Bath and beyond

Bath and beyond

How hard can it be to finish a bathroom, particularly a quite small one? The whole space is only 1.5 by 2.5 meters, and the fundamental layout -- door on the short side, a sink, then toilet, then shower along the left (south) wall, a window on the west in the shower -- has been set in concrete for a long time. Well when it is time to pick tiles and patterns there is no end to the possibilities. By remote control, we stayed mostly with fairly basic simple solids and a band of the same Mexican cross- or floral- patterned tiles used for the kitchen backsplash. I think we came out OK, though I imagine we might have been able to be a little more imaginitive had we actually been there to play with it,

One thing on the plan but not yet in reality is the wall that divides the toilet from the shower. Not that you really need one -- I had a college basement apartment that lacked that particular feature and the only real problem was remembering to move the toilet paper before showering. But we hope to find or bring a tempered glass panel to divide those functions a bit more effectively. A shower curtain will have to do as plan B. Still under consideration is the problem of bathroom storage. Some shelves over the toilet and maybe a medicine chest should solve that.

Storage in general is an issue up there, but that's probably good. There is plenty of secure storage in the bodega way downstairs but the palapa level is pretty much impossible to really secure, without full walls on three sides. We ran the stairs and entry around to the south full wall to make it non-trivial to break in, but any determined thief with a short ladder or strong pull-up should be able to clamber in without much trouble. The lower levels will at least take breaking a window or something. Oh well. The price of open-air freedom is not keeping much valuable stuff around. There will be a safe for cash & passports. I've been thinking up a way to make it big enough for a laptop.

My lovely driveway down to the parking slab might wind up being a bit hard to use, it turns out. Aside from the lousy dirt public road down the east boundary, it is a steep angle down to the parking below the terrace. Maybe you recall, many blog entries ago, the lets say "dynamic" way the decisions got made to put the parking below the 1st level, to expand the terrace a bit to the east, and so on. All of this makes for little headroom for a tall vehicle coming off a steep hill. Derek tried running his Nissan Xterra down there and he barely got it down and up with the roof rack unharmed. If I bring a minivan instead of a Sentra it might be a problem. But if we wind up leaving the van there someday, problem solved -- the worlds first minivan convertable. Meanwhile it might have to park on the road or the slope instead of in the intended shade of the terrace.

Kitchen and more

Kitchen & other stuff

Within a few days after the palapa was finished about september 10th, the summer rains came back to test it -- all was well and dry. Now it was time to start getting the top level ready for occupancy. There had been a lot of back and forth about the kitchen design, but it was about to become real. The counters are to be concrete, which after some deliberation will be colored (green) but not tiled, except the backsplash. The shelves, everything, are concrete, in the local style, and in this case without doors, just open shelves below the counter and also above on the one wall. The kitchen is planned against the bath wall and around a corner to the west wall for the view. The fridge space and stove are along the wall and the sink and counters on either side look out over the short wall to the ocean. In addition the rest of the short walls around the west, north, and east are topped with a ledge about a foot wide, also in green contrete. There are round pillars holding up the concrete beams which support the roof on three sides (the south wall is the fourth). The bath is along the west part of the south wall (like on the other level) and the entry is also in the south wall. The palapa plan makes it all clear.

I wish I could go on about the crew members and the little adventures in building that go on but since all this is going on without me I don't know much. Maybe I'll get Derek to write a guest blog entry sometime. For now I can write a few other notes.

Besides actually building the kitchen and bath upstairs, getting the place ready to live in requires some work below. Like to get upstairs you need stairs, for example. The main stairs already exist (and I hope are all covered with yellow stucco by now) but there are doorways from the first floor out the South and East sides, and a way is needed to get from the 1st floor terrace down to the west and, the trickiest, a way to get from the driveway up to the east side of the first floor so 2nd and 3rd floor occupants do not need to go through the 1st floor to access their stairs up. Derek's solution is a step down from the east entry and a stairway drops one step to a landing and then wraps around to the north and drops down to the (rising) driveway with six more steps. It is tight because the property line is only 2 meters back from the east door so if a wall is eventually added to enclose the property it will close in the landing at the same time. The other stairs (south, west) are fairly normal and haven't been made yet. December?

