Airports

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Today Was an Expensive Bust

I was up early to get L&N’s friend to the airport and was on the road heading to Maz by about 8:15. I had planned to spend part of the day at village called El Quelite a little north of Maz, but made an irreversible and expensive mistake: I got on the cuota (toll road) instead of the libre (free road). It doesn’t matter that it took me ages to realise that I wouldn’t be able to access the town from the cuota, I still ended up having to practically go halfway to Culiacán before I could turn around. This meant I had to go through the toll booth in both directions, which cost 109 pesos EACH WAY!!! 🙁

The Pole Palace night club sounds like a very classy establishment.

The Pole Palace night club sounds like a very classy establishment.

Mexican open top double decker bus... Yes, those are people poking out of the top of it!

Mexican open top double decker bus… Yes, those are people poking out of the top of it!

When I was finally able to turn around, it was at an oasis along the barren road, a Pemex/OXXO combo, where I was very glad to have access to a bathroom (which had paper, water, and soap, but no toilet seat) and to be able to get a coffee (which tasted not great; I’ve been so spoiled by Rico’s!).

Turning around, I thought I could salvage the day by visiting some petroglyphs L&N had mentioned and the access road for which I had passed on the way north, but this being the first day of spring, there were massive crowds. I was almost 5KM down the dirt track to the location when a cop signaled for me to pull over. I did so and he spoke very quickly to me.

I said, ¿Mande? and he looked at a loss for words and managed to get out in English that he doesn’t speak English. I shook my head and said that if he spoke slowly and used simple words I would understand. He tried again and I repeated what I had understood: I had to go to the end of the road, go around the parking lot, come back up the track, and park at the head of a long queue of cars. The cop grinned and said exactly.

So that’s what I did and let’s just say I had no desire to park almost 6KM from the entrance and hike down to something I had no details about when it was obviously a special day and people were heading out for the whole of it, with parasols and coolers.

I made it back to the cuota and drove straight to the Soriana off Mex-15 that I went to in December. I actually wanted to check out Mega, but did not have the energy at this point to brave the traffic down Rafael Buelna.

Soriana didn’t have much or, rather, I’m not in the mood to cook, so I pretty much just stocked up on paper goods, crackers, sliced ham, and kielbasa. Something told me to check my email before going into the store and I had a tiny order from Contessa, that I was able to fill. I am always glad to do that for people! When I would do my supply runs to  Whitehorse, I would often have full huge lists of shopping for people, hundreds of dollars’ worth… and I would have the favour returned when others did their supply runs.

I dropped Contessa’s things off and got in around 2:30. I had a beer while I read a bit, then I decided I was hungry and moved my reading to the El Velero restaurant where I made the mistake of filling up on chips (damn their awesome pico de gallo!) and limonda, not leaving me much room for my chicken tacos. So I brought most of the tacos home and will have a nice breakfast tomorrow.

Not counting any expenditures from Soriana onward, my day cost me about 500 pesos in tolls and fuel with absolutely nothing to show for it. Very disappointing. If I wasn’t driving such a gas guzzler, I would have enjoyed the drive, something I haven’t done much this winter, but all I could focus on was the gas gauge needle dipping lower and lower and lower. If El  Quelite had had anything really remarkable to see, I might have made a point to find my way to the libre and gone there after all, but there was really nothing that spectacular to see to justify the extra mileage.

I wish I had a navigator.  You can’t drive and navigate here, it’s too dangerous. A navigator would have been looking at the map for me and telling me to stay in the left lane while I worked at avoiding getting into an accident.

To be honest, I wish I had done what I wanted to do today: come home from the airport and go back to bed with a book. 🙁

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Airport Run

This afternoon, I went to pick up the a friend of L&N’s who was flying in from Winnipeg via Calgary. I left around 1:45 and by the time I backed out of the yard (first time doing it that way) and made it to The Road, it was 1:55, with one hour before the flight’s arrival.

The first 6KM of The Road were bad. Tons of big potholes. Then, there was a 1KM stretch of nicely graded gravel, then several kilometres of PAVEMENT. That short bit really showed me how life on Isla would change if road access to it was easier. After that, it was nice graded road all the way to pavement. I did The Road in a record 27 minutes!

