mexiblog: 10/10/2004

Out and about a bit

I took a little drive Friday to Celaya about 60 km south of SMA and on Saturday drove to Dolores Hidalgo about 45 km north. Celaya is not worth it other than to remind what an Oasis is SMA but I got a look from above at the reservoir that supplies water for these parts. I checked out some shops along the way. Dolores Hidalgo is more interesting and is a center for pottery making.

There is no end of pottery and tile available in every imaginable shape and size and much of it very attractive and at reasonable cost. There are also many roadside spots selling iron, stone and pottery garden and patio furniture, fountains and other decorative items. Also in many of the pottery places they are featuring pottery jack-o-lanterns.

I stopped at a nursery and met the owner. I mistook him for a gringo but he was Mexican even though his name would not indicate. He took pains to mention the high quality of his pots due to their firing and that he would soon be licensed to carry more serious bug and pest control products. His name - Germain MacGregor. (I didn’t notice this until I got back.) He had a wide variety of nice plants and is clearly cashing in on the building boom going on around him offering a full range of services from plain plants to full landscaping.

I stopped at a number of pottery shops on Saturday and took a few pics on both days which are posted below.

I also stopped in on a furniture maker (one of many) who was making solid wood Mexican furniture characterized by hand carving and dark stain. Some of it is quite nice but certainly not free; nor do you want to be carting it very far as it is made from a tight grained, dense local wood that weighs a ton. The road and Celaya itself (its a cow town) was hot and dusty and there were a couple of detours on the way due to bridge construction. I finally got fed up and stopped at a roadside buffet in a little town and had a late lunch. I got to see the proprietor making corn tortillas and frying them up on her tortilla grill. What exactly was in the buffet was a bit of a mystery but it was tasty – rice, carrots, green beans and peppers, pork and onions, deep fried peppers among other things.

I stopped in at the “Gigante” – a giant supermarket as the name suggests, just outside of town and bought a nice big bottle of Mexican rum, ($11) as the scotch has, alas, run out. I noticed in the process some rather tempting Mexican Cabernet Sauvignon out of Baja California for $3. I am sure I will get around to trying it.

Dog stayed home to guard the room and stay cool. Everyone quite likes him here and he of course thinks he runs the whole complex and is busy monitoring all of the comings and goings whenever he is out of the room. He has taken over policing the place as “Bobby”, the hotel mascot, is quite tired due to his advanced years. The “tartita”, as Malice-Alice referred to the feline featured in a recent photo, is not. He is all male and is in full command of his kingdom.

A couple more people have come into our lives but Stevie and Loretta (the New York city teachers – retired) are the coolest. They have only been married a few years – she for the first time and he for the second – although his first was for only a month or so. They have known each other since they were kids. Stevie missed Woodstock because on his way out there it started to rain and he assumed it would be cancelled. Loretta traveled overland from London to Malaysia and from Rio to Caracas when she was a bit younger which sort of says what kind of person she is.

Brian and Joyce have been coming back and forth to SMA over the last ten years and are thinking of buying a place. Brian seems a lot keener than does Joyce. Brian was born in Ireland. I don’t think they are ever going to make up their minds whether to stay or go back to Virginia.

Brenda has been living in Mexico off and on for more than twenty years about ten of them in SMA. She is going back to Tennessee tonight to be with her sick and aging parents but fully intends to come back and live here. She has bought a lot and intends to build a house on it.

Jan is at this hotel because she found ants in her bed at the apartment she is renting. She is negotiating with the landlord her interest in cutting short the lease, as she would in any case like to find a place closer in. She went down to a local school and landed a job today doing volunteer English language teaching. She knits constantly and is planning on taking some art classes since she knows she has some creative genes in her given her relatives who are all in the art business. She has a daughter in Shanghai writing a book and teaching English.

Karen is from the Okanogan and has been in SMA for 9 years. Loves it. She designs and builds houses. She is on her fourth. Ah, to be 25 years younger.

