Log #55, April
More of Santiago/Manzanillo
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April 30
The growing family of ferals at Casa Cochran
Bliss' Burgeoning Feline Family
Excellent story about the inner workings of my favorite animal society, SBPA de San Carlos, A.C. on Bliss' blogsite, 1st Mate. Bliss tells an entertaining account of being adopted by a feral family last December, watching it grow, and then, with the help of Karyn from SBPA, practicing TNR - Trap, Neuter, and Release.
Bliss is a great author who takes you right along with her as she cares for the guests who moved in to stay. The saga began in the December 8th blog, and then continued this month. Scroll down to the 23 April entry for the total effect, then backtrack through the following days.
April 29
Streets of Manzanillo, or ...
Why I Prefer the Bus
Confusing to locals and visitors, alike, the traffic flow in Manzanillo keeps drivers on their toes (brake pedals and horns). City planners added a bit of doubt and confusion, just to keep the driving public amused. Traffic flow on a few, select streets funnels off to the right to turn left. Only happens on a few left turns, though - the changing pattern helps keep locals awake, dodging the uninitiated; and the unitiated awake dodging the honking locals.
Sign indicating left-turn lane, partially
hidden by bougainvillea for added challenge
The lateral is also the bus lane, so if an intrepid road warrior wants to turn left, first they've got to jocky around the hell-bent-for-leather bus caballeros, who MUST drive 80 until within 15 feet of every stop.
The pattern of stop lights also adds to the entertainment. For a left turn, two red lights stop traffic on the main road, two additional red lights stop the right lane of the lateral, and then way down on the signpost on the right side of the lateral is the green arrow for the left turn, but on the very same set of lights the red is also lit to stop the righthand lateral lane.
Turning left with the green arrow on the post on the right
Two ways to muck up the works: pull into the left lane of the main road to turn left (which is normal on most of the streets of Manzanillo and just about everywhere else in the driving world), or pull into the left lane of the lateral with the intention of scooting straight ahead. Both activities will provoke lots of noise from agitated drivers to the rear, who have, by now, blocked in the errant driver, a prisoner to their merciless heckling. Some harried drivers, not realizing what the honking, fist waving and shouting are really all about, are bullied into running their lights and really mucking up the works for oncoming traffic. Great sport.
The legit turning lane is pretty sporty, too. The intersection isn't really wide enough for two lanes to smoothly bypass each other as they dive for their respective side streets, so there's a little zig and zag maneuver that both cars must make, trusting each other to dodge to the left to miss a head-on, then dodge back to the right to miss the median on the cross street. Entertaining only from a bus window ... I squeeze my eyes shut and grab the dash if I'm actually one of the dance partners.
Sporty for peds, too. Just discerning which light indicates a safe window for walking across eight lanes of aggressive traffic boggles the mind. Therefore, I don't cross at the intersections. I cross in the middle of the blocks (it's called jaywalking) where I can dash to each median in turn without worrying about idiots running red lights and flattening the innocent.
April 26
Cocina Integral
This is a cocina integral
We here in Mexico have no words for kitchen cabinets. Mexican kitchens don't come so equipped. When we moved ashore we had to figure out a whole new kitchen configuration that would compensate for the drawers and cabinets we were used to.
This is not
On SolMate, everything but everything was contained and stuffed away where it couldn't cause physical damage to man nor beast, necessitated by the effects of violently changing gravitational pull. Those containers are now gainfully employed in the SolCasita cocina.
On the boat airy storage was optimal, but in the casita, with all the windows wide open for ventilation, the dirt of the city stacks up fast on every exposed surface. Washing off the grit before use is required for cans, dishes, utensils, pots and pans.
Manzanillo is particularly filthy; having consistent electricity is the trade-off.
This is the power plant spewing John Frost photo
The Manzanillo power plant is slowly converting to natural gas, which is expected to burn cleaner. Completion of the conversion is projected for sometime in 2010. In the meantime, an amazing amount of particulates float through the air, settling on horizontal and vertical surfaces.
So is this John Frost photo
Another cause of airborne particulates is garbage. Neighborhoods float in a cloud of smoke caused by numerous burn piles ... seems like every gardener burns refuse every day, and then it seems like every homeowner throws their stinky plastic on top of the burn pile. Just another part of the culture to get used to.
