One Floor Up

December 27, 2008

Yesterday was the big day for the 1st floor pour. The crew had been framing it up and placing rebar for days (including two fellows working on Christmas). They used some planks and lots of plywood supported from below with rough-cut 2x4s and some small tree trucks as the horizontal surface, and wove in the criss-crossed rebar, tied into columns and previously-poured beams, and Alvaro the plumber/electrician placed the ceiling light boxes and related conduits.

Yesterday morning they worked on framing up the edges and the part of the terrace that overhangs the beams. That portion includes the steel for the round concrete posts for the railing, so I had to assure that one strategic post would be strong enough to support a hammock someday. There was a crew of about 12 working, double the usual. I went home to lunch with the intention to return to watch the pour.

It is a bit traditional to feed the crew after the pour, so I put off returning until after 3 PM, and made my way downtown to buy seven roasted chickens, 7.5 liters of pepsi, and 2 kilos of tortillas before heading back up. The crew had grown to about 18. It was like watching a machine, or a dance of hard labor. Five guys worked continuously loading up the gas-powered small mixer. #1 dumped it, turned it back and threw in a bucket of water. #2 swung a bucket of sand up onto his shoulder, carried it over and threw it in, then repeated this 4 more times. #2 and #3 filled buckets with round river gravel, lifted them and dumped them in, while #1 was adding the bag of cement it 2 halves, another 1/2 bucket and a bit more water, cutting open the next bag of cement, and watching the mix. #5 was bringing up water from the storage tank (tinaco) for the barrel #1 was emptying. #1 would crank the turning mixed up and over and dump it on the ground on the other side, and the process would start again. They used 40 bags of concrete.

On the other side of the mixer, two workers with square-front shovels continuously lifted mud into buckets, and five or six more guys swung them up on their shoulders and carried them over to the growing edge of the slab pour. Two masons plus Alvaro worked there, throwing water on the forms, rodding around with bits of rebar to work the mud into the columns, etc., and roughly working the slab surface flat. that only adds up to about 16 guys, but nobody was NOT working hard except me. All of this was done with virtually no discussion or orders. I'm sure there was some of that before I got there, but when I was watching everybody knew their job, and simply did it over and over without comment or complaint. Lencho wasn't even around most of the time, as he had to go get another load of water, and then one more. The only time the crew took a 15 minute break was when the water ran out and they HAD to wait.

They all use what appear to be normal 5 gallon buckets, but have been modified with a single dowel spanning a chord across about a third of the mouth. Using the dowel they can swing one up onto their shoulders in a single practiced motion, which looks efficient but lifting 20+ kilos to shoulder height is a lot of work no matter how efficient you get. One had leather shoes or boots, one had running shoes, and the rest had standard Mexican Construction footwear -- fully protective flip-flops. Nobody has gloves.

I think the slab weighs about 15 tons, and every ounce of it got lifted three times: on the way to the mixer, off the ground to the buckets, and again on the way to the pour. it sure seems like the local cement truck (there is one in town now) would be able to displace a dozen or so laborers cost-efficiently but maybe not, and what's the harm of providing jobs?

I assume the pour started about 2 PM and most of the work was done by 5:15, and I broke out the chicken and such. Since the crew had grown from the morning, I should have had a few more chickens but they were appreciated anyway. The masons did a rough troweling, to leave the floor fairly flat but rough enough to accept tiles (if it is too smooth they will chip it away later so the tile mortar can grip). They finished up and last of us left at about sunset. I have a floor, and the walls will start growing fast now.

It's been a while since I put in this link to pictures of the process so here it is again: http://s411.photobucket.com/albums/pp194/djlandwehr/Mexico%202008-9/

Christmas time in Puerto Escondido

December 24, 2008

Yesterday we and Dan took a trip to the beach communities south (mostly east) of here: Ventanilla, Mazunte, San Augustinillo, Zipolite, and Puerto Angel. At the first we took a beach walk with Sophie and then a longer beach walk also with Sophie to a boat tour through a mangrove swamp to see crocodiles (3), birds, and the vegitation. A great 1+ hour trip for 35 pesos each. Sophie wasn't allowed on the boat, as crocodile bait, so she had to wait on shore. On our return, I had to unhook her to free the leash so she promptly took off down to drink from the mangrove swamp, causing a bit of a panic as the tour operators worried she was about to become crock chow but we did not see a fourth crocodile.

After that we hung quite a long time on the beach at San Augustinillo, a beautiful beach and an exploding community. Actually all of these places have grown dramatically in the last few years, despite the rugged topography of all of them except Zipolite. Later we went to a good snorkeling beach at the far end of Puerto Angel, had a cerveza in town, and drove the highway back to Puerto Escondido, arriving home before the last light of the unusually lingering sunset faded out.

While I was out Derek had to handle the day's building events, putting up 820 pesos for more plumbing and electric parts, and catching a mistake in the afternoon related to the placement of the driveway. I will learn more about that when we meet Lencho at noon over there. When we went by on the way out of town yesterday morning the crew was framing up the slab pour for what will be the 1st floor terrace. It now looks like the first floor slab won't be poured until Saturday. It makes one wonder just how much will get done before we leave in just a couple more weeks or so.

On Monday we looked into some more lodging options for the week we need to be out of here, from next Monday to the following one. We found several workable options, but the best for us turns out to be the closest -- one of the nearest neighbors here is the Hotel Teranova, and they finally happened to have a door as we passed by. The very genial young son of the proprietor showed us the downstairs room for 1000 pesos per night and the smaller upstairs room for 700, which we now intend to take. The same day we saw a small hotel near the lighthouse with a 500 peso room with a kitchen which seems perfect for Dan (who needs 3 more days than we) so it seems we have all found what we need, just not together.

Monday we got down to Bacocho beach for the late afternoon sun/sunset swim and watch, which allowed Sophie to tag along and get in her first ocean swim of the trip. She needs help catching crabs now, as her head and front half commit to the chase but her hindquarters can't really keep up anymore. She did catch and eat one at Ventanilla with a little help from us and a suicidally foolish crab.

Monday and yesterday were both more enjoyable than the weekend, as Liz was sick Saturday, and with my superior immune system I wasn't sick until Sunday, each of us de-energized in turn with some digestive distress, catching up on our read/sleeping. Being sick here is no fun, but might have been preferable to being in Ontario or Oregon or Minnesota this week as winter hit all enthusiastically in recent days. That has to be fun with Christmas shopping and travel, too. For the record it had been perfectly sunny and warm here every day.