Another needed effort is for electricity. My lawyer's husband works with CFE the electric utility, so he was the natural contact to arrange that. It got complicated as the power might have com from any of three directions, and in two cases the cost could be shared with the neightbor building two lots to the south. But when the time came to put up the cash, it did not appear so my power, at least for now, is coming up the east property line, buried, from a meter installed at the bottom. As I write this I am wondering how it is getting past the driveway; on the street side I hope, and without hitting my water service pipe.

With some discussion, Derek and I decided not to put in a pressure tank, at least yet, but just a pump and the typical arrangement of a water storage tank, or tinaco, located above the highest bath. In this case right above, as you will note in the photo. So the shower up there has maybe 4 feet of water pressure (about 2 PSI) and the 2nd floor will have 14 feet and the 1st floor 25 feet. The pump will lift the water from the basement-level cistern to the tinaco, with the usual system of dual float switches to operate the pump -- it runs when the upper tank needs water and the lower tank has water. The other trick is that it stops when either of those if false, rather than overflowing the upper tank or running the pump dry in the basement. By the way, already installed is a gas on-demand water heater. There are two pipes out to the deck on the south for an eventual solar water heater, which would feed the gas one, with the hope that the incoming solar water would be hot enough that the gas isn't needed.

We've picked out the basic plumbing items -- a standard toilet, single stainless kitchen sink with dish drain area, a bath pedastal seat, and basic faucets. We are vacilating on the purchase of a clothes washer as we are told they have short life spans there. We will need one if we start actively having renters, for sheets, maybe as soon as this spring, but meanwhile we are thinking of just a utility sink to rinse a few clothes in. it's not like you need many bulky clothes; swim trunks and a tank top are good for most days for me, so even if laundry has to be done in town it won't be unbearable.

Palapa, or Raising the roof

April to August. It wouldn't be fair to say that nothing went on during this time, because there was a lot of planning, learning about rainy season runoff flows, the first vegetation planting -- bouganvillas along the west boundary in by the neighbor's house -- all of that happened. But lets say the cash flow rate was radically decreased for a while. As the calendar pages turned, however, the goal of having the top level -- the palapa level -- ready for occupancy this winter, started to look attainable (because my workload increased enough for the cash flow to resume). We decided to stick with the plan of mixing yellow colorant in the top layer of stucco, and we figured that the upper beams needed that treatment before they built the palapa. A linguistic note: a palapa roof is the local type of thatched roof, made from palm fronds (specifically from the royal palm) tied down to small sticks laid horizontally over larger wooden rafters. The word palapa refers both to the roof and to the structure, or in this case the top floor of the structure, it shelters. The palapa system sheds water perfectly, and looks great. It is hoped to last 10-15 years which doesn't seem long, but the other choices -- metal, spanish tile, concrete, -- all cost more and do not have indefinite lives in that climate either. One real advantage is in hurricanes: the palms will rip from the small sticks, and the small sticks from the big ones, sequentially. Imagine being anywhere the destruction of a metal or tile roof in a hurricane for a moment and the advantage is clear.

In August the palperos started to get the wood -- amazing long straight trunks, 5 or 6" diameter, of a tropical hardwood too dense to float in water which is chosen for termite resistance -- and Lencho's crew got busy stuccoing the beams. The photos show the progress, from wood to framing to inside and outside views of the finished work. I just wished I could have been there to see it happen. Derek had the idea of adding the gable-type vents on the east and west to encourage ventilation, which can't hurt, though with no walls on three sides it's not clear to me just how hot it could really get in there. Anyway I should have the chance to see some palapa construction later as there will also be shed roofs like this over the west and north parts of the 2nd floor deck, hopefully this winter sometime.

Liz and I have stayed in 2nd and 3rd floor apartments in different parts of Puerto several times over the years and always enjoyed the open air, views, and just lying back looking at the roof details. There are no metal fasteners above the threaded rods which hold each rafter to the concrete beam; all joints are tied together with natural fibers, mostly palm leaves, I think. It is a trade and craft one can appreciate from several angles.

Long time no blog. When was summer?