I parked at the airport at 2:36, with 20 minutes till the arrival time. Rather than get a coffee, I decided to try the frozen yoghurt as I had come in rather overheated. It was ridiculously expensive at 65 pesos, but very yummy with lots of fresh fruit.

The plane was on a time, but for some reason everyone I pick up at the airport is the last to deplane! So I had a good 40 minutes to wait standing at the gate. The next time I pick up someone at the airport, I will tell them that I’ll be on the benches in front of Señor Frog reading on my iPad. Anyway, I caught up on all the Facebook gossip on my phone and had a very nice chat with some ladies who are here for a few weeks and were waiting for their daughters and grandchildren.

Once L&N’s friend arrived and we got the truck loaded, it was about 4:05. We made it to L&N’s at just about 4:30, so I obviously drove faster than on the way in since there is a long stretch on pavement between the airport and The Road. It helped that I knew where all the worst potholes were!

At the hotel, a boy offered to carry the very heavy bags up the 50 billion flights to the top of the building, which earned him a tip that he was quite grateful for. I accepted a beer, then left to let them all catch up.

Doing the airport pick up run really eats into the day, but it’s so nice to be able to drive! I hadn’t started Moya since the end of December and she started right up today! I’ll be doing the reverse run on the 21st, with the plan being to drop their friend off and continue on to Durango. We’ll see if I can pull that off! 🙂

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Delayed Flight Adventure

My cousin and her son were arriving from Monterrey (MX) today, due to arrive at 11:50. I left at 10:40 and didn’t think to check the flight status. I’m not kicking myself over that now that I know that the THREE HOUR DELAY was not announced until the flight had boarded at 11:00!

So there I was a the airport with absolutely nothing to do for three hours and no desire to pay for parking for all that time, especially since it’s a crappy airport for waiting because there is very little seating and no WiFi (I only have a little bandwidth left on my phone). The thought of making the 1.5 hour round trip journey to home on The Road to have an hour and a half there made no sense to me. The Road was actually in decent shape and I drove large chunks of it at 30KPH, but I really didn’t want to do it four times in one day!

I wanted to pick up toilet paper and paper towels, bulky items to carry on the panga since I like to buy them in bulk, and I knew that there is a Soriana about 20KM from the airport right off of Mx-15. So I headed there for my first time to actually shop in this Mexican equivalent of Walmart.

I knew that Soriana has food to eat on site, so I figured I could grab lunch there when I arrived. There was actually a little food court out front with Chinese, Mexican, Japanese, and Italian options! The sushi was too pricey for my current tight budget and pizza was really appealing. 30 pesos for a slice with a drink was expensive, but affordable.

The pizza wound up being surprisingly good! It had a very light spreading of a mild sauce very similar to what you find on New York style pizza and the cheese was also close to that. The crust was doughy, but okay. This was my first pizza since I left the US and it surpassed my expectations! The price included a drink and you couldn’t get a lower price for just a slice, so I had the gal run through the options and accepted strawberry, which I thought would be a juice. It wound up being carbonated and surprisingly refreshing and not too sweet. I still didn’t drink the whole thing, but it was very nice!

I then spent almost an hour going through the aisles at Soriana. It really is very similar to a Walmart. There were more options than at Ley, but the prices were higher. Not much, but enough for me to notice (eg. 17 pesos versus 15 for a bag of totopos (tortilla chips) and 28 pesos versus 25 for 200g of Oaxaca cheese). There was LOTS of NOB (north of the border) food, too, like Ocean Spray cranberry jelly! I’m getting a little bored of what I’ve been making, so a trip to a Soriana at some point to get some variety would be nice, but I’ve been correct in my assumption that heading to a store like that would stretch my food budget.

It was about 1:30 when I left Soriana. I thought that since the plane would land at 3:15 and my family would be off by 3:30, I could get to the airport for about 2:30 and only pay for an hour of parking there (I’d already had to pay a full hour for the 10 minutes I’d been there earlier). I was half an hour from the airport, so I decided to head back there, pull over in the shade, and do some reading on my phone.

