Progreso/Chelem/Chuburna

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Autumn Comes Even to Yucatán

I can’t believe I’m down to my last weeks here!

Unfortunately, my house move isn’t going to go as planned/hoped for. After starting off super strong, September (and the past several months!)’s workflow dried up overnight and October is promising to be more of the same. For the first time in ages, I have to take things day by day. Thankfully, I’ve so far been able to pretty much fill all my work days, but I forgot how stressful it is to sit and wait for work to come in!

I have touched base with all my clients to confirm that they’re just slow and that there’s nothing wrong with my performance and was suitably reassured. Usually, I can just enjoy these slow periods and the free time they bring, but finances are super tight, as one can imagine they would be at this setting up a home stage. So this means I’m focused on essentials only right now and have to be prepared to move into the house pretty much as-is. Thankfully, I have everything I need to be comfortable!

I’m again super grateful that I rented a house with so much good furniture. I don’t care that I’ll have to keep cooking on a hot plate for the foreseeable future, not when I have three comfortable places to sit and dine, a proper workstation, a bed (even if it’s in the wrong room), a couch to relax on, and a fridge to keep the beer cold!

A certain someone did send me a housewarming gift (thank you again!) and I am watching the classifieds so I can spend it on either shelving for my kitchen or a storage solution for the master bath! And, of course, I’m still planning to move and paint the desk before the end of the month. 🙂

That’s what’s going on on the new house front. There was some excitement here in Chelem over the weekend in that I had to take Puppy to the vet. He’s thankfully okay and our bond has strengthened since he was such a good boy on his adventure. I sure am going to miss him! It was really gratifying to be able to handle the whole situation in Spanish although it took a few tries before the vet thought to say “Does he have an anti-scratching necklace?” for me to understand that she meant a flea collar!

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last year or so pet sitting and I’m glad to have had my only real vet emergency at the end of it or I might never have done this again. Pet owners: empower your pet sitters! It was really reassuring to have permission and funds to do what needed to be done to give Puppy the best care possible. Again, he’s fine and this was not a life or death situation, but it was still not much fun to have to tell a pet owner that their baby is in less than optimum condition!

At any rate, to my surprise, even here in the tropics, it is most definitely autumn. The days are super short — it’s fully dark around 6:45, meaning that I have to do my outdoor chores much earlier in the day and then finish my work quite late to make up for the long lunch — a great way to ease myself into more of a Mexican schedule! It’s also surprisingly chilly in the evening and the pool has been downright cold! I don’t enjoy an after dark before bed swim anymore and it’s even not that nice at 4ish. Today, I swam around 2ish and didn’t last long. Quite surprising!

Here is a photo I took on Saturday evening (last evening in September). In Mexico, there are palm trees at the end of the rainbow….

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Spoiler: In Which I Get a Mexican Bank Account (and 21st Century Connectivity)

Yesterday was an absolutely insane work day. I woke up thinking I had at most two hours to do of typing only to receive an actual call from a client in a panic — one of her typists got in a bad accident and was out of commission, leaving a mountain of work that needed to be done. The amount of money I was offered to work a 14-hour day was worth it and, thankfully, the files were easy and mostly interesting. But even with how committed I was, there was really too much to do in one day and I was grateful to have a few hours to finish up this morning.

That done, just as I was about to head out, I got a text about the shelving I was going to go pick up — apparently the husband sold them under his wife’s nose. 🙁 She was quite upset and sent me pictures of other shelving she had for sale, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. At least she got me before I left and drove to the very south of Mérida!

Since I now had some extra time, I loaded a few more things into the truck, including the shelves for my bookcases so there will be less to move on furniture moving day (possibly this weekend).