Turns out that Michael (the Brit who speaks like Winston Churchill with hair) is a bit of a bore but he is so omnipresent around here that he cannot be avoided. He has a number of issues he is dealing with and insists on everyone sharing every agonizing twist in his life’s saga. In addition to the condo with no roof he has a number of health issues he likes to go on about at length. He is also taking Spanish lessons and wants us all to know precisely how painful it is – given his short term memory and all. He is convinced there is money laundering going on with the crowd that has moved into their condo complex in the Cayman’s and is determined to expose them. He is tracing his ancestry and is trying to locate a great aunt he thinks knows something about his mother’s background before she met his father in China. He has still not sorted out his visa issues and delights in recounting his entire day, usually supplemented by recently developed photos – including ones of him in the altogether – a sorry sight and readers will be glad I don't have one to post. The good news is that he invariably brings a nice bottle of wine to lunch and is happy to share it.

iron patio furniture

Plaza in delores Hidalgo

..an attractive seat and sink to match. The hangover would then have to go something like ..."I was speaking into the great blue and yellow flowered telephone." It would make the headache worse probably.

..serious animales!!!

...and more pots

more pots in process of painting before firing.

no substitute for the Gregster

.. and more furniture and pots

Mexican carved furniture

Bobby the hotel mascot is getting a little long in the tooth...

Just another church

Stevie and Loretta

Joyce, Michael and Brian

Jan, Mila and Luthie

Lake SMA

Cactus in full flower on road to Celaya

Greg's new nemesis

..everything!

everything under construction

Walking, talking, riding

I have only started the Chev once since driving into the hotel and that was to go out to meet Jane and Rolla who were trying to sell me their house in the boondocks. I walk the Gregster in the early morning. It starts to get light here at about 7 and the sun sets about 7 in the evening. Greg comes out with me early when there is little traffic between 7:30 and 8:30. He is not very savvy when it comes to cars but he is learning the hard way. He got hit lightly in his tail end this morning by a slow moving car. He luckily does not seem the worse for ware. I then have a light breakfast at the hotel and return to walk the streets trying to get a feel for the place and meeting with people that are showing me places.

I have been to most of the real estate places (there is no MLS so it is a free for all) and I talk to the folks there about both rentals and sales. I also talk to a lot of folks that pass thru the hotel at one time or another and listen to what they are up to and how they are getting along. Almost everyone is, or knows someone who is, in the business of finding places for tourists like myself. So I also talk to their contacts. It is a bit like a gold rush I think. This is Mexico! And in SMA it is nuts.

I have seen quite a few places and will see more in the days ahead. The view is not something that one should expect to get in any place close to “centro” (within walking distance of el Jardin). Either one or both of the neighbors will have a place under construction – and if not one of them then two or three in the back - and in this part of the world like in many developing economies that means the neighbor may be “under construction” for the next ten to twenty years.

Houses are of course built with brick, cement and rebar. The rebar is usually still sticking up from the corners except on the façade, one supposes because the proprietor wants to add another floor - eventually. All of them have a large, ugly black plastic water tank on the roof, which is designed to fill up when the city water runs, to provide uninterrupted supply to the house when it does not. Most have a large propane tank on the roof as well to provide gas for the kitchen, hot water and heating. Looking out over cityscape therefore leaves much to desire.

The fronts of houses give directly onto the street to a sidewalk that is usually between 18” and 24" wide. If the house has parking, and most do not, it is accessed through a large gate that often forms an important part of the façade. Windows that face the street are usually small and are from a bath or second bedroom. Virtually all houses share common walls on either side so light is available only through the roof or the back courtyard and many rooms in small houses are a bit dark if they don’t face a patio. They remind me of my place in Ottawa.

What is important in houses in this town, and one assumes throughout Mexico, is the inner courtyard or patio. All places have at least one - many have three or four. Most have some dirt but many have only tile or stone and the garden is made then from potted plants of one kind or another. In the large colonial house these inner courtyards are very elaborate with large trees and fountains, statues and detailed architectural arches and columns and the like. Many of these large buildings are now hotels, restaurants, B&B’s or other institutional type establishments as their prices are out of reach for most individuals. The library here is in one, for example, where I can go and use the internet for nothing and marvel at the magnificence of the building’s colonial past.

I took a bus today. It cost fifty cents for two for a trip of about three miles. It was full but not crowded. Part way to our destination a young boy got on with his guitar and began to sing a sad Mexican song of struggle and strife. He was quite good but we had to get off before he had finished.

Who is here in SMA?

The average age of the foreign resident in SMA is around 50 I am told. I have met a few around the hotel (thanks in large part to the Gregster) but theirs would average more around 70 I’m guessing.

