Cost Saving Measures, Mexico Style

Ah, peace at last. We just get into our gorgeous new temporary One-Pound Garbanzo Bean apartment (read the last entry if this is confusing), and we’re ready to settle in. Being a new place, we need a few new, well, necessities: soap, paper towels, pillows, something to eat, you know the drill. We decided to run to Costco to look for pillows and anything else on our list that was cheaper and less than a three-year supply, go to a grocery store, and head home to make dinner. To illustrate the convenience of our new abode: Costco was all of ten minutes away, with two different supermarkets right around the corner. We went to Costco and found some awesome memory-foam pillows, for fairly cheap (although they were about twice the cost of the practically free regular pillows there). Iti was a little worried the pillows were too thick, but I was totally sold on them, so we bought them figuring she could sleep on one still in plastic and we could return it if she didn’t like it. When I got into the car to drive to the supermarket, I noticed the gas indicator was on empty.

And I’m not talking “just starting to brush softly against the E, a gentle caress in the morning”.

I’m talking “if it leans any further to the left the needle will snap and explode out of the dashboard”.

So I’m like “Whoa, we are WAY low on gas, we need to stop”. Iti deftly replies “Don’t worry, I have it all planned out: we’ll hit this grocery store on our way home, then there’s a gas station right around the corner, and then it’s a block back to our place”. I persist that we should stop sooner because it looks really REALLY low, to which she replies “the gas light hasn’t even come on yet”.

True dat.

It’s getting close to dusk, and we’re on this winding three-lane one-way street heading to the grocery store. We get around a blind curve (the buildings are all at least 3-4 stories and right up on the sidewalk here) and JUST get in sight of the grocery store, when the car dies. Violently, bloodily keels over. Well, not really; it just dies, with every warning light on the dash coming immediately to life. Except, of course, a low gas light. There was even one light that I have NO idea what it’s supposed to mean: it kind of looks like a car getting blasted by Electro or some other Marvel comic evil super-villain. Pretty cool, huh? That must be the Mexican “Whoa dude, your car is REALLY messed up now” indicator.

Fortunately we were just around a blind curve, so all the cars speeding like mad couldn’t see us until it was way too late to brake. (Somehow, the car didn’t get hit). And fortunately, when I jump out to push it, I notice that we’re pointing slightly uphill, and of course in the left-most lane. (Somehow, I didn’t get hit). Now for the real fortune: there were about four diagonal parking places in front of a shop about two car lengths ahead. To ruin my delight, there was a curb. I strained and groaned and couldn’t get the car nudged uphill over that damn curb, so Iti had to get out and help push from the door while steering. I damn near ruptured something, but we got over the curb and into a parking space, and nobody even died this time.

One nice thing is that road-side assistance came included with our brand-new, one-month-old, 2008 Chevy 4-door sedan. So, naturally, Iti calls the road-side assistance for, well, assistance. After a few seconds she’s talking rapid-fire in Spanish, I’m totally lost, so I’m only getting the story every few minutes when she’s on hold with the wench. But, this is roughly how the conversation went:

Iti: “Hi, our car broke down and we need help”.
Wench: “What seems to be the problem?”
Iti: “We were driving along and the car stalled, every light on the dash came on. We were low on gas, but the low gas light didn’t come on, the car just stalled.”
Wench: “OK, what’s wrong with the car?”
Iti (fuming): “Uh, what?!? YOU’RE THE ROAD SIDE ASSISTANCE! YOU TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE !#@! CAR!!!”
Wench: “What would you like me to do?”
Iti: “HELP US!!!!”
Me (thinking, to the Wench): “If you died and ate a big steamy pile of &^$%, I’m pretty sure that would help my outlook on life right about now.”
Wench: “Well, if you need gas, I can send out someone with a gas can to sell you gas.”
Iti: “I don’t know if we need gas.”
Wench: “I could send somebody out to tow the car to a dealer, but they won’t have a gas can.”
Iti: “I don’t know if it needs a mechanic to fix it!?!?!!!”
Wench: “OK, I’ll send someone out to jump the car. What kind of a car is it?”