By the time I got back to the airport, it was 2:40. A man in the parking lot saw my SK license plate and waved me down, asking if I knew how to pay for parking. I took him into the terminal and showed him how to use the parking ticket machine. He thought it’s a weird system, but I’m used to it, where you get a ticket at entry that you pay in the terminal and then insert into the exit machine. Soon as we were done, the power went out in the airport for a whole minute!

When the lights came back on, the plane was still marked as being on time for 3:15 (I’d also been monitoring the flight status on my phone). There is a coffee bar at the airport, so I decided to spring for my first cup of not-made-by-me coffee since I got to Isla. I had lots of time to peruse the menu thoroughly and settled on an espresso helado, just a shot of espresso over ice.

I was asked if I wanted ‘sencillo o doble’. I knew what she meant because you get the same question when you order ice cream, but that gave me something to do to kill time as I sipped my incredibly delicious and oh-so-worth-the-25-pesos iced espresso, Google sencillo. The translations into English made absolutely no sense, with the main equivalent popping up as ‘easy’ and then ‘simple.’ Once again, I was reminded to translate into French because, in French, ‘simple’ means one/single, at least in the context of ice cream scoops or espresso shots.

It was coming on 3:15 when a gaggle of women came by where I was sitting, muttering to themselves about the absurd lack of seating in the terminal. I stood up and offered them my seat, giving them a bench where three can squeeze in, in addition to another such free bench.

3:15 came and went and the flight status went from delayed with an ETA to delayed with no ETA. I started to get worried. It gets dark at 5:30 here and there is no way I would do The Road at night, not just because of its condition, but also because of the risk of banditos on this very isolated stretch of road. In ideal conditions, it would be about 1 to 1.5 hours from the airport back to The Road, so I would literally have to drop my family off without stopping to breathe and say hi! I decided that we would go to Isla and take a panga and pulmonía to hotel. It would only add about 20 minutes to the travel time and I could leave my truck at the embarcardero on the right side of the water.

The flight status finally got changed to landed around 3:45 and they came through the gate around 4:10. Whew! What a long day for everyone involved! My cousin is well traveled so she’s very flexible and easy going. She was glad to see me, having told herself many times that I would figure things out and, worst case, she could surely get a taxi.

We paid for parking (60 pesos by that point) and got the luggage to the truck. It was a tight fit, but we got everything into the back and then she took the jump seat while her son took the front seat (she’s tiny, he’s tall like a grown man). The Road seems easier with company, but still took 40 minutes. Parking at my place is a pain and we were all tired and famished, so I went straight to the panga, my first time driving to ‘downtown’ Isla!

As I expected, we soon had help at the panga to load the suitcases onto the boat. I made sure to tip the pilot on the other side.

Then, it was time to negotiate a pulmonía. I was quoted 100 and offered 80. He accepted a bit too quickly, but we had heavy luggage and were going quite far into the Golden Zone, so I was okay with the price even though I have a sneaking suspicion that we could have had the ride for 70. Anyway, I negotiated a better rate than quoted! My cousin decided to pay 90 when we got there since her luggage was so huge and heavy (she got loaded down with gifts in Monterrey and needs cold weather gear for the New York City part of her holiday).

This was my first time going so deep into the Golden Zone and let me tell you, once was enough. It looks like Gringo Land in there, not my type of place at all!

We got to the hotel around 5:30. Check in and all that took ages (all inclusive resort, so she got blasted with information). By the time they were settled in, we were all famished and we went to the first restaurant we passed in the hotel.

Their meal was included in their resort package, but the cost for me was THREE-HUNDRED FIFTY for a frankly terrible all you can eat buffet. My cousin told me she had this one because it was her choice and I can buy us all supper from a cart here on Isla tomorrow (thank you!). I’m still reeling from shock at the cost. I can eat for two weeks for that kind of money here, seriously! Most of the food was terribly over salted, but there were a few good things, like the squid and this interesting marlin turnover thingamabob that was savoury/sweet. But we were all famished and exhausted (I’ve been up since 5:00) so it was what it was.

It was time for me to head home after as it was getting on 8:00 and we were all just done in. My cousin made sure I was okay with going home alone in the dark and I truly had no issue with it. I walked down to the street and flagged down a pulmonía. The driver was not interested in taking me to the embarcadero. Same thing with the second one. The third guy said he would take me, but for 100, absolutely not negotiable, so I got in.