There is the lovely Simonnette deVriche – very Dutch she says of her name and points out that her married (Flemish) name was impossible for most people to pronounce so she reverted to her maiden name. She is 97! She has been visiting SMA for over 30 years off and on and has decided recently to quit traveling altogether and stay put here. She warned me this afternoon to keep an eye on Greg when out on the street because a friend of hers had her dog poisoned from eating something he picked up there. She has lived all over the world, most recently in Tennessee. Despite her years she still gets around pretty well and except for a slight hearing problem carries on a good conversation – in any one of five languages.

There is the equally charming Mila, an Estonian from Hawaii. She has not divulged her age but it must not be far behind Simonnette’s. She is a painter who has been coming here for more than ten years but she is bored now with painting and drawing and cannot seem to get the enthusiasm back that she once had. She says the artists in SMA have become a bit phony with more interest in sales than in good work. She showed me pictures of her portfolio which is quite impressive. She often does little pen sketches of people in the dining room, and there is no doubt that she catches their likeness. She was in the garden this afternoon sketching the dozen or so kids that arrived last night with their parents from Monterey. Mila has lived a full life and buried three husbands. She passed the war in London at the age of 17 (you do the math), dancing, mostly, as far as I can tell. She married her first husband out of convenience to avoid having to go back to Estonia where the Russians were closing in. She says she was an athlete and won awards for her swimming and gymnastics. She has never sold any of her artwork. She comes to SMA to get away from the Hawaiian heat.

The lady living next to me in the corner (in a hotly sought after self-contained apartment) is only around 60. She just arrived for a stay of six months and is just getting into her acrylic painting. She has changed the color of a large cross in the foreground of her first effort six times. She makes jewelry for a living but will only do painting in SMA. She is so pleased to be way from the northwest Washington state winter she can hardly contain herself. This morning she went out with a friend and some blank canvass so we will see what that produces.

Michael Nash was born in China and educated as a boy in Victoria (where he owns a house they stay in during the summer) and then at Ridley College before studying law at Oxford. The only thing good about southern Ontario in his opinion was the thick creamy chocolate sundays he used to find in a soda shop in St. Catherines. Sailed the Atlantic twice during the war he says – only once in convoy. Michael and his Filipina bride, Luthie, of around 40, (Mila says to me aside that Michael has managed his life well), live in the Cayman Islands the rest of the time but have come here because Ivan recently blew the roof off there condominium. He has been coming here for 13 years off and on. Michael was about 16 during the war I figure. He said to me, “Old boy, it is downright humiliating, all of this business with visas nowadays. It used to be easy to stay six months in Mexico but now, and particularly for Luthie, my wife, one is lucky to get 30 days without a downright runaround.” Michael has bad ankles and the last thing he needs is a runaround. He has a nice birch cane from Victoria which he has recently inscribed with great care his name and a message in Spanish saying the if the cane is found it is to be returned to him at the hotel and that the reason it may have been left behind is due to his faulty short-term memory. His long-term memory on the other hand is excellent. He looks and speaks like a Winston Churchill with hair. He practiced law in "Rodesia" and Perth, Australia among other places.

Steven and Loretta are recently retired schoolteachers from New York. He is 62 she 57. They have one of the to-die-for apartments in this hotel complex where they have been for six months. They have been in SMA for a year and hope never to return to New York. They come down to the garden every evening to sit and smoke cigarettes. Steven was an ecology teacher and wares a long ponytail. They used to go to Mikanos every summer for 30 years but it became too expensive and the hassle of getting there after 9/11 was more than they could take. Furthermore they just built a giant airport on Mikanos that covers a third of the island.

Jim is about 50 and has taken up mountain biking since coming here a few years ago. He says it is great because there are no trespass laws in the country. If you can lift your bike over a fence, away you go. He follows dirt footpaths he finds throughout the countryside around SMA.

Jane and Rolla are about 60 and are getting out of town ASAP. They have been here 10 years and his asbestosis is bothering him, while Jane has developed bad knees. They can only live on the ground floor of their two-story house. He is a painter, she a craftwork artist. They own a house 15 minutes by car outside of center town in an area I am told has no apparent merit. They are both afraid to drive in downtown so take taxis whenever they come in. The trouble is they have great difficulty getting a taxi to come to their house because it is difficult to find and outside the core. They are trying desperately to sell their house at a “gringo” price and get back to Missouri where they can find some “medical attention they can comprehend”.