5C's Que Pasa

Today, Palm Sunday, is the first day of Semana Santa. I have read that the hotels here in Mazatlan are over 85% occupancy. Higher than during Carnival. Great for the local economy. Elsewhere I also read an article that Easter week is expected to bring 3.6 billion USD dollars into Mexico 😀  Looks like we are living in the right place in today’s world.

Mazatlan itself has brought in 14,000 military people of various types to protect the city for the week.

Unfortunately Mazatlan is experiencing extreme tides right now. This is creating high high tides while low tides in most areas are sill keeping  the upper areas covered in a layer of salt water.

Usually at this time of year, pop and mom duos are creating one or two and sometimes more small palapas to rent out for shade for a daily rate to the many beach visitors. Because of the extreme tide this is not happening – perhaps a few but not the very many that normally happen.

Between the poopy water ( from the sewage plant at the base of El Faro ) or perhaps a few of the local restaurants dumping their sewer into the Isla bay or ??? it is not pleasant to walk along the Isla beach this past week. Now with the extreme high tide it is even more difficult. This morning we saw some metal structures battered down flat into the sand.

Semana Santa on the Isla is known for its umbrella to umbrella and person to person occupancy on the beach. Hopefully nature will help it all work out as it should. Normally there is little space to walk the beach but now with little actual sand this will be an even greater challenge.

It will be interesting to see how the week ahead pans out.

 

Voting still open.

I was going to post yesterday about Tuesday but my photos were super huge ( too big for the blog ) and after a few hours ( despite even more time with Colin’s help I gave up ). So no blog post yesterday. I was so frustrated. This morning Colin had a new suggestion so I will see how this blog post works out.

Thanks of all who have voted for the name of our UTV and for the name of my new west facing viewing area. Not many votes though. Don’t be shy to vote. It means a lot to me. One person said they thought I meant I wanted them to vote for the Canadian election 😥 So please read my last blog post and VOTE.  Just send me an email contessa549@gmail.com if you don’t want anyone to see your votes. Once I get a few more votes I will post the results. Hey Colin, did you vote???  I have three Kelly’s who have not voted and many other good friends and blog readers. Que Pasa 🙂

Nothing has changed re us getting our personal electrical meter. If it does not happen soon then we will forced to look for another location here on the Isla to live. Very sad as we have put so much love and energy, not to mention pesos, into this location.

Tuesday I had an appointment with Dr G, my GP, here in Mazatlan. It was time for me to get involved in the local medical community. This is the time of year that I start making appointments to get sclerotherapy in my leg veins and to see a dermatologist for my face spots. I also wanted to get my eyes checked since my cataract surgery last August.

I now have an eye appointment for vein treatment] and for the eye check.  I have been having trouble with the dermatologist. Dr. G gave me the name of one but she is so young and has no online media presence and finally when I spoke with her, she does not have the equipment to do what I usually get. Simply direct spay liquid nitrogen works for me.  Have spent thousands on lazer, IPL and other forms of treatment. Today I was given the lead on another dermatologist but I don’t see her until May 7th. That is not a complaint, most of us have to wait a year or more. I am only waiting because Semana Santa is approaching and she is taking time off. However with four people I know who have used her I feel confident in my visit with her.

Sadly there was a very well known and loved dermatologist here in Mazatlan but she died suddenly last fall. Dr. G says that there is a lack of good or well known dermatologists right now. Hopefully I have discovered the one 😉 He is a great doctor and agreed that my many hours of sleep once we arrived here was exactly what I needed. I lamented about weight gain and needing exercise but he said to just relax and my body would let me know when I could proceed.

He mentioned that we now live in a different world or a new world  and that we should learn to live each day to the fullest. None of us know the future. Sitting and drinking wine while enjoying my vista sounded like a great idea to him. So there you have it…..”sit and enjoy your view and drink vino” ! Doctors orders 😎  Like I said –  best doctor ever 😉

Colin and I have dinner in the oven, smells so good. Took an hour of prep but we will enjoy this for a least two main meals and a lunch or two, one at least in the form of a burrito. Meanwhile now that I am back at the computer I am enjoying a Cosmopolitan. Ha! I have had this natural cranberry  juice since November, time to use it up 😎

I may have mentioned to you that I have run out of vino. Someone I have known since 2010 and who is now a neighbor suggested a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc that could be found at Soriana. So from our wonderful MD we took a Didi ( Uber ) to Soriana.

By now we were rather hambre so I noticed a nearby restaurant just at the edge of the Soriana parking lot. Hopefully some of you recall that this entire area used to be an RV park and we had camped here many many years ago.

Colin had an enormous shrimp burger and they asked him if he wanted the shrimp whole or chopped up.  It came with a wonderful salad and fries. He has to be honest, the ketchup was not very good. I begged for a bite and have to say ‘ best shrimp burger ever ‘.

