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Returning To Mexico After A Trip

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We recently returned after a fast trip to California. (Not extremely fast, as we traveled by car – almost exactly 1,800 miles. Each way.) 
We had an Agenda:
we needed to renew our car registration (smog check) so we could renew our six-month permit to have the car in Mexico 
we needed to see our import agent for some important business and
we needed to sign papers on our house sale escrow (fingers still crossed)
The drive north was mostly unremarkable, though enjoyable. In Santa Ana, Sonora, we saw our import agent, who still has several pallets of our things he hasn’t shipped yet. We reminded him that the weather has changed, and if he doesn’t ship the few remaining guitars ASAP, they will arrive in the form of firewood. He was amiable as usual, if often difficult to contact, and took us to breakfast one morning – machaca and eggs at Elba Restaurant, a very “northern” style place, rather like Denny’s or Howard Johnson’s. The prices were higher than at regular Mexican restaurants, but the servings were simple, excellent, enormous. 
That night we stayed in one of “those” motels that rents by the hour, Aqua Inn Motel, and it was wonderful. The individual garages (one reason we like that kind of motel) are directly under each room. 
The room was large, with an enormous bed, a pretty sink, and a wonderful shower. 
The lighting was interesting – there was not a lamp or lightbulb  visible. The light came from artfully designed slashes in the ceiling.  We had been having mysterious problems with our PT Cruiser, involving, we thought, the battery,and in the morning it wouldn’t start. After an extended conversation with a friendly maid and handy-man, a pick-up truck arrived and got us jump-started. We knew we needed to keep the car running, and we decided to cross the border at nearby Otay crossing. We followed directions from two helpful (?) men, and found ourselves – don’t EVER, EVER DO THIS – in a Linea Sentri, where a special card is required. It is designed for locals who cross the border often. We were detained there for two hours by vaguely pleasant USA border agents. There is a possible $5,000 fine for frequent violators. They gave us a warning and sent us along. We drove straight to a AAA and got the registration, insurance, and a two-day permit for the smog check. That night, in Santa Clarita, we got a new battery, and (so far, at least), that has put an end to the strange warning lights and other inexplicable problems.
In Lake Elizabeth, we saw our agent and did some minor repairs to the house. We were quite industrious each day, occupying ourselves with that and doctor/dentist appointments. Our agent was waiting for the ground to dry a bit for our septic test, the last hurdle in our escrow. We were quite confident about it, as our tank had been checked and OK’ed a few years back, and had always drained better than any of our neighbors’ tanks. We signed the papers and left, then received a call as we were entering Arizona. The septic tank was completely, utterly ruined and crumbling, and there was no remedy but to get a new one, and have our leach lines extended. Five days later we have not gotten an update, and we are still hoping that our buyer has not changed his mind.
The trip back to Mexico was just as fast and pleasant. There was a very pleasant meal in Santa Ana, as we were waiting to meet with our agent. We stopped at a place called Carne Asada With Chano. It was Easter week, and many places were closed, and the ones that were open were not serving meat. But at Chano’s, that’s all they serve. You order carne asada for one, or for two. It comes to your table on cunning little asaderos with charcoal in them, three huge (really! almost as big as a – well, a pancho!) flour tortillas, and lettuce,  onions, and salsa. It was excellent! 
Sometimes the sleeping arrangements aren’t quite what you would wish. But this one was inexpensive, colorful, and 
adequate . It cost about $28 for the night. The Apolo, in Santa Ana.
A little funky, but kind of cute! Like tiny little houses.
Sonora is known for its good meats, and flour tortillas. And coyotas, the two-layered tortillas with good things between the layers. Check out the online site Coyotas Malu if you like. That’s where we bought coyotas for the trip north, and the trip back to our house. In the small shop in Santa Ana, they have literally hundreds of bags of coyotas of all flavors. There was also, I noticed, a small selection of home-canned goods – salsa, apricots, peppers.
One thing I had hoped to accomplish in California was to get an “apostille” birth certificate, a sort of doubly-guaranteed birth certificate, necessary in Mexico for legal doings. That was not to occur, and it was just as frustrating as the many trips sometimes needed to accomplish things here in Mexico. We went in person to the correct place in Los Angeles – one of the “area” spots to get this done. My birth certificate was too many years ago for them to be able to certify it, and they sent us to a county building in Norwalk. There I learned that the Norwalk office only has information on birth certificates from Los Angeles County. It seems that the first guy should have noticed or informed me (wouldn’t ya think?) Anyway, I got a notarized statement from my realtor saying I was really me, and sent a request for the first step of the process to Stanislaus County, where I was born. This morning I received a call from the county recorder there, saying that my check was written for two dollars less than the fee. But they helpfully changed the amount for me so I didn’t have to start over.  Thank you, Stanislaus County!
We were very happy to arrive back at our house, and have been taking afternoon siestas to catch up on our rest. A couple of days of driving were at least twelve hours each.
I liked this local bus from Mazatlan, in the state of Sinaloa, The Tomato State. A note: you can take your car on a ferry from Baja, California to Mazatlan!
We are still catching up on the family happenings while we were gone – it was a two-week trip. More later. I am nearly finished with an entry about Music On The Radio In Mexico. 

