The bear went over the mountain....

In somewhat typical fashion, the concrete pour scheduled for last Friday did not eventuate. The general assessment was that the concrete company had received a bigger order and needed our truck for the job. So of course, the big order took priority. We understood. So many times, expats down here do not understand aspects of the local reality and jump to understandable but totally inaccurate assessments of events. One of those events is the concept of time, either the issue of being late, or not not showing up of many other variations of the above. And here is my advice on this subject. No matter which permutation of the above you are experiencing, there is always a reason!  You may never figure out what that reason was, but given a lot of time, experience and mental reflection, your ability to "read" situations grows. And our ability said, "What the heck. They got a better job. Good for them!" and we re-scheduled the pour for today. Hopefully it was happen. But too soon to tell.

After losing our schedule entirely, we were in a quandary over what to do with our free weekend. We decided to "go over the mountain to see what we could see". For a number of years, we have been aware of the existence of another village over our mountain, right behind us. That village is on the south side, on the edge of an extremely shallow salt lake. We see it from the cuota (toll road) when we go down to the coast. But to access it is not an easy task. However, we woke up Saturday morning in a mood to investigate the possibilities. The Mexican road map told us that if we took our highway 15 back out to the end of the mountain range (about 15 miles) to the intersection with the cuota, with a little jiggling we could get onto the free road that paralleled the cuota south. After a couple of miles on the cuota, the map showed another road that turned left and crossed the cuota and ended up in the village we were looking for, the village of San Marcos. This was essentially a very large circle route. For an added extra, we would also pass through another village on the way called Los Pozos.  But first, we had a leisurely breakfast on the winter terrace, enjoying the fruits of our own papaya tree.

The trip was highly enjoyable. We crossed the cuota here. The mountain in the background is the backside of our mountain.

The road into the two villages was very quiet. Part of it was paved, part of it was cobbled and part of it was dirt and it dead-ended at Los Marcos, so there was very little traffic and what there was of it, often had either 2 legs or four:

The approach into the villages, was also different from our highway 15 on the other side of the mountain. This side was the hot dry side of the mountain and it was covered with forests of cactus, but the valley floor was growing sugar cane (not cattle as on our side) and looked relatively lush. I wondered from whence came their source of water:

Across the road, were the remnants of lago San Marcos and its salt flats:

The villages themselves also had a different feel from ours on our side. These are ejidal (communal) villages, quite poor even by Mexican standards, but neat as a pin. Instead of being built adjoining and right on the sidewalk, the houses were frequently free standing with tiny but attractive gardens in the space between the sidewalk and the house. The houses were decorated with all sorts of Christmas decorations. Who would see them, I wondered, if not just their neighbours and the gas man or other service deliverer? We were the only strangers in the village on a Saturday at noon!

The two villages differed, one from the other, as well. Los Pozos had the only visible store, and school:

And it had very friendly inhabitants!  We passed by a street closed off and being decorated for Christmas by some of the ladies of the town. They asked us (with enormous smiles) to take their photo:

 

The other thing Los Pozos had, was the grandest house:

Now an astute reader might well ask themselves, is there ANYTHING left for poor San Marcos, the last village on the road, squished up against the mountain? Is there anything possible it might have to compare with its neighbour up the road???

Well, here it is!

"Havin Fun", How we did it.

Many of you will recall that early after our arrival here in Mexico, we had a tractor out to the property to cleanup the driveway after the summer rains. That helped the lower straight portion of the road but unfortunately it actually made the switch back corner worse. The driver had dumped several bucket loads of loose rock on the corner and tried to pack it down with the tractor tires. That lasted about two days. We struggled with it for about a week, then decided we needed a permanent fix. Concrete was the answer!

To get started, we had another tractor come out and this time we just scraped off all the loose rock from the corner and brought it down to the original solid roadbed. That was a step in the right direction as it now became quite passible again but we knew it would not stand up to the summer wet season.

After some consultation with Don on what materials we would need, off I went to Home Depot to buy some 4X8 sheets of OSB plywood and miscellaneous lumber necessary to construct concrete forms. That was an interesting experience in itself. 99% of the construction in this area of Mexico is masonry and lumber is only used to make furniture, cabinets , doors etc.  Dimensional lumber like 2X4's, 2X6 etc are very hard to find and when you do find them, they only have a very limited stock. For instance, looking for 2X4's at Home Depot, they only carry 8', 10' and 12' lengths. They were out of the 8' and 10' and had about 6,  12 footers of which only one was straight enough to buy. When the Mexicans do concrete work, they use prefabricated steel forms that are not available to us DIY'ers.

