

Before we picked Eddie up he informed us that we would need an additional 4,000 pesos. This was because some of the previous owners hadn’t paid for their transfers like good little Mexicans. He argued for a discount but was turned down. So we took our lumps, paid our money and went home.

 

Well, we finally have a legally plated car with Jalisco plates.

I’m glad that day’s over.

Now it’s Rosalie’s turn to sort out the insurance.

She sent an Email to the insurance guy in Guadalajara and spoke to him today for 15 minutes. We are finally covered and the car is all ours Yea!

With the pending sale of our condo, we decided to buy a car here. For one thing, we will be out in the boonies next year, and for another, my hip is getting worse and it’s painful to walk too far. Also, there are a lot of places we want to go and see. Using it to pick up groceries and friends and family from the airport is also a nice option.

We have seen a few that we liked.

Crazy Cactus, the place where we have rented cars from before, always has a few for sale at reasonable prices.  Our only two requirements were air conditioning and automatic.  Tracye (that is the correct spelling) who owns the place buys them used and spends a lot of money making sure they are roadworthy. Her cars are all licensed Colima so we would have to get it re-plated here in Jalisco. There is a Mexican taxi driver who would help for a small fee. His name is Eddie.

We went to see Tracye again and she had a nice Nissan Sentra. It was a 2006 and had 155,000 km on it. It was in really good shape and she was still using it as a rental. It wasn’t white but we can deal with that. I have brushes???

So we bought and paid for the car, for 67,000 pesos (about $4,750)  Tracye “loaned” us the car for the next week to give us time to see Eddie and get everything finalized and for us to get our own insurance.

 

The first thing we did was take it for a ride to Pinal Villa where we will be staying next year. On our way out through Jaluco,  we stopped at a taco stand for lunch. We had two small tacos apiece but no drink. They were great as well as filling with the bill coming in at 28 pesos ($2) for both. Our new favourite taco stand.

Click on a photo to see it enlarged.

I wanted to find out if we can turn right on red in Mexico. So I had a conversation with Google about it. The first post said it was definitely illegal to do so. The second post said it was legal to do so. The third post said it depended on what part of Mexico you are in. I still have no idea what is right so I just do what the locals do. Apparently,  it’s also okay to make up your own rules anyway.

Now we have to register it.

 

The Red Lobster, a restaurant just up the street from us, does a tourist run to their plantation every so often and we decided to go along. We’ve been threatening to go for years but didn’t get around to it. After we met George and Sue we decided it was time as his birthday was that day.

We got to the restaurant at 9 am and had a great breakfast which was included in the tour. While there we met up with a lot of really nice people and made a lot of new friends.

This is not a rushed thing so we climbed on the bus at about 11 am. We were happy to see our friends Ray and Tere were coming along. The trip to the plantation took about 20 minutes. The last 10 minutes was along a bouncy dirt road, until we finally arrived at the plantation.

There were three pools there and each ran into the next and finally off to irrigate the fields. The water had no chemicals as it is pumped from 300 feet below ground. We didn’t want to swim but the water didn’t feel too cold when we tested it. Quite a few people did go in though.

Included in the tour was lunch which we got at about 3 pm. I chose chicken for a change and Rosalie and most of the rest of the tour had ribs. Delicious as always.

Also included were 5 beers or pop for each person. That was a total joke because no one was counting and we also went through three large bottles of tequila. There were quite a few happy people that afternoon.

 

Lucy is about 30 years old and runs the Red Lobster. She has a great sense of humour and we love to joke with her. She also speaks good English.

Before lunch, Lucy gave us a walking tour and explained some of the different fruits growing there. They included mangoes, coconuts, pineapple, avocados and many more that we hadn’t seen before. Including red bananas.

Overall another great day. And it cost us less than $77 for both of us including breakfast lunch and all the booze. And of course the ride there and back.

 

The next morning we were going back to Telaquapaque for a few hours. It’s on our way home and breaks up the journey.

We found a restaurant and had lunch with Mike and Pat. Then we went looking at the stores. They have a great variety of high-end stores but my favourite was this one with all these whimsical creatures.

They are hand made from Bronze and then painted.

We got back to Melaque at about 9:30 pm.  We had a lot of stuff to carry and fortunately, there was a taxi available.

It was a great trip and Dan the organizer from “Flip Flop Nomad Tours” does a fabulous job. He speaks good Spanish for an English man and solved all sorts of issues along the way.

Would we do it again? Everything but the butterflies. It’s pretty gruelling going up the mountain but I would recommend that if you’re fit enough then go for it. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

 

This blog is a little late as I have a cold and no energy.

When we left the copper foundry we were walking back to the bus minding our own business when we spotted a few people from our tour in a small brewery. We decided to stop and share a beer until we found out that one of the beers had CBD in it. Now we had to have one each. They were good and helped with the aches and pains from climbing the mountain two days ago.

There were a number of stills on display in a few of the stores but Rosalie wouldn’t let me get one.

They say that copper has a lot of beneficial health properties, Some are based on scientific studies and I’m sure some are a myth. So, I Googled it and found that although copper is essential to our diet, there is no evidence that wearing it as Jewelry helps. I’m going to wear mine anyway as I hear that it helps to fend off werewolves.  