Continuation – Truck Registration

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For those of you waiting with bated breath to find out the outcome of our legalization of Foxy The Truck, it did finally come to pass. We got a call from the import agent that the truck was ready, and that he would drive it to Hermosillo for us. 
NOTE: Yes, you can get certain years and types of cars “Mexicanized”, which was our goal. It is just not practical to keep renewing 6-month permits unless you are staying very close to the border, as each renewal requires a drive to the border. The paper-work for legalizing our truck cost less than $1000. In FACT, it’s really not practical to bring a car at all unless you plan to leave and take it with you. You can read about this on other blogs.
We took a bus north to Hermosillo. The trip was described by the bus agent as a 24-hour ride from Leon. The bus was nice, with movie screens and comfortable seats. But we ended up right next to the bathroom, and the fumes of chemicals were pretty strong. The trip took about 30 hours, mostly, as far as I could tell, because of the MANY TIMES (I think it was 8 times) that we were stopped by the Federales. One time we were stopped for nearly an hour. I noticed that every time they came into the bus, they questioned the same woman a few seats in front of us. And once they questioned a guy in the back seat of the bus for a half-hour hour or so. It was hot when we were stopped, and the passengers became pretty restless. Once Chon asked an officer why they were bothering everyone so much. The answer was “Por la maldita droga” (damn drugs.) There were many large buckets of some liquid in the luggage space underneath a bus that was stopped next to us, and the agents examined and re-examined them without opening them.
I had never seen the little tiny sleeping place underneath buses where the second driver could sleep – I had no idea they existed.
The only other memorable event during the bus trip north was a wonderful shrimp cocktail we had during a short breakfast stop in Navojoa. The owner of the little spot where we ate was from Guanajuato. The shrimps were medium-sized, and in a flavorful, reddish liquid with chopped onions and cilantro with lemon or lime juices. He urged me to add ketchup. It was delicious and invigorating.
We found our agent and the truck at the bus station in Hermosillo about 5 pm. We paid him and started off for a pretty easy trip back. We worried about crossing state lines, (just because Things Happen), but we were not stopped even once.
We arrived in Navojoa around ten, and stopped at an autohotel called El Peñon (one of those), and got up and left around ten in the morning.
Traveling through Sinaloa was interesting. We usually pass through there in the dark of night. Sinaloa is a produce state, (the car license plates boast tomatoes on them, which gives you an idea) and reminds me a lot of California’s San Joaquin Valley. There had been a hard freeze in January (see earlier blog entry) and many trees and fields were burned and ruined. 
There are miles and miles of fields in Sinaloa, many bearing small signs, identifying the brands of seeds used for the planting. The names on the signs were all familiar to me, and to anyone who has driven through farm country, – I saw Asgrow, Dekalb, Pioneer, and Monsanto, among others.
We arrived in Mazatlan, the famous beach town, at five pm, and had a good caldo on the main street at a family food stand. We stayed at our favorite one of those, Xtasys, and got up early, about 5 am.  That spot charges by the hour if you stay more over your allotted twelve hours.
It took 3 and a half hours to get through Tepic. We fervently hoped to get through Guadalajara without getting confused (again) by the highway signs, but alas, it was not to be. We followed signs to Mexico City, Highway 15, as we had planned, but we ended up on a bit of highway that ended in a dirt road. We got directions, and found ourselves on a hair-raising rocky road, headed up a very steep hill when the gas tank we were using, never absolutely dependable in its indicator, ran low on gas, and began to sputter. I switched tanks as quickly as possible, the engine died. I award myself many, many bravery points for getting Foxy started again while stomping hard on the brake so we didn’t slide backwards down the hill. Of course, Chon helped to keep me calm by telling me how wonderful I was (me keeping up a constant stream of sweating and swearing , and being very encouraging in general.)
Our detour took us to a wonderful artesan town called Tonala. There were beautiful object of glass, copper and wood displayed in the streets.  Our gas tanks continued to lie to us, and Foxy nearly died again as we went up an onramp to the highway. Once again, though, however hair-raising, we maintained our forward movement and headed to Juana’s house on the other side of Arandas, the famous tequila-making town.
Juana seems to have a sort of 6th sense about our arrivals, and she hurried to the door to welcome us. She fed us something really good that I can’t recall – I think it was a guisado, and we left before dark, because there is an unmarked turn we missed on the return from Josefino once.
Now we have a Mexican automobile! Legal! Forever! No trips to the border to renew permits!