The burn pile in the SolCasita's yard
April 23
New Weather Feature
We've added a new feature to the HOME page for your viewing pleasure - links to Stan's weather pages. It's use comes with, as Geary of El Burro Cove and Sonrisa Weatherguy, says, a sleezy disclaimer about using the forecast at your own risk, cuz we're certainly not experts and we certainly wouldn't want anybody to get hurt because they used our forecast as the end-all, be-all when making their cruising decisions. There's no substitute for good seamanship and prudent planning.
Each day Stan will compile a marine weather forecast for Western Mexico cruising waters based on various web-based resources (which could be all wrong). He will throw his best-guess predictions for the Sea of Cortez onto the web each morning by 1330Z, half-hour before the Amigo Net.
To help cruisers in the Sea make their awning-up/awning-down decision, each evening during chubasco season Stan will also post a real-time chubasco observation by 0300Z. That observation will be made two hours after Don's (Summer Passage) observation, which he broadcasts on the Southbound Net.
Both of these observation pages are being written in basic text so they can be delivered via a WINLINK request. Email Stan, ki4goi (at) winlink (dot) org with 'SolMate Weather' in the subject line, if you'd like instructions on how to use SailMail or WINLINK to receive the forecasts via SSB.
Tenacatita
As you can see from the weather pages, we're still tightly bound to the cruising community. For explorers poking around the country from the other side of the surfline, that's created a round-about point of view. Our travel info has been gleaned predominantly from cruising guides and from sailors who've come before.
Other crews, especially the Shea La Vie's, whetted our appetite for investigating the cool places they'd sailed to. Therefore, it isn't hard to believe that, even from the high side of the beach, we've been drawn to explore cruiser-friendly coves and seaside villages.
Tenacatita and environs
Tenacatita, 50 miles up the coast, is a cruisers' paradise we've been hearing about for years. It's famous for its large winter-time cruiser community, many of whom bury their hook there all winter long because it's such a fun, group-grope sort of place ... organized swims, games, paddling, snorkeling, and raft-ups with a great beach and a fun jungle dinghy ride through the mangroves to the village.
Tenacatita's beach lined with palapa restaurants
It's also famous for its food, specifically the Rollo del Mar. Stan and I wandered into Bahia Tenacatita after the cruisers and the tourists broke camp. What was left was a beach-load of empty restaurants and hungry trinket vendors, with only us as targets. We didn't go for the trinkets, but who could pass up the food?
Rollo del Mar, a fish filet stuffed
with chopped shrimp and octopus in an almond sauce, wrapped
completely in bacon and covered with more almond cream sauce.
Although we're still touring as if we're traveling by boat, we've evolved otherwise, at least as far as dietary indiscretions go. When sampling Mexican culture, we've buried our vegetarian hatchet, sampling whatever's offered - carne included. After our feast at Restaurante Sirenita, we congratulated ourselves on walking upright.
Tenacatita restaurants are famous for their rollo, which also evolved, decades ago, when a chef from a cruise ship taught Maria del Rosario of Restaurante Sirenita how to prepare it. Maria, in turn, taught the other local chefs and it wasn't long before they'd made a name for the town and put themselves on the culinary map.
Shrimp Diablo, good, but the Rollo received both of our votes
April 20
'Sploring another Peninsula, Las Brisas
Bus (red) and walking (blue) tour to Las Brisas
Las Brisas is the tongue sticking out between the bay and the inner harbor. Manzanillo Harbor just recently surpassed Vera Cruz as Mexico's busiest harbor - nothing compared to the traffic SolMate dodged while docked in Long Beach, but an impressive array of quays and railyards, none-the-less.
Fuel dock and Manzanillo Centro
Manzanillo's bus routes vary considerably, providing coverage for all the barrios, far and near. The fun of bus riding is picking new barrios to tour. On this particular day, Stan and I chose the route to Las Brisas via Valle las Garzas, Barrios 4 and 5. Not quite projects and not quite the 'burbs, these housing developments provide cheap, wall-to-wall tract housing, inexpensively. Our rattle-trap old bus toured us through the barrio for twenty minutes, then looped back and dropped us near a taco stand next to the navy base at the end of Las Brisas, where the bus driver parked for lunch.
Entrance channel to Manzanillo Harbor, Port Captain's white building on the right,
two container ships docked against the embarcadero,
blending into the city scape, left
It was a short walk out to the channel light where we snapped a couple panorama shots of Manzanillo city (town?) and the harbor. Then we wandered back up the peninsula just to see what it looked like.
End of the Las Brisas peninsula
A couple of the nicer homes on Las Brisas
Surveying a not-so-nice home on Las Brisas
April 18
Another Edition of Sights around the 'Hood
Treehouse
down the block from the SolCasita
Another one of those things that make you go, "Huh?"
