Naolinco

The Diario Xalapa reports that the lowest temperature of an October day in Xalapa in thirty years was recorded on Sunday. The low temperature was 5.8 degree Celsius, which equates to 42.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

I can report that Sunday was a beautiful, sunny day, of which I took advantage by motoring to Naolinco with Tere, from whom I buy produce, as my guide. The clear day afforded some spectacular views of Pico de Orizaba, the highest peak in Mexico and third highest in North America, and of Cofre de Perote, also one of the highest peaks in Mexico, both from the town and along the drive there. Both mountains are also visible from various places around Xalapa, most notably from El Parque Juarez and from the glass enclosed lounge on the roof of my apartment building.

Naolinco is a small town about 15 miles North of Xalapa know for its shoemaking and other leatherwork. The entrance to town is adorned by a large statue of a shoemaker sitting over a work in process and there must be at least a hundred shoe and leathergood stores in the small town. There are also a number of homes and shops vending wine produced from local grapes. I haven’t yet tried the vintage, which I am guessing is of last week. The town’s central park is amongst the prettiest I’ve seen in Mexico and is directly connected to a small plaza in front of the cathedral, which you see in the photo.


The hillsides surrounding the town reminded me of the Appalachian mountains, with small farms stretching up the hillsides sporting cattle, mostly Holstein, grazing on the lush, vivid green hillside pastures that fade away into the forest. There were also the omnipresent horses and burros, often tethered aside the road to take advantage of the fodder that otherwise would go to waste, with the remnants of their manure present in the town’s streets.

The area is amongst the most picturesque of the areas I’ve visited in Mexico and its locale a bit higher in elevation makes for a climate a bit more temperate than here in Xalapa. All-in-all a good place to have an acre or so upon which to garden, keep chickens, and perhaps even a sheep or two.

If you look carefuly you can see Pico de Orizaba in the lower picture between the two street lights to the left of the church dome.

Apartment Pictures

I think the problem I was having uploading pictures was that they were in the .bmp format rather than the .jpeg format I usually use. .bmps must be larger files.


Here's a shot of the living room from the dining area.









This is a shot down the hall. The door on the right is to the bathroom and the door on the left is to the really small interior patio/laundry area that resembles the exercise space for a maximum security prison inmate, though smaller.

At the end of the hall there is a door to a bedroom on each side. The bedrooms are modest size and each have a very nice, roomy closet with heavy wooden sliding doors.

I Was Going To Post A Couple More Pictures

of the new apartment, but I am not able to upload the photos. I will take some more and try again. The disk in my digital camera has about 150 photos on it and that may be just about enough. I'll change disks and try again.

First, thank you all for the congratulations on my dog pound escape.

Nathalie thanks for checking in and leaving your comments, all the way from Australia, no less. Hey, and don't forget to go pay the shopkeeper for that salad.

Neil and Jodie, the rent for the new apartment is almost three times the rent for the dump; and worth every cent. The place even comes with art work on the walls, which includes a large painting of a road running through a forest of large trees, of a sort I imagine the Headless Horseman rode through.

The Men Of My Only Internet Cafe

I finally was able to get a photo of the father and brother of the family which operates the great internet cafe I patronize. The brother isn't really sleeping on the job.

Though I met the mother of the family the day the cafe opened I haven't been able to get a photo. I'm still on the hunt though.

My New Apartment

Yesterday I moved into my new apartment and, after a few months of living in the dog pound, I am indeed luxuriating. The picture at left is of the passageway from the street to the very far end where my apartment is.

I have a couple of other pictures to post but Blogger won't post pictures at the moment.

It took three trips to bring my stuff from my dog pound apartment, which was also furthest from the street, to my new digs. I didn’t enjoy the use of a hand truck or cart so the process involved lots of trips from the apartment to the truck and from the truck to the new apartment. So by the end of the day I was spent and didn’t make it to the internet café. During the moving process the manager here informed me that there is a locked parking lot next to the apartment building where I may park my truck at no additional charge.

Additionally, I found that the cable TV service had not been disconnected so yesterday after completing the move, buying a six pack of Modelo, and plopping on the couch I was able to watch the Seattle Seahawks seemingly lose to ST. Louis in the last couple minutes on a Hail Mary pass, only to win with 4 seconds left on a 54 yard field goal.

Today I arranged for internet and TV service through Cable Mas, opting for the 1 mbs service and returned the keys to the dog pound apartment to Rosie.

Just as I expected Rosie informed me that she would not return my deposit as I had not lived there for six months, as provided in the contract I signed. I told her that was fine; but also told her that I had signed the contract before I knew the roof over the bathroom leaked, above which reside a number of dogs, and before she had told me she had twenty some dogs. She said she was very sorry, though I think her insincerity was manifest.

