What have I done?

It has been a very bad year for cameras. The latest Canon may come back to life after it dries out but I'm not counting on it. I took it into the water at Entrega on Sunday and the waterproof bag let me down. The camera strap might have snagged in the velcro, preventing a perfect seal or there might have been a pin prick hole. Either way, I can never trust that bag again. It cost me yet another camera. 

  I finally bought myself a scooter yesterday. We get bonuses at the end of the school year. That's where mine went.

 I hesitated about this for a long time. There is a very real danger that I won't get all the exercise I need. I need more exercise, not less. I've had a lot of daymares about this too, never having owned or operated motorized vehicles before, at least not in any significant way. I've thought of every worst case scenario. Like absent-mindedly confusing the gas with the brakes or running over a small child.

 I wasn't prepared to drive it home on my home so the salesman drove it for me. Two hours later, I knew it was time to get on that saddle and get the feel for it. Down the street, Asa's cats were waiting to be fed. The slightest touch on the gas and that bike jumps forward. This was going to take some practise. I made it safely down the street, fed the cats and moved along.

 Leaving the parking lot, I had my first little panic attack. Coming my way were two women with three small children. Quick. Think now. Brakes and gas. Which are which? It was fine. They never came close.

 Emboldened after navigating two major intersections, I drove down a main drag. Vroom. Gosh, how fast was I speeding along anyways? I had to check. Um, 20 kmh. It felt fast to me.

 The more I drove, the better it felt. I kept going. I cranked the Hives on my MP3 player. Rock 'n' roll. Better and better. At first, as a novice, I didn't fell entitled to pass anyone but this couple was just putting along. Eventually I left them behind at an intersection. I heard the Hives singing "Get out of my way...". I was going fifty!

 Not for long. It was quite a thrill. It's a 150 cc bike and Mike figures it can go 100 easily enough. Just this minute I heard a crash and looked over the Casa Mayor railing to see a small collision that has brought downtown traffic around the zocalo to a standstill. A big truck went into the back of a small car and the truck lost its front fender. Must have been taped on. The truck driver won't move and tour buses can't back up. Good reminder that it's okay to be paranoid in traffic. 

 I chose my routes carefully, avoiding certain places I didn't feel ready for and found myself in a residential labyrinth, trying to get home again while avoiding Chahue Boulevarde, in particular the corner with huge Pemex station. Found myself in a dead end with small children. I was cool. Turned around slowly. First stop sign, I reached for the brake and the bike surged ahead. I wrenched the handlebars and narrowly avoided piling into a parked taxi cab, minding its own business. It was time to go home. My luck seemed to be running out. 

 I escaped the labyrinth only to find myself right where I didn't want to be; on Chahue Boulevarde a block away from Pemex with no way to turn around. Worse, I had to pull up right behind a truck full of Policia Munipal. OK. Brakes. Gas, Which is which? I made it home just fine, feeling exhilirated.

 Mike and Rowena came over to check it out. Mike thought it was a good set of wheels. I didn't know it was an all-terrain model. The tires are made for rough terrain. That made sense. I did that gas instead of brakes move over a speed bump like I was trying to pop a wheelie and didn't feel too jarred. I had crossed a bridge to follow the canal back on the other side and found myself on a rough stretch of wilderness road with big rocks to navigate around. It wasn't a problem for me.

 Another guy was walking his scooter. So today is for joy-riding. It's going to take a bit more practise before I feel comfortable about transporting my boogie board. I've seen people doing it but it must throw the balance off somewhat. Today I think I'll scope out Rio Copalita and La Bocana. My only worry is the corner onto the highway by Elektra because you have to cross two lanes after a stop sign and there's another stop sign waiting as soon as you cross. It's like an island. It's going to take some accelerating and braking finesse. After that, I think it's just a matter of avoiding potholes. I think.