I then headed to the house and got there around 11:30 after stopping at the bank. The maintenance man was there doing a final clean, which was really appreciated. I’ll still want to go over everything, but he did a lot of the heavy scrubbing for me, especially in the guest shower. This was his final visit to the house and I got his keys after. The house is all mine now! 🙂

Since I expected to not have internet and wanted to go to the internet office in person (since I had such a hard time understanding the rep on Saturday), I’d parked on the street instead of wrangling Moya into a parking bay. So imagine my delight that I had internet and phone service! I promptly did some downloads to test my internet and called my mother to test my phone (again, I can call Canada from both the cell and the landline at no extra cost).

I cannot believe how easy and fast it was to get my internet service! Yes, today is a week from when I had the techs come in, but remember that I haven’t been at the house. If I was actually living there, I would have known something was wrong by Thursday morning, called, and solved the problem straightaway.

Since 50Mbps was the last reasonably priced speed, after which costs went up exponentially, I decided to start with that. I was delighted that I just about get that speed with wifi:

I Facetimed with my parents later in the day using my phone to give them a virtual tour of the house and while the connection wasn’t perfect, I had service all over the property. Woohoo!

Compare that to my speeds in Chelem:

The connection in Chelem has been absolutely fine! Really! It’s very stable and except for a few outages and uploads being a tad painful, I’ve been satisfied. I mean, I can watch Netflix without buffering! But it really was great to download and upload in a blink while doing my tests in Mérida!

My landlady showed up around 1:00 and we did a final walkthrough. Then, she suggested that we go to the bank together in her car and that she would drop me off later. I said that I definitely wanted to go with her, but that I’d make my own way back since I was meeting very near the bank a guy selling a faucet.

We got to the bank, HSBC, at just shy of two and waited and waited. There was a gentleman ahead of me in line and by 2:10, I knew I wasn’t making my appointment at three. Well, imagine that the guy let me go ahead of him! He said he’d been waiting for 2.5 hours (OMG) and that an extra 30 minutes wasn’t going to kill him. I still can’t believe that.

The bank rep had to speak to his manager and a few other people before he could confirm that he could open the account for me on a residente temporal visa. The manager said that if I had my passport, migratory document, proof of residency, and an existing client right there to vouch for me, we could proceed. I did have to explain that my FMM (“tourist card”) had been changed for the residente temporal card.

I was a bit shocked, though, that even for their most basic account I had to deposit 2,500 pesos and was thankful I’d gotten some cash earlier or that would have been embarrassing. Other banks I looked at only wanted a 1,000 peso deposit. I was reassured that I would have access to those funds within 24 hours, but warned that if I don’t keep a 2,500 peso balance, I’ll have to pay 100 pesos per month in account fees instead of only 30 pesos. Business is slow right now, the current US-CAD exchange rate is killing me, and expenses are high, so I’ll take door number one please. 🙂

My account will be linkable with PayPal (for which I’ll need a separate Mexico account) and I’ll have online banking (including the ability to pay bills), and a debit card. Seems very similar to having an account in Canada. I do know that Mexican accounts tend to nickel and dime their clients, so I have to go over my account documents very carefully to make sure I understand all the fees.

While the mountain of virtual paperwork was being filled out, the faucet guy texted to let me know he was at the meeting point, a full 30 minutes early. I apologised to the bank man and my landlady and quickly dealt with that, telling the guy I’d probably be a few minutes late and begging him to wait. He said no problem.

Once all the paperwork was completed (and I’d convinced the guy that I don’t need to sign any IRS forms), I was handed my debit card and was able to encode it with my chosen PIN. That was pretty funny — the guy said to enter your “NIP” and then he caught himself and said, “I think you call it a PIN?” I replied, “Actually, I’m French-Canadian and do my banking in French, so it’s definitely a NIP!”

The meeting went very well, linguistically speaking. I sometimes had to ask for clarifications and my landlady had to translate (ie. repeat what was said in different words), but, really, I could have done this on my own if I’d had to.

Once everything was signed, it was 3:00 and I had to go to the teller window to deposit my 2,500 pesos. Thankfully, there was no wait for that! And I had another one of those lovely moments where someone was a bit brusque with me at the start of a transaction and then completely softened as he realised we could communicate.