I’m am so relieved to be done with living there that I couldn’t care less about the $1,600 peso deposit. Here, the welcome mat is out, which I just bought today.

Free At Last

Today I rented another apartment. A nice two bedroom, ground floor, fully furnished (including an overstuffed living room ensemble) apartment that is the furthest unit from the street and has it's own very small interior patio with the typical laundry sink one finds here. It also has an intercom to the front gate with which one may buzz in visitors. It is in a complex of 20 units where no pets of any kind are permitted and the place is clean.

The apartment includes roof access, three stories up, which I am hoping the signal from a wireless modem will reach. The manager and her daughters who did the rental paper work we're all very nice and even laughed at my jokes, tendered in my clumsey Spanish.

Tomorrow I will move my belongings and bid a very relieved farewell to the dog pound, its whiney, yapping chihuahua; the barking of the various other canine inhabitants; that omnipresent odor of dog chow processed by those four legged inhabitants; the need to watch where I walk down the passageway, which isn't easy at night; and my dark and dank dog pound apartment where when it rain the roof in the bathroom leaks and the bathroom is right below where dogs live.

Salsa Dancing

Last night I went with Roberto, the proprietor of a "clon" DVD store, and his brother Juan Luis to a nightclub where a Cuban band played salsa music and where we were joined by a few of Roberto's friends.


The band didn't being to perform until midnight, which is a bit late for a guy who is usually in bed by ten, but was preceded by a fellow singing while accompanying himself on guitar. I left the shenanigans at 2:00 to the protests of Roberto and Juan Luis who were still going strong.


Roberto and Tere, an employee at his shop.







Juan Luis and a friend of Tere's












Roberto and Juan Luis ripping it up. They are both very energetic and creative dancers.
Often Roberto would have his dance partner in stitches at his antics.

Garbage Collection And Itinerant Vendors

Here folks place their garbage each evening, except Sunday, in bags on a nearby corner and it is picked up by fellows plying the streets in a partially covered truck. One of the collection crew proceeds the truck jogging tough the streets ringing a cow bell to announce the approach of the collection crew. Crew members appear to take turns at the jogging and ringing duty.

As I was leaving Merida, as a aside, the city was beginning to enforce the separation of refuse into “organico” and “inorganico” bags which were picked up on different days of the week from the sidewalk in from of one’s home.

Similarly, both here and in Merida, itinerant vendors have various methods of announcing their approach. The LPG gas delivery fellows, for example, ply the streets in their trucks loudly playing music while the fellow in the back of the truck issues a ringing sound by banging one of the many gas tanks in the back of the truck. Other vendors utilize other means of announcing their approach, some simply hollering the name of their product.

In Merida the knife sharpeners announced their presence with pan flutes which they moved from side to side while blowing into them. The soil delivery fellows ply the in their horse drawn wagons loudly hollering “tierra, tierra.”

Speaking Of Lousy Editing

Speaking of lousy editing, I am reminded of an incident when I was working as the City of McCleary public works director during the early 1990s. The City operates a municipal electric utility and employs lineworkers and other professional personnel to operate, construct and maintain it electrical distribution system. At the time the employees were non-union, and woefully underpaid I might add.

I had made application, on behalf of the city, to the State of Washington apprenticeship training board seeking its authorization for the City to enroll its apprentice in the lineworker apprenticeship training program operated through a nearby community college.

Because the city'’s workforce was non-union, and the state apprenticeship program was essentially a union subsidiary, there was resistance to the city'’s application from the state agency as well as from the electrical workers union. The law establishing the apprenticeship program was explicit that the program was not to discriminate against non-union trainees, a fact of which I had to repeatedly inform folks involved with the process. I never have figured out why there must be a board of political appointees to approve apprenticeship training plans, when professional staff could determine if the submitted plans conformed to the law more effectively than a bunch of back-slapping hacks.

The state apprenticeship board met once each quarter and half of the meetings were wasted with award presentations, but that'’s another story. During the meeting when the board considered the city'’s plan, a business agent from the electrical workers union addressed the board and indicated that he had significant concerns with the city'’s safety practices. Consequently the board postponed consideration of the city'’s plan until its next meeting, three months hence.

Immediately upon returning to my office I submitted a public records request to the state workplace safety agency for all of its records of safety inspections conducted of City of McCleary facilities and operations. As it turned out the business agent who expressed his concerns with the city's safety practices had previously been a state workplace safety inspector, inspecting electric utility operations; and had inspected the city's operations a number of times. I guess the dumb ass had forgotten that fact, or, more likely, he was simply a despicable liar. The records indicated that the only violations for which he or any other inspector had ever cited the city were a crack in a windshield and the lack of an operator'’s manual aboard a truck.