Hi!

OK, so you might think that nothing has happened on Casa Den for months, but in fact it's just that nothing has been posted on this blog. Work has definitely gone on. In my defense, a bunch of the work that has gone on is me being busy making money in California and Oregon to support this whole venture (and our life in general) instead of updating blogspot. So how to bring this up to date? Clearly I was going to have to go back through my email to remember what happened in what order. So the new, expedient plan is go through my email exchanges with Derek from the last 8+ months and paste some relevant passages and photos into the blog. Just so you know, there are about 400 emails, so I will be sparing you a lot of them. I'll put messages from me in my usual Arial text such as this and Derek will be speaking in this font.

February 19, 2009

Railings were still being worked on as of midday today. You will see we added two more posts on the curve as the points we chose for posts were not enough to make a smooth curve. I think Lencho really went over and above with the labor being included for the railings they are even touching up the posts with polido.....looks nice.

February 22, 2009 Peso headed for 1/15 dollar soon. 14.75 today. (Hindsight, 11/09: Those were the days. It's 13.15 now) I'm working on another list of stuff to do, in categories like "before occupancy" (referring to stuff I maybe could have you do by remote control this fall before we get there, and "Landscaping" (some of which might be good to do sooner), and "finish 1st and 2nd floor" (like be done with the place completely, still a uncertain dream for 2009-10.

February 22, 2009 Thanks for the pictures. I like curved railing shots, and the laundry closet shots make that more clear. Maybe you should measure the inside width of the laundry to see if a washer will actually fit in there.

I gather they mixed the concrete for the driveway right there on top of the fosa. Hope it cleans up OK. In the fosa (septic tank) we obviously need two Ts and some pipe.

I can't tell if the driveway slab is the shape and size on your pdf plan from a few weeks ago, looking at the angles of these photos. It seems like it should slant more to the north than it does.
You're absolutely right that I want to be there. Thanks for being my eyes.

Over the next few days there were a lot of messages about the driveway work, the laundry closet dimensions, and the need for some plumbing Ts in the fosa (septic) which Derek wound up installing....

February 27, 2009 So now we know for sure why Alvaro didn't go down in that hole. I think I could have had another inch or so around my waist and still made it. The step ladder was not going to fit so I had to separate my extension and use the smaller piece. The trouble was it stuck out of the hole by a few feet so I had to fit me+the ladder through!!

March 1, 2009 Stones looking good they will be cleaning up, moving sand /gravel and reattaching the fence Monday and Tuesday then all done.

Just a couple days left, eh. I will need to keep thinking up excuses to stay in touch, for my vicarious life. By the way I've just heard that I'm about to be paid for work last September in California. Now I just have to do my taxes and bill for Oregon trip and maybe I can afford a palapa. When is the exchange rate planning to peak?

Around the first week of March, work wound up for the spring, with the all the major concrete work done, from the driveway to the main roof beams. The pipes and conduits were in, but without wiring or plumbing fixtures. The water was connected (and running three times a week for a few hours) but not the electricity. This came on March 12:

I sent pics of the stuff again in the bodega moved to the north side of the room and the tools etc. covered with a conc. bag in the home theater.

I met Lencho there yesterday for a teary eyed farewell last payment and check of all. The total pesos paid to him ended up being 358,420. Additional costs being, Pollo 600, galvinzed tubes for rails 6930, PVC for post forms - 400, driveway stones - 1400, Fosa & bodega covers - 1000, Welded wire mesh for fencing - 670, and we deducted 2000 for not doing the bench around the palapa wall. I now just realised he did not charge for the 4 new fence posts. He did make a plea for a "regalo" for the extra labor that he did not think would be that much on the railings. I told him I would ask you. Maybe a couple or 3 mils would be the right thing to do, he did not really have that in his price and that would be about half of the total labor cost for the railings. Not a requirement though.... he will be fine without it.

Goat protection is in. Both Lencho and I agree that riffraf protection will be a lot of work and people do not sue each other here when a kid gets hurt on someone elses job site, the place is fenced sneak in and you are trespassing so if you get hurt tough luck.

We wound up giving Lencho a 2500 Peso "regalo" and started planning the fall efforts.