BIG COLADO

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The botereros arrived at six a.m., in the dark, as they had been asked. Many of the dozen men brought their own botes – square buckets that  previously held paint or adhesives, with a short board nailed along the edge of one side, for a handle. The early hour was necessary because it was a Sunday – and they needed to finish their work in time to go to mass.
In the dark they groused and complained, waiting for the maestro to give the word. But the maestro wasn’t ready; a lack of planning, perhaps, or maybe he hadn’t arrived as early in the morning as he had planned. The men joked, teasing each other with insulting, sly, and lewd jokes, getting louder and louder, letting the maestro know that they were ready to begin.
It was a big colado (usually pronounced “kolau”, to rhyme with cow). A colado is the cement roof on most brick houses. The concrete is poured into wooden frames over bricks that have been placed in the frames. The dozen men were doing the job that in the US would be done by a big cement truck. First they would mix the cement with sand and gravel, in the street. They made two big circles right there in front of our house. When the maestro gave the sign, they carried their botes full of water to the chosen circle, and a couple of them began to mix the diferent elements for the colado. When it was ready, each man approached the mixed concrete and filled his bote, then hurried over to the wall, and heaved his bote up to the one man who would handle each one for the duration of the pouring. He handed each bote to another man, who either handed it to a second man on the roof, or poured it in the right spot.
A colado is a pretty exciting event. It requires plenty of workers so that the concrete gets where it needs to go; and not through the long chute of a cement truck, either. The word gets out, and days before the colado is to happen, men stop by, asking when it will be, and they let the maestro know that they will come to help. Each man earns a set amount for the colado – here in El Pedernal, each worker earns 200 pesos (less than $20) for the job. It’s fun to watch, and, I think, fun for the men. It is not easy work, and each one gets to show off a little (or a lot). There is lots of laughter and good-natured (?) teasing. Even the town drunk worked on this colado. An unimaginable force of will got him to the job on time, and he worked the whole time; exhibiting an exaggerated politeness as he helped inside our yard. 
Because we ran out of water. We had five barrels of water; two were obtained rather hastily the day before. The morning of the colado, the water arrived at the same time as usual, about 7:45 a.m. We had hoped that Durango, the man in charge of turning on the water, would turn it on a little early to speed through the pipes to our house so that we would have plenty. But that didn’t happen. The barrels were emptied rapidly, and then a teenaged boy and I filled buckets with an alarmingly weak trickle, and they were hauled off by Quin (sounds like Keen), our neighborhood drunk. He is usually to be found passed out on the street, or, if awake, with a bottle or two of straight alcohol. There’s no telling how much longer this guy will be around, but surely it is too late for him to stop drinking. He worked for the entire duration of the colado. When he received his 200 pesos at the end, he went straight to the window of the little store across the street, where, I surmise, he must have owed a debt. (Marielena doesn’t sell alcohol).
The whole job yesterday lasted over three hours, with a pause in the middle to mix another circle of concrete on the street. Today began with some strong winds, (they say Febrero Loco, Marzo Otro Poco; or, February crazy, and March a little more) (February noticeably arrived one day early) and Chon and I were asked to tend to the colado by dampening it with buckets of water. A good colado doesn’t develope cracks. This one (and the last one, too) was pronounced a success by Nacho, the maestro, and his chalan, Sabino.
The important moments of follow-up came. First, there was a general clean-up. Then came the moment of payment, and each worker received his 200-peso bill, carefully planned for and gathered beforehand. Then Chon, having previously supplied several large bottles of beer, provided a large bottle of mezcal (very strong agave alcohol – some people call it rat-killer), and bought a couple of kilos of carnitas from a passing pickup, for the men who remained. They had to use their fingers, but I didn’t hear anyone complaining.