Office Frog

UMAR is in the middle of a jungle and we have office visits from the surrounding wildlife occasionally. Not too often because they're afraid of us but the rain drives them indoors, even frogs. Given a choice, most of these animals would give up their natural environment and live in man-made structures in a second. Iguanas still dig holes and tunnels but the lucky ones live in pre-made drainage pipes.

The Middle of Rainy Season

We haven't seen a ton of rain, just enough to put those canals through Crucecita to work and turn everything green. Maybe we'll get it all at once some day.
Check out this big swollen rain-fed snail.

These bright newborn green lizards are everywhere. They look kind of fake, like toys. If they're sitting on the right bush, they are impossible to see unless they move. That's the trick and it works well for them most of the time.

Context is everything. I tried to startle this one in the office hallway into moving but it wouldn't budge, convinced I couldn't see if it just stayed still.

It's now 7 hours to vacation time. A lot of people have already left but I'll be spending it here in Huatulco.

Rainy season is supposed to be the hottest time of the year. That's true about the water. Sometimes you have to dive down and skim the ocean floor to find any cool but a breeze on wet skin feels good when you come out so it's well worth the effort. At UMAR the walkways are covered nicely with green canopies. Walk slowly and everything is cool.

iguana pics

Another Day, Another Puncture

A week ago Friday, I came out of the Oxxo convenience store at the Plaza and two taxi drivers were standing on either side of my bike where I locked it to a street sign on the corner. Odd. Their taxis were parked two spots away with the doors hanging open. They acted so casually, just hanging out, having a conversation, it looked damned suspicious. They were the worst actors, practically whistling when they saw me coming and walked back to their cabs. It must be hard to look innocent when you've been a total weasel all your life. You have no reference point.
My instinct told me they must have been up to no good but I've been teaching modal verbs of probability lately so technically I would have to say they might have been tampering with my bike. By the time the slow leak they started flattened my front tire completely, it was a "must have been" situation.
The leak was so slow I didn't bother about it over the weekend, just pumped it up every three hours as necessary. On Monday morning, I had to stop and pump it up four times on my way to work. It's a fast downhill ride to town from school so one pump up might have done the trick if the entire thing hadn't exploded with a bang that the security guards had no choice about investigating. I heard them coming and let them know it was me just in case they had their guns drawn. My 5 minute bike ride was now a 30 minute walk at the hottest time of the day.

The journey begins here. I thought I'd better carry the thing to protect the wheel and managed to draw blood with a slam to the shin with the pedal. Shins are more valuable than wheels. Even better, I took this outstanding opportunity to walk on the wide park like median with shady trees. It begins immediately after UMAR and it's the first tangible sign to travellers that they have arrived in a different, modern and well maintained, world. I always ride on the edge of the road on my way to work and this long green park always looks so inviting. People pull over to the side and have picnics here.






The green sculpture at top of the hill is the logo for Fonatur, a government agency responsible for keeping Huatulco beautiful and that's all I know about it except I pay a water bill to them every two months. Just past it is the final hill, a fast plunge into Crucecita, where you get the first small peak of the ocean.
The mechanic at the bike shop had me fixed up in five minutes. They really know their stuff there. The bike was cheaply made to begin with but every time something breaks, I leave the bike shop with a stronger bike than I started with. I took a look at the old tube. I don't know if the mechanic noticed the source with the exploded rubber ripped right up the seam being so obvious but I checked out the nozzle and sure enough, there was a nice slit just beneath the nozzle where the taxi drivers had jammed a small knife through the gap by the nozzle and slit a hole right underneath. The beauty of a cut like that is that it can't be patched. The tube is trashed forever. Whether the mechanic saw what I did or not, the tube he gave me has a protective nut at the nozzle's base to prevent sabotage. Maybe he did.
Trying to turn a bad day into a good one, I decided to visit Al's restaurant for lunch. Al is a proctor here at UMAR and he runs a great little restaurant in Sector U2 near Mike and Rowena. The reviews are good and I've been meaning to look for it for some time. I couldn't find it so i tried to get out of U2 and ended up getting lost. I followed the canal road looking for an exit but there was nothing but dead ends. I saw a highway overhead at one point and figured I could get to it if I went cross country through the woods but it had a bridge so it wasn't the right one. This was the road to Salina Cruz. All I could do was backtrack before I was late for work.