Through the rest of March and into April we worked on plans for the palapa (upper) level kitchen and bath, and commiserated about the slow pace of road work down there and winter in Canada, taxes, and my work trips out west. Enough for now. The saga will continue, hopefully soon.

Work goes on without me..

It's now been over a month since that sad day we left Puerto Escondido, but Derek, Lencho, and my money have been working away. As you see from the photos (thanks, Derek) there are now a lot of railings around the stairs and terrace and deck. Soon the driveway will be poured and that will be about it for the moment. If I can find the cash later this spring, the palapa roof roof (and lower-level roof/shade extensions) will go on, and if I can make a lot of money this summer I might be able to get the third floor more ready for occupancy this fall, so it will be ready for us in November or so. I was just out in Oregon for two weeks and it appears there might be several projects going on so it could even happen that way. It could also happen that there is so much work I can't run away for the winter but that prospect is too sad to contemplate.

On about the 30th of January they poured the third floor and started up from there with the columns on the full south wall, the other bathroom walls, and the partial other walls. Derek had modified (improved) the design a bit by first pulling the east end of the palapa-level north wall back a bit so there is a right angle corner instead of an acute angle there as on the lower levels, and then had the inspiration to make the beam across the to of the north side,which will support the palapa roof, curved instead of in two straight segments. You can see it in the pictures, and it looks great. The things sticking out of that and other upper beams at an angle are bits of threaded rod which will hold down the wood rafters of the palapa.

After those walls were up it some other details were attended to....they put a coat of yellow stucco on the bodega-level north wall so the steel-door guy could measure and fabricate the double-locked bodega door (we'll see if it remains inviolate for the summer, as the stuff we left with Derek is in there now). The plumbing and electric continued along, though there was some trouble and negotiation needed with Alvaro as to just how much we had agreed to pay him. I think he did very well, though he wanted to do absurdly well for a while there. The stairs downstairs got fixed and, as is obvious from the photos, they have railings installed on the stairways and (by now) all of the terrace and deck. The railings are a rectangular galvanized beam impaled in round poured reinforced concrete posts. They aren't the fanciest look but should be sturdy and, with the galvanized steel (which will get painted too, I guess) fairly low-maintenance.

We've added a bit of detail in the driveway slab, with the area subdivided by rows and columns of foot-wide lines with exposed round rocks in the concrete to allow better traction and a nicer look. The slanted part of the drive will also have deep horizontal groves made by pulling a piece of rebar out of the surface of the slab every few inches for traction. I think they are getting to that pour about now, as I write this on February 19.

We are getting used to northern life again but in addition to the warmth we are missing Derek, Christine and the kids. We missed a particularly spectacular sunset two weeks ago, and Christine reported that Heather said, "I wish Liz were here so that we could draw it together." Well she went ahead without coaching so we have the artwork above, on the web for the first time. Thanks, Heather.

There are many more photos, by the way, at

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

which I haven't mentioned for a while.

The Long, Quick Drive Home

In preparation for the trip home, I took the car up to the north part of town to a tire dealer Derek uses, for a cheap wheel alignment and oil change early in the week. I tried to make it known I wanted them to inspect everything, but they didn't seem to want my phone number to call if something came up. When we called them to confirm it was ready at the end of the day, I had Derek drop me off and found that they had decided it needed new front struts, new tie rod and ends, and the cost had gone from about 400 pesos to 3500. This was a bit shocking, but OK (imagine, wearing out the front end after only thousands of miles of overloading and abuse!) and I got in to drive home.

The loud clunk greeting every bump seemed not quite right, however, so I pulled it back in to the shop. With the hood up you could easily see the new strut assembly clanging up and down an inch or so when the spring was compressed. From below it was obvious that the outer CV boots were fully split open on each side. With a little luck (Gordon from Ottawa was there too) and patience, I got their attention to these problems. I suspect they used replacement strut assemblies from a common Tsuru (the 1994-era Sentras still built and sold new in Mexico) rather than the right part. They would have it all ready in the morning. Gordon was able to drop me off near Derek's. In the morning they had the right struts (at least ones that didn't clunk, and were a different color), new boots on, and we were ready to roll. Maybe they even changed the oil. It didn't look too dirty.

