Month: March 2020

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.