There have been a lot of parties, some loud, most nights, but last night was notably still, as tonight and tomorrow night, and then the weekend, will all be most joyous. It appears that the song "Silent Night" refers to the night of the 23rd.

The other evening, when Liz was sick, there were no sunset cervezas, so I went over to the Casa Den site to see exactly where the sunset view would be from the house. It was a bit of a shock to drive up the the road, approaching from the east, and see the sun setting LEFT of the road. It shouldn't have been a shock, looking at the map, and knowing the sun sets south of west at the solistice, but it was, since I am used to looking at it from Derek's lofty view, where the roads are pretty much 45 degrees off of true N-S-E-W, while they are pretty much 'normal' in my neighborhood. So it looks like we will need to go to at least the second floor for a sunset view, but at least the neighbor's house (where it sits now) won't ever block the winter sunset.

Decisions and Details

Decisions and details...

As Alyano, my plumber/electrician has begun work, it is now time to start worrying about some details. Some are not so small, like where the 2nd floor kitchen sink will be. Others are numerous and picky, like exactly where to put light switches and outlets. I'm afraid I won't be asket those and if I feel strongly enough to make changes to the assumptions Alyano makes it will probably require him to do it wrong first. As for the sink, that has been a struggle. The original plan was for that kitchen to be (eventually, not this year) in the NW corner, as it is on the 1st floor, with the bath again in the SW corner. The door to the 2nd floor is along the south part of the east wall, which brings foot traffic across the original bedroom, and the kitchen in the middle of the best views, which seems a waste, both since we aren't in the kitchen all that much and since the view windows then have to be higher, above the counters and appliances. We looked at packing the kitchen into the SE corner instead of the bedroom, but it really is a squeeze. We looked at making it along the bathroom wall, maybe moving the bath door to the other wall to make a L-shaped kitchen (also eliminating the west door to the deck.) Or we could make it a straight-line kitchen along the west wall, also losing the west door, and moving the big slider door to the deck to the west, so the best views would be unobstructed and the kitchen sink window would have a view too. That is looking like the best plan now, though there will still be the bath plumbing nearby if I change my mind again.

Part of the problem is that I don't really know how we will use the space. It is being built to be possible to rent out the three levels as three separate and self-sufficient little apartments, each with a bath and kitchen, but as a house for one family it obviously does not need 3 kitchens, so one or more levels should also be divisible into bedrooms, offices, studio space, etc. If I was to put the kitchen on the south wall, near the door, it could more easily have two (smallish) bedrooms which both have nice views and access to the kitchen, bath, and deck. Maybe I should have him put the pipes back there too, just in case.

He is doing some other extra plumbing already. I've got this idea to put some tubing in one of the slabs on the south wall as a sort of solar collector, with the water headed for the gas water heater routed through that slab first, hopefully getting warmed enough along the way that it takes little or no gas to bring it up to hot-shower temperatures. That requires some extra pipe and valving. Also I have asked for two sets of drain pipes, one for the toilets and another for the bath, kitchen, and laundry sinks, so this gray water can be sent not to the fosa septica but directly to irrigate some of the plantings. Some of this is probably why he needed 600 pesos more in materials yesterday.

Derek and I have also been making changes to the concrete plans this week. We were looking at the level of the parking slab, which is also the lid of the fosa septica, and the level of the planned beam holding up the slab above it (the terrace outside the first floor), and the contours of the street, and realized that the entry to the parking area might too steep, and the beam too low, to get even a small pickup or tall car under the beam on the way in to park. The plan now is to shrink the terrace a bit to increase that clearance, though it will mean only a small car will fit completely under the terrace. We also made some changes to the stairway up to the terrace from the parking area, and added a few steps down the other side to grade level on the west.

December 19 AM update: We went over to the site yesterday to meet with Lencho to review things, pay him, and to make the decision about the upstairs kitchen known to the plumber. In the moment, I reversed myself and decided to put the 2nd floor kitchen on the south wall rather than the west, thinking that if that level got re-purposed into bedrooms or something it could easily be divided in half, east and west, with the bath, kitchen and entry as shared space. We'll see... Well at least the pipes will be there if we stick with this plan.

PM. Liz and I went over this morning. The plumber wasn't there but the crew had already poured the three round columns that will hold up the 1st floor terrace over the septic tank and the parking area. They were starting to build the rebar reinforcement and the forms for the large beams that will span the columns and the the space to the 1st floor floor beams. The picture above is that work.

Good times and good money spent

Dec 15, 2008,

Good times and good money.

Both are going by quickly at this point. The building project continues, though nothing looks dramatically different than a week ago. Much work has gone down the toilet, so to speak, as the excavation for the septic tank has become a huge effort. I wrote about the backhoe scraping over rocks as it excavated in my last post; it turned out that that one huge rock never moved and took up much of the floor of the intended fosa septica, which is basically a concrete box, open to the soil at the bottom, which doubles as a septic tank and leach field in local practice. The large rock down there will essentially plug part of the 'drainfield' but the thinking is there will still be plenty of drain for a small house. As a backup plan we are putting in a pipe outlet for a real drainfield which will be capped for now but available if it is ever needed.

Aside from that big hole and the continued covering of the outside below-grade walls with fine (cement + water only) stucco, the biggest changes to report are the start of the plumber's work and the connection to the water pipe in the street that happened this morning. That has been a long process, involving Alejandro and Rosa Maria having to get a contract in place ($2200), a trip to determine the needed hardware ($500+), digging a trench to the pipe in the street, and meeting Alejandro and the water guy this morning to do the connection ($550). All that for water service 3 times aweek for a few hours (hence the need for a cistern) and which apparently cost all of $50 a month (all figures pesos, divided by about 10 for $Can or 13 for $US). Also this morning the plumber realized he needed more fittings so I took him to the hardware store for another $80 of stuff.

At least he is working today. On Saturday he gave Derek and I a list of what he needed, and we took that to the hardware store. Just ordering it all took 45 minutes and then they would deliver it in an hour. Well that became about 2 1/2 hours, so it got there after everyone had left for the week Saturday afternoon. The plumber wss going to work Sunday so I took the bag of fittings I hadn't wanted to leave sitting around over there but they were not touched until today.