With great sorrow we woke up Friday the 16th to a pile of belongings and an empty car down below. A dozen or two trips later, all was packed in the Sentruck, which looked full to the inexperienced eye, while I knew there were a couple hundred pounds staying behind that somehow had fit in or on the car for the trip down. There were hugs all around from Derek, Christine, Heather (4), and Dylan (20 Months) and it was time to hit the cinnamon roll bakery and the road.

There had been a short item on the Tomzap Puerto Escondido Visitor's comment's page about a planned strike closing the coast highway Friday morning; we noted that but we were going north, not east. We took good old Highway 131 toward Oaxaca. We were almost to the junction (after 4+ hours of two mountain ranges, hundreds of curves, dozens of topes, and less than 200 kM) when we got to the first roadblock. Grr. This we didn't need. Fortunately, we were in the valley now, and there are other roads! A yellow road from the last town connected to the Oaxaca highway, so off we went to find it; I thought I had seen the junction. We didn't find that junction, but headed out of a little town in about the right direction anyway. It was a bit of an adventure going up and down the dirt to ford the dry creek where the bridge was out, and some more dealing with the detours where the new highway was being built, but we teamed up with a small car from Mexico City (DF - District Federal- plates) and soon we were on a road to Oaxaca.

Not so fast. As we reached a main intersection on the outskirts, dozens of taxis were stopped, blocking all access to Oaxaca. Another demonstration. Just let me out of here! Whatever you are protesting. it's not our fault! We and the DF family and some others pressed along a arterial street that seemed to circumnavigate Oaxaca, hoping to get to the tollway, where we hoped they couldn't hold a strike. We made it to the highway, a few kM before the toll starts, and met another roadblock. The impromptu detour this time went north of the highway along some parallel back streets and back to the road. Another blockage. This time we all went behind the row of commercial buildings (pic above) fronting the highway on dirt alleys, through one corn field, through another dry creek, and back on. Finally a clear road. The time we planned to spend in Oaxaca at the market or art museo was wasted, but we were still on track to jet over to Tehuacan for the night and we did so without incident. Sophie was easy to smuggle into the tryst motel after we grabbed a bit of dinner and a few beers.

Saturday, the strikes were over (or behind us) so we got back on the tollway to Puebla. Two trips ago we had been disappointed to find that the nice new autopista highway up from Poza Rica towards Orizaba was on the map but not yet open. Surely by now....but no. Still we, the trucks, the busses, everyone else, still were stuck on the old road with its twists, turns, topes, towns, and all. Actually it wasn't terrible except for the four heavy flatbed trucks with construction equipment that we all had to pass somehow. We crawled on back to sea level and committed to skip Poza and Tuxpan and head straight for Tampico. The coast road wasn't too bad, though again too crowded with trucks and busses. The graceful big bridge for Tampico came into sight.

We have had varying luck with accommodations and navigation in Tampico over the years. This time we knew to take the bypass towards the airport and head out of town, hoping for a good lodging choice in Alta Mira, just beyond. As we got there on confusing highways, we saw food but no motels. Suddenly the highway was doing a u-turn back to town with no other choice. There was a good-looking auto hotel! We checked it out a bit and decided to go back for food and return. We found a right turn shortcut back to the grocery plaza, did our shopping, and headed back to the motel. Turns out you can't get there from here. The road we came in on had no apparent access to the road the motel is on, and we eventually had to return to the grocery, and re-loop the whole town to get back to the motel. The chicken was not do hot and the beer not so cold, but the day was done, and over two-thirds of Mexico in the rear-view mirror, or it would if we could face the right way.

Sunday morning, with the help of daylight, we found the tricky way to get turned around and headed north on the coast highway. The roads up north get faster, straighter, and better, so there were no particular problems getting up to Matamoros and the Texas border by the afternoon.