I found Al's restaurant the next day. Mike drew me a map. It was excellent. Good restaurants are a bit sparse in this town. Most charge tourist prices and the portions are small. Not at Al's. He calls them tacos but he serves huge things like burritos on fresh homemade tortillas that he fills with the specials of the day like "pollo tinga" "mole" or "calamari". Ten pesos each, less than a dollar, and two will carry you through the day. I felt like I'd stepped back into real Mexico again. I call it Al's restaurant but it doesn't have a name. Take the main drag into U2 by the ADO station, pass the market, cross the canal bridge with the pink railing and look for the place in this picture.


What a difference a day makes. We still haven't seen a lot of rain this season. It must have been a strong breeze that knocked this big branch down overnight.


People had to wonder why the drivers did that to my bike when I told them the story. Lots of potential answers. Number one: they were miserable guys with litytle conscience. It could have been a racist thing; revenge for telling them off one day when they cut me off on the road (that happens a lot around here unless the traffic cop is around and then everyone starts acting like human life really does mean something to them; boredom; or they thought I would call for a cab as soon as my tire was flat, thereby earning a whole twenty pesos. All of these come under one umbrella; they were jerks. To people like that, others just don't count. If i could have proved it, I would have called the cops but I couldn't. I wouldn't even recognize them again. Very average looking young guys.
Ah well. had a great walk through the park and I found Al's restaurant. In your face, taxi drivers.

baby pigeon on the air conditioner

Rainy season is creeping up. So far I’ve seen maybe 2 drops hit the sidewalk after hours of dark clouds and rumbling thunder. The early mornings still start with a hazy yellow ball behind me like something out of a coffee commercial. By afternoon, it gets dark and there’s a bit of sound and fury but nothing comes down to make us run for cover.

We were back to work as scheduled after the impromptu paid break of a week and we were all glad to be back. For the first week, the guards and another man were waiting for everyone at the gate with a spray bottle of hand sanitizer. Of course that could never be enough to stop the spread of flu if there was any in our midst but I liked the idea and it was a good reminder for everyone not to do anything stupid like wipe their eyes. Only two days at the grind and it was the weekend.



A little miracle happened that Saturday. The old Toshiba came back to life. Figuring it was worth one more try, I pre-cooled the bedroom with the air conditioner while I emptied half a can of compressed air into every vent and opening. It was a suspenseful time waiting for the recovery disk to do the job. It was at 6% for the longest time. I kept waiting for it to overheat and shut down, feeling the air vent in the back. Whenever I thought it was getting dangerously hot, I gave it another blast of compressed air to supplement the hard working fans. I was going nuts when the uploading made it as far as 70%. By 98% I could only think how badly it would suck if it shut off at that point. But it didn’t. Ta-dah! It works better than it has in months. The screen is bright again so some of the problems were virus related and I was right to restore the system except for the snag that it was too worn out to handle the trauma. I don’t think I’ll ever try that again. I love this little machine. It might even survive to visit a few more countries.
Two hours later someone knocked on my door to install an air-conditioner. Wow. Some days. The previous Saturday, I had waited indoors all day because the apartment complex manager had told me the day before that one was coming. It didn’t. I even went to the office to ask about it mid-day, thinking plans change and I was told just one hour more. How about just one week more. I would never say no to an air conditioner. This apartment came with three but only one works and it’s not the one in the living room where I spend most of my time.