To route a pipe in a block wall the plumber just chips blocks and mortar out of the way. I saw today he did have an electric tool, the first seen on site, and that he ran an extension cord over to the neighbors to run it. It is just a heater to do the pipe connections, nothing like a drill, saw, or grinder to actually make cutting channels for pipes easier.

Aside from house stuff, we've had a nice few days. Last night we went to the traveling circus. There was terror and balancing and flashing lights aplenty, and that was just in the stands. We were in the 50-peso cheap seats, which were 1x8 planks held up on steel frameworks, with wide gaps between planks so it was easy to imagine small kids falling through the cracks. The start was delayed 20 minutes to bore kids and goad their parents into buying various flashing LED toys to whirl around in the dark tent. When it got going there was a juggler, a balancing act, various unfortunate animals (Camel, primates, lions, llamas, ponies, huge horses), fairly lame clown acts, and motorcycles spinning around in a 12-foot spherical cage, all with loud piped music and a crown of cheering kids and their parents. Not exactly Barnum & Bailey but fun was had by all.

Up and down

December 10, 2008

Up with the walls, and today (hopefully) down with the excavation of the septic chamber. Work keeps going on, six days a week, and the lower part of the place is taking shape. At this point the block for the foundation, cistern, and bodega level is all laid, and some of the upper cadenas are poured, while others have the steel in place but will be poured with the slab.

The backhoe was planned to be digging the fosa septica today but when I went over at 9:00 neither Lencho nor the machine was around. He needs 15,000 pesos from me today so I expect he will find or call me before too long.

The crew yesterday and today are putting a layer of stucco made of cement and water only to the outside layer of the foundation walls for waterproofing. The same treatment will be used on the walls of the cistern to hold water in. Another worker, low man on the crew, had the task of shoveling dirt from the bodega chamber over the wall to the SE chamber of the foundation structure. Also, they have dug out to the water pipe in the street, which I was pleased to see is a nice 4-inch PVC pipe which hopefully will have plenty of capacity.

Business-wise, we got the quote yesterday for the extra work needed for the modified plan. The labor and materials worked out to 55,000 Pesos for a Lencho total of about 220,000 Pesos for completion of the concrete construction of the first floor and ceiling. That works out to about $16,500 USD. When I added in some guestimates for plumbing, electrical, windows, doors, utilities, and Derek's services, the total worked out to 29,990.60 which leaves almost $10 worth of headroom under my construction budget of $30K. It might well work out that I will spend less than that this year, leaving out the windows, doors, plumbing fixtures, and electrical hardware so as to be able to leave the place unsecured this year without much possibility of theft.
Then I could send Derek a healthy sum in the early fall and have the place sort-of ready for occupancy/finish construction next winter. There would still be tile, appliances, fixtures, and lts of other stuff to do but we could live/camp there while that was underway. If I have a good year for work, maybe we could even get construction of the two upper levels going before we get here.

While all the real work has been going on we have managed to have a vacation, too. Afternoon at the beach started a bit late yesterday when we picked up Dan about 4 pm and went to Carizalillo, then walked up from there to Tugas restaurant at Villas Carizalillo for beers and apetizers during sunset and beyond. It is one of the nicer places in town, with beer, for example, double the going rate, 30 pesos (over $2US, almost $3CAD)!

Dan got me over to Brad's Split Coconut (again in Rinconada this year) for horseshoes with the old gringos last Thursday and wants to go again tomorrow. Friday he's got us (not Liz) going to Manialtepec lagoon for fishing, birdwatching, and a surf lesson (lunch, too, I hope). We went to the market yesterday and hauled back about 40 pounds of fresh fruit and veggies for 120 pesos ($10 US), and to Super-Che this mornign to hit the ATM and resupply the staples like bread, pepsi, meat, wine, and cereal. I learned again that salchicha is not sliced lunch sausage when she filled my order with a bunch of hot dogs. I'll work through those with Sophie's help.

She's doing OK, by the way, in a old-dog sort of way. She had us up for a trip out again last night, and is enjoying the feeling of the tablecloth or large plant leaves across her now-shorn fur, much like she used to like Betty's skirts flowing over her back. The haircut reveals her many warts and few fat lumps, two of which are getting pretty big, but they don't seem to bother her much. She's having good golden dog-years.

We are staying here through December 28 and then again from Jan 4 to 15, when we have to be out and Liz wants us on the road home. New year's week we are probably staying four nights on the way to or in Oaxaca, and three in a Puerto Angel hotel, all with Dan, and Sophie, either above board or not.

3 PM update.

The machine (a similar, but different one from before, with a different operator) and Lencho were at the site later in the morning, and Liz and I went there about noon to look things over and deliver another 15,000 pesos. The fosa septica hole was growing as the backhoe noisily scraped over buried rocks to make the roughtly 2.5 meter-sided cube of a hole. More footings, columns, blocks, and cadenas (beams) will be going onto and above that to make the septic tank, the parking slab it is part of, and to hold up the eventual terrace above, off of the 1st floor.

As we were watching, one of the workers had the job again of shoveling dirt over the wall from what will be the bodega room into the foundation chamber under the 1st floor bedroom. It seems such a waste, having this big room, just filled with dirt. Surely it can be used for something. I got to asking Lencho what it would cost to reinforce the slab over that room, and have the extra space for something...more storage? Shop? Home theater (it will be windowless and low-ceilinged)? We hemmed and hawed, discussed, consulted Derek, and I eventually decided 5000 pesos ($400 US) was well gambled that the extra room would be worth having someday. So the foundation level has officially become more like the basement that happens to have a cistern in it. For now that room won't have finished walls or a floor slab, but will have a doorway, which will be needed to make the forms for the ceiling slab and to remove said forms after the pour. Plans change. The guys that have been shoveling dirt over the wall will have to cut a doorway and start shoveling that dirt, and more, back out. I'm told they won't mind (and judging from the two forward, one or two back progress of the local road projects, they won't even find it odd).

Derek and I stopped at the local hardware the other day to look at the better-than-pvc plastic alternative to copper supply pipes. Having yet to get a plumber lined up, and needing one, we asked the seller if he knew any plumbers who knew the technology and were looking for work. The next day a fellow showed up at the gate here, and we explained the project. Now we have a plumber, and electrician too. His bid was lower than we expected, but we'll see in the end. There should be some savings vs. the copper pipe, and I think the plastic is now better, certainly for corrosion resistance. The drains were going to be plastic anyway.