Somehow we lost the way to the bridge we usually take, though, so we found ourselves again trying to figure out the border geography on the fly. It's no problem to find the bridge -- that's well marked -- but we know from hard experience that we need to cancel our tourist visas and car permit before leaving the country. We stopped by the big building on the way toward the bridge and found the office on foot. There is a few-hundred peso fee for the tourist (FMT) visa, which we always had to pay at a bank before. This year, two different banks in Puerto had refused our money, and this being Sunday, we weren't sure we could do this, but went in anyway. No problemo! there was a 540 peso fee (for two) but they could take our money right there. Why didn't they take it when we went the other way in November? A continuing mystery. Much stress would have been avoided.

We canceled the FMTs and the car permit, after bringing it around the building for the record-holding "Bored, Lazy, and Disgruntled Border Official Champion, 2009", and got in line for the Rio Grande bridge, US customs, and Texas, three increasingly undesired destinations. The line was slow, but the border agent agreeable, and we entered Texas again wondering how much cocaine we could have had in the trunk with a couple of immigrants. The good US highways got us up to 75 MPH and headed north after crossing Mexico in a record-tying 3 days.

Cell coverage is spotty in rural Texas, though, and we couldn't connect to La Quinta long enough to book a free room for the night. We drove instead to the La Quinta outside of Corpus Christi, where we had spent our last night in the US on the way south, mostly to use their internet connection to reserve a room elsewhere, though it was by now getting past dark. It wound up being too easy to stay put, and we booked a free room right there, though we had to do it from their guest computer. It was a pretty good room, and with their pet-friendly policy we took Sophie right in, though fast enough that she wasn't noticed. We tried to go out for Italian, but they were closed so we wound up back at the same noisy sports bar as in November, this time with an NFL playoff game on the 70 or 80 TVs, at full volume. The burger was OK if you don't count the noise.

Now it was just a fast-highway road trip home across America. But not a bad time to be in America -- Barack Obama would be the President before we got to Canada. Monday we got up pretty early. The free breakfast gear at La Quinta was pretty much all powerless so a bowl of cereal and cold bagel had to do. There would be a real breakfast later. Looking at the map overnight, it became clear that our usual route, through San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas, was longer than the southern route via Houston. Normally it is still worth taking just to avoid Houston, where I've hated to drive, but it had been a few years since we tried it. We would get there in mid-day so it might be OK.

Actually it was amazingly uncrowded on the Houston free ring road (not even the tollway!) so my thinking on Texas routes may need to be reconsidered. Especially because the Houston route has trees. Lots of them! At least compared to the Dallas route through endless flat miles of brush. Most of the way it isn't quite a freeway yet, so there is some delay, but overall it was the better choice, at least this time. Texas rolled on past and Arkansas began in late afternoon. Our goal was Memphis, or at least West Memphis, Arkansas, and the strip of cheap motels there. The Super-8 room looked OK except for the noise of the heater/cooler by the window. I turned it off to find to my horror that the real noise was outside the window, where a refrigerated 18-wheel truck was going to idle all night. When the dog is smuggled, it's hard to force a room change, so earplugs were needed, and the rest was less than great.

Tuesday was the big day for America. I was trying to figure out how to see the big swearing-in and speech without spending too much driving time -- we were only 1000 miles from home -- one very long day, even for a driving fool. Looking at the weather map, the storm that had passed through Michigan and Ohio Monday was headed southeast and into Kentucky and Tennesee for Tuesday (and freezing the party in DC). It suddenly made sense to head north first and east later -- at least Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan have snowplows, and I'm not sure that's the case further south. I-55 went past the Super-8 (actually backtracking a bit on I-40) so north we went, again without a usable free motel breakfast. The inauguration news repeated through the morning and we finally stopped for breakfast about 10:00 in southern Illinois, after some miles in Arkansas and Missouri -- we had made it to Obama country. From there we could see a Wal-mart, and still needing a oil change (I think) we implemented a plan to be at Wal-mart, with dozens of TVs, for the big moment. Well, they have the TVs, but they also have the Wal-mart TV channel, and nothing else. I commandeered one older-style set, and managed to get it to search for broadcast stations and find some, but without the remote I couldn't tune them in. The staff couldn't help (or wouldn't). It's not like they were busy, as the place was absolutely dead -- everyone in America was at home watching the moment on TV or at work watching on their computer. They finished the oil change at 11:05 CST, I rounded up Liz with bit of shopping, and we quickly paid so we could get back to NPR. Thanks to the delay in DC, we missed only the flubbed oath and the first moments of the speech, but we caught those in replay later (and selected bits over and over the rest of the day).