It wasn’t for the living room. It was for the spare bedroom I’ve been using to store some of the excess furniture that came with it. The complex handyman was told to make a good fit with concrete but he couldn’t do that for some reason or another and jammed it in place with some old rotten tiles, leaving enough space for small and not so small animals to crawl into the apartment at will. I like to keep that door closed now.

While checking out the situation, I found a baby bird in a nest right outside the window on the cage built for the air conditioner. There was no sign of its mother. Probably out and about collecting food but I wondered if it hadn’t been frightened off after all the noise and commotion, never to return. I took a peek next morning to see if it was still alive. And the next. It was eating somehow. Most days I took a picture. These different pictures were all taken within five days. It’s quite startling how fast it grew. By the latest picture, it was a teenager and not as cute anymore.



There would have been more pictures but I accidentally locked myself out of the room. That wasn’t a huge problem until I locked myself out of the other bedroom, the one I sleep in, two nights later. I was up past my bedtime and more than ready for a good sleep. I flipped on the air conditioner and turned on my bedside computer (the restored Toshiba) to enjoy an ebook on my way down and went to brush my teeth. I couldn’t get back in. I was so frustrated. I could hear that cool refreshing machine chugging away but I couldn’t get in. I tried to break in but it was too big a job for my limited skills. A solid door frame prevents anyone sliding a comb or a plastic card. It was insane. This is insane. The door is in the apartment. Who needs that kind of security when they’re already behind locked doors? Was it a bedroom or a Panic Room. I probably scared the tenants above me with my primal scream of rage. I lost if for a bit. I tried kicking the knob, missed and put a small hole in the door I’ll have to pay for.
I finally went to sleep on the coach, listening to the not so distant sound of artificially cool air.

When I asked for keys at the office next day on my lunch break, I was told they didn’t have any. There are three doors in my apartment with the kind of locks that can be absentmindedly and carelessly locked, including the bathroom and there aren’t any keys.
“ But my clothes are in there. My air conditioning is running non-stop. I think my rent money is in there.”
“I will call a locksmith.”
A guy on a scooter turned up in ten minutes with a skeleton. First he had a con-fab with the manager and then came over to wiggle a skeleton key for two minutes. 150 pesos. Good money for two minutes work.
I want to change apartments soon. I think the landlord was at least partly responsible for the situation. Keep in mind, no mention had ever been made about this lack of keys problem or the danger of getting locking out.




As it turns out, my apartment has been responsible for my acid toes. I finally went to the medico here on campus between classes and he said it was probably my shower. Hmm. I’ve had this problem for 4 months and I’ve lived here for 4 and half. Yep. There is no fan or ventilation of any kind in my bathroom. Unless I take it into the living room, I can only use a towel for one shower before it smells bad. There was black mould in that shower when I moved in here and it comes back way too frequently. The medico gave me pills and some cream that has already done wonders. He also recommended plastic shoes for the bathroom. I want another apartment.

I missed some photos of my baby bird. By the time I got in that room again, it had already learned to fly. I haven`t seen it since but I think it still hangs out. I took a peek first thing on getting my door unlocked and it looked like a fully grown adult. Good thing. During the teenage days, when it was looking kind of degenerate and scruffy, I wondered if it wasn`t in fact some bird of prey.

All at once

My money struggles ended yesterday. Pay day came. The timing for everything was perfect.

The first bank machine was empty so I headed for the one at the grocery store. I wanted to go there anyways for light bulbs amongst other things. They had sweet hot dog relish, something I´ve been looking for since January. I bought four bottles.

I still needed gas. No problem. There was a gas truck pulling into our court yard at just the right time. If I hadn´t made a detour at the store, I might have missed him.
Cash, light bulbs, hot dog relish and gas. Wow. From rags to riches.

I went to school the day before to get my coffee machine so I wouldn´t suffer too badly. I ended up using it to heat my chicken soup for dinner. I boiled eggs and cooked porridge in it next morning. Not a bad emergency cooker but you have to plan ahead and start before you get hungry.