We're not off to the beach today as we've asked Derek & Christine & kids for dinner, some chicken / tofu curry Liz will whip up shortly, after a pool swim. There is much drama to the north, between US politics, the global economics, Canadian politics (Harper suspending parliament, Ignatief suddenly the new liberal leader), and family (as always), but at times like these it's not the worst thing to be away from it all, wondering if the tides or waves will be right for whatever fun one has planned today.

Walls & Columns

My hole in the ground is rapidy filling up, with the structure slowly emerging above the dirt piles in places, one row of blocks at a time. The expenses continue as well; I thought I might have one day's 5000 peso allowance to spend but with 2000 to Liz for her last two short-term loans, 2200 to Alejandro for the water contract (and more to follow), dinner at Mango's last night (very good cheeseburger, best so far this trip), and a tank of Pemex Magna Sin this morning I'm back to broke, with today and tomorrow's withdrawals already committed to Lencho on Saturday. My replacement Oregon bank card is now in FedEx's hands so maybe the cash flow problem will ease (in that I can double the flow!) next week.

Tuesday afternoon we stopped by the site and noticed that one wall of the cistern chamber seemed not to be in the right place, and further investigation yesterday revealed that the column defining the inboard corner of the cistern was 23 cm (11 inches) too far south. Of course the footing for that wall was also placed 'wrong', but none of it is a big problem (my cistern will hold a bit less) except that misplaced column also defined the outside corner of the closet on the 1st floor. Calls to Lencho and Derek ensued, and the solution will be to end that column at the 1st floor slab, and start another in the right place 23 cm further along that beam. Problem solved.

Today, as the photo shows, the crew is still laying block and also building forms around some of the columns (castillos) to start pouring that concrete today. It appears they will probably start framing the beams (cadenas) shortly too. I probably need to get with Lencho and Derek (the Tompkins return from Oaxaca tomorrow night) to figure out where we are with obtaining a plumber or electrician, and if we should make any provisions for pipes or wire routes before the castillos and cadenas are all set in concrete.

We have been enjoying our time too, with Liz working on a new large curtain with different (quite simple) technology, reading, running for me most days, and daily afternoon beach time as well. Yesterday was our first visit this year to Carizalillo, her favorite swimming spot, and the day before we took Dan over to Playa Coral, the best snorkeling spot in town. We are also going through the books we brought, already wishing we had more or better selections. I just read a silly thriller sort of thing, a cross between "Indiana Jones" and "Da Vinchi Code", written in 1980. That doesn't seem that long ago, but I was constantly thinking "Use your cell phone, stupid!" or "Just look it up on Google!" Times change.

Puerto, 2008

December 2, 2008

Work continues on the house apace; this morning I went over to see Lencho at 8:00 AM and the crew was already at work, laying the block for what will be the water tank, mixing mortar in a depression on the ground above the house -- on the land of the neighbor I've never met. People tend to be tolerant but I'd prefer they mixed on the street, but the street isn't level. There are also piles of 3/8" and 1/2" rebar around, and a pile of blocks, grey solid rectangles. I gave Lencho another 11,000 pesos and might not need to provide more till Saturday, though I had better keep withdrawing 5,000 a day for a while.

With only that little to report about the house, maybe the time has come to discuss Puerto Escondido this year. It is the year of the road project. Apparently the Governor of Oaxaca came by in July to kick off three projects: 1) the expansion of the coast highway to four lanes from the bridge near downtown to the east end (including past zicatela beach, our lodging here at Derek's, and past my property), 2) Calle Del Morro along the town end of Zicatela including the biggest surf area, and 3) repaveing of the Adoquin pedestrian walkway. These happen to be the three main roadways for tourists (and in the case of the highway, for trucks, busses, and everyone else). At this point none of the projects is finished, though they seem close enough on Del Morro that it might open any day, and should before the main holiday rush, and we have heard the Adoquin is near completion also.

The highway is another story. It is a huge mess/obstacle course. For much of the route to town they have removed a couple feet of material right up to the side of the old roadway, which is still in use, so if you happen to drift a bit to the right you will drive off a cliff. In places one lane or the other is diverted to the lower surface over badly made and mostly unmarked dirt ramps, one of them abrupt and steep enough that we have see two tractor-trailer trucks stuck trying to climb up to the roadway in the last week, blocking westbound traffic. As the edges of the roadway collapse in places the road gets narrower, leading to minor games of chicken at the pinch points. There's sand and dust everywhere, and no reduction on overall traffic as there is no other route for long-distance traffic on the coast. At night there is scant lighting (some flaming cans of oil mark one of the diversions down) and no other markings. One wonders how much safer it could be with, say, $100 worth of little red reflectors carefully placed. Last night I was taking Dan back to Zicatela after dinner at our house and there was a vender wheeling a unlit food cart up on the edge of the highway; if a east-and west-bound bus and truck happened to meet near him he was going to lose at least his lunch.

Other than the roads, there is a bit of new building going on, though not so much as some years. the new Super-Che (Chedraui, a chain grocery/clothes/housewares/everything store) is open near downtown which is a big improvement but still not exactly a northern super-center. It has been cloudier than we remember from years past, or is it just selective memory? Not much else has changed too much. The stronger US dollar is helping me out with the Peso prices mostly unchanged. Gas is cheaper than in Canada but more than the $1.80 a gallon we were seeing in the US, which is simply too cheap. There are the usual roosters, dogs, construction sounds, fireworks, and car-roof distorted-loudspeakers touring the roads blaring about tortillas or fruit. We have seen some hummingbirds and a whale, leaping rays and fish, plus mosquitoes, dragonflies, and a scorpion or two. Derek's getting bananas from his trees, though no papaya lately, and the many flowers are seemingly always in bloom.

The gringo permanent and snowbird population seems typical, and it has proven difficult to get lodging during new year's week, though some hoteliers are worried that some clients will fail to show up with the state of the economy. The economy here seems less affected. Maybe there is something to be said for not having mortgages in the first place, let alone sub-prime ones. It goes without saying that the typical Mexican family has lost nothing in the stock market this year.