It is not the point of this blog, and covered everywhere else, but I have to say it was the greatest day of my adult life to be an American. The historic significance of the moment in our sad racial history was wonderful in itself, but combined with the abrupt end of the worst 8 years in my experience of my country, and the amazing popularity of our new leader, it was incredible. The problems are huge, the opportunity great.

Happy, oiled, and fed, we were still a long way from the nearest free bed in Pickering, Ontario, Canada. The freeway number changed to 57 and then 70 and then 69 as Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan went by, the ground getting whiter, the heater setting higher, and the hour later. We messed up trying to find the last gas station in Michigan but got to the bridge to Canada by about 11:00 PM. Now it was just an easy cruise down the 402 & 401, right? A snow squall west of London had us worried we might not make it after all but it cleared up eventually and our Wendy's dinner and coke kept me going through sleeping Toronto and into Mel Parkinson's driveway about 1:30 AM.

Five long days from Puerto Escondido, and from 80 degree days to 0 degree nights. I have to say it will always remain a puzzle to me how so many smart, wonderful people wound up so far up this round planet of ours. Now I'm thinking, in the spirit of NAFTA, maybe we could arrange to trade, say, Manitoba, for a big chunk of Oaxaca and Chiapas that are currently underutilized.

The new, improved construction plan

of

With the floor poured on Wednesday, we had Thursday to settle some affairs, decide what things we could leave in Puerto (Derek offered some temporary storage room, and to haul stuff over to my Bodega when it is ready and lockable), and to get everything else ready to load into the car. We decided to take the Tompkins, and Rosa Maria and Alejandro out to a nice dinner to celebrate the progress on the casa. I dropped the car off for a 40-peso all-over cleaning, and we met at Charlie's Bar on Zicatela for a very good just-after-sunset meal. It was good to forge a bit more of a relationship with Rosa Maria (my lawyer) and Alejandro who has been, and will be, essential to getting utilities established at the house. They are both great people with a lot on the ball and good spirits. I wish my Spanish was anywhere near as good as their English.

After dinner we picked up the shiny new 1996 Sentra, and headed back to Casa Amarillo (Derek & Christine's) for a last night at 'home'. Waking up at there, listening to the waves, the tortilla-selling jingles, and the birds, has become our morning of choice. One of our jokes is that Casa Den just has to rent for enough that we can afford to stay at their house.

Much of the affair-settling we had to do on Thursday had to do with a decision made the week before -- work wouldn't stop for the year when we left. When we were tossing around the idea of using colored stucco, it became clear that it is unworkable to use color below, then continue building above with regular gray concrete, as the drips from above will stain the work below. That reopened the discussion of how much to build this year, and a request to Lencho for a bid on finishing all the 'obra negra' (the concrete beams, columns, stairs, block walls), and the same question to Alvaro for the electrical and plumbing. There is a little savings from not doing the stucco on the first floor and bodega, and more from not doing the windows or doors this year, so in the end we decided to go for it. What's another US$12,000 or so, at the start of a great depression?

Under Derek's supervision, work has continued, with walls going up, conduits and pipes in, and the third (last) floor to be poured about January 31. After that, the full south wall, the inside bath walls, and the half-walls on the other three sides have to go up for the third floor, with the appropriate plumbing, plus the concrete columns and beams that will hold up the eventual palapa (palm-thatched) roof. All that should be done by about mid-February if all goes well. The building will be less occupant-ready than had been planned (for the first floor) but overall will be much closer to fininshed, and ready, among other things, for landscaping or plantings. One hope is to be able to get the top level up to comfortable-camping sort of condition quickly next fall so we can live there while work progresses from there down

images above are of the progress made since we left (thanks for pics, Derek). You can see the stairs being built up the east wall to the second floor, and the second floor walls going in. Those stairs wind around the corner and will continue up the south side to the entry for the palapa level. We'll see how it goes from here, by long distance.