With my previous two rides down the malecón to the embarcadero, we took the exact same route. This time, we turned off the malecón very early and found ourselves in very quiet, almost traffic-less streets. I figured that he was trying to avoid traffic and cut some transit time, but the trip started to take quite a lot longer than I thought it should and I had no idea where I was.

I started to look for a landmark, anything to situate me on my mental map to get an idea of whether I was being taken for a ride or whether he was, in fact, just avoiding traffic. Shortly thereafter, I saw the Mega store. I’ve never been, but I knew, very roughly, where it is located, and decided to give him a couple more minutes to get to a road called Ejército Mexicano that, in part, parallels the malecón. If we wound up there, I knew exactly where we were going to end up.

Sure enough, that’s exactly what he did. At this point, I told him that this is a very different route than what I’m used to and he literally turned to gape at me, then said, “You’ve done this before?” I knew exactly what he was thinking, that I thought he had taken me for a ride. I reassured him that I knew where I was, understood the route he took, and that there was no problem. We then chatted the last couple of minutes to the embarcadero about where I’m from, the weather back home, what I do, etc.

I was glad to reach the panga because it was chilly and I was quite tired. I didn’t have to wait for a boat, so I was back on Isla in record time. It was very strange to drive home from there and a ridiculous amount of effort, truly, what with having to dodge chickens and dogs and kids and having two people with no headlights on flash their lights at me, which, I think, meant that they wanted me to turn mine off. No can do. Canadian vehicles have running lights!

Back home, I had to wrestled with the gate and the garden hose blocking the gate and I was just glad to finally get in!

My cousin and her son are coming to meet me here tomorrow around 6:30 (I’ll meet them at the panga). I’ll take them for an after dark tour of Isla, buy them a papa loca (crazy potato) or taco from a cart, and then we’ll come back here for a beer or two.

My cousin is here for vacation and wants to enjoy the resort amenities, so we won’t be spending that much time together. I am going over to the resort for New Year’s Eve to attend a gala with her and will spend the night. It’s so good to have the two of them here and we will cherish whatever time we have together!

It’s been a long day and I have three hours of work due for 9AM, so the day isn’t over yet. But what fun and, yay, they made it!

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Mazatlán Driving Adventure

Today was the day to pick up my new neighbour at the airport. I decided to take advantage of the fact that I’d be past The Road to go to town with my truck and pick up a computer chair.

I left around 11:00 and it took exactly 40 minutes to drive the 12KM/7.5 miles to pavement. The Road was much better than it was a month ago!

I had written down the instructions to get to Walmart, which should have been an easy off of MX-15, but, of course, there was construction and whatnot and I never saw a sign for the exit I needed to take. I pulled over and asked Siri for directions. For whatever reason, she can’t find the closer Walmart and Google is incapable of routing me anywhere, so I just followed the Siri to the farther out Walmart, where I was pretty close by that point.

Walmart, to my immense surprise, did not have any furniture, only mattresses! 🙁 I was there, so I picked up some glass plates and a few things for the apartment. I wanted some cleaning products and found a really good deal on a bucket full of everything I needed for just 63 pesos!

I had no idea where to find a computer chair and struck out on Google searches the other night for Mazatlán office furniture. I decided to go to Home Depot and then Soriana. Of course, both Siri and Google were useless, so I used my own navigational sense and idea of where the Home Depot was in relation to the farther away Walmart (I’ve spent a lot of time looking at maps lately) and made it there by what was very likely the most direct route! And someone said to me recently that I don’t have strong navigational skills!

But right across from the Home Depot I saw an Office Depot! I ‘circled around the block’, which you can’t actually do in Maz, and eventually made it to the store. There, I quickly settled on the cheapest chair I could find that had a decent flexible back and cushioned seat, on sale from 1,400 to 1,200 pesos. A bit more than I wanted to spend, but this is a non-negotiable! (Remember, this is just a chair for the next five months. I gladly paid a lot more than that for the chair I have in Miranda!)