I was ready to go home but we had to move onto Soriana and purchased some basics including vino blanco. Guess I need to shop there more than once every four years 😎

 

Make me happy my friends and please vote as per above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first vote will be for our new wheels mentioned in this blog post.  The second vote will be for my new sunset ocean view seating area – which is still a work in progress but discussed in this post and also here. Your votes on the suggestions submitted to us by yourselves will guide us in making a decision.

Please vote on a name for what we have been calling ‘ Put – Put ‘ from the following suggestions by making a comment.

~ Grasshopper

~ Dune Buggy

~ Lizard Blitz

~ Verde Vroom

~ C’s Lime Beast

~The Turtle

~ the Bomb

~Cool Jewall

~ The Chuckle Chariot

~ Emerald Buggy

~ Put – Put

Next help choose a name for my very special area overlooking the sunset, also by making a comment.

~ Contessa’s Happy Spot

~ Contessa’s Dream

~ 4C’s Sanctuary

~ El Cielo de la Condesa ( Contessa’s Sky )

~ El Cielito de Condesa

~ El Corazon de Condesa ( Contessa’s Heart )

~ Casa Canadiense

~ Contessa’s Happy Place

~ Contessa’s Heaven’s Gate

~ Contessa’s Corner

~ Sunset Serenity

So happy to welcome a long time blog reader to Mexico. She has done all her paperwork including visiting a US Mexican Consulate and crossed yesterday into Sonora. Don’t know if she got temporal or permanente? She is very happy to be living here now in Mexico. I think her favorite parts thus far are the loud music and hummingbirds 😎  A huge amount of work on her part but so worth it. Not an easy move from eastern USA. Very happy to have been able to help her.

 

It is a fun thing, actually a very entertaining object, as well as a practical item.

Many people who live here on the Isla have an ATV or bicycle as their main form of transportation. Of course most walk. Some have golf carts, scooters or side by sides. We walk the beach but for other errands such as a quick trip to the small local tienda or to the ferreteria and often out for a meal, we take the Jeep. And each time we take the launcha across to Mazatlan we drive to one of the two embarcaderos.

Ideally seeing as this will be our home for a long time to come ( well we hope so ) we thought it practical for us to park the Jeep and cover it and to get our personal form of local Isla transportation.

So the search began. Definitely not an ATV, much too difficult for me to get up on never mind drive. Then we looked at some used side by sides also known as UTVs. So Can -Ams where checked out as where various Polaris vehicles and a few others, but they were all to difficult to me to get up into. Colin even paid a mechanic to come and check out a few. Some were much too noisy. We looked at two wonderful used golf carts complete with lithium batteries for sale at Estrella Del Mar. However we soon realized that we can’t take them out onto the beach, much too low to the ground.

Finally we stumbled upon something almost too good to be true. A brand new 2025 UTV sold here in Mazatlan by SUNL de Mexico  and shipped from Guadalajara and made in China. Delivered here to us on the Isla at no extra charge. A UTV O Tipo Razer SUNL 200CC FP. Looks like the next two photos.

Except the one that they had here was not red but orange. No, non, nada!

So my dear blog readers, what should we name it?

Well, we have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride the past 4 days. Very suddenly about noonish on Friday the 28th we lost all electricity to our site. It appears that a neighbor was doing some patio construction when they accidentally cut an electrical connection.  We just happened to be right there at the time when the fellow who did it, came out holding a hacksaw saying that an electrical line had been cut. So Colin and then Joe went to check our respective electrical connections and sure enough we had no power. The fellow who manages our site only showed up after dark with his electrician. Of course nothing could be sorted out in the dark. The next day was not much better. And the translator we use, lives in Guadalajara!

Very long story short we are now waiting for the CFE ( Federal Electricity Commission ) to come and sort out the problem. As you know we have a new to us RV which runs entirely on electricity. The past 4 days has been a challenge resulting in a good deal of stress. For some reason our generator would not start unless plugged in to at least 15AMPs for a short period of time. OR we could start the RV and from there the generator. And it appears that the house batteries that came with this RV are not holding as good a charge as they should. Then we have a problem with the water pump affecting flushing the toilet. So lots of issues all at once. So far we have been able save the food in the fridge. Heating the water for showers is a bit of a challenge so don’t get too close 😎 We are hoping that by Monday or Tuesday we have a solution. Not to worry, we have plan B and C and possibly D. Plan F ( fail ) involves returning to Canada – perhaps just me!!