Sign at the Santiago
health clinic warning of dengue fever
Here's some paraphrasing from MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press writer in Mexico City, "The deadly hemorrhagic form of dengue fever is increasing dramatically in Mexico, and experts predict a surge throughout Latin America fueled by climate change, migration and faltering mosquito eradication efforts."
"Even classic dengue — known as "bonebreak fever" — can cause severe flu-like symptoms, excruciating joint pain, high fever, nausea and rashes. More alarming is that a deadly hemorrhagic form of the disease, which adds internal and external bleeding to the symptoms — is becoming more common. It accounts for one in four cases in Mexico, compared with one in 50 seven years ago, according to Mexico's Public Health Department."
"The CDC says there's no drug to treat hemorrhagic dengue, but proper treatment, including rest, fluids and pain relief, can reduce death rates to about 1 percent."
"The global solution to dengue outbreaks is mosquito control, and faltering eradication efforts, together with climate change, probably share blame for dengue's rise in the Americas.... A successful eradication program in Latin America in the 1960s sent the disease into remission, but economic crises and government downsizing sapped those efforts over the next two decades. Some countries reported severe outbreaks in the 1980s, and by the 1990s, dengue began a regional resurgence."
Well, along with the increased dengue-awareness in and around Manzanillo, we have good news and better news about it here at the SolCasita.
- Casita inmates are already immune. That's the story we're sticking to, anyway. Like many diseases, once you've had dengue, you're immune. As much as we're bitten by mosquitos, and as many times as we've suffered "flu-like symptoms," one of those bouts must have been classic dengue....
- Tourist centers (ala Manzanillo) are better at eradication than outlying areas. Foggers cruise our 'hood at least twice a week - ok, so they don't exactly make it up our street, but they DO hit the street below us.
- Stan just performed a super-duper sealing job on all of our screens, stuffing all the gaps to ensure mosquitos stay out, and he sewed up the big tear in the bedroom's screen.
- The rainy season doesn't start for another month or so, and if we time our travels just right, we might, just might, miss the worst of the rain...and the standing water...and the hatching larvae...thus avoiding the clouds of disease-carrying insects.
April 13
Tianguis in Salagua
Tianguis vendors set it up and tear it back down, daily. Saturdays they're in Santiago, less than a mile's walk from the SolCasita. On Sundays they move it on down the road to Salagua, another mile away. The rest of the week they're in other little communities around and about Manzanillo. The Santiago set-up is all contained within one big dirt field, but in Salagua, blocks and blocks of intersecting streets are closed off and canopied, a nicer venue, but since it's off the main drag, fewer tourists attend, so fewer artsy-craftsy stalls are set up.
Tianguis in Salagua, predominently new
stuff, clothing, cosmetics and household items
Each vendor arrives with his/her tienda, complete...broken down and packed away in a van, truck or trailer. Building materials consist of poles, guy wires and tarps. Display cases vary with the type of merchandise and the amount of overhead each is willing to invest. Some bring tables and chairs, others spread out on the concrete.
Arts and crafts
Fashion footwear
Fruits and veggies
Fine jewelry
Grains
On this tianguis trip, we were hoping for more of the artsy crowd, cuz her highness, the goddess of the bath, ran out of smoke at the alter. Incense was the only item on the tianguis list, but a quick march up and down and out one tangent aisle returned nada. The goddess was finally appeased from a one-price store featuring cheap jewelry. Who woulda thunk?
In other Mexican ports we had tracked down incense in the bath section of supermercados, but there was none to be found in Comercial nor Soriana, and none in the drug stores - I wasn't about to pay the exhorbitant prices that the giftshops were charging just for the little fontain-reversa shrine, but the five and dime pulled through, so the goddess has been appeased.
April 11
Semana Santa Changes around the ole Playa
La playa before the onslaught
It was spring break for us, too, but this week we're back to school. Semana Santa could have been alot worse for us peace-loving recluses. The revelers who rented the other casita weren't too bad; they actually stayed out all night and partied, elsewhere. The beach was a madhouse, but that's why everyone was there. Our neighbors across the street hosted a few all-night parties, but their music was good, so we didn't mind.
Midweek, campers starting to set up tents on la playa...
...And across the road - with porta potties @ US $.30/per
Tienda-tents large and small sold all kinds of stuff. A camper, or an all-night party animal, would never need to leave the beach. In addition to the porta potties, shower stalls were set up with their own gravity-feed tinacos; stands or roving vendors offered tacos, BBQ, pizza, cocos (fresh coconut with a straw stuffed into the end hacked off by machete-wielding caballero), mango-on-a-stick, veggies in hot sauce, popsicles, ice cream and all the other junk food required by the beach bum masses was available.