FOOTNOTE TO SHOPPING

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The other day when we were at the Materials place to pay a bill for cement, the owner, Jorge asked me as many people here ask, how I like being here. I answer something like,”I like it here a lot. I’m happy, and I don’t feel like returning to California.”
He said that he can find anything here that he needs, and I agreed. Next he mentioned buying meat in Mexico, something I haven’t done yet. My take on meat stores is that there are too many flies around, but the meat looks good.
Jorge mentioned that in the states you buy meat prepackaged, with the price on it, but here you can ask for a quarter kilo of one thing, and a half-kilo of something else, and they cut it for you right there, and the quality is very, very good.
I hadn’t really thought about it, but, yes, I am accustomed to meat being wrapped in plastic, extremely sanitary (which is good), but that was his viewpoint, and I get it. We seldom eat meat because of bdget considerations, but the meat I have had in caldos and barbeques has been very good indeed.

Shopping

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The large, mogul- or corporation-operated stores have not yet infiltrated every part of every large town. But in every large town I have visited so far, I could find everything I was looking for. There are small, family-owned businesses dedicated to just about anything you might need. I love the feeling of community this generates.
In the area where my niece Sara lives, within two blocks of her house she can purchase vegetables, meat, bread and tortillas, and dairy products for her meals. In the store where you buy vegetables you can also find cooked beans and home-made salsa(in small plastic bags, both). Next door to her house is a family that offers electrical services and repair. Across the street is a small place that offers computer use. (For about a dollar an hour). Within a couple of blocks in the other direction there is a paint store, a hairdresser, a dry cleaner. A couple of blocks further sits the town’s large market, or mercado. Inside the large building you can find a great variety of products including clothing and shoes. Crowded around outside are a myriad of other products – used tools, hand-made and hand-sewn items, watch bands, T-shirts,  famous pirated musical CD’s and movies. Across the street from the mercado you can get copies made, see a dentist, or recharge your phone.
When we went to San Pancho the other day, we walked to a small phone store to get phone service, then to a jewelry store (the owner is married to one of Chon’s nieces); we visited our attorney and the friendly pharmacist, the bank, and then we hoped to find a screw. And not just any old screw. It was a special kind of screw that is used to hold large speakers in their places in several giant speaker cabinets that we use for live band performances. We went to El Bola, the hardware guy. He sent us to an auto parts store a block away,and the very funny, joking elderly owner sent us to an auto sound store, and the young guys there sent us to a place a couple of blocks away that is – ta-da! a screw store. Really! There were other hardware-type items available, but the place specializes in screws. It’s even called El Tornillo, The Screw. Instead of wrinkling his brow in a perplexed way as had all the other shopkeepers, this guy, instead of saying, “Let me see if I have it”, said “How many?” Eureka!
Near The Screw, I recall, are several large businesses that sell only ceramic tile. And paints. And chiles of all types.
Shoes and well-made leather items are affordable in our part of the state of Guanajuato, and you might see a man laboring, wearing good leather shoes.  There are many shoe and tennis shoe factories. Billboards advertise “Say No To Pirated Soles”. I assume these are aimed at the numerous factory owners. Just the fact that the signs are there is a indication of the number of shoe factories, isn’t it?
This kind of shopping may not appeal to everybody, especially those of us who are impatient or accustomed to making one stop for many things. For those people, there are stores like Waldo, the dollar store. Everything there costs about a dollar, just like the Ninety-Nine-Cent Stores in the US. The stock changes often, and things you saw there last week might not still be available, but you are sure to find something similar. You can find sundries, toys, and lots of household items for cleaning. 
The  last few years have seen the coming of very large Wall-Mart-type stores, too. A well-known store, La Bodega (The Warehouse), offers a very large variety of foods and household items and electronics, as well as automobile supplies and a pharmacy.
Some enterprising vendors take their products to the small towns like ours, called ranchos. On Tuesdays a vegetable vendor comes and sets up a tent-like roof and displays boxes of vegetables, most of them at very reasonable prices, and in good condition. Today a pick-up came through town with very nice oranges and mandarins for sale, about five pounds for less than a dollar. A couple of trucks come through daily with tanks of propane for household use. A nursery truck comes through every couple of weeks. 
And of course, our rancho has its own stores. They are small, but there are several. They carry household necessities in very small packages, just the right size for people with small amounts of money to spend. You can buy an envelope of Pantene shampoo for about 20 cents, a very large bottle of Coca-Cola for about $1.50, a smallish bottle of Clorox or a package of dish soap, as well as a limited selection of vegetables, beans, and pastas. Women and children are the main patrons of these spots.
Chon resents these family stores. There is one right across the street owned by the Franco family (relatives, of course), that has been there for over 40 years. A problem directly related to the store causes us frustration; the Francos sell beer. (and, I recently noticed, tequila) The patrons tend to sit in front of the store on weekend nights, drinking their beers. This leads to two inevitable results – arguments, and elimination. The beer drinkers often find their way onto our property to, well, you know – eliminate. We have had some hilarious fun thinking of ways to solve this problem. Motion-sensitive lights? Alarms? Try to get a court order for the Francos to disallow drinking? Try to force the Francos to install a toilet?
Anyway, if you ask around, you will find just about everything you need. Package and mail delivery? Yes. Auto repair? Of course. Computer repair? Yup. Chinese restaurant? Fabrics and threads? Washing machine or blender? Yes, yes, and yes. Right around the block, or within a mile or so.

Learning Spanish As An Adult

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I admit it – I have been learning Spanish for about 25  years, although I was never truly focused on that goal until recently (necessity being a strong motivator). 


