Volcanoes and puppies

Well we went out to the Pinacate reserve last Sunday. Very cool- very very cool. I heard and then read that years ago this area was used by the United States for the astronauts to train before going to the moon...all the craters I guess. At first I thought as we started the trek out there....hmmmm what's up with this? I have been totally complaining lately about my new found HATE of the desert, and now we're gonna drive a 2.5 to 3 hour loop thru the desert! Wow maybe I'm not coming back- maybe he's finally sick of my complaining and I'm gonna disappear....I mean you could bury somebody out there and nobody's ever gonna find them, probably never even look. The first 10 or 15 minutes were just desert, and here the desert is not too awe inspiring, at least not after 11 months of it. There's no really cool cactus like closer to the border and right over the border in Arizona where they have that pipe organ cactus. Or the tall poles that then have these thick branches (are they called branches on cactus), anyway they always look like arms waving at you.

I used to have this stamp of a cactus, the tall one and his arm was waving like "buh bye now". I had a green ink stamp pad and I used it whenever a sales order was complete and shipped. Then I could easily tell if an order was complete or we shipped the system but there was something back ordered. I worked in manufacturing my entire career and over 25 years of it was telecommunications. From building product in our own factory to outsourcing locally when surface mount technology hit- the equipment was soooo expensive- so we built it off site, then put it all together for test and ship, to building it offshore in Hong Kong, then Thailand then China. I remember when we first started using email...ouch makes me old eh? Ok I'm 56....

Anyway the cactus here always makes me think of that stamp...don't know what happened to it. On the way to Ensenada the desert changes, to red dirt, to more shrubbery, to very rocky...if you're watching out the car window you see the landscape changing. It changed like that in the Pinicate reserve. Well once I saw the crater! I was so happy I went! It was very cool. Very deep. And the signs they had in English and Spanish were written in such an interesting way- ..."imagine you were standing here and felt a rumbling under your feet..." and it told you what happened as the volcano erupted. And I learned alot. I never knew some volcanoes create craters and some create mountains. It was beautiful and it was awesome. I definitely recommend it to anyone who is down this way. It was about a 2 hour drive around the loop; we saw a roadrunner and a few lizards, but we also saw beautiful foliage, amazing rock formations, and I really looked at the desert like I haven't done in a while.

So we'll leave the desert; I'm not sorry about that, but I am reminded about the beauty of everything, tropics, desert, all of it. It was a nice trip and I'm glad we took it.

We are almost packed; only things and clothes we need are still out. Our neighbor got a new puppy. He's part lab and part something else big, I think he may be even bigger than Sam. He's chocolate brown and really cute. I'm not sure she ever had a dog before, or maybe is of the common mindset here that they don't matter much or need much. I took him to the center for his first shots, stuff for parasites and a de- tick bath, and they picked over 100 ticks off of him. I named him Brownie just for the paperwork they started for him, marking off his shots and dates for when he needs to return. It's all free out there, including getting neutered, I hope she does that. But they don't pay any attention to him; they leave him outside all day and they stay inside all day, even the kid. So he plays with Sam and comes in our house. She doesn't know apparently that he needs to eat at least 3 times a day at this age so we feed him in the middle of the day, actually we feed him in the morning too since they don't get up very early. Sam is really having fun with him, they way we had hoped it would be with Lucky...

Poor Brownie is gonna be sad when we leave. We are joking about stealing him....or just asking her if she really wants him....I think she does, for protection, at least for him to bark  like Sam does, but he needs love! He's huge, about 3 months and 14 pounds already ha ha. He chews everything, has stolen a bunch of shoes out of our house to chew- he needs some toys. The kid (5yrs old) Omar, named him Rango so that's what we were calling him; in fact in my head I was figuring out what I wanted to change it to if he went with us to Ensenada...I was thinking Roscoe...but then Rocky since this city, Puerto Penasco, is also called Rocky Point. But then this morning, the neighbor, the kid, and her boyfriend were all calling him Brownie.....so I guess that's his name. Ah well, we can't take him....and that's ok. We're going to a new place and having a puppy to house train, etc, won't be fun...and oh yeah did I mention that he threw up in the car on the way to the center and then again on the way back? Could you imagine a 6 hour trip? Which will probably be closer to 8 hours since Everardo will be driving the truck pulling the trailer and me and Sam will follow with the car.