Tienda-tents filled a half-
mile stretch of beach, blasting music and
selling food, drinks and
all-night dance bands.
Stan and I wandered the beach early in the week, avoiding the crush, later. The crowds were jovial and well-behaved, at least during the daylight hours when we ventured out. It was a family crowd, predominantly Mexican - the college kids must party elsewhere, cuz we didn't see anything resembling the spring break pictures CNN broadcasts.
Tienda row on the beach, before and during
Some days the waves were okay for surfers, but mostly there was just an immediate break. Lots of undertows on this beach. During the height of beach baby week, the navy posted a few boats outside the break to catch the uninitiated, unskilled or unlucky.
Navy guarding the surf line
Wrapping up the week, the newspapers reported a few traffic deaths and millions of pesos spent by vacationers. Also reported, the greater number of pets abandoned over the the holiday. What's that about?
April 10
So Busy around the SolCasita
BuckyKat, half of the death squad
Bucky spends a good portion of her day guarding the fridge. A kitty never knows when something good might come out of it. In the evenings when the arachnid stalkers are out, she teams with Gale on guard duty to keep our tiles safe for bare tootsies. The deadly duo dispatched one of the tail slappers overnight; I found its lifeless body discarded by the food dishes in the morning. Another one got whacked last night - fly swatters aren't just for flies, anymore.
After having total control of what insects are allowed in my environment (none) for so many boat years, these little interlopers are quite unnerving...for me. They're great entertainment for the feline population, who seem to be smart enough not to get stung, or are quick enough to avoid it. With the frantic double-teaming that goes on when a hapless wanderer ventures into their domain, it's a wonder one of them isn't zapped, but maybe scorpion stings are like bee stings? a few shakes of the head and flicks of the tongue and everything's okay, again.
Stan's been spending a good portion of his day, when he's not rampaging with the fly swatter, nose to the computer screen. He's studying and studying some more. First of all, of course, is learning to talk pretty some day, but lately his focus has shifted to weather forecasting.
Weather Central: computer, VHF, SSB, maps and...a weatherman
Gleening info from a million internet weather sites, Stan compiles two marine forecasts, short-term and long-term, each morning before the cruiser's net broadcasts on the radio (SSB). Then, when Don on Summer Passage broadcasts his weather forecast, Stan follows along to see if he agrees with the old weather guru of Mexican cruising waters.
Later in the week, our intrepid prognosticator reviews his previous forecasts, bounces them off actual observations and then grades himself on accuracy. He's been doing pretty well! mostly B's with some D's thrown in to keep him humble.
And what's been on my plate while my hunters and gatherers have been busy entertaining themselves? Websites. I've been scrambling to catch up since my computer returned from its walkabout. Here's what I've managed, so far: SANTUARIO and SBPA Services, Inc.
Websites
My IT office (co-located with Weather Central) has also been busy, busy, busy coaxing my decaffeinated Toshiba back to life. The new Spanish-speaking operating system refused to communicate with some of my (pirated) programs. We finally threw up our hands and ordered Photoshop Elements, online. Downloading that was painful, over three hours of watching the little blue bar crawl across the screen, holding our combined breath hoping that the DSL phone line held out for the duration. It did, and I'm thrilled with my new, legal, graphics program - happy birthday to me.
April 9 - Happy Birthday, Casey!
The Cost of Boats
SolMate sailing at sunrise
Blister-era Valiant 40s are going for a song, the market is depressed and so am I. I spent the day going through the refit we (Stan) performed. From everything we did to her, she's not really a '76, anymore. She's more like a 2000, except the market won't bear out my pipe-dream.
In the heat of obsessing about unfair pricing, I added more pictures to my For Sale page. Not that I think it'll do any good, it was more of a therapeutic exercise than a brilliant marketing strategy.
April 7
Another Forced March, to the Peninsula
Manzanillo and Santiago Bays
Forced march, but not until the rickety ole bus barfed us out at the peninsula crossroads. Banked a mile of tromping the steamy pavement with that busride, slogged instead on cobblestones, and rollercoasters, up and down and all around.
View from La Audiencia back toward the SolCasita (circled)
La Audiencia, the bay on the north side of the peninsula, is peppered with hotels, condos, stately homes, a couple of churches and lighthouse towers.