That's not so true for us; looking at my retirement funds makes building a house here seem cheap; also makes it look like we will need to raise enough fruit and vegetables on my fifth-of-an-acre here to feed ourselves in retirement. But it's hard to get too worried, sitting here in the shade by the pool. And the federal police below have finally run out of last nights' confiscated fireworks to blow up so the dogs have settled down for a nap.

Steel and Mud (1)

There is now something physical to show for all the pesos leaving my bank account on a daily basis. The steel for the footings, along with pre-assembled columns and the beams associated with the foundation, were all placed and wired together by Friday afternoon, and the concrete footings were poured on Saturday morning. Lencho and crew work very hard and things happen fast. Sunday is a day off though. The expectation is that the block work for the walls below the first floor slab will be in this next week -- walls that will define the bodega and cistern and also rise from the footings to support the walls and all else above.

As for the money, it is now a daily routine to go to the bank machine and get another 5000 pesos, (about $380 US or $470 Canadian) to pay for more materials, more labor, our rent, and the neccesities of life such as cerveza and comida (beer and food). Somedays I need 10,000 pesos so Liz has been advancing me a bit of cash, since I managed to lose one of my bank cards on the way down and can only get the limit of 5,000 a day from my one remaining card. So with living expenses our time here is costing about $450 (US) a day, which is not a particularly outlandish vacation-for-two daily budget, and at the end of the 2-month vacation there will be half a house to keep as a souvenir of the trip. But then we never have taken a $450-a-day vacation for two months.

The photos above are of the covered and uncovered (with concrete) footings from roughly the same spot on Saturday and Friday afternoons. Fortunately the freak winter rainstorm we had on friday night did not collapse any of the trenches. I feel fortunate that the soil is a mix of enough sand to drain and enough finer grains to hold a shape, with also enough rocks from fist- to refrigerator-size to make life interesting. These rocks are hopefully destined to become a retaining wall at the lower end of the top lot.

With the walls sort-of defined by the columns and footings, it's become clear that it is indeed a small building. I keep reminding myself that one does a lot of living outdoors in this climate and there is a lot of outdoors, plus the terrace (1st floor) , deck (2nd) and almost-open palapa (3rd) in addition to the enclosed spaces. We also enclosed the area under the east-side stairwell for a possible laundry (you only need a washer and a closeline here, and you just plain need to wear and wash a lot less clothing). Besides that we added a bit of deck aroiund on the south, accessed from the west deck on the 2nd floor, and extrended the terrace on the first floor around to the east to access the stairway to the 2nd level. There is now a stairway on the NW rising from the parking level under the terrace up to the terrace with a switchback, and a few steps will have to be added to access the east door from the street. I am going to have to draw up a new version of the building in my home-architect software to help us all visualize it.

The weather has beed a little less clear than most years but no less warm. it is about 83F days and 72F in the mornings. One cannot complain.

Thanksgiving Day (US, anyway)

We are settling into life in Puerto again; it's a pretty good life. We get up with the varied sounds of wild birds, crowing roosters, crashing waves, barking dogs, and tortilla-selling drivers with bad speakers blaring catchy jingles as they creep around the neighborhood, with all these sounds and more coming in the open large windows. The morning low temperatures are in the low 70s, about 8 degrees (F) warmer than our Port Hope house will get before April or so. Luckily the construction crew next door doesn't start beating on chisels until a bit later.

I ran a little yesterday, barefoot on the beach, and again today, 3K or so on the roads up above Derek's, but haven't settled on a course or regime yet. Breakfast has been cereal with copius fruit (papaya, bananas, pineapple), sometimes a bun or roll, juice for me and coffee for Liz. We need some more milk today so she can make yogurt by setting the warmed, innoculated thermos of milk in the sun by the pool for the day.

The afternoons require a trip to the beach. We acquired a beach umbrella this year so the shade/sun controversy of years past is settled; to each their own. So far we've been going to the beach at the point, nearest both Derek's place and my hole in the dirt, but we will no doubt be seeing Cariizalillo, Coral, Bacocho,
and Angelito sometime soon, and probably taking trips to the South and east to Mazunte, Puerto Angel, HuatulcO, and others. So far we've been going out or up for dinner, but that will change too.

Part of the reason we've been out a lot the last couple days is that Dan Wadosky, a friend from Oregon, flew in on Tuesday afternoon so we were out with him the last two nights. He's in the Olas Altas, one of the nicer Zicatela hotels, for another night, but we spent come time yesterday looking around for other options for his stay which will be through January 5 or so, before he has to go do taxes for 4 months. Dan's survived a cancer bout the last few years so it's good to see him back pretty much up to speed. He might join one or both of us on some local adventures and maybe a trip to Oaxaca city later.

The hole in the ground at Casa Den was mostly excavated by a backhoe in a few hours Tuesday afternoon, with the new plan to move the house up the hill a meter and excavate more below for a lower-level bodega, cistern, and parking slab. The even-lower septic tank below will be excavated later. In one place a large rock proved immovable by backhoe. Wednesday two workers started measuring and shaping the bottom of the trenches for the eventual footings, and started chipping away at the unmoved boulders with picks and a pry bar. Fortunately the main rock is of fairly crumbly material, sort of a poorly constituted granitic rock, so it will be moved, though I'm glad it's not me swinging a pick in the afternoon sun. I can't afford to work for myself here with the local wage rates. The word is that they plan to start pouring foundation components next Tuesday, mas or menos (give or take). It's not clear how much I can do to help, we have a sort-of fixed price bid from Lencho so I can pretty much do nothing if I like, but will want to be invloved as we get closer to final surfaces, fixtures, etc.

This evening we'll be having another Thanksgiving. We had one in Minnesota in October when we were visiting, and onother the next week for Canadian Thanksgiving at home. Now we have the 'American' version, approximately, in Mexico, upstairs at Derek & Christine's. We will have to get by without the fall chill or snowball fights. We hope everyone up north is having a nice relaxing Thanksgiving (or Thursday as they call it it Canada), and the US folk still have a few dollars to drop on the big specials tomorrow to help stimulate the global economy.