This was one long long week, and now all of a sudden it's Friday nite. So now 2 weeks to go. I gave a memory stick to my zumba instructor Erica, and she's going to copy all her songs so I can make myself a playlist- yipee. I actually asked her if she'd write down the titles of the songs as they played during our workout, so I'd just ask for the ones I really liked, then I'd find them on Itunes. But she suggested the memory stick, and she said she copied 111 songs! Wow! I like the beat, it's good for exercising. And a couple of songs- when I hear them I know what to do. That's just a couple but one is a song that's just a leg workout and there's another just for arms, so I like that. I've actually heard some of them on the radio, but even if I looked in Itunes; I don't what the genre is...are they rock? contemporary? I don't know how they're rated in Spanish. Her birthday was Wednesday and everybody sang to her after class. I gave her a little pair of silver earrings that Everardo gave me and I had a nice little box...little gifts are important for people you respect here. Tonite after class we had a little potluck to celebrate her birthday and anyone in October. It was snack type foods; this kind of soup that was like cream, and then people put tortilla chips in it and ate them. There was another creamy like soup that was green, but I didn't try it; I felt lucky that the one I chose was only a little picoso (spicy)...and with the chips and hits off my water bottle it was ok. Ha ha I saw these small cups of what I thought was juice, maybe apple of pineapple and I took one and brought it up to my lips to the laughter of others- it was jello! Luckily I brought a flannel shirt with me because it's actually starting to get cold after dark. Well only after zumba when I'm wet from sweat do I get cold. I don't wear the shirt before or during, but was glad I brought it along tonite. I saw the old lady, the one who used to give me a bad time at zumba, stash food in a bag and casually walk over to her car. Oh well, I gave them a ride home once, or close to their home, and so her hoarding a bit of food is ok. Anyway she snatched about 3 of the little things I brought- and boy they went quick with lots of comments about being rico (rich)....even though they were actually low calorie. But they were little muffin shaped things made with yogurt, and were yellow cake and chocolate, sort of swirled. So I did good ha ha! One lady asked me (in Spanish of course) if I had them in my house. I laughed and told her no! When I have something like that in mi casa, I eat them all, probably in 2 days or less, so we all had a good laugh about that.

So I'm home and the windows are actually closed cause it's pretty cool outside, and with the cool air came the mosquitoes. They weren't here all summer in the heat, and that's a blessing, But they're here now. Poppi is getting bit and man what a crabby boy! I shared my bug lotion with him- I put some more on after my shower, and gave him some, but maybe it's not working as well for him. He's pretty grumpy right now, he's playing solitare on the computer, so I'm just doing my own thing. Eating peanuts and jack cheese...oh I hope SO much that they have sharp cheddar in Ensenada! I'm also doing a little research on tv applications for over there; do we stay with Sky TV? Varivision which I was offered, or Dish.

The guy at the Laptop place told me today that his girlfriend here in Penasco pays 149 pesos a month for Dish, basic package. Even if you double it to get a bizillion channels it's still less than the 510 pesos we pay now. I picked up a one page catelog/menu of packages for Dish and the woman told me it's the same in Ensenada....we want both English and Spanish channels and have zero need for any local U.S news. BBC news is the best- even much better than CNN Int'l. But I do want shows in English like we have now..altho different channels than we have now would still be ok, cause they play the same movies for...about a year! If I see Maid in Manhatten one more time I might have to kill myself. And Hangover- funny movie but in the last 3 months it's been on about 15 times....English and Spanish. Oh and Rocky Balboa....kill me!

Ok well a repeat of Criminal Minds is on...they started back at the beginning, like season one, so I don't actually remember all of it...have an awesome night all.

Mexico fun fact:
Hernan Cortés had a native mistress and able translator Marina (La Malinche). She gave birth to his first son, who is considered the first mestizo (Indian-Spanish).

Why why why??

I don't have a lot to say, except that, why why why did I not take a single picture of the place we're going to rent? For me this will be (ok already is) a HUGE exercise in patience cause I'm dying to send an email to the realtor & ask for pics. But were going to be there in 3 weeks, so really I just need to let it go..we'll be there soon enough. Of course this will be the longest 3 weeks ever! We are half packed, probably more than half. All my clothes except for shorts and tshirts and flipflops are packed- oh except my zumba clothes, I want to keep going until the end.

Irka is the name of the lady we are renting thru. She told me there's a free aerobics class in the area, and then I know about the zumba class that's 20 pesos a class. I also know there's the free zumba class in Ensenada but that will take some time to find and decided if it's feasible....what time is it at? I heard mornings, but do they have an evening class? Is it at multiple parks? But hey if these are my biggest problems, then yipee.