Done, I was going to race off to the meeting point, but my landlady said that was ridiculous and to get in her car. En route, I texted the guy that, “I’ll be there in five minutes in a yellow car!” and he replied with, “I’m blind if I miss you then!” We pulled up and the guy was exactly where he said he’d be, in front of a hospital right by where I rented an apartment last February. That was fantastic because I knew where I was meeting him and how to get to a bus to get me home. So I thanked my landlady for her help and sent her on her way. She’s amazing. 🙂

The faucet appeared to be exactly what I wanted so I bought it. The guy bought the wrong model for his house so it’s brand new. Here it is:

It really looks strange — the faucet part is like what I imagine for a kitchen, but the handle is more for a bathroom. I really hope that it fits. If not, I’m sure I can sell it for what I paid for it and start over. 🙂 There are two covers for the holes in the sink where the existing taps are, so that reassures me. Anyway, I’ll see what my installer has to say and for 324 pesos (22 CAD) I think it was worth the gamble. It really feels nice and solid. (Edited to add: I just Googled how to tell a kitchen and bathroom faucet apart and the first link showed nearly exactly my model of faucet as being for a kitchen!)

I’d thought to hang around Centro for a bit, but it was an exceptionally hot day (you know the weather’s not normal when the locals are complaining!) and the faucet was heavy. I didn’t want to look for a bus, so I just went to the Hyatt on Calle 60 as I knew for sure I could get a bus there. Sure enough, the first bus that pulled up was definitely going to my part of town. It was only a 3.3KM ride and cost me 8 pesos (0.55CAD). At that price, it’s really not worth driving to centro and I plan to use the bus a lot, although I’ll probably use cabs to go to other parts of town. The bus system here really isn’t very good and the buses are in really dangerous condition anyway, so I’m not as keen to learn the bus routes as I was in Maz.

By the time I’d given my parents the virtual tour of the house, I really had to get going as Puppy was going to be needing his supper. I did stop at Chedraui for coffee and Costco for (almond) milk and a slice of pizza. I usually just get sauce and cheese, but they had a new flavour that I just had to try even if I had to wait five minutes. You see, my absolute favourite pizza topping for non-Italian pizza (what you find on this side of the pond at places like Dominos or Little Caesar) are red onion, pineapple, and sweet Italian sausage. You can’t get sweet Italian sausage here, but Costco came close, with their new pizza having red onion, pineapple, and… al pastor meat! OMG, it was so good. 🙂 I’m not crazy about the sauce on the Costco pizza (way too tomato paste-y), but as long as they’ve got the al pastor version, that’s where I’m getting my pizza fix. 🙂

I missed a rainstorm while I was in Costco and drove home in increasingly blue skies. Puppy was glad to see me!

Well, now that the challenges of renting a home, opening a bank account, and ordering internet service are behind me, it’s time for some new ones. Next on the list are healthcare coverage and a driver’s license!

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Wonderful Gifts

I headed to my house this morning. First stop was the DHL office in Xcumpich. You really can’t miss it in the direction I was coming from because there is a huge yellow wall with DHL written on it. I almost missed the entrance into the parking lot, though. My truck really is too big for town and I’m always happy when I find a little shopping plaza like this with widely spaced stalls, lots of room to back up, plenty of parking, and only one way and out, making for easy circulation.

The outlet was neat and well organised, a place I’ll be happy doing business. I told the clerk my tracking number and gave him my ID. He had no trouble finding the package and then I signed for it. Later, I got an email from Amazon confirming that someone by my name had picked up the package…

I then headed home eager to see what gifts my landlady had left for me. When I saw this on my front porch, I almost started crying, I was so grateful:

This was pretty much the last thing I expected to find — a cute little bistro set for my back patio!!!