It went on and on and on like this for literally like an hour. The wench would start to take the information on the car: 4-door silver Chevy, 2008, 2000km, license blah blah blah, filling out a form to send out a tow truck or something. But, the tow truck doesn’t have gas or jumper cables; the guy to jump the car doesn’t have a gas can; and the guy with the gas can doesn’t carry jumper cables and can’t tow. They send out one of three different guys depending on what you need; we don’t know what we need so we have no way of knowing if something will in fact help us. The worse part is, if she sends someone out say to jump the car, we wait 45 minutes. If that doesn’t work, we have to call back, and it takes ANOTHER 45 minutes to get someone else out to us. The WORST part is, each one is a different form in the wench’s computer system, and the start of each form is information on the car. So the dumb @!## is going back and forth between the forms, and like eight times she asks us ‘What kind of car?”. By about the forth time Iti was screaming into the cell phone “IT’S A FREAKING FOUR-DOOR SILVER CHEVY, 2008!!!!”.

Wow.

About the third time she put us on hold to order a tow we weren’t sure we needed, Iti turns to me in a panic: “My phone is pre-pay, and I’m almost out of credit! I think it might die before I’m done with her!” I cleverly reply “Let’s call your dad and have him call us back.” “I can’t! I’m on the phone with this stupid wench you FREAKING MORON!!!” Or something like that.

So, we’re sitting there outside the car, the sun is going down, and finally we agree to have the wench send out someone with gas. Iti had this vague recollection that when her mom had the older version of our car, it broke down when it was low on gas but not out. They had to fill it up and reset something in the computer to get the car to work again, so she thinks. So, fine, let’s try the gas. It then, of course, begins to rain.

We get in the car and call Iti’s dad. She has him call us back (you can receive calls with no credit, the caller gets charged), and explains the situation. We’re worried that if we need a tow, a). we have a trunk full of stuff from Costco we need, like the pillows b). it’s raining c). I have to get taken to the airport the next morning to go back to Raleigh for work. She asks him to come get us and help us take our crap home. His reasonable response is “What if they fill you up with gas and it starts? Then I’m wasting like 45 minutes to get out there”. This of course upset Iti slightly, but we agreed that if the gas didn’t work, we’d call him to come get us, and he could call for the tow if her phone ran out of credit.

Iti figured that the person with gas would probably be some kid on a moped, and it’s raining, so who knows HOW long this could take. And then it starts raining harder.

And harder.

And HARDER.

I’m talking like Noah and the Ark, wrath of God, the world is gonna end RAINING outside. We’re huddled in the car, and the BRIGHEST flash of lightning I’ve ever seen lights up the sky, with a crack of thunder like a gas tanker exploding. All the lights in the block go out. So then I get the fun for the next 20 minutes of explaining to Iti that you’re actually very safe in a car during a lightning storm, while she’s, uh, “slightly upset”.

We sit there, and an hour later, before the car floats away on the new river which formed in the street, the gas person comes. Fortunately the poor bastard had a car, not a moped, with a nice heavy rain poncho to boot. He comes up, we roll down the window and explain our story; car just dies suddenly, low on gas, not sure if that’s the problem, gas light didn’t come on when everything else on the dashboard lit up.

The dude nonchalantly says to us “Didn’t you know? This model car doesn’t have a low-gas light”.

Really? REALLY?!?

Come ON people! You gotta be freakin’ KIDDING me, right? How could you not splurge on the extra dime to put in a stupid freaking “Hey moron, put gas in your car, you’re running on fumes and the car’s about to die” low gas light in the car????? This car kills me. Like, they couldn’t spend the mega-bucks to put in a left turn and right turn light on the dash. There’s one light, with an arrow on both ends, that flashes for left turn signal, right turn signal, and hazard lights. Did that REALLY improve your profit margins that MUCH on the stupid f#@!&!# car? Was it cheaper than paying some dude to drive out in an epic natural disaster to give us some gas? Well done people!!! Well done.