La Audiencia
It's also peppered with derelicts, as is much of the greater Manzanillo area. I'm pretty sure that most of the bombed-out houses and hotels are casualties of the 1985 earthquake, an 8.0 that caused a ten-foot tsunami. Also caused a whole lot of buildings to slip their moorings.
Houses for sale on the peninsula
Some of the casualties fell off their lots, driveway and gates leading to...empty space (watch that first step). Others only suffered cracked walls, fallen decks. Seems like a savvy structural engineer could figure out a way to salvage and make a killing. Lots of the damaged places seem to be on prime land...only now half the lot is a hundred yards less in elevation. Great view from the back bedroom, what used to be the front patio.
Crossed the peninsular divide to count the boats anchored at Las Hadas on the south side. The little marina attached to the hotel was full of the richer folk, the real sailors anchored outside - we recognized a few.
Manzanillo Bay, Las Hadas marina and hotel
As usual, the silly white folks were out sweating in the streets at high noon, the bus back provided cooling breezes, but the climb back to the SolCasita caused another melt-down. Time for ice-cold jamaica, red flower tea s'posed to cool the inner core.
April 5
Playa Santiago - To the Beach!
Another set of stairs beckons. These are a block down the hill from the casita and drop us right onto the beach (after slipping and sliding down two blocks of cobblestone, circumventing the PEMEX gas station, and leaping across the highway).
Shortcut to the beach
'Our' beach is one of the nicest we've experienced in Mexico, fits lots of the good-beach criteria: clean (equipped with beach sweeper, not to mention the caballero who follows after the beach riders); fairly deserted; few vendors; good waves; and mostly populated by Mexicans (gringo-phobic? people-watching the locals is more entertaining than watching the imports).
Clean-up crew
For about US $8 one can rent a beach umbrella and a few chairs. At high tide the waves ripple right up to your toes.
Playa Santiago at Olas Altas
Looking towards Miramar
and the cruisers' anchorage way off in the corner
April 3
Forced March in Manzanillo
The trusty guidebook promised a viewpoint looking back on the whole of Manzanillo Bay, so Stan and I set off on a forced march in search of it.
Searching for the viewpoint
All sorts of pathways and stairs leading in the right general direction beckoned. We randomly picked a path and set out...and up.
Still searching for the viewpoint
Turns out we chose the high road. It got us to the viewpoint all right, but also delivered views on high.
Manzanillo Bay
Finally, after slogging up and over microwave hill, our roundabout route intersected the bunny slope and the trail out to the view. The route back to the embarcadero was much more hot-exhausted-slogger friendly, shorter and all downhill.
Viewers at the viewpoint
Back at the zocolo, we snapped the requisite sailfish picture, fish the subject of much derision from art critics. Stan and I both liked it. We also hunted high and low for another famous statue, donated by sister-city, St. Paul, in honor of Charles Schultz. After an exhaustive search, we quit looking and hopped our bus home. We learned later that Snoopy had been uprooted, destination unknown.
Famous landmark
Fruit and veggie shop in Santiago
April 2
The Way to Shop
Santiago's street market (tianguis) is geared towards las touristas. Lots of white faces to be seen poking around the hundred or more stalls...new stuff, not as much rummage as we've seen at markets farther north, nor as much food. Used clothing was still in abundance, but all of the booths were established businesses, no individuals selling garage-sale items. Our language teacher says that few cast-offs show up because families either wear things out completely, or they give them away to friends and family. The garage sale is a gringo institution.
After poking around the pottery, wood carvings, logo T-shirts and straw hats, Stan and I hit the veggie stand. What a rip! Unbeknownst to us, bargaining is required, apparently even for veggies. Or maybe the price skyrocketed for us touristas. Our weekly supply of fruits and veggies cost nearly ten dollars. The next week, we wandered into Santiago and stocked up on the same two sacks of goodies for US$2.50.
Borrachos
sin Fronteras (Drunks without Borders)
Making and selling palm-frond
ornaments outside the church gate.
April 1 - Happy Birthday to Leslie!
Semana Santa Prep
The new sign at the beer store says it all.... Casita residents are hunkered down for the duration. We have no idea what the week will bring, but since our school closed for the week due to excessive street congestion, it's a good bet that we'll be seeing typical Spring-Break-in-a-Mexican-beach-town action.
Just to get a feel for what to expect, we wandered around town, but instead of hordes of drunken college kids we ran into hordes of worshipers, reminding us that it's Palm Sunday. The open-air church hosted standing room only services, and the sidewalk concessions were doing a brisk business in braided palm fronds and other clever creations.
