August 5th, 2007

Photo: Wild Impatients growing on the skirts of Macuiltepetl.

Sunday

It felt like we could almost rest better now, almost, because we still had to sign contracts and the house had to really be finished by the 15th or 16th. Still we decided another day off was very much deserved by all, so we took off to hike to the top of the “Macuiltepetl” Volcano.
Since our last visit to Xalapa, the boys had been fascinated by the existence of an extinct volcano right in the middle of the city, but we did not have time to visit it on that trip. This time, we were definitively going to go up to the top.
Getting there was, again, a feat in navigational skills. Although you can see the volcano from anywhere in the city, and you can tell you are approaching it, there seems to be just one way up to the entrance of the park. Of course, the streets hardly have names, signs are iffy and you can never tell what way traffic is going. I do not think there is one straight street in all of Xalapa! Eventually, and following a Taxi, we got to the entrance to the Reserve.
There are two entrances to the “Macuiltepetl” the one to the Ecological Reserve and Park, the other one for a short jogging road paved in red clay. We took the clay road, but it probably was not the right one to take. It was not very steep, but it took us only half way around the base of the volcano. It was still lovely to check out all the native plants growing freely on either side of the path. There were forests of pink Impatiens, a few Bromeliads here and there, and many fuzzy caterpillars. The path dead ended near some stairs that said they led to the other road, the paved one.
The cobbled road was a much better and it permitted you to choose between going up walking on the sloped road, or taking short cuts that consisted on incredibly steep stairs made out of volcanic rock. We tried the road most of the way up and took a good hour to reach the crater. It is an amazing jungle in there, but the city has used the flat surfaces to add a few ponds, some sitting areas and even a monument. At the top of the volcano there is a lookout tower. It is a precarious structure that has the most wonderful view of Xalapa. Only the bravest will go to the top level, which has no railing and a very sloped floor, but the view is great. Jevon went all the way up to the top, and although Diego wanted to join him, we decided to say no to that one.
Also on the highest point of the volcano, there is a little “museum” of native species. The National Wildlife service has dedicated this little building to saving hurt animals and keeping them as close to their natural environment as possible, it also serves as a way to educate the public about some of the native wildlife: falcons, eagles, reptiles, and insects. The boys found the raptor birds fascinating.
It took us a little bit less time to get down since we used more of the short-cuts (stairs), but it was really hard to keep oriented in the paths since signaling is, as usual, inexistent.

August 4th, 2007

Saturday
We were close to calling the guy about renting the big walled house on the street of Quintana Roo, when we stopped by the house at “La Gachupina” just to see how much progress there had been in the last week. The “contractor” (there is really not such thing in Mexico, but the term is close enough) was at the house and he showed us what had been done during the week. The house had a kitchen and at least two of the toilets installed. They were done with the exterior painting, but they were still behind on the carpentry area. The doors were still unmoved and the closets were not even started, the stairs had no railing either.
If it had been in the US, I would have guessed there was no way they could have it done in less than three weeks. In Mexico, things work a little bit differently; it all depends on which workers show up.
The architect came as we were looking around the house. She is very nice. She has tenure at one of the local Universities and got her graduate degree in Italy. She is a very educated woman, but incredibly down-to-earth and easy to approach. We talked about the house, about Coatepec (her family is a very old family from the area) and about all architecture and the World. It was a very nice experience to get to meet with Eva, the architect, and to learn from her what the timeline might very well be for the house. She did, at this point, let us know that, if the carpenter did not slack, it was going to be ready by the 15th.
After leaving “La Gachupina”, we were very sure that that was the house we were going to rent. The house at “Quintana Roo” was wonderful in many ways, but had more variables than the “Gachupina” house, starting with the amount of space to deal with and up-keep it might take.

August 3, 2007

Photo: Cliffs on the road to Mont Blanco

Friday

We finally had two options to choose from. Granted, both needed to be finished, but they were mostly livable. One was more practical, still with its charm, the other one was fascinating, with enormous size and potential.
We still went around a second time with Sofia, from Ecomania, to make sure we had not missed anything that might have been for rent. She showed us a couple of nice residential neighborhoods, but there were no houses for rent. She also showed us were a great water park was located right in Coatepec. As usual, going around with the people from Ecomania was a pleasure; they are so friendly and helpful!
In the afternoon, we headed out to a small town called “Monte Blanco” (White Hill). It is located just a few miles South of Coatepec, but the road is narrow and curvy since it goes up the mountains, so it takes some time to get there. Just the road is worth the trip, though. It climbs up unbelievable sheer cliffs over lush, almost jungle-like, canyons. You can find little waterfalls dripping on the sides of the road. “Romancing the Stone”, an 80’s movie with Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas was filmed in this area. The movie is supposed to be set in the Colombian Amazon jungle; I have never been to the Amazon, but it does look like a jungle down here.
“Monte Blanco” is famous for its handmade bamboo furniture: beautiful and cheap. It is also a tiny town of about 130 inhabitants, and it seems they all make bamboo furniture. You can hardly tell you have stumbled into the town until you see the row of scattered homes with bamboo furniture displayed in the front porches.
We decided that we would need a dining room, so we found a place that had interesting furniture, and ordered one. A 6 foot table with two 6’ benches and two chairs for less than 150dlls. Not bad, the down-side, it would take about two weeks to get it done and then delivered…

August 1st, 2007

Photo: Coatepec valley with the Acamalin in the background.