Of course he fills us up and the car starts like a champ, we’re on our way. Uh, babe? Next time, let’s fill up when the gauge reads a quarter tank, OK?

We go to the grocery store, and of course it’s a cluster $!@!. The parking is covered, with an opening for two-way traffic that’s wide enough for one motor scooter to pass through (carefully). We had to wait like half an hour to park, and it took me a 27-point turn to get into the incredibly tight parking spot. Going to the airport the next morning was fun too; with all the rain, we had to cross three flooded intersections that resembled rivers more than major city streets. I’m just glad the car didn’t float away.

Or run out of gas.

Until next time,
A Chicago Gringo in Mexico

Nirvana!!!! A One Pound Garbanzo

When I moved to Mexico, Iti and I moved in with her parents, Miriam and Arturo. Money was put down on a new-construction apartment that was SUPPOSED to be ready when Iti got here a month before me. It wasn’t ready, and wasn’t ready, and wasn’t ready, due to more tangled Mexican bureaucracy and inefficiency. It’s a bunch of long stories that I won’t get into here; we’ve spent enough time and grief on this stupid freaking apartment.

After a month of imposing on our family, we totally lucked out. Iti’s aunt Maggie’s boss is a woman who lives with her husband in a fantastic neighborhood in Mexico City. They own a duplex (two-flat in Chicago-speak), and they didn’t currently have renters for the ground-floor apartment. Maggie told us about the place, and told her boss Ellen about us, and so…

We get a GORGEOUS one bedroom apartment!!! Yay! The place is really breathtaking. It’s a block away from Chapultepec, the biggest park in Mexico City. You go the other direction, and there are literally TONS of great cafes, restaurants, and stores within walking distance. It takes me less time to walk to a café from my bedroom than it took us to take the elevator down to the garage at Iti’s parents’ place. The place itself is beautiful- very cool rustic Mexican décor: nice tiles on the floors and in the kitchen and bathroom, cool rustic wooden desks and chests everywhere, great patios with awesome plants and flowers. This place has it all! It’s fully furnished, the kitchen is stocked with great dishes, it has secure parking for us, and to top it all off the rent is unbelievably low for the city, and they let us rent month to month! They told us we could stay for as little as one month and as long as we want, whatever we need. Amazing. The only down side is we needed to put my desk in the dining room, which for me is a small price to pay.

Iti, not so much…

Arturo took one look at the place and said it is “un garbanzo de a libra” which is an old saying that roughly translates to “it’s like finding a one-pound garbanzo bean”. It really is that amazing we found such a great place at such a great price! Welcome to the One-Pound Garbanzo! Click on the photo at the top to see an album of our sweet new pad in the city.

It’s only one bedroom, but if you don’t mind a couch and want to see a truly amazing neighborhood in the city, you should visit while we still have the One-Pound Garbanzo!

A Chicago Gringo in Mexico

Statue of Timidity Shots

Many people have requested more pictures on this blog. Here's some of the climb up the statue of Morelos (it was forbidden to take pictures inside the statue so we only have ones from the very top where it was ok).

Sex Shop Bell Hop

OK, my nerves are almost settled down after climbing the statue of Morelos. After a quick stop in a teeny tiny town to see a cool old church, look for a bathroom, and watch some complete moron take off his radiator cap too soon when his car overheated (it was like watching Old Faithful go off; I’m amazed we didn’t get to see anyone get cooked), I learned an important lesson. I found my Spanish still isn't quite up to snuff; for the life of me I couldn't understand the woman asking "should I serve the hot chocolate now, or do you want to wait for the red-head?" Sigh.