At lunchtime, we went back to the hotel. We wanted to get money from the ATM around the corner but there was a huge lineup even though there were about eight machines in there. In the middle of this crowd, there was a lady calmly mopping the floor.

The trip back to the bus was by a Colectivo. Dan and Roberto were unable to get close to the hotel for once. Colectivos are a cross between a bus and a taxi. Ours held about fifteen people. It was a bit cozy but another a new experience.

That afternoon, we went to Tzintzuntzan. It’s better if you break it up “Tzin-tzun-tzan” The Z’s are pronounced as S.  It means “The place of the hummingbirds,” although we didn’t see any. There are ancient ruins there (not just the people from the bus) and some have been restored. (Again not the people from the bus. Most of us are unrestorable.)

The parts that have been restored have small rocks inserted to show that it is a renovation and not the original. On the way in we saw an albino squirrel. Probably another one of Alan’s Mexican relatives.

After that tour, we went to the local town to see two graveyards featured in ”Coco” a movie about the day of the dead.

Because it was Valentine’s Day the hotel laid on a special meal with entertainment by some of the local natives. The video doesn’t do it justice. The dances had boards attached to their shoes and the noise was deafening Another great day.

Today we went to Santa Clara. It’s amazing to see our huge bus wend it’s way through the narrow streets. The bus has steerable rear wheels as well as a great driver Roberto so that helps. 

We never really know how far we have to walk when we leave the bus as it’s hard to park in such a small town. But Dan does a really good job and with Roberto and some times a few pesos, we don’t often have to walk far.

Today we were at the copper foundry ‘El Puertón’ in the town of  Santa Clara del Cobre. They gave a great half-hour presentation of how they make the items from scrap copper. They use copper from old wire, electric motors, old pots and pans and anything else made of copper as the mines ran out years ago.

The copper is melted into chunks of various sizes depending on the size of the piece being made and then the pounded flat like this:

All the items are hand made and some take up to six months to complete. The only mechanical thing in the place was the fan to blow air for the forge.

When he took it out of the water it was clean and ice cold because copper is such a good conductor.

The copper trade is a very generational thing. One of the guys, Miguel, is the fourth generation of crafters and his son is also Miguel or Miguelita. Miguelita is like an apprentice. He goes to school during the day and learns his trade in his spare time. They have to start young to find out if he’s any good, also to see if he wants to continue in the trade. He says he’s liking it so far as the tourist give him tips.

After the presentation, we went to the store and because there was a lot of stuff, Rosalie bought most of it. She said that, as I had purchased a $130 guitar, she had the leverage of $1,300. Of course I jest. We have been really good on this trip and kept spending to a minimum. Having said that, we thought we would need to visit an ATM to top up. We did, however, buy a copper water bottle. It’s quite beautiful and of course very healthy.

Our day didn’t end here so now we are off to see some architectural ruins.

 

Up early again. Breakfast at seven and on the bus by eight. We had another two and a half-hour ride to the mountains.

On the way up we had to stop as we were crossing from one municipality to another. We had to pay a “toll” as the municipality we were leaving receives no revenue from the butterflies,

When we reached the town of Ocampo and got off the bus, we had to walk uphill a bit to get to our ride up the mountain. Walking doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that we were at 10,000 feet and the air was thin.

We had the choice to walk up or ride on a horse. We chose to ride as we had another 2,000 feet uphill to go. It was very steep, rough going. Each horse was accompanied by a guide who walked or ran alongside or behind. Halfway up, Pat came roaring past, hanging on for dear life. At the top, we got off and took a minute to calm ourselves and wait for Mike. 

They rotate the horses at the top so that they get a good rest. Not the guides though, they ride/gallop back down to get another customer. They have to be very fit because they have to run up 2000 feet at that high an altitude

There was still another 300 meters for us to climb and it too was rough going. It was worth it though as the Monarchs were spectacular. We had to be very quiet and no flash photography. They are mostly huddled together for warmth against the trees and branches and don’t want to fly too much as that burns energy. There were hundreds flying around though.

We also saw hundreds of dead ones lying around. One of the guides would pick some up and turn them over and then put them to the side. I think he was looking for tags. 

We chose to walk down as I didn’t fancy riding down on that steep hill. The walk wasn’t too bad but we had to stop a few times to rest our knees and get our-breaths back.

At the bottom, we were surrounded by vendors and people trying to get you to eat at their taco stand. I found it very annoying at first as all I wanted to do was rest up. We found a restaurant with Mike and Pat and had a bite to eat.

Afterwards, Rosalie was surrounded by kids selling stuff. She bought two shawls but then noticed a third little girl who hadn’t sold one. So now she has three, as well as a bunch of other stuff. I just stood to one side with my wallet open as Rosalie had left her purse on the bus. On the way back to the bus we walked through a gauntlet of stalls.  At the end was a little girl wearing butterfly wings so I took a picture. She immediately demanded 20 pesos which was way too much so she only got ten, which was also too much.

The drive back to the hotel was uneventful except for a glorious sunset. Rosalie and I went out for a snack and then tried to buy some white wine. We tried three places but could only find red. I started to panic but Rosalie calmed me down, pointed out that we had enough for the evening and we could get more tomorrow in Patzcuaro. Phew!