Contact Information

Contact information for Dennis & Liz

By email:

djlandwehr@yahoo.com
energyanswer@gmail.com
liz@lizparkinson.com

by telephone:

Magic Jack: 320-209-8960 (Minnesota number)

Home (leave message, we'll try to check them) 905-885-7091

Dennis's Mexican Cell from US or Canada: 011-52-954-118-9667

By Skype:

djlandwehr

We have pretty good internet access here at Derek's apartment from the internet cafe on the highway down below. That might be interrupted from Dec 20 to Jan 5 when we move out of here for the peak season. We check our personal email pretty much every day, usually several times. Also through the internet here we have Skype going and a Magic Jack phone which I think is now working. We should be able to get messages on that number even if you can't reach us. We will try to check messages on our home phone periodically but don't count on that for anything time-critical. For have-to-reach-us stuff, you can call the Mexico cell which will cost us each by the minute but should be working about all the time. Skype to Skype is free, and it's free for
us to call out on Magic Jack to the US or Canada so those methods are better for unhurried conversation.

Money Pit Opens

Puerto Escondido. Oaxaca, November 24, 2008

There's a hole in the dirt in southern Mexico with my name on it. Construction 'started' today (actually Lencho the contractor has been assembling rebar for beams and columns for a few days, back at his shop) with a lot of measuring and thinking and plan-changing in the morning, and the backhoe arriving in the afternoon to move dirt and rocks around. But let's take up where we left off.

Sunday, Derek, (Architect, landlord, all around good man) and I went over to the site and started to mark off the planned position of the house and compare it to the reality on the ground. I had insisted on putting the upper corner of the house 3 meters below the boundary fence to allow parking out of sight above the house, though he had recommended building up as far as possible. He finally got me to understand his idea: the parking could be below the house, both in the sense of further down the hill but also down below a slab!

Also, Sunday, we made our first visit to the new Super-Che (Chedraui) market we saw being build downtown last year. Puerto now has an actual supermarket, where you can go most anytime and buy bread or milk or t-shirts or lots of other stuff. This is a new thing here, as the former market couldn't seem to keep even staples in stock. We loaded up on things to fill our empty fridge. We got settled in and started getting things like internet and communications going. My new HP Vista computer wouldn't connect at first (now it finally will, hence the blog posts). The Sun went down beautifully, and we took the Tompkins clan out for Tlayudas (Oaxacan specialty, sort of a crisp burrito).

I pondered the building changes overnight. Monday morning we met Lencho (the builder) and figured out a new, improved plan (I have to wonder how many times I will be writing that phrase.) By extending the excavation for the footings a bit, pouring a parking slab at footing level (about 2.2M below the level of the first floor) and making a deck instead of a patio outside the north side of the 1st floor, we solved several problems.

First, the house can move up the lot a bit (only 1 meter it turned out). Secondly, we created room below the first floor where we could economically and conveniently create a 'basement' (open on one side) bodega (storage room) and also room for the water tank. Thirdly, we could locate the 'fosa septica' below the parking slab (reusing that bit of concrete). The terrain drops off faster than I had thought, and the height of the footings (from the bottom, 1 meter below grade at the lowest point, to the level of the first-floor slab), turns out to be over 2 meters. The first floor slab actually is to be about 3 meters above the original grade, which lifts even that level enough to get a decent sea view, over the neighbors not-so-lovely house. All this will cost more than the original quote, but less extra than the separate outbuilding previously contemplated for the cistern and bodega.

All this was figured out by 10 AM and we were to reconvene at noon when the backhoe showed up. We got the word he was there after 2 PM, and by the time we got over there he was well underway, hauling granite plus other, less-sturdy rocks, and somewhat sandy soil out of a growing hole in the corner of the lot. That went on for the next hours. He seemed mostly done by the time I left at 3:45. We'll see in the morning. It's pretty much a committment at this point. Maybe the building permit will even come soon.

Why did we move the house only 1 meter? We could have gone up 2M but this is Mexico and not everything is perfect. Surveying is a case in point. The 'Acta de Posesion' document that defines the property says it is 44.4 meters along one (10-Meter wide) street, and 20 Meters wide. Measurements on the ground don't really support the drawing. The 15M lot above mine, and the 10 M street above that, both need to fit in the 24M below the fenceline above (if that fenceline is "right".) Also the building has to be 1M back from the line if you want any windows on that side, so it seemed the best course to give up a meter, though Lench and Derek agree that if the Acta doesn't match the reality, too bad for the Acta. If the neighbor's 15 meters shrink to 14, that's his problem, not mine. Later we measured the whole east edge and got 46.5 meters so maybe I get a meter of slop on both ends. Whatever.

After leaving the site I went to load a cooler and have a quick swim at rhe Point beach with Liz and watch the sunset. Lovely as ever, with surfers, kids, and some dolfins (or maybe sailfish) leaping far out to sea. We got a grilled chicken for dinner and are calling it a day.

Cd Victoria to Puerto Escondido

Saturday, November 22. Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico

So we made it! Again there are road stories, naturally. We left off in Ciudad Victoria on 'the rack', the bed with no apparent mattress. After the uncomfortable night with little noticed actual sleep, we hit the road a bit late again. After looking at the map decided to take the inland route through Ciudad Mantes, Ciudad Valles, and on to Pachuca all on varius grades of windy mountain roads, rather than drive the 'extra' 40 kM to Tampico and take the coast road. We've taken most of these roads before, and enjoyed the views and crazy curves, so south it was, Thursday morning, on Highway 85. The route was slow and curvy as expected, but relatively free of topes and problems. At a small town called Tamazunchale, we chose to leave Highway 85 to catch 'a shortcut' over to Highway 105 at Huejutla de Reyes, and save a few kM going south to Pachutla. The shortcut turned out to be badly paved, twisty, as expected, with lots of topes so it seemed maybe not such a good idea, but we were comitted by then. We made the turn at Heujutla, a bit concerned we might not make Pachuca by night, but with no other real options. Going continued slow for a couple hours, until we came to a line of cars and trucks stopped on the entry to a small town. I still don't know which one.

