It is hard to describe our driveway. It comes onto the property at the bottom about 300 feet below the level of the house at the corner of the property and it immediately straightens a bit and comes slightly angled but steeply up the mountain to the top, where it does a last switch-back up onto the terrace where the house is located. It is a fine, properly built road bed, covered with what the Mexicans call tepate, a mixture of rock and a sandy element that when watered acts as a binder to hold it all together. The main problem is that in the wild drenching summer rains, the upper switch-back often becomes impassable and the torrents pouring down the main section wash out the sand leaving behind gullies of rock where the vehicle treads need to be. It is still passable, but often only for 4 wheel drive.
After 10 years of messing around with this problem, we finally decided it was time to get serious and concrete the driveway, starting with that annoying upper switch-back.
Our neighbour and caretaker Don, a retired building contractor from Arizona, enthusiastically took over as project manager. He had just done a huge pour up on his property, forming the slab for his new dome house, and he had all the right contacts for putting this project together.
The primary one was his buddy Sergio, a local Mexican-American, bilingual, who could order the concrete truck from the yard in Guadalajara and in Spanish, which meant we would get the Spanish Mexican prices and not the one for English gringos which is at least double. Also, he could explain our location and arrange everything. Sergio was a king pin in the planning of this project. Our trusty Antonio was working elsewhere yesterday so we fell back on our 65 year old trusty handyman Jose Luis. He arrived promptly at 8AM wearing the Home Depot style back support that I brought down for him 2 years ago. Jose Luis is always 100% prompt. He lays aside that stereotype of the irresponsible Mexican worker. The only time he ever didn't show up for work, was the day after his father Don Manuel passed away, and even then Jose Luis sent an urgent apology through a neighbour. So we knew we could count on Jose Luis. However, the handyman lent to us by a friend failed to show. And then Sergio, who was supposed to meet the concrete truck at the nearby highway intersection, phoned to say he wouldn't be off work from his job as as a security manager for another half an hour. It started to devolve into the usual Mexican chaos. Don immediately took off to meet the concrete truck. And lo! Jose Luis was on his cell phone asking his nephew Alejandro to bring him out his medicine which he had forgotten. Ten minutes later Alejandro arrived by bicycle and Rick immediately asked him in Spanish "You wanna work today?" And Alejandro (although dressed in white shorts and tennis shoes) immediately agreed. Chaos averted. Only an hour late, we could see Don in his vehicle leading the concrete truck gingerly along the track below, and Sergio in his SUV following him. It looked like everything might be working out.
The truck driver left the concrete truck at the bottom and Sergio drove him up the driveway to the house so he could get a sense of the job. There was a lot of pallaver over the switch-back corner and whether or not he could get around it. The truck driver wanted to back up the driveway to discharge. Our crew wanted him to drive up forwards, turn around at the house and then discharge the pour on the way back down. The driver attempted to drive the concrete truck up around the corner.
Couldn't.
Another pallaver and the forms on the inner curve were removed. The driver made it successfully, turned around, and inched back down the corner and halted right in place to start the pour.
Rick hustled around to replace the inner forms, Jose Luis and Alejandro took care of the screeding, Don manned the shute, and Sergio was master of ceremonies shouting instructions in English and Spanish as required, handling a shovel when required and, generally the problems all melted away and a driveway started to appear.
The whole job was an intense choreography of tasks but it was all over in 1 1/2 hours. And when finished, the concrete was exactly where it was supposed to be, and so was the truck..facing down the driveway, still upright, and not in the ditch or over the side. The worst was over, the corner was done, and the next pour on Friday should be much easier as the truck will be able to just back up the hill in a straight line.
So much for tea and crumpets on the terrace.
That looks great fun and probably good for your language skills! It is absolutely freezing here. Think it is minus quite a bit Still in bed!!! Waiting fora cup of tea.
ReplyDeleteI will write later