And I’ll explain here a sort of pet peeve. Beginning of soapbox: I think it’s an odd way to discuss learning languages by using the term “my” French, or “my” Japanese. I’m quite sure I used that term before, (when I was but a child!) but now it seems annoying to me to describe a language as belonging to you when what you are really discussing is your fluency and skills. 
I also feel strongly that if a person chooses to live in a country with a different national language, he or she should strive to learn the language. The citizens of the US practically demand it of immigrants, and in Mexico, I have noticed that people in general really appreciate it when I try to converse with them, even though I make lots and lots of mistakes. Lots! End of soapbox.
Somehow I thought that I would wait, silently learning, until I could speak nearly perfectly to start trying. That is not a satisfactory method of learning. (Duh! As a teacher, I surely should have known better!) Now I just jump in, and I probably make one or more mistakes in every other sentence. Everything is different – the sounds, and the word order: nouns have genders in Spanish, too.
Anyway, I began to learn Spanish, I would have to say, from singing songs in Spanish – and, by the way, it was hard for me to believe that so much music had been so completely unknown to me. There was an entire repertoire of popular music in Spanish that I was completely unaware of! I had heard two popular Spanish songs in the seventies that made a deep impression on me. I even remember where I was when I first heard them. 
Beginning of ramble:
The first of the two songs was performed by a singer named Jose Jose (although I didn’t know his name at the time). It was called La Barca Del Olvido. One reason I think I liked it so much was that I could understand a lot of the chorus, probably from singing in Italian. The chorus lyrics begin 
Espera un poco, un poquito mas,
Para llevarte mi felicidad.
and I would say that means
Wait a little, just a little more,
To take away my happiness.
The memorable part of the chorus employs a musical device called melodic sequence, the repetition of a melodic phrase at different levels of pitch. 
The other song was by a group called Mocedades, from Spain. It is a very beautiful, famous, meaningful love song, and won a world-level prize in a songwriting competition. Its title is Eres Tu, and it is still very well-known. The beginning of the chorus, roughly translated, is
You are like the water in my fountain,
You are the flame in my hearth,
You are the wheat in m y bread,
Hmm – it’s so much more beautiful in Spanish!! No wonder I’ve never heard an English translation!
End of rambling aside.
I began to sing and perform songs in Spanish in the mid-eighties. From my traditional music training I knew that it was essential not just to sing the sounds of the language, but to understand them, and I translated every word, with Chon’s patient help. I learned and performed many songs. 
But the first time I visited Mexico I didn’t understand anything at all. I could speak “food” pretty well, with reasonably good pronunciation, and that was it. In our house Chon and I only spoke English, so I really never praticed speaking Spanish unless I was in Mexico, and that was only for one, two, or three weeks every year. I tried, though, and Chon’s family was patient, too. They didn’t have much choice, really, and they always treated me extremely well. There are very few people in our little town even now who speak English. And something I have noticed is that even though students here take classes in English, they do not learn to speak it. There seems to be no “Conversational English” offered. Even students who get high grades in English only can read it (a little).
In case you have never thought about it, an English speaker must learn to use different muscles to correctly pronounce Spanish, so for many English speakers our speech will always have a big, fat accent, and we sound to Spanish speakers just as many adults who learn English sound to us English speakers. (Congratulations if you were able to follow that sentence!)
Anyway, I’d like to encourage anyone to learn a new language. If it interests you, or if you are motivated for some reason, give it a try! There are lots of good classes in the states. If you learn some beginning Spanish, your hispanic friends will enjoy your efforts, and it’s probably really good exercise for the brain. 

