Life is rather sweet on the south Pacific coast of Mexico but little inconveniences will come up.
My old Toshiba is almost dead. It's on life support for now. I can take it to the beach and run it on battery power and not worry too much about little sand storms or opportunistic thieves for that matter. No more real harm can be done.
That poor little dinosaur served me well for three years of hard use in five different countries from Canada to Mexico, to Korea, to Thailand, back to Korea, back to Mexico, on to Guatemala and back again to its final resting place in Huatulco. If it could be fixed, I'd take care of it out of sentimentality but it can't be and it's an impractical idea.
I now have a shiny new Hewlett Packard with 320 GB and more gadgets than I'll ever find time to master. There's a webcam so I could potentially talk to someone on the screen like the Jetsons. Jet packs must be just around the corner.
I spotted this model at Telmex here in Huatulco for 14,399 pesos, one and a half month's pay. I can only withdraw so much in a day here so I waited almost two weeks to buy it. When I got back to the store, the price had mysteriously risen to 17,899. All prices and specs were still posted on the screens just like the first time except for the one I showed interest in. The saleswoman did s lot of typing on the computer and gave me a sheet with the new price. The smell of rat was strong and I walked away.
The only thing left to do was to take a trip to Oaxaca City where I found the same model at the price I remembered. It's a 12 hour trip so there went my weekend. I got into town just nicely after dawn. With about 18,000 pesos in my wallet, I considered taking a cab for the short walk to the zocalo but the first cab driver demanded 100 pesos (it should be 20) and I thought getting into a car with anyone that larcenous would defeat the purpose of playing safe so I ended up walking.
Mission accomplished, I had a lot of time to kill before the next bus back. There weren't any day buses for some reason. Oaxaca was beautiful as always.
I spotted this intriguing building with my university logo on a plaque. It was locked up pretty tight. I wonder what the connection is. Been meaning to ask someone.
I read a book in the park until the sun went down and camped out at the bus station. Strange places, bus stations. I could hardly keep my eyes open. Some drunk guy sitting across me walked over and sat right beside me. I'll never know what he was on about. Played with his cellphone a bit, apparently having problems and then muttered at me in Spanish and showed me a list of women's names. I shrugged. "no habla..." That usually gets me off the hook with dubious pesky strangers but not always. He kept pesking and I kept shrugging. Eventually he left.
Another sketchy guy outside stuck his hand out for a handshake he didn't get and tried to convince me we'd met in some place I'd never heard of. I gave him no encouragement.
I think I've filled my quota for scammy strangers for a while.
So now, I have this great new toy with a gimmicky fingerprint scan, saving me an entire two seconds of typing in a code.
Life is rather sweet on the south Pacific coast of Mexico but little inconveniences will come up.
My old Toshiba is almost dead. It's on life support for now. I can take it to the beach and run it on battery power and not worry too much about little sand storms or opportunistic thieves for that matter. No more real harm can be done.
That poor little dinosaur served me well for three years of hard use in five different countries from Canada to Mexico, to Korea, to Thailand, back to Korea, back to Mexico, on to Guatemala and back again to its final resting place in Huatulco. If it could be fixed, I'd take care of it out of sentimentality but it can't be and it's an impractical idea.
I now have a shiny new Hewlett Packard with 320 GB and more gadgets than I'll ever find time to master. There's a webcam so I could potentially talk to someone on the screen like the Jetsons. Jet packs must be just around the corner.
I spotted this model at Telmex here in Huatulco for 14,399 pesos, one and a half month's pay. I can only withdraw so much in a day here so I waited almost two weeks to buy it. When I got back to the store, the price had mysteriously risen to 17,899. All prices and specs were still posted on the screens just like the first time except for the one I showed interest in. The saleswoman did s lot of typing on the computer and gave me a sheet with the new price. The smell of rat was strong and I walked away.
The only thing left to do was to take a trip to Oaxaca City where I found the same model at the price I remembered. It's a 12 hour trip so there went my weekend. I got into town just nicely after dawn. With about 18,000 pesos in my wallet, I considered taking a cab for the short walk to the zocalo but the first cab driver demanded 100 pesos (it should be 20) and I thought getting into a car with anyone that larcenous would defeat the purpose of playing safe so I ended up walking.
Mission accomplished, I had a lot of time to kill before the next bus back. There weren't any day buses for some reason. Oaxaca was beautiful as always.
I spotted this intriguing building with my university logo on a plaque. It was locked up pretty tight. I wonder what the connection is. Been meaning to ask someone.
I read a book in the park until the sun went down and camped out at the bus station. Strange places, bus stations. I could hardly keep my eyes open. Some drunk guy sitting across me walked over and sat right beside me. I'll never know what he was on about. Played with his cellphone a bit, apparently having problems and then muttered at me in Spanish and showed me a list of women's names. I shrugged. "no habla..." That usually gets me off the hook with dubious pesky strangers but not always. He kept pesking and I kept shrugging. Eventually he left.
Another sketchy guy outside stuck his hand out for a handshake he didn't get and tried to convince me we'd met in some place I'd never heard of. I gave him no encouragement.
I think I've filled my quota for scammy strangers for a while.
So now, I have this great new toy with a gimmicky fingerprint scan, saving me an entire two seconds of typing in a code.
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