Now, I don’t need to move the furniture from the other terrace. AND this is something I really hoped I could find at some point. My hosts here have a bistro set and I just love it. I don’t know what it is about sitting up with my feet off the ground, but it’s a different experience than sitting at a regular-height table. I love having my coffee and checking my emails outside on slower mornings and I’ll be able to continue that. So happy. 🙂

Why is there only one chair? Well, now I’m not in a hurry to buy a bar stool! It’s not clear from the picture, but the chairs are pink! 🙂

She also left this little table that while not a necessity is a nice-to-have. I can imagine putting a plant or decorative object on it:

There is one really nice light sconce in the hallway/stairwell area:

I doubt that it is a coincidence that this lamp she also left me matches the sconce perfectly:

Yay for a lamp! Now that I think about it, I imagine I could use that glass table as an end table by my Poang chair and use the lamp for reading. 🙂

So that was the good news when I showed up. The bad news is the internet wasn’t working. After a very frustrating call to technical support, I think I understood that they can’t help me until Monday. I’m not impressed, of course, but I recognise that if I’d been at the house on Thursday or Friday, I could have gotten the ball rolling faster. Anyway, I expected hiccups like these and that’s why I started the process so early.

After dealing with that, I texted the gal selling the shelving to make sure I could still come by and while waiting for a reply I brought in a few boxes (and my Poang chair) from the truck. When she got back to me, it was to say that she was really sorry, but she couldn’t meet me today after all. She’s at the way southern end of Mérida and I really didn’t feel like going out there today, but I want those shelves. I told her that I’m in no hurry, but I really want turquoise ones. If she can hang on to them till Wednesday, they’re as good as sold. She promised that she won’t sell them to anyone else and we made tentative plans to meet up Wednesday…

Then, I decided to make one last pass at the sink. Getting it replaced would be super cheap, but that’s still money I could spend elsewhere and I also really wanted to make an effort and not just throw money at a problem simply because so many things here are so inexpensive. That’s no excuse to be wasteful. Well, I’ve spent some time on DIY forums and come to the realisation that the steel wool I’ve been using is way too abrasive to actually buff the sink. Everyone recommended the green scrubby pads, preferably in the Scotch brand, for buffing.

Boy do I wish I had properly documented the sink’s transformation…

When I first viewed the house, the sink had rust spots and the drainboard was entirely rusty. You couldn’t even see any silver. It was all dark orange. It completely put me off the house, it was so bad.

I don’t have a good shot of it after someone went at it with steel wool prior to my second viewing, but it was quite remarkable that they got the drainboard back to silver:

I scrubbed some more with steel wool and Barkeeper’s friend, finishing with vinegar, but the sink was still augh and the drainboard ew.

And now today, after buffing with with a green Scotchbrite pad and Barkeeper’s friend, a scraper tool I just happened to find in my truck, and then with a soft cloth and vinegar:

Yeah. That’s what I thought too. And it wasn’t even as much elbow grease as you’d think. Now, I just need to wax it to seal it. The taps are still going though!

I decided to set off in search of wax. First stop was the Super Aki a few blocks down. This is a small, but “proper” supermarket. It will be so great to have it right there for staples.

En route, I passed an ice cream vendor in a peddle cart. He had coco or elote (sweet corn). I know I need to try the elote at some point, but I had coco in a sugar cone. What a great treat!

Super Aki didn’t have any wax, but I picked up some lovely pink hangers for my master closet-room and some garbage bags. I then walked up Calle 20, a main thoroughfare, hoping one of the chicken stands would be open that early (almost noon). No luck and no car parts place either. There was one other chicken place sort of on my way home if I essentially wanted to walk around the block, so I decided to check it out and they were open! Half a chicken with rice, coleslaw (!), and tortillas was $50.

I came in and eagerly tucked into my meal. The chicken was amazing. I forgot how good is Mexican charcoal chicken. The rice was a bit bland and the coleslaw not quite to my taste. So good chicken, not great sides. I’ll have to try a few other places. But I definitely got my $50 worth!

After lunch, I decided to go for a walk down Calle 60 to see if I could find a car parts place, but the only possibility was closed. I meandered my way back home through small streets, marvelling at the economic diversity of my neighbourhood, with stunning homes built right by literal shacks.