We Arrive At Home Again

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When we arrived at the house Elena seemed very happy to see us, and bustled us into the kitchen to eat a good caldo de res. We really needed its good, warming, invigorating effect. We felt very cared for – a good bowl of soup can do that for you!
We went to Purisima to ask about the permit to remove the tree, and – surprise! it was ready! We went, too, to SAPAP, the water company, to arrange to get the water source for Victoria’s house moved, because it is right in the way of the new gate. We found it, and made arrangements. They told us there that the two-man crew would arrive at ten the next day.
We also went to the place wehere they asked for Chon’s ID to re-enroll to receive the government assistance, procampo , for his two fields. We even stopped by the pharmacy to ask if I can get my two prescriptions here. I will need one in a couple of weeks. In an hour or so, we accomplished all that!
In the evening we went to Jalpa to liquidate the bill at the building supply place. The manager accepts dollars there, at a favorable rate.
When we woke up the next morning, Sabino had already cut the limbs of the tree that is in the way of the new gate.  We took the large branches to the back, and passed them across the rock fence to Chon, who stacked them for Dona Elena’s use. She has a fogon in her kitchen, a hornilla, where she cooks with wood. It is something like a tiny fireplace with a grill above the coals, especially for cooking.
Chavela arrived early on Tuesday to give Elena a day off. In short order, she had cleaned both bathrooms, and started on the kitchen. There were a lot of mouse droppings there, although everyone has been saying there are no mice in the kitchen anymore.
The men arrived to change the water, right at ten o’clock, as scheduled! That might have been the very fist time a professional appointment happened as scheduled! Chon, Pepe and Gordo had to move a lot of the gravel (bigger rocks than gravel, really), so that the water guys could move the water. (I forget what that is called, if I ever knew – it’s the place the water gets to the house from the main. Here it’s called a “toma”.) The rest of the pile of gravel will be used when they make the concrete roof for the new construction. Chon said he was out of shape for shoveling gravel, but I noticed that he shoveled more than the other two during his turns.
In the evening Isabel and I made a plan to attempt to manage mornings. We decided to fix breakfast, as a trial run. We decided to get up at 7:15 and fix breakfast for ourselves, the people who live here. We decided to cook scrambled eggs, because someone gave Elena a dozen eggs from their chickens. 
Here’s what happened: we decided that the dozen eggs would be enough for the 6 of us who are here right now, and in the morning little Ana Cristina cut up (she’s only 5!) onions, tomatoes and green chiles. We cooked them a little bit, then added the eggs, and four of us ate (Chon was upstairs, practicing). Then I found out that Brisa was still here, not having gone to school because her “nose hurt a lot”. Then Chayo, the mother, showed up. Isabel and I planned to give breakfast to Chon’s mother, but Elena came back from her house and did that. Then she heated up “sopa”, what some people call “Spanish rice” for Brisa, who complained that there wasn’t any lemon. Then the kitchen felt too crowded for me, and I moved out to the portal to write this. (Chon hasn’t eaten breakfast yet, but there are probably enough eggs left). Like my Swedish Grandpa A used to say with a twinkle in his eye “Too many cooks in the kitchen!”