Eventually Liz and Sophie went to see what was the delay. It was a strike/demonstration of some sort, a couple trucks across the road at a critical point with no alternate route, and a bunch of guys having a rally. She came back with Sophie and we sat. And Sat. About 5:15 I went down to see if I could learn anything. Two cops were there from the other direction but were doing nothing. I asked what was the issue and one pointed to a sign on a sheet draped over the blocking truck. I memorized key words to translate back at the car, which came out to be something like "Our Demand: Respect for the Agreement". This didn't seem to answer my question, for all we know it's a sign they keep around for whatever occasion. In any case, a few minutes later (coincidentally, to be sure) people started running up the hill toward their vehicles and it was clear that, whatever it was, was over. At this point there are vehicles in both lanes on both sides of the roadblock so things take a while to sort out, and the net effect is that the last two hours of daylight have gone and we are in the MOFN (middle of nowhere), as night and rain start to fall, on a twisted mountain road populated with pissed-off, reckless, long-delayed drivers. It wasn't too bad being the car following a tractor-trailer rig through the (now) fog and rain in the now pitch dark on a bad curvy mountain road. But then he pulled over to sleep and I had to lead the 8 or ten drivers behind for a while. It was like playing a video game with really lousy graphics as I had to drive with less and less information until I was just hoping to glimpse one of the roadside reflectors or the (sometimes) painted stripes on the center or edges of the road to tell me which way we were currently curving. Finally I glimpsed a place to turn off, and did, leaving some other fool to lead the pack. I became the last car of a samller group, and we never saw the new leaders again, so either they made it or drive off a cliff without a trace.

Eventually we came to the largest dot on that part of the good map, Zacualtipan, and not finding any highway hotels we headed downtown. We saw a hotel sign or two, but not the actual hotels, until on the way back down to the highway spotted one, and checked in for 300 pesos, parked the car and resumed breathing. The two flights of glossy marble stairs up were wet with condensation but we didn't fall and brain ourselves on the steps and settled into a cold hotel room, happy to be alive. What a day. 12 hours in the car and about 320 miles.

Friday worked out amazingly better. We got another late-ish start but the road immediately got straighter and faster (not to mention day-lit and visible). Now that we could see more than 10 meters we noticed we were heading into and out of a deep canyon, w1th amazing views. The road got better and we were in Pachuca ahead of "schedule". We discussed various options at that point but it appeared the possibility of getting to Oaxaca that night was back on the table, and we went for it. The roads and navigation from Pachuca to Cuidad Sahagan to Apizaco to Tlaxcala all went without a hitch on progressively better highways until we were cruising down the toll highway from Puebla to Oaxaca, and arriving in time to actually see the art exhibits there. Several times recently we had managed to get there to late or on the wrong day so this was a bonus. We toured the Contemporary Art Museum, the print institute, the steets, had a drink at the zocalo (square) and dinner a few blocks away. Sophie was napping in the car till we got there and drove out of town to a roadside hotel a few miles along the way to Puerto Escondido. That made three nights (all three nights) in Mexico where we each night failed to follow the first rule of local driving...don't do it at night. Our luck held out.

Saturday started well and we were headed to Puerto. 131 over the Sierra Madre del Sur was in rougher shape than last year, but passable enough for us. We stopped for breakfast, finally, at a place in Sola De Vega, where we had been well served before, but were somewhat disappointed at the current state of cleanliness. Breakfast doesn't seem to have made us sick yet, though. We pressed on to Puerto Escondido for a mid-afternoon arrival. By now we've unloaded the non-tool stuff, moved into our poolside apartment at Derek & Christine Tompkins place, and had a nice fish dinner upstairs with them and a bit of beer and wine. all around a good start to our time in the warm winter sun here.

Port Hope to Ciudad Victoria, Tamaliupas

Wednesday, November 19, 9:00 PM, Ciudad Victoria, Mexico

That's enough to show that we made it over two-thirds of the way. There's a story or two, naturally. We went to a dinner party Saturday night, groggily finished preparations and packing on Sunday, and drove to Melville's house to spend the night with him (Liz's octogenarian dad). That was nice but after a fitful few hours of attempted sleep we got up about 4:00 AM and hit the highway by 4:30. All was fine through Toronto but we had snow falling from about Milton to London and it became quite slow. As day broke it got better and faster, and we were waiting at the Ambassador bridge by 8:00 or so. The US border staff was kind, the low fuel light was lenient and we made it to cheap US gas ($22 a tank-full!) with fumes to spare.

The route I've been complaining about from the bridge to Interstate 75 south is finally getting fixed, meaning it was more than the usual detour to find the highway but we made it, and were leaving Detroit at full speed as rush-hour traffic built in the other direction. With cruise control, good US highways, NPR radio, and cheap fuel we motivated pretty hard through Michigan and Ohio and into Kentucky as planned. Evening fell by Nashville or so but we pressed on to Memphis, and messed around a while trying to find the Memphis Airport La Quinta which is not on Airway drive. A good dinner seemed in order but was not to be; an extended search of the local commerce turned up nothing mutually acceptable (meaning Liz wouldn't eat greasy slop) so we returned defeated to the hotel and she ordered a Dominos medium pizza, which for $19 turned out to be about $25 a pound. It was soon gone and we tried again to sleep (it should be mentioned that two of us slept a lot in car (counting Sophie) but Den did all the driving, about 1020 miles on Monday. The room had highway noise and only Sophie slept well.

Our start Tuesday was about 3 hours later as we got going about 7:30 after free waffles, etc., at the hotel. Arkansas went by too slow, but uneventfully, and Texas began; the weather sunny and bright. After a fill-up, we considered an alternate non-freeway route south, but abandoned that plan after a few stoplights. On down Interstates 30, 435, 35E and 35, Texas gets progressively less interesting and just too long. We blew by the planned stop in Kyle, Texas, just past Austin, and changed our reservation to Corpus Christi where we arrived at about 8:30. We had slightly better luck at Big Red's sports bar with 50 visible TVs, a burger and such, and went back to the LA Quinta for a marginally better night's sleep. 1900+ miles from home at this point.

Corpus Cristie is only a couple hours from the far tip of Texas where we cross the Rio Grande, but we slept an additional hour, and did various commercial errands in Texas before crossing the bridge a little after noon, confident that all our paperwork was in order. Indeed we had our tourist visa papaerwork done in a few minutes and went on to get the car in. Not so fast. While my car is legally plated in Ontario through 2009, and had the plate stickers to prove it, it seems I had been negligent in that I had failed to place the matching little sticker on the ownership papers last September, and this is just TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. Pleading, photos of the plate, nothing was going to change his mind. But there was an easy solution....just go back across the bridge to the Texas Vehicle department, and get a Texas temporary permit and come back with that: ten minutes, he says.