I then headed out, stopping at Bodega Aurrera for some much needed groceries, before pointing Moya towards Chelem where, exhausted as I was, I could not resist a puppy who greeted me with a toy for us to play. 🙂

It was another good day in Mérida except for one bit of really distressing news that is making me consider reneging on my lease:

Someone in the neighbourhood just got a rooster.

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FedEx vs. DHL in Mexico for Amazon Orders

Some months ago, I failed at getting an Amazon delivered order here in Chelem. Actually, the failure was on FedEx’s part. Despite having very clear directions and my phone number, they could not be arsed to get the package to me nor would they agree to let me pick it up, saying their depot isn’t set up for that. I ended up sending the package back to Amazon and Amazon left some generous credits on my account to try again.

One of the items in the order was a Moleskine notebook that I now find myself needing again, having nearly exhausted the notebook I bought locally to make do. With Amazon’s credits, buying the notebook online made tons of sense as it would be fully half what I would have paid had the local bookstore brought it in for me. So I ordered the notebook on Tuesday and paid a ludicrous (as in I can’t believe how cheap it was) $150 for overnight delivery to my house in Mérida since I was planning to be there on Wednesday.

Then, we had an earthquake. Amazon’s depot is northwest of Mexico City, so probably not really impacted by the earthquake in terms of damages, but certainly in terms of telecommunications and roadway access.

Thursday, Amazon emailed to let me know my package had shipped and I was being credited the $150 since I would not get the package until Monday.

So imagine my shock when I got a phone call later Thursday (which I just realised was yesterday — it’s been a couple of long and full days!) from DHL here in Mérida saying they hadn’t been able to deliver my package! I was a bit shocked, needless to say! Shocked that it was here so fast and shocked that they’d called.

I told the man that I would not be at my house until next Wednesday and asked if I could pick up the package since that would be easier for everyone. He said yes and hung up before I could ask him where.

This morning, I checked my tracking number and my package status had changed from failed delivery attempted to “ready to be picked up by client.” Still no address. I thought that they might have left me a little paper at the house, but I wanted to know now where it is because they might be open on Saturday and it might be more convenient to go there first thing tomorrow and rather than going first to the house.

I went to the contact page on the DHL website and was going to call when I saw a chat option. I much prefer chatting to speaking to someone, so I tried that. I put in the package tracking number and asked where I could pick it up. I had to wait about five minutes for someone to respond with an address in a place I can’t even pronounce: Xcumpich.

I put “Xcumpich DHL” into Google Maps and it promptly spitted out a location… between Chedraui and Bodega Aurrera that is open between nine and one tomorrow. Talk about convenient! It’s barely a detour to swing by there on the way to the house tomorrow so I don’t care that I’ll have to go back later in the day to get my groceries.

It’s been quite a journey to get that notebook, but considering that they are 30CAD plus tax in Canada and about 60CAD here in store and that I’m getting it for 10CAD, all the hard work has been worth it! And before anyone asks, yes, it is a special type of notebook. 🙂

I’m glad I planned to go to the house tomorrow — my landlady no longer has keys for it, only for the main person gate from the street, and she just texted me to say that she left me some presents in the parking area, “a small table, a few chairs, and a lamp.” Very curious to see what they are! Considering how nice everything else she’s left me has been, I’m optimistic!

It’s been a couple of really busy days, so I went to La barca tonight for a few beers and a burger (the worst of the three I’ve had and still really good with super thick bacon — yum!). It was the first time I’ve ever had to request ketchup and let me say I did a double take when I uttered the word catsup out loud — it’s “cat soup”!!! That struck me as rather funny.