I was once again glad for my language skills because how to get the chair was not obvious. I noticed a yellow ticket behind the price tag and pulled it out. It had instructions to take said ticket to the till and the item would brought out for me. That was fairly uneventful. The (boxed) chair was put into a cart for me and I was left to my own devices to get it to the truck.

Soon as I reached my truck and had the back open, a man materialized and got the box into the truck and was gone with the cart before I even had time to blink! I went to him and offered five pesos and he refused! Wow! How nice of him!

There was a ScotiaBank right next door, so I thought that would be a good place to withdraw cash. HA. It refused my card, as did the HSBC in the Soriana on the other side of the Office Depot. Probably some sort of immature competition thing with CIBC.

It was getting late and I wanted to be at the airport by no later than 3:30, so I headed off in roughly the direction of MX-15 and, again, found it without trouble. And by ‘without trouble’ I mean I still had to grow eyes behind my head and drive super aggressively and whatnot, but there were not wrong turns. Driving in Maz is absolutely no worse than driving in the Montreal area.

I passed a Banamex and pulled in. It was a long wait, but I had no trouble withdrawing what I needed. From now on, Banamex has my business as it’s the only bank that has so far worked for me consistently.

It was then stop and go traffic through and out of Maz. Once I hit the open road, I pulled into a Pemex and put in 400 pesos of gas, which got me about a third of a tank of fuel. Ouch! (I’ve returned home with almost three quarters of a tank.)

The airport was not far at that point and I arrived at 3:15. I circled around to see if perhaps my neighbour was waiting outside, but no. So I pulled into the parking lot, 30 pesos for the first hour, and went in to wait.

The Maz airport is super super tiny. I had hoped to get lunch there once the AC had a chance to rev up my appetite, but there really wasn’t anything. The plane had landed, so I thought it would be a short wait, but no. I was there a full 45 minutes.

Before one more person tells me how nice I was to have gone to pick up my neighbour, I will say that I was very reticent at the thought of doing so, but willing to go if she had no other options, until she said she would pay me the same as she would a taxi. I knew it would be a long drive and a long wait and payment made it worth my while. She was glad to have someone waiting for her.

The drive home seemed a lot faster. We got her luggage out of my truck and she went off to see a friend. I told her I would make supper and if she was hungry later, she was welcome to come over and I would heat up a plate for her.

After a really yummy pasta meal, I attempted to assemble my chair. Of course, it’s the same story as with just about anything you buy these days, shoddy construction. There’s a part that I need to unscrew to fit in the back rest. It will be impossible to do so with hands only, as the instructions say, and I need to find someone with vice grips and a star screw driver. I’m kicking myself for not bringing a tool kit. I have big work job to do tomorrow and pretty close to angry that I won’t be able to use my new chair after all the energy spent getting it. 🙁

The only other thing of note today was that I went into the Soriana and had a bit of a poke around. It sure has a lot more than does the Ley! I didn’t look at prices, so I don’t know how they compare. I could easily walk there (5KM/3 miles) from the panga and take a pulmonía back.

Most of the shoppers at Walmart were Gringos (because we were in the Golden Zone). The only reason I felt compelled to go to Walmart was it was the first logical place to go in search of a computer chair. Otherwise, I have no strong urge to go there and am happy shopping at Ley, Waldo’s, the Mercado, the City Deli, etc.

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Sleep Deprived

I’m home from my very brief trip to Quebec! Between the sleep deprivation (I always sleep poorly at my mother’s for a variety of reasons), a cold (thanks, kids!), and the high carb diet, I’m feeling surprisingly rundown. But I am glad to have seen everyone.

Sunday, my mother and I spent the bulk of the afternoon working on the floor plan for my cabin! So exciting! 🙂 I’m nowhere near ready to start on construction, but having a very rough plan will help me make some decisions over the winter.

Monday, I borrowed the car and drove to Ville LaSalle to see my cousin. We had lunch and she sent me on my way with books and Japanese treats!

I was out later than planned (lost track of time gabbing…), but I made it back to Chambly in time to have dinner with my family and my grand-mother. We had pâté chinois (shepherd’s pie), so that was two times in one day eating beef! I very rarely seek out red meat, but I do eat it if it is offered, no problem.