After I found the red head/universal translator and we got the hot chocolate to go (actually really bad atole, a traditional hot drink), we took off and twenty minutes later rolled into Morelia. It’s a city of just over half a million, but the downtown area is a Unesco World Heritage Site: tons of old colonial buildings, the governor’s palace, a great many churches and a huge cathedral, plus the old Roman-style aqueduct that used to supply all the water to the city. Sadly, we came here a few days after a terrorist attack, where seven people were killed and many others were injured. Lots of friends and family expressed concern over us going to Morelia right after this incident.

Iti’s dad’s take: “Now is the best time to go there. It won’t be so crowded!”

I gotta say, I’m with Arturo on this one.

We had the plan of driving into town and cruising or walking around to find a hotel. We get into the main square with the big cathedral (our Nuvi GPS had a hard time understanding what streets we were on, but all in all was more helpful than annoying), and OH MY GREAT FLIPPING GOODNESS the traffic was bad. Yeah, clearly there were no tourists because everyone was too afraid to come here. I was lucky enough to be driving; it was REALLY lucky that I don’t have any hair left, otherwise it would have all fallen out. I don’t know why it’s so hard in Mexico to a). put up traffic lights at busy intersections, and b). for people to OBEY traffic lights when they exist. Also, the whole way streets morph from one way to two way to one way… I need a drink just thinking about it…

We stop off at the first hotel we see, right across from the cathedral. Yeah, should have been a warning sign, but we’re not that smart apparently. I somehow manage to find a spot on the street right in front that’s not in the valet area, to wait while Iti checks it out. Well, since there was the attack a few days ago, this hotel had a “special”- you could stay there for the bargain basement price of $1300 pesos (about a hundred and thirty bucks US). The normal rate was three thousand pesos!! A little out of our price range. We drove around for a while with similar results (not even bothering to go into the hotel advertising five stars on it’s sign on the other side of the cathedral, but I’m totally staying there after I win big in the lottery).

Frustrated and sick of traffic, we by some miracle find a free, legal parking spot (last one in the city) a couple blocks from the cathedral, and start walking to find a hotel. We really didn’t want to pay a hundred bucks or more, after paying about $45 US the night before in Patzcuraro. How hard can it be to find a decent hotel in Mexico that isn’t expensive? We go into the first place; very nice, great courtyard, cool vibe, almost a hundred for a crappy room off the courtyard as their “special” rate. Guess business isn’t so bad this weekend, huh boys? We go to the next hotel, and the concierge/desk jockey was snobbish and condescending as we tried to bargain. Seriously, isn’t it better to give us a room for 600 or 700 pesos rather than have it go empty? Apparently not.

We walked around for like an hour and a half, not finding that many places and striking out on the ones we did find. The cream of the crop was about ten minutes by foot away from the cathedral and Café Row. We walk by this hotel that looked pretty decent on the outside- nothing special but respectable and clean. For the convenience of the guests, there was a XXX adult video store across the street on the corner. Even more convenient were the two “working girls” on the corner outside the vid store, in case someone needed a more personal touch.

I don’t know what possessed us to look in the place, but we checked out a room for the heck of it. The good news was the rooms were only thirty-five bucks a night. The bad news is I needed penicillin after just looking at the place- I still have nightmares about the bathroom. OK, it wasn’t that bad, but “sketchy” is the most polite way to describe the joint. You couldn’t pay me enough to sit on the top of the bed let alone climb under the covers and sleep on it. Yuck.

A few more strike-outs later, after consulting the local tourist information booth, we find a brand-new hotel for I think 600 pesos or so a night, including parking and a pretty nice breakfast to boot. It was a little farther walk to the cathedral, but probably only about twelve minutes by foot. We headed out to enjoy the afternoon, walk around the town, and check out some of the sights. OF COURSE, we pass maybe thirty five THOUSAND hotels that we didn’t notice when we were tired and cranky and looking for a room. I didn’t have the heart to go into any of them and ask about rates…

We did go to an amazing restaurant that night for dinner. For people who came to our wedding, it reminded me of a smaller version of El Candelero in Mexico City, the restaurant we went to the Thursday before I got hitched. Amazing decor, great fountain, very nice menu… the only negative was when they started blasting weird techno music that didn’t fit the scene at all. Still, it was a great restaurant experience. I’d highly recommend visiting Morelia if you ever want to get off the beaten tourist path in Mexico.