I wrote the above yesterday ( Sunday ) and here we are Monday at 7PM with no change. No CFE. Well not exactly true. Late yesterday ( which is why I am only completing this post the next day ) Erik ( our RV tech who has been ill for over two weeks ) showed up to try and help us out. He was able to sort out that the neighbors ground wire had been cut which in turn had affected our own electrical connection. After a great deal of testing this and that and trying few things Erik was able to create a very temporary fix using one of our dog fence rebars and a hose clamp. And voila we were functioning. Suddenly we had electricity to run our fridge and hot water ( yeah, a shower again ). So next Colin has to go out and find the proper copper pieces required to create a proper ground. We are still having water pump issues and continue to use a bucket of water to flush but electricity is everything. Low to no shower pressure is acceptable.

Oh and thanks for your suggestions re naming my bit of paradise – which due to all the stuff happening I have not been to for a few days. I am likely going to go with something with “C’s” in the name. So keep your thinking caps on.

In real time, this past Saturday evening we attended a beyond spectacular classical guitar performance by a lovely young woman ( only 23 ) from Russia. This was her first time ever in Mexico and she loved it. Her concert brought me to tears.

A snippet of one of her pieces. She is one with her instrument.

 

https://www.facebook.com/MazatlanFilmTheater/?profile_tab_item_selected=about&_rdr

Colin’s moon eclipse photos from two weeks ago…..all hand held….

The work started on “my” site last Monday. It is going to be a slow process. We are dealing with people who work where and when they can and most importantly when they want to. So sometimes after paying them for that days work they don’t come back for a few days. When they need more pesos they will start work again. Jimmy is a great worker and so is his current helper.

We are in a hold position waiting for him complete phase one. Once he does we will pay the end of that phase. The next part of the project depends on when he is ready to work again.

So why am I creating this special space? Simply because I need to see the sunset every night. My soul needs this vista, this inspiration. Would you like to help me create a name for my new space? Could it be as simple as ‘Contessa’s Corner’? A special friend suggested ‘El Cielo de la Condesa’ (Contessa’s Sky )! Or El cielito de Contessa ( Contessa’s little heaven )? How about El Corazon ( heart ) de Contessa? What do you think? Suggestions are very welcome.

 

 

 

Maybe I’ve been too lazy to post of late or perhaps I have been too busy to create a blog post? Once again it is catchup time. Always so much happening in our lives. So many folks to visit with, so many things to do and some needed RV Renovations which should be completed in another ten days or so. I will start with catching up on our February events.

Ciela’s ears are doing well since the visit to the new vet in Centro. The girls are very happy here. My hair remains a bit too blonde for my liking but I will get used to it. Longtime friend from Kelowna, Sue, says that my hair looks sassy. I love that word.

Yesterday ( that would be real time  “as in March 10”  ) we had four Mexicans wash the RV from top to bottom using the power washer. Colin worked with them. Most of the time was spent cleaning the roof. But in three hours they also weeded our entire compound and did a great job on the RV. It is still cool here, most unusual for this time of year according to the locals. The girls and I spend most of the time inside while Colin does the outside things. It was so windy last night that we thought we might lose some of our palapa fronds but all was well this morning. But when we have a sunny protected spot, we sit out in the sun.

By the way we sold the RV sofa for full price to a doctor about 90 minutes south of here. Will soon have reno photos of what is happening in that space. We also just sold our extra fridge/freezer. So all that is left is to sell the house back in Canada. Nothing happening there yet – except for some falling snow.

The above was written March 9th. Today March 26th I must complete this post or go to bed without dinner. Dinner is an excellent curry fish chowder currently baking with the crockpot.  Back to posting, pronto.

We often attend the Gordon Campbell very high end musical Sunday afternoon events. The first one we attended this season was on February 9th at the Teatro Angel Peralta. It was Big Band Rock performed by the MazAzul Big Band with the addition of a few extra musicians. They are a group of international musicians ( Canada, Mexico and France ) who perform in Mazatlan during the winter season. The group offers original and unique arrangements of popular Soft Rock, Swing, Blues, R & B and Jazz Rock that showcase the diversity and ability of the players. They were beyond excellent.

This same band was hired to play at a private commitment ceremony here on the Isla the day I started this post ( March 9th ) which is how it somehow never got finished until today. Now that was a party.

We have also remained involved in the Blues Concert series at Water’s Edge in Mazatlan Centro. Depending on the artist there are 2 -5 performances per artist. A very giving couple here on Stone Island are opening their home here on the Isla to a single performance once during the artists time here in Mazatlan.

We have been busy living each day to the fullest. I have missed some events and will add them later as I come across the photos.  We have been busy with music and theater and rv renos and meeting new people. Hard to keep living this wonderful life and keep posting at the some time. However everyday I am stronger and my momentum is building.

Hopefully this covers and explains the gaps in the past weeks.

It is 9:40PM and we have not had dinner and Colin is napping so I must stop here and move on.  Much more next time.