The result of the breakfast experiment? I’d give it about a C-. There is not much order here, and one never knows exactly how many people might be here at eating time, although today, at least, everything is sparkling clean because of Chavela’s work yesterday. We are going to keep trying. I need to go back to my self-appointed sweeping job, because Elena has been doing it, and it’s really not good for her asthma. 
Today we need to go back to San Pancho, for several reasons:
1. We are going to visit the doctor, to see what he found out about the availability of the two medicines that I need. We will also ask him his opinion about the big lump that remains on Chons’s mother’s cheek after her fall on the 31st.
2. We will check to see the availability and prices of flights to Los Mochis (to retrieve the legalized Foxy).
We did those things. The doctor sold us two remdies for the hematoma on Dona Coco’s face. Since then we have returned to the doctor/pharmacist, and so far he hasn’t been able to  locate either of the things I need. After calling four laboratories, he said, he found Synthroid in 100 mg and 125 mg. I take 112 mg.  I also take a hormone replacement, and he says that only injections are available. Soon we’ll take a trip to a Sam’s Club we saw in Leon as we approached the end of our bus trip from Nogales.
The plane tickets from Leon to Los Mochis cost about $240 apiece! We will go back on the bus!
The construction continues – the project this week is to replace the big gate in my earlier photo; the change I said was making people mad. But now that the old gate is gone, and the new, wide pasada is visible, people are starting to get it. Lots of folks don’t seem to have the imagination to picture how it will be, but now it is clear. The sister-in-law’s family is still mad, but I figure that will last a long, long time.
We received a call from Chon’s nephew in Florida, demanding that we tear down the new construction. We didn’t. 
It’s been one of those weeks when nearly everything you plan gets done – we really have been chopping wood and carrying water. That is to say we burned the dry weeds and grass in the lot next door, we removed the brush that was there, we took the PT Cruiser to nearby Jalpa to get the hood painted, and many other small, necessary things.
The breakfast plan went into its second day, and it worked a little better. We waited until everybody else (all the extra people who seem to show up) had eaten, then we made pancakes. The kids were dubious that pancakes made from a recipe would be as good as pancakes from a mix, but they quickly changed their minds. So that was satisfying.
I wanted this entry to be informative, and a good reminder for me later when I want to remember How Things Happened. It ended up being a bit gossipy. Sorry (to all of my faithful readers) (haha).

Bus Trip – From The Border To Leon

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LONG BUS TRIP

We decided to leave this place after we got our money and documents returned to us. Alfonso stopped by our home, room 107, to let us know that there shouldn’t be any problem passing Kilometro 21, as long as we had the pink slip and registration. Samuel tried to pry $300 from us, to have his cousin allow us to pass K21. But fortified with Alfonso’s information, we decided to – just cross.
So on the morning of the ninth, we got up and prepared to leave. Foxy started right up, and I let her warm up a bit before we left. This is how far we got.