One thing that's weird is Irka says people she rents to pay her $15 a month to pay their bills; that mail is virtually non existent and so getting your bills is difficult, etc. Well we've been living in Mexico about a year and a half, so we already know this. Here in Puerto Penasco, the electric, phone & water bills are hand dropped off in your mailbox, then you go down to their offices to pay...well phone you can pay at the grocery store. The cable tv bill shows up on your tv screen and then you go pay it. In Playa Ventura we never received any bills; we went to the next town to pick them up, and then moved to the next window to pay- except for electric, which some guy in town picked up and we went to his house to get them, then paid in the next town. So we got this. Hmm feels like I already wrote this so sorry if it's a repeat, but maybe I said it in an email to my sister....
Anyway we're gonna talk to her about this; we can pay our own bills. I know we don't put them in our name, she was clear about that, but the water and electric here are not in our name either. I think most of her clients are Americans or Canadians...not Mexicans, and so the non-user friendly way of doing things is hard. But we're used to it. And although Everardo may start working, I probably will not so it's not like I don't have time ha ha.

There's another weird thing too, and she didn't tell us until after we knew we wanted the place. I guess the land in front of the beach in the neighborhood our house is in, is owned by this one woman. And she CHARGES $40 a month for beach access!! Yeah that's NOT gonna happen. I figured she was an old woman who watched this stuff all get built up around her, but Irka said she's in her 40's married...I didn't ask if she was Mexican or American...but no matter; we will figure something out. If we have to drive 5 minutes in one direction or the other to get to the beach then so be it. Hopefully we'll be able to work something out with her. I haven't even seen the area, meaning how you get to the beach or anything cause we drove in and drove out. I do know that as the crow flies, the walk would be maybe 5 minutes to the beach. I know that I can see the beach from our upstairs living room windows. And this is only a feeling but it seems like not too many people live in our neighborhood year round, it has the vacation house feeling to it, and it was very quiet. We had actually driven in there before we went with Irka, and had driven in there last time we were there a month ago and never saw anybody else there either time. Maybe this woman is sick of people showing up for a few weeks and tramping thru her yard down to the beach, then leaving. Maybe people are rude to her...I don't know- I hope it's not that she's just a greedy bitch cause that will suck.

It's kinda like this. You drive south from Ensenada about 15 minutes, the road is to the Bufadora which is a huge tourist attraction. It's a 2 lane road but it might be a highway. I may have mentioned it's under construction at the front end, but it seems like they're making good progress so hopefully it will be done end of October as scheduled. Anyway as you come into Punta Banda which is a tiny town, there's some little stores and restaurants, and neighborhoods on both sides of the street. Our neighborhood (and I'm sure it has a name but I don't know what it is yet), is a right hand turn off the main road. This road is pretty long, goes along the beach back towards Ensenada and every so often there's a left turn into a group of houses. Our turn is the first one. We had gone in there on our own cause we saw a for rent sign, but we never found the place. We didn't really drive all around it; we hit a couple of dead ends and so just found our way back out. So really I guess I'm not sure how far the walk is to the beach. It's kinda like a mobile home park, you know with little lanes and the roads are gravel not paved...(but not sandy dusty dirt like here-ugh). Our house is at the end of one of those lanes, so we are also a dead end..I think, hmmm now I'm wondering if the road actually turned left at our house...I just can't remember. Too bad- I was tired by then, trying to fight off the frustration of all the crappy places and the nice but just not quite right places we'd seen, and not expecting much from this place either. Ha ha and then we liked it. I wish we would have gone back and looked around the neighborhood the next day before we left but it was in the complete opposite direction....

Anyway we will work something out with this woman, or we won't. I hope we will. Maybe we'll get to know her, maybe she'll love Sam (everybody does)...anyway we'll see.

Hmm for not having much to say I guess I wrote alot. I think in a few minutes we're off to the Pinacate. Not the resort- the National Park area. It's a volcano and we've never been out there. Since we're leaving we thought we'd go check it out. Yesterday and Friday Everardo took his wares to the beach since the tourists are coming back now the the heat wave broke, but today we're gonna have a touristy day for ourselves...and San too. Well gotta get ready....oh yeah shorts and a tshirt ha ha...of and hat for the sun...same as EVERY day here.

Mexico fun fact:
When Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortés arrived in 1519, the Aztecs believed he was their returning god, Quetzalcoatl, and offered him the drink of the gods: hot chocolate.