Wednesday

At this point our whole life revolved on finding a place to live. The clock was ticking toward the 17th, plus we were also getting fed up with living at Roy’s apartment. We did take the boys out for walks or to get special treats around the city.
We walked to the Jauregui Market and bought Chinese toys. We also took them to get a miniature horse ride at “Los Berros” and rented a bicycle car for the boys to ride at the park. I also walked with them to get “esquites” which quickly became a favorite. Esquites are corn kernels. The corn is cooked (boiled), the kernels are then cut from the cob and kept in hot water. When you buy them, they drain them and serve them in a cup covered with mayonnaise and cheese. You can also get them “natural” for those who prefer the low-cal version. They also sell the corn on the cob skewered with a stick. It is like a giant lollipop made of corn!
Part of the day was devoted to the never ending search for a home, preferably one that was already built. Although we did go by the house that was still being finished, the one in the subdivision called “La Gachupina” (The Spanish Woman). It was being worked on, but still it had no kitchen installed, no toilets installed and the inside doors were just laying on the floor. That did not give us much hope!
On leaving the Gachupina house, we saw a “for Rent” sign a few of streets away, on the street of “Quintana Roo”. It was on a massive stone wall with two big and menacing white metal doors, one for the garage, one for letting people in. Way back, inside the walled property, you could see the balconies of a white Spanish style house. We called the number.
The owner/agent was there to show us the house in 20 minutes, all the way from Xalapa. He told us he had bought it about a year ago from a research branch of one of the Universities, that it had been used as offices for the Ecology department.
The property was pretty big, with enough front yard to park about 20 cars, part of it was landscaped but overgrown, there were two cobbled “tracks” on the lawn so that the cars could drive in. The house was a two story home, all white with big French doors as windows and with tile roof. It was set back from the wall (that was right on the sidewalk) almost 60 feet.
The living spaces were huge, all the floors were tiled with red “Saltillo” tile and there were insets of “Talavera” (blue handmade tile) here and there. The first floor had an enormous living room with three French doors as windows, a formal dining room, a kitchen about 12X16 feet (but it had just a few cabinets and no stove) and a sun-room all surrounded by glass. Then there was the back patio that was just half the size of the front yard, and right by the house, the carport big enough for two cars.
The second floor had three full sized bedrooms, each with their own bathroom and walk-in closet, all of them had French doors that led to balconies. The master bedroom also had a “studio” and a Jacuzzi…. But the best part was the views! On one side you had a great view of the Cerro de las Culebras, on the other side you had a beautiful view of “Cofre de Perote” (one of the most beautiful mountains in Mexico). We were told that you could see the “Pico de Orizaba” (Mexico’s tallest peak, always covered with snow) from the roof top.
We were all very impressed by the house. It had tons of possibilities, not to mention great spaces for the boys to run and more than enough room to have a lot of visitors! There were a few downsides, though. The bathrooms and kitchen were not finished, so the owner would have to finish them. He said he would have them done in a week… There was no stove, so we would have to get one. There were no real windows, everything was doors that were not sealed at all… it gets cold in Coatepec in winter (ok, just in the low 50’s to high 40’s, but still). We would have to figure a way to keep cold and bugs out. And the biggest down-side: its size. There was no way we could even begin to make those rooms semi-filled. But it still was a fascinating house and it gave us an option to fall back on if the Gachupina house was not finished on time.

July 31, 2007

Tuesday
With the uncertainty of were we could find a place to live, I started calling every single “for rent” classified that said it was located in Coatepec. Again we started driving around to check out the places that had given us information. One was too little and too empty: it was in a new subdivision in the periphery of Coatepec, but there was no one living around, just empty houses… Another one was just ugly; it was a brand new duplex painted in the brightest Aqua color with absolutely no character otherwise, and it was not that easy to get to either. The third one, we just could not find… again, no street names and very iffy map…
In our going around in circles we stopped at the local supermarket: Chedraui Coatepec. It was very well stocked, small but very efficient. It was good to know that we would not have to drive all the way to Xalapa (the whole 15 minutes of a drive) to go to a grocery store.
We also happened to find where the Ashram was located. The “Ashram” is a place of spiritual peace and good vibrations. It sounds very “Woodstock”, and it might very well be, but it has the reputation of having beautiful grounds and a very nice campground right at the foot of the “Cerro de las Culebras”. We were already thinking about camping out at the Ashram if we did not find a place to live by the 17th!

