Casa de Chacala

Our two week trip to Mexico this time was filled with fun, frustration, good food, good talks and very little sleep.

We arrived to beautiful warm balmy weather which gradually got warmer and warmer as the days progressed. I was glad we didn’t have a thermometer as I am sure we would have decided it was too hot to do some things. We made it to the beach twice just to sit and laze around for a couple of hours but otherwise we worked full out to get everything done.
Our Mexican friend had called our contractors to get us started – we needed some things fixing, painting inside, tiling, counters, window covers, interior doors, railings and building of steps. On top of this we needed to try to persuade the local authorities that we deserved power, not an easy job. We also quickly realized we needed a mattress, as our air mattress did not hold pressure, needing several pumps to make it through the night. A North American friend loaned us a single mattress until we found a very reasonably priced mattress in Las Varas a town a few minutes away.

We enjoyed picking colours for our house, at first we were very confused, we had several books to refer to – “Mexican Color” and “Ajijic Behind the Walls”- but still found it confusing. I realised we were trying to make too many decisions at once, when we slowed down it became much easier to see what colour came next.

On Thursday we rounded up several people, our new neighbours, also from B.C., a local woman who’s English and Spanish were very good and whose husband was also building in our neighbourhood, and ourselves. We headed off to Las Varas to once more apply for power. The engineer we talked to was helpful as usual and took us through the same procedure as before, saying that permission had to be received from Puerto Vallarta before they could do anything but they would do another study. We didn’t have much hope as we had been turned down before. At the same time we were being awakened at 6:00 am every morning with a bulldozer clearing an area just in front of our house. We talked with the driver and he said they were clearing roads, Rick asked if our road was going to be cleared and he said eventually, he thought, a usual Mexican answer for “I don’t know”. Then we found out that this was a government machine whose job it was to clear and put in new roads, but they was actually clearing private lots. Obviously something had persuaded them that this was profitable. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Rick got mad and more or less demanded that our road be put in so that we could get electricity. Initially they ignored him, turning around and talking to others. Wonder of wonders, on the last day of our stay the bulldozer came up our driveway at 6:00 am and started clearing our road. We are still not sure if this will get us electricity but we have a little more ammunition now.

We went to Compostella and Tepic twice, the first time to order tiles for the bathrooms and the second time to pick them up. We had many Mexican moments and thoroughly enjoyed out time in Tepic.

This is a picture of zocalo in Compostella

The town square, where birds and children fly and run freely. It is always a hive of activity; each day seems to have a different emphasis. On the weekends the markets are the main events. During the week small stalls selling everything from jewelry to chickens. The first time we were there they were pruning the Bougainvillea, great branches of glorious colours, fallen petals making a carpet across the square. The second time we had to plug our ears as cars maneuvered their way around the square with their boom boxes on high volume. Another day we had the great experience of Margaret locking the keys in the car, Rick can almost now see the funny side of this, and we discovering the wonders of taxi drivers. We only had to ask one of them and he took us to the nearest locksmith, demanded that he come right away, and then took us back to our car; all for 100 pesos.

We spent quite a lot of our social time with our Mexican friends, giving house tours and visiting, all in Spanish, which is challenging but getting easier. We thoroughly enjoyed these friends and look forward to getting to know them better. We have a sense of community there, for example one evening walk was interrupted 5 times with people we knew wanting to talk—something that never happens for us here. We also feel grateful for the quality of the workers who have helped us. All of them were very skilled, honest, honorable and friendly. We rarely had a problem with any of them, and any small problems were easily sorted out.

We had lots of help from our North American friend, a woman who lives in Chacala full time, she writes a blog about her life there - http://mylifeinchacala.blogspot.com/ - we find we are able to keep up with what’s happening in Chacala through this blog when we are not there. This is very helpful. Our Mexican friend who has been managing the project with us was great. She was able to find someone to make doors for us, send the Machina (machine) Guy over when we needed him, bring the metal guy over to decide on railings, as well us take us on a trip to a far away beach and lunch at another for great seafood. She has been sending us photographs of the progress of all the work. I think she will become the official photographer for Chacala pretty soon.

It is two weeks since we left and I think everything has been completed. Everyone came together on time and I think everything is finished. Now we can hardly wait to get back to see it all, but I think it will be December before we can get away again. So for now our pictures speak a thousand words.

I am finding it hard to download more pictures so will do another page tomorrow.

// posted by Margaret Adams @ 7:53 PM 1 Comments