It was a very early start today, 6AM, with just enough time to finish packing and gobble down a cup of coffee and a little cottage cheese. My step-mother gave me two beautiful wool vests that I’ve always admired and my sister gave me two tops, a pair of brand new jeans, and an incredible jean dress (yay for a 60lb weight loss!), so let’s just say my suitcase was VERY full.  So full, in fact, that I wound up layering the two vests!

I managed to squeeze the books from my cousin into my tote, but the Japanese treats and a small loaf of my mother’s fruitcake had to travel in a plastic grocery bag. I love my new carry on bag (a Grand Traveler by Vera Bradley), but I could have carried a bigger tote than I did, been better able to distribute my load, and would have looked less overloaded for carry on. My bag still fit fine under the seat since it was 100% squishable, but I got a scolding from the flight attendant for the Montreal to Winnipeg flight. She also made me put my tote in the overhead compartment even though it had traveled between my legs the whole way east and barely gave me time to get what I needed from it for the flight. It was only a 2.5 hour flight, so it wasn’t worth getting up and opening bins to find the one with my iPad, computer, wallet, passport, etc…, but I was one of the first ones up to claim her bag when we arrived!

I had hoped to be at the airport for 7:30 this morning, but Montreal traffic is disastrous and we got to the terminal around 8:10. Boarding was to commence at 8:20 and the flight was departing at 8:55. Thankfully, there was no line up at security! I learned from my Regina security experience and was not wearing a belt or under-wire! My head scarf did get patted down, a first, but I was asked beforehand if I was wearing it for religious purposes and if it was okay to touch my head. It was one of my easiest and quickest security checks ever! Even my mother’s fruitcake, which looks like a block of hashish, got through no questions asked!

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My mother’s fruitcake didn’t raise any eyebrows. Dang that stuff is GOOD. It’s going to be a nice treat on high activity days. I have it with a piece of cheese and it makes a full meal. Next to it, some of the Japanese treats!

After security, it was a mad dash across most of the airport to get to a gate that felt like it was halfway to Winnipeg! I arrived just as boarding started, so I had just enough time to use the washroom first.

Other than being in an aisle seat and not having access to my tote, the flight to Winnipeg was good. It was my fourth time (at minimum) landing in Winnipeg in six years and I can officially say that there’s something up with landing in Winnipeg. I have never had a smooth landing there and I always arrive with my ears blocked!

I was quite hungry by the time I deplaned, but I only had about 40 minutes till boarding for the next flight, not enough time to get a meal at TGI Fridays (a YWG treat when I have time). I settled on some of the strangest sushi I have ever seen as it contained HUMMUS. Made with brown rice, it was a satisfying meal, but rather strange!

The flight to Regina was super quick. We were in the air less than an hour, barely enough time to receive and drink a cup of coffee! This commuter flight had ‘Skycheck’, which I love!!! It’s the best of both worlds: you don’t have your big bag on the plane, but you don’t have to wait at baggage claim to get it back. I also had Skycheck’ from Ottawa to Montreal. There, we boarded at ground level and put our bag on a trolley. In Winnipeg, we boarded higher up and our bags were sent down to ground level on a conveyer belt.

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Can you spot my bag? I’m such a girl! 😀 There’s no mistaking mine, though, in that sea of black!

I left Montreal in a cold drizzle and arrived back on my beloved Prairies in sun drenched HEAT. Landing in Regina, I didn’t have a feeling of ‘being home’, but I still had 2.5 hours of driving to do! I found my truck without any trouble, it started fine (wasn’t worried!), and then it was time to pay for parking. That’s $11 per day, so I expected to pay $77, but was only charged $71. Six bucks is six bucks! 🙂

I probably should have picked up food while I was in the city, but I just wanted to get home. It wasn’t until the Moose Jaw skyline (what little there is!) disappeared behind me and the landscape started to undulate that I started to get that little hit of emotion that told me that I was heading HOME.

It was wonderful to pull into my very own property for the very first time in my life after a long trip far away! I topped up the water tank, fired up the water heater, had a shower, and then collapsed in my very comfy bed for a much needed nap!

Tomorrow, it’s back to work and between spurts of that, time to close up the property, pack up the truck, and get back on the road!