We started by outlining the inside and outside edges of the curve using several garden hoses connected together.


We tried to make it wide enough to be easily navigable by vehicles of different sizes but not so wide as to use more concrete than necessary.

With Don's table saw we ripped the OSB into strips 4 inches wide by 8 feet long. We then we screwed the strips together with a short overlap on each to make a long board that we could use to form the edge of the curve. Don had metal stakes that we drove into the ground along the curve and that we could attach the plywood to with screws.


Here is what it looked like after we were done.


We used a string stretched across the top of the forms to check for high spots.  We needed to make sure we had at least 4 inches of clearance all the way across.

We only bought enough wood to outline the section that we would be doing with the first pour of 6 cubic meters of concrete (about 8 cubic yards) with the intention of reusing the forms on the second section.

The next step was cutting and laying out the heavy wire mesh that was to be embedded in the concrete to tie it all together. The wire is a 6X6 inch mesh that comes in a 48 inch wide roll and 20 meters long (66 feet). Because we did not want the concrete truck to drive on it, we had to cut each piece to fit as we went around the corner, then remove it and set it off to the side to be put back in place behind the truck as he went down the hill discharging the concrete.

The last step of preparation was to prepare a 2X4" to go across the top end of the forms to be put in place after the truck had come up, turned around and passed back down. Also we needed 1x4" expansion joints periodically along the run so the concrete will not crack when it expands and contracts in the heat of the sun. Those had to be precut to length and set aside to be installed as we went.

The night before we were scheduled to pour the concrete, I watered down the surface to minimise the amount of water absorbed by the earth out of the concrete mix.

Barbara described the events of "Pour" day in the previous post.

That's all there was to it. On the morning after, Don and I removed the forms from around the concrete, pulled up the stakes, and laid out the next section. We will do it all over again on Friday.

Here are some photo's of the first section and also the forms installed for the next.

 

Havin' Fun, Mexican Style

I know that all of you probably have this romantic vision of Rick and I swanning around our terrace, coffee mug in hand, reading our latest novel, chatting over tea and crumpets in the delightful Mexican sunshine. I hope this episode will take care of those romantic notions. Because no matter how "finished" one of our building projects becomes, there always seems to be something that requires attention. And yesterday it was the driveway.

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.

Tuesdays and Thursdays

To the surprise of some of my friends who have known me for half a century or more, I have become somewhat of a recluse. To be honest, it isn't that I don't enjoy socializing, it's just that I would like to have some control over it. And Lake Chapala, Mexico is a centre of fierce and intense expat socializing. We located ourselves deliberately just beyond the fringe of expat communities, so that we could join in when we wanted but were remote enough to discourage most uninvited guests from inadvertently wandering in. Even so, it takes enormous self- discipline to ignore all the invitations, avoid all the gathering sessions, turn down all the solicitations by clubs for new members.

On the other hand, we also find that Mexico is so seductive in its relaxing atmosphere, that without some social structure, one tends to forget what date it is, what time it is, and what one's own name is. To prevent that consequence, we have chosen one main weekly social activity for Tuesdays and Thursdays to anchor our Mexican life.  And that activity is YOGA CLASS.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-4PM, you will find me and Rick on the highway heading around the south side of the lake, in the opposite direction from the expat communities of Ajijic and Chapala. One would know immediately that this south shore is completely different. No signs in English. No large gated expat villas. Small, self contained Mexican villages surrounded by agricultural fields and backed up by Mount Garcia, the tallest mountain around the lake at over 8,000 feet. We pass through San Pedro, and then San Cristobal, and just before reaching the municipal seat of San Luis, we turn off and down the hill into a small enclave of modest but very pleasant homes lining the lake.

It is here that a small number of (mostly) women expats cluster on the pool deck of  a retired phys ed teacher from Wellesley Island, NY. My friend Jean taught phys ed for many years in Buffalo NY and now has retired to her summer cottage in the American section of the Thousand Islands, near Gananoque Ontario. She and her husband Frank spend their winters on the south shore of Lake Chapala, and for her own amusement and self improvement she offers free yoga classes to whomever wants to come. I have been coming for 3 years now and Rick joined last year. We have found that yoga can do amazing things to lubricate and expand aging joints and improve posture and balance.

We were away last week at the beach when Jean started her winter sessions. We came home to a terse email message: WHERE ARE YOU she said. WE HAVE STARTED YOGA. I hastened a response confirming we would be there next time and we were.