There, right there in front of the hotel,Foxy died. We had some brief, intense conversations, switched gas tanks, tried and tried, and finally, about half an hour later, we got the truck started again. We have puzzled quite a bit over what happened, but we probably will never know. There are two gas tanks, and we have noticed that the truck doesn’t start as well when we use the back tank. 
Anyway, we drove to the town of Santa Ana, stopping only once , to sample the pulque at a local restaurant on the way. We arrived in Santa Ana, but had a difficult time decyphering the map Alfonso gave us. We gave up and called him, and he came to find us. He bought us breakfast in Coyota Maya (?) (Coyota Something). We found out later what coyotas are.
We got on the bus at Santa Ana at about 12:30. The tickets cost about $230 for the two of us, from Santa Ana to Leon (maybe around 1,800 miles. It seemed like an awful lot until we compared the price to the price of two tickets from Los Angeles to Chicago, for example. Still, we think a flight might have been more economical.
At Hermosillo  for about $2 Chon bought us four coyotas (a Sonoran tradition). They look like flour tortillas, and they have a filling. Chon bought the ones with piloncillo that tasted quite a bit like molasses. And they had an ever-so-slight flavor of wood smoke.

We left there, and in about ten minutes the bus driver stopped again. The bus driver announced a stop of 20 minutes to eat. It was a road-side place that served toasted buns with chopped-up meat on one half, and onions, tomatoes, and other goodies on the other half. We took them on to the bus to eat, and they were wonderful!

We tried to sleep on the bus with some success, and arrived at Mazatlan at 5 a.m. We grabbed some pre-made sandwiches from the  bus stop and hit the road again for Nayarit.
Somewhere in Nayarit the bus stopped to let a passenger off, at a junction of another road. It was still pretty early, and most of the passengers were sleeping. The young man stood by near the road, after jumping across a little ditch, pulling out his cellphone.  It made me think, as I had before, about the secret destinations of the passengers. 
Mexican roads in general are quite good, in spite of what you might read in travel books, especially the roads the buses take, the cuotas (toll roads). You pay, though, for the excellent quality. These cuotas run nearly parallel to the libres (free). The libres pass through all the towns, and the cuotas avoid them.
The bus companies have nices buses with bathrooms. The buses are fairly new, with comfortable seats, but sometimes the windows are  pretty rattly.
We made a stop in Nayarit, at a town called Jala, around breakfast time. Chon got us quesadillas with meat, made with hand-made tortillas. I added salsa from the molcajetes. I thought I should have added more salsa, but I put plenty – it was picosa! and the quesadillas were quite wonderful. There were many indiginous people there, and you could hear their language, which impressed me as sounding similar to Asian languages. One young woman with a baby slung on her back in a rebozo went to the sinks for washing hands, and washed her head, and not the long dark hair that hung down her back.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, except for the remarkable fact that we didn’t enter the bus depot in Guadalajara, but just dropped off the riders stopping there right on the street outside the station.
We arrived in Leon at 4, and right away got headed towards home, and got inexpensive tickets right to El Pedernal. When we grabbed our things and got off the bus at the top of the main street, some kids we know were there, and they helped us carry our things to the house – Chon had brought three guitars, and we had various other bags to carry. 

Frontera

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So many people have warned us (as they probably have warned you, too), about being careful in the border areas. Well, we will continue to be careful. But I’d like to say that the people I have met here are very nice. And, yay, our agent Samuel, as inept as he may be, just returned our money. All the money. And our pink slip. We still don’t really know what happened, but Samuel says he is considering a career change.  Supposedly, our truck is eligible for Mexican registration and plates. But it didn’t get registered (!*#*^). We are making new plans.

So Samuel is on our list of People Who Didn’t Take Advantage Of Us. So is Don David, the cook, who gave us enormous servings of food, a little more each day, because he knew we were stuck here, and that we were making two meals out of each restaurant visit. So is the manager of the hotel, Jorge, who lowered the price of our room even lower than Chon was going to ask him to. So is beautiful Alma, a front-desk lady who we engaged in many conversations. This is Alma.

I promise the photos will be better soon – I didn’t bring my camera, so these are phone photos. Rocio cooked a meal for us on New Year’s Day, when the cook didn’t show up.  Every person here was friendly, sympathetic and simpatico.

The Hotel Estrella Dorada Internacional is not fancy, but it’s got everything a traveler needs. I know, because I stayed here A WEEK! I certainly can recommend it to you if you need a place to stay in Nogales (on the Mexican side.)