Just stay away from the seedy hotel right by the porn shop.

A Chicago Gringo in Mexico

Statue of Timidity

We get to Patzcuaro, a cool little colonial town with roughly 27 churches per resident, and for the first time in awhile my laziness/impatience pays off. We grab basically the first hotel we find in “Plaza Chica” (the town has two main squares, the Big Square and the Little Square; how original), and the place is very nice. We bummed around that night, hitting places like the House with 11 Patios (very sweet), some cool churches, and a pretty swank restaurant where we were the only patrons. The big event was the next day: a trip out to the island of Janitzio. It’s about a thirty minute boat ride out to the island, where roughly every square millimeter is absolutely COVERED with buildings. It’s kind of crazy how steep the island is, and people decided “Hmm, pretty small island out in the middle of a big lake, steep as hell, hard to build… LET’S LIVE THERE!!!”

Rock on.

The highlight is the Statue of Morelos, a TOTAL rip-off of the Statue of Liberty. It’s on top of the island, with the right hand overhead holding a torch, the left crooked holding some kind of book or tablet. Yeah, REAL original people.

We go in and pay our two bucks (equivalent) to climb up the thing. Walking inside and looking up, my knees already start to shake. It’s made out of concrete and steel and other substantial-looking building materials, but for some reason gave me the impression it was ready to come down like a house of cards. It just seemed inherently unsafe. I don’t think that the architect actually thought it important the structure shouldn’t collapse on top of all the visitors. I think he secretly hated tourists and wanted to take us all out. The inside was basically 4-5 levels of murals with steep, narrow stairs going up to each one. There was BARELY a waist-high guard rail around each circular level, and the stairs were steep, slippery, barely wide enough for two people side by side, and had a hand rail on only one side.

This was a CAKE WALK compared to climbing up the torch though. It consisted of a spiral stair that wasn’t wide enough for ONE WAY traffic, but you had people going up and down. No hand rail of course, just a metal pole running from top to bottom with just enough room for you to take a one-way trip down the Fireman’s Pole of Death; Tarzan would have been afraid of this stairwell. After a ridiculously steep climb, wondering if you were going to die every time someone passed you, you get up to this small round chamber. You climb basically through a big hole in the floor of this room, with barely enough room to stand before you fall through the hole where the stairs start, getting a super wedgie from the Fireman’s Pole of Death on your way down. You have to carefully nudge your way around the forty people (and their unsupervised five year old kids) in a space big enough for two. Oh yeah, and the architect must have thought Napoleon was a giant; I damn near concussed myself on the very solid concrete ceiling. Then you can climb up on a knee-high ledge and stick your head and shoulders out of an opening to catch the view. The view was almost cool enough to make up for the three years of my life I lost from the terror of the experience. Amazingly, no one died while we were there, although I had to change my shorts after the climb back down… Maybe this is why they don’t let you take pictures inside: even in Mexico this would lead to law suits galore.

Until next time,
A Chicago Gringo in Mexico

Road Trippin’ Baby!!!

Nice, we’re done with not taking Iti’s ID picture at her university, and hitting the road for our first road trip since I got here. On deck: a weekend in Patzcuaro and Morelia, a town and a city (respectively) in Michoacan which is a state I haven’t yet visited. We get out on the road a little before lunch, with plans to stop for food in this one smaller city on the way. When we get there we called Iti’s dad for recommendations. He tries to hook us up with the best tortas in the whole wide world. Tortas are a particular type of Mexican sandwich; the type of bread is mostly what makes it a torta. They’re very yummy, you should definitely try one.

Well, when we called him we had passed the torta joint already, so settled for a nice restaurant downtown. But, we missed the exit so screwed that up nicely. We get out of town and Iti asks the toll collector where to go to eat: “My dad says always ask the toll people, they know the best restaurants”. Well they’re both right: the lady sends us to a taco restaurant just down the road.