There is something very pleasing about doing yoga around a swimming pool. It is even more pleasing when looking out across a lake to a village jumbled up a mountainside, and even more pleasing again when the temperature is 74F and the breezes slight. It is to my thinking, quite perfect.

Afterwards, we wandered through Jean's garden. She offered us pomegranates  or oranges or maybe some limes or lemons? but alas the pomegranates  won't be ready until tomorrow.

And besides, on the way home, where we enter our little pueblo off the highway, there is a long line of lime and lemon trees lining the raspberry fields where all of the locals help themselves. That includes us. So we stop the car and pick half a dozen limes,  bounce our way home along the dirt track and decide for yet another time, that next year we will keep up the yoga when we go home and not have to re-adapt our joints every fall at Jean's pool. When we go home this time, we say, we will do yoga every morning, even just 20 mins, just to stay flexible and relaxed. We won't of course. But we always say we will...

Last Week in Mexico

Last week we did the unthinkable. We took a vacation from our vacation. The idea evolved as a way to celebrate my 68th birthday on November 28th. A friend mentioned about this place in Cuyutlan on the Pacific Ocean near Manzanillo, where she had just stayed with a friend for 3 days. They loved the place, and the owner was only asking 550 pesos a night which translates to about $44. What a deal! Who could resist?  The man who owned it also ran a B and B establishment in nearby Ajijic and since like so many of these expats he failed to answer his emails (due to too much free time sprawled around some swimming pool, or having way too much fun at some restaurant/bar with the other expats) we decided to drop by in person and book our own little holiday on the beach. Steve, the owner, turned out to be a youngish (meaning anything under 68) Irish fellow of casual and likeable countenance, who took our deposit and then emailed us the directions to our own little casita in the sun and surf.

As you can see, it was a small unit, but perfectly outfitted with comfortable bed, complete kitchen, sitting area, satellite TV and best of all things, a very nice lap pool. Since the climate on the coast is considerably hotter and more humid than where we are on the lake, the pool was a wonderful way to stay cool during the day. The unit also came air conditioned which we (especially Molly) really appreciated at night.

The unit sat directly on the beach with its own access through the security fence. In true Mexican fashion, this security fence was cleverly constructed of ordinary white plastic sewer pipe, set into a low stone wall and filled with concrete...it made us secure, but at the same time left us some view of the palms just outside, and the beach beyond.

From here we watched local men throwing nets into the surf for fish, and later we saw sharks cruising through the same surf along the same beach doing the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. Thankfully none of them intersected at the same time.

The village of Cuyutlan was well positioned from which to visit several beautiful sights on the Costa Allegre. Just 30 minutes away on the free road, was the large port city of Manzanillo, not only a major commercial centre but also the location of many very high end hotels perched on a huge vertical rock at the northern end of the crescent beach. The most famous is probably Las Hades, the pure white structures forming the backdrop for the movie "Ten" with Dudley Moore and, oh yes! Bo Derek!! Now how could anyone forget her!!!

Although I liked Manzanillo, the small town girl in me wanted to go further up the coast to check out the smaller spots I knew were favoured by western Canadians for their winter playground. As we entered Melaque I knew I was in the right place when I saw every other license plate was either from Alberta or BC. Then even better, and just 5 km away around the bay, was the charming village of Barra de Navidad...so far my ultimate spot for a Mexican beach experience.

I think Barra would meet anyone's expectations of what a Mexican beach village ought to look like. And for me, the absence of any large resort hotels just enhanced that positive first impression.

The three day holiday went by in a happy blur of self indulgence, between the lap pool, sea food restaurants, a few explorative road trips and a lot of sitting and gazing at the ocean.

On the way home, as usual there were a lot of interesting sights on the cuota (toll road) to keep us alert and amused, like this.... Bimbo is a national Mexican brand of bread, by the way...

And this. Unfortunately, there are limits to my ability to capture roadside sights as they flash by but here is a portion of a load of equipment for a Mexican circus..

And under every overpass, a colourful collection of fruit stalls..

Vast panoramas of jungle and coconut plantations...

Odd things sharing the road with us....

And even a steam-venting volcano or two...

It all made for an easy 2 hour climb home, from beach to lake, from the lush, green humid tropics, to the cooler but arid central plateau, from zero elevation to 5300 feet. Mexico has the most diverse environment of any place in North America and this was just one small slice of it. I hope you enjoyed the trip..