Sunset down my street this evening (not as pink as in reality):

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Precautions Against Moving to Progreso, Mexico

Progreso might be paradise for retired expats, but it is most certainly not for someone who works full time and needs a basic level of stability of services. The town (and its suburbs) has major infrastructure changes due to problems (ie. corruption) at the administrative level. I’ve been following things closely on social media and by talking with both Mexican and expat neighbours. It’s really bad and, frankly, I wouldn’t want to be paying taxes and utility bills here because there are problems at all levels of services in Progreso including, but not limited to:

  • Garbage collection, which is almost non-existent. To avoid it piling up, I have to take it to the dump myself.
  • Being so far behind on the water bill to the provider that most residents have had no water all summer — not just on the beach but in town as well — despite paying their own bills (where is that money going is the question everyone’s asking). Thankfully, the owners of this house had the foresight to install a well.
  • The beach communities like where I am have poor internet service — very slow and extremely expensive because there is no hardwired service. It’s not quite as bad as in Canada because customer service is really good and there are few outages, but the speed and price are unacceptable for this country.
  • The power grid is extremely fragile.

Which brings me to today. We lost power at 7PM last night and, of course, the emergency line wasn’t working (overwhelmed by the situation in the earthquake zone or just useless? I’ve never been able to reach anyone with it.).

Since it is impossible to be comfortable in this house without AC, my first instinct was to bug out for the day, but it is extremely expensive for me to drive back and forth to Mérida. I hadn’t scheduled a trip for today and wouldn’t have been able to maximize my trip, plus I wouldn’t have had time to do today everything I planned to do tomorrow on top of my work. So I made the decision to stay put and swelter (there isn’t any patio furniture suitable for doing transcription so working on the terrace is out of the question).

I called the power office in Progreso when they opened at eight and, unlike last time, I got a helpful person who didn’t hang up on me. It took a bit of effort because she was using technical terms I didn’t know, but after a bit of back and forth and my running out to get a few of my neighbours’ metres, she was finally able to confirm that there was a total outage in my immediate area and promised me service at some point today.

CFE Peninsular later reached out to me on Twitter to let me know that they were dispatching crews and to confirm that the issue was my entire block, not just my house (ie. not just an issue with the so-called “smart” metre that is actually super dumb). I had to trek out to a neighbour with an analogue metre and confirm that it wasn’t getting any power either before they agreed to escalate the issue since it wasn’t just the house here. Power finally returned around 10:15.

My vocabulary for dealing with such matters is super lacking, but, thankfully, I’m good at describing things and Mexicans are generally patient enough to do the same if I don’t understand a key word. For example, the woman in Progeso was talking about my neighbours’ something and I could not understand what she meant. It was only when she said, “the equipment that gives your house power!” that I realised she meant the metre!  I just went to Translate and with a bit of work found that she was using the word “medidor” — measurer. I have successfully heard and used “contador” — counter, which his a literal translation from the French compteur — but medidor was a definitely a new word. If I had taken two seconds to sound it out and write it out, I would have come to the verb medir — to measure — on my own and made the connection, but at any rate, we finally got there and I have power!

Folks who haven’t been following me for a while might find me a bit ridiculous. Oh, what’s a day without power (which also means no water and internet), toughen up, bla bla bla. Those who have followed me for a while know that I’m very good at living without power, water, and other utilities when I’ve planned for it. But that’s not where I am in my life right now. My growing business demands that I live somewhere with infrastructure stability, which had a big part to play in my choosing where I was going to move. Frankly, this is the level of service that I’d expect in a poorer or more remote part of Mexico, certainly not a bustling suburb of a sizeable and important community in the rich state of Yucatán.

Progreso really is a dream retirement destination for some folks I’ve met and they are not bothered by the service deficiencies because they have other, more important, needs that are met by living here. I’m just thankful to have had the chance to try out beach life before committing to living in Mérida. I’m so grateful to my hosts for having given me this incredible gift of time to try out life up here so that I could rent in what should be exactly the right area for me. Because Mérida is not without problems either, but my neighbourhood appears to be well out of the parts of town that are constantly dealing with flooding and other issues…

Back to work I go. I took some time this morning to pack a few kitchen boxes and to make an appointment to go look at some turquoise shelving units tomorrow morning. Things continue to fall into place!