I was stunned at how nice the place was. We’re literally out in the middle of NOWHERE, and there’s a row of little places for travelers. We get to this place, and it’s HUGE, and totally awesome! Very cool brick building, huge dining room inside, great rustic tile work, fancy wood chairs and tables, a fountain and sweet plants by the bathrooms, VERY nice bathrooms (a rarity out in the middle of nowhere in Mexico, let me tell you).

We sit down to get a menu and order, and the waitress brings out a couple barbacoa tacos as a little appetizer. Barbacoa is a traditional type of meat, usually goat meat, cooked a certain way with particular spices and such. We wind up in a barbacoa restaurant, in a region specializing in barbacoa. The menu was:

Barbacoa tacos
Barbacoa quesadillas
Alambre of barbacoa (basically a big pile of the meat with tortillas on the side)
Goat soup

A little tough to find fare for our resident vegetarian, my lovely wife. They did have quesadillas with rajas (mild chili pepper). We each got one (mine with cheese), and I got the soup and ate the “appetizer”. I discovered that I’m not a huge fan of barbacoa. But whatever, the place totally rocked! We ate our lunch then had some tunas (prickly pear cactus fruit) for dessert sitting under a tree outside on an absolutely gorgeous, sunny day.

The drive was just spectacular, and I mean SPECTACULAR. The mountains in that region are just breathtaking. Much larger, craggier, and more dramatic than the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, but much greener and lusher than the Colorado Rockies. The drive reminded me of the trip from Fort Collins to Steamboat in the summer, between Cameron Pass and Rabbit Ears Pass, but much nicer plants. And the FLOWERS! Oh my God. Brilliant wild flowers were growing everywhere along the side of the road. Corn fields had wild flowers springing up in their midst; the farmers probably hate the flowers, but I couldn’t get over how unbelievably pretty they made a corn field. There were stretches with really interesting trees, cool cacti in tons of varieties, gorgeous red cliffs (not sure if it was sandstone or what), and other cool rock formations: I’m telling you, just the drive would have made for a great trip. Between the views and the many cool tunes inspired by the scenery, not to mention that there’s rarely that much traffic on the toll roads, it was just the perfect road trip.

On to Patzcuaro!

A Chicago Gringo in Mexico

The Wonders of Mexican Bureaucracy

As we were heading out of town for our first road trip since arriving, Iti wanted to stop by the institute she works at, to get her ID photo taken; they had called her earlier in the week to say she needed to go to their office for her ID. Seems reasonable: it's September 19, she started work on Sept. 1, she got her acceptance letter like in June sometime. WELL, we stop off there for a "quick" photo, and things go to hell.

Fast.

She goes to the place (the place that called her, mind you) asking to get her ID picture taken. They were like "We never called you, we have no idea who you are, you can't get an ID photo because you don't work here". We spent about three hours at the Institute, most of them talking to the head of the math department, to figure out that:

1. Things are screwed up because she got offered first a lower-tiered job, then a higher position.
2. She accepted the higher position, but started out in their "system" (if you can credit anything this disorganized with that term) with the first, lower-paying job.
3. They called her to get an ID for the lower-paying job.
4. The math department head has counseled her to not officially turn down the first job until the second job is totally secured; i.e. she's signed a contract, has her ID, etc.
5. Until she turns down the first job (or at this point probably even if she does) it screws up getting the better job because she already has a job.

Grrr.

At least they let us into the parking lot without a hassle. Apparently, this is a rare occurrence; there is a gate with a guard that you have to get through to park, and since she doesn't have an ID or card access she has to show them her permission slip (an official looking piece of paper saying she does in fact work here, so let her in stupid). Sometimes they see the paper and let her in, sometimes they hassle her like it's a fake. Keep in mind it's usually one of TWO FREAKING GUYS who have seen her every morning for like three weeks at this point.

How hard is it to remember the one woman in all of Mexico City with bright red, curly hair???