Yeah, right. It was half an hour just getting across the bridge and back through US customs. My Texas receipt ($25) was stamped 2:30 pm and my shiny new Mexican car permit came through 20 minutes later (400 pesos, about US$30). But whatever, we're good to go, if hours late. We navigated Matamoros OK and were looking at the "Ciudad Victoria 300 KM" sign, past the paperwork checkpoint in another half hour. The road (101) to Victoria is mostly smooth, fast, and tope-free (speed bumps). With a few minor annoyances drive was fine, as the sun finally got out of my eyes and some nice streaks of magenta crossed the SW sky. It got darker than we would choose to see from a car in Mexico but we got here and found this sleazy and basic 200 peso highway hotel, and a servicable restaurant at the corner. After we got inside we both recognized it from an earlier trip and it was again decent, with a Bistek Ranchero, a Pollo dinner, and two beer for 200 pesos with tip. With the US dollar up to 13 pesos, it was easily a better deal than Dominos or Big Red's.

The car, overloaded as it is, has been cruising along just fine, with the recently replaces junkyard motor and distributer. We got 30 MPG or so the first couple tanks, increasing to 37 or so the last one. The only problem so far is that the left headlight connector needs a nudge to get going, which is a bit inconvenient as night falls on a no-shoulder Mexican highway. I might even have to fix it. Somehow. The trunk is stuffed full, the back seat is filled maybe 20 inches deep (makes a nice platform for Sophie), and a small cartop-carrier bag is mounted on the trunk with camp chairs, snorkel gear, and beach toys. Someone unzipped it a few inches last night but was apparently unimpressed with the contents, as nothing was taken. Tonight I backed in to the garage provided here so it should be safe. It's a reasonable good strategy to drive a few thousand dollars of computers and electronics and tools and personal stuff around Mexico in a 13-year old economy car; nobody thinks much to mess with it. It puzzles me that some people think they are more secure in an expensive new SUV, when it's plainly the opposite. Who would you choose to kidnap or rob?

Enough for now. Having wasted the extra hours in Matamoros, we had to divert from the coast road to come to C.Vic. today as we would not have made it the extra distance to Tampico. Now we need to decide whether to go the long way to Tampico or stay inland on crazy curvy mountain roads toward Pachuca, around Mexico City, and on to Oaxaca. That's probably what we'll do. After dinner I bought the only beer available a the highway store, a 940 mL Corona. The laptop battery has outlasted the beer so it's time to climb on the rack (no joke-you can feel the springs through the sheets) and see if I can sleep better in the third country in four nights. Four if you count Texas.

Contact stuff

In addition to tis blog there will be some photos put up at:

http://s411.photobucket.com/albums/pp194/djlandwehr/Mexico%202008-9/

I've put a few up already.

While we're in Mexico this year we are hoping to be in touch both by email and also using a 'magic jack' internet phone system. The number is from Minnesota...

320-209-8960

so it costs the same to call as any call to that area code for you. We can call out on it to anywhere in the US or Canada for free. We'll see how well it works. You should be able to leave voice messages there when it isn't on or working.

Liz's email is

Liz@lizparkinson.com

and Lizparkinson.com is where to see her work.

The Lot

Here's a Google Earth image of the property. It was apparently taken a couple years ago as there's at least one building not shown. The lot is 10 blocks up from the beach, each short block being 40 meters wide with a 10m road allotment between blocks. The top corner (SE) is at about 117' in elevation while the lower corner is about 103 ft. On Google earth or Maps, you can look at it pretty well. Zoom in on 15 deg 49' 54" N and 97 deg, 2' 24.6" W with Google earth and you can see the local terrain and the view of the pacific

There's a slapped-together local family's place next door, and a Mexico City family's vacation place across the street, which is fairly new higher-end across the street to the east. That street is quite steep and unpaved (like them all), and will need work to make it drivable to the lower lots someday. The road to the South is in pretty good shape, and is the main route to the beach for a number of places further east and south. The road below on the north is not at all usable, though maybe some day it will be, as it lines up nicely with the road out to the highway to the east and with the road up from the beach below. Not on the Google image is a odd home to the SE across the street, which is a group of fiberglass pods, suspended together up one story on steel columns. People call it "Space Camp".

The property is mostly empty, with a lot of goat droppings from the former use. There's electricity on the bottom of the lot and water in the street, such as it is. (The water is pumped straight out of the river and runs a few hours a few times a week, so you need your own reservoir and pump.)
The taxes are low, and the title is in my Mexican lawyer's name. There's views to the ocean, at least from a story or two up, and to the mountains to the north and east. There are a bunch of nicer 'gringo' places to the south and east. Someday it will be wonderful, right?



.

Welcome to Casa Den

Hi,

We're moving on to new technology for our Mexico trip log this year. We'll see how this goes.
This year there's a new wrinkle, as you probably know: building a vacation home in Puerto Escondido, on one of the three small lots I bought last winter, on the east side of PE, 500 meters up from the point (La Punta) that marks the end of Zicatela, the main surfer beach which is about 2 1/2 miles (4 kM) long. The black rectangle on this partial map of PE mark the lots, 20 M wide x 15 M deep each.

Here's the trip plan for 2008-9. Liz, Sophie and I will leave Port Hope in an overloaded 1996 Nissan Sentra sedan with 159,000 miles and a recently-changed engine, on Sunday, November 17, to spent our last northern night at Melville's home in Pickering. We'll leave early Monday morning in possible snow showers and be on our way. I think we'll take the Windsor-Detroit-Cincinnati-Nashville route to Memphis, where I have a free room reserved at the La Quinta. I have a pile of La Quinta credit points from my time in Texas last spring. It's about a 15 hour drive, 1010 miles, so if we get going by 5:00 am we should be there at 8 PM of we can average 70 MPH on smooth, fast, free US Interstates. We'll pass through Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennesee, (and not quite Indiana, across the Ohio river).

From Memphis we cross Arkansas, Texas, Texas, and Texas. Our second night is planned for the La Quinta in Kyle, Tx, 700 miles down the road, a bit past Austin. If we get a good start and feel like continuing, we could stay at LQ's in Corpus Christi or even Brownsville instead. So if all goes well, we'll enter Mexico sometime Wednesday, and start driving shorter days. I have yet to choose a route through Mexico. I like the gulf coast route but have read that it is in pretty bad shape this year so it might be a good time to go inland.