July 30th, 2007

Monday

The decision was made and we would try to rent the house at the top of the street in Xalapa. We would stay in the neighborhood we already knew, with all it's quirkiness. We would keep the mini-park for Kiwi at the end of the street, the really good homemade yogurt a few houses down, and the convenience store where you couldn't even walk in of how full with products it was, and the myriad of street vendors hollering at strange times of the day "yogurt" or "elotes"(corn) or whatever they happened to be selling that day. We would also keep the strange little fruit and vegetables corner store that had the pictures of the Pope (John Paul II) and the Virgin of Guadalupe surrounded by twinkling, colored, Christmas lights and played loud music every morning since 6:00 a.m. We would definitively keep our little "laundry" place where you can drop off your dirty laundry and pick it up later in the day clean and folded for .40 cents (dll) a pound! We would even get to keep the garbage collection "service"...
Garbage does deserve a few lines in itself. Garbage collection in Xalapa happens daily at variable times. In this neighborhood, it is about 5 p.m. that the garbage truck comes by. Every evening, between 4 and 6 p.m., you can hear a cowbell making a very loud, moving sound. That is the sound that brings everyone in the street out of their homes carrying little bags filled with garbage. Since the garbage service is variable, and this is in all Mexico, a guy (that is part of the garbage truck crew) runs up and down each street sounding a cowbell as hard as he can, he is about 10 minutes ahead of the garbage truck. People have about 10 minutes to grab their garbage bag and take it to a certain corner which has already been designated as the collection corner. The garbage truck will come by, pick the garbage up, and make its appearance the next day preceded by the much anticipated cowbell ringer... That guy really has to be in good shape, as much as he runs and with the hills in Xalapa!
Jevon left for the SiiX (Real Estate) office early in the morning, ready to sign a contract. The boys and I stayed behind so that he could do some negotiating on his own.
I was getting exited, finally a place of our own! I was still not thrilled about the commute we would have every morning to school in Coatepec, and I was still not convinced about looking for a school in Xalapa. And then the bad news came with a knock on the door.
Jevon had come back from the Real Estate office with good and bad news. He had gone into the office to find out that the house at the top of the street had already been rented out to someone else! I was no less than bummedY...The good news was that Margarita was waiting downstairs ready to show us a house they were building in Coatepec. It would be finished in a couple of weeks and it was going to be put up for rent by the owner/architect.
I told Jevon to go ahead and check it out, I was not in the mood to drive to Coatepec.
When he came back he had very mixed feelings about this house. It was in a nice place, close to the school and it seemed a very comfortable size, but it looked like it needed a lot more than two weeks! He had met the architect and was very impressed by her. She had said that the house could be ready if all the workers kept their schedule, butY this is Mexico, so she really didn’t want to commit.
In the afternoon we took a drive to Coatepec to get papers to the boys' school, to check out the house and have an ice cream at the plaza.
As usual, it was a pleasure to chat with Aurora at school. The boys (and Kiwi) played for a while in the school yard with Lucia and another girl. Still not much verbal communication was happening, but they had fun. Aurora and Ricardo told us a little bit more about living in Coatepec and recommended the higher altitudes. They pointed out that the low grounds of "La Pitaya" had little wind blowing and really high humidity levels. Ricardo said that if you hiked one day and left your shoes in your closet, in two days you would have to "shave" the mold off the shoes because of how humid it is down there. They live in the higher area of Coatepec, and really enjoy the winds that make the humidity almost disappear.
We ate lunch on a bench at the plaza. I had made sandwiches and they were very welcomed by all. Afterwards we had a very special treat: ice cream from the cart vendors in the plaza. We figured that we had been enough time in Mexico and had taken enough "probiotic lactobacillus" for our stomach to survive this ice cream. (We started taking lactobacillus in pill form as soon as we got to Mexico to build up our defenses in our stomach). The boys got really good vanilla ice-cream. I opted to get a fried plantain covered with condensed milk... I was a little depressed by the loss of the house in Xalapa.
The house in Coatepec was almost finished, but it looked like a little more than two weeks to me. It was set on one side of the "Cerro de las Culebras" (the mountain of the snakes) that is a little mountain that pops out in the middle of Coatepec. The top of the mountain is a Natural Reserve, so it is mostly dense semi-tropical forest. Since the house is built up high, it gets really nice winds blowing through. In many ways, the house was nice and very practical, but I had doubts, big doubts, that it would be done in time. We had to be out of Roy's apartment the 17th of August.