Those who know me well know that there is nothing that brought mepleasurepleassure during my local government career than togovernmentalernemtanl agencies exceeding or abusing their legal authority. So you can well imagine what fun I had composing the letter, for the mayorÂ’s signature, to the apprenticeship board excoriating not only the lying business agent but also the apprenticeship board and its program. The letter was one of my prouder pieces of work, which the mayor loved and readily signed. Which brings me to the whole point of this missive.

Toward the end of the letter I had made reference to the city'’s public works director. It wasn'’t until the mayor and I were sitting before the board at its next meeting, suffering through the endless award presentations, when the mayor noticed that I had left the ''l'' out of ''public''. So as far as the board was informed I was the city's "“pubic works director".

So you can see lousy editing is nothing new for me.

More Public Art

Sunday morning as I was buying juice oranges from Tere, she asked what I had planned for the day. I told here I would take a walk, perhaps shoot some photos, make a couple of calls about houses, and otherwise loaf. She asked why I didn't ask her to accompany me on my walk.

So Sunday afternoon we went for a three hour walk during which she showed me some sights I hadn't yet seen. Including this sculpture of runners.







The sculpture is outside this stadium, constructed in 1925 and renovated in the '80s, which I consider to also be public art.

I wasn't able to get a shot of the sculptures atop the columns that support the gate and a portion of fence.

Meet Amir Abbas Fakhravar

Have you heard of Amir Abbas Fakhravar? If you haven't yet, you surely will. He's the Iranian "student dissident" being promoted by such notable pimps as Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, and the American Enterprise Institute as a part of their effort to forment action against Iran.

Laura Rozen, one of the few remaining real journalists, reports that Fakhrvar credentials are questionable. According to a number of bon fide Iranian dissidents she interviewed Fakhjrvar was jailed for "unchaste" rather than political acts, was a jailhouse snitch, was able to make phone calls from the Iranian jail where he was housed to a Los Angles based dissident Iranian radio program, and that he "escaped" the country on a commercial flight to Dubai.

An Apology

As I'm sure all three of my readers have noticed, I am a lousy editor. Lousier than usual these days when I am relying on an internet cafe as I enter the posts and most often don't read them again.

Last evening I happened to read through a couple and was appalled.

Meet Tere

From whose shop around the corner I buy fruits and vegetable. Like Mari at the lavanderia, the first time I went into Tere’s shop she quizzed me about where I live, where I’m from, and etc. She has also has been on the lookout for another place for me to live. Tere has been very nice to me, even when I mispronounced her name.

Tere has two children and also has a brother and sister living with her. Her shop is in the front room of her house and is a very busy place in the morning when her regular customers who operate cocina economicas are buying for the day's fare.

Dealing With Samll Businesses

Yesterday I stopped by the panaderia to buy some bread. The nice folks there didn’t have change for the $50 peso bill I had so told me to pay tomorrow. Try that at Safeway or Chedraui.

Conversely, when I took a roll of film to DaVinci Photo for development the other day they were short $5 pesos of change so I told them they could make it up to me next time.

Another advantage of dealing with familiar small businesspersons.

Xalapa Churches

Here are a few churches I've run across here that I think are pretty neat.

Mexico is considered a Catholic nation but there are churches here of all stripes.

The church at left is the Light of the World church, which I think as a name is a bit presumpuous.











The church at right is actually in Xico.

















This church is actually very near to where I live but to get a good shot I had to walk about 2 miles and use a telephoto to get most of it in a photo.














Here's another one not far from the dog pound.












This is the church of an obscure sect believing in the cosmic power of pyramids and where pyramid head gear is worn during services.

Actually, as I'm sure you realize, I have no idea of what denomination the church is.

The World's Fastest Indian Motorcycle

I happened to run across a copy of a movie I’d never heard of but which stars Anthony Hopkins so I thought I’d I check it out.

The movie, The World’s Fastest Indian, is the story of Burt Munro, a New Zealander, who in 1963 fulfills his twenty five year dream of taking is modified 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle to Speed Week at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Munro had for years worked at modifying his motorcycle with the goal of driving it faster than 200 mph to set the motorcycle land speed record. He returned to Speed Week eight more times and his 1967 speed record for motorcycles of less than 1000 cc still stands.

Munro was assisted financially in his quest by folks from his hometown, the southern most city in the British Commonwealth, including a group of young bikers who fancied him to be an crazy old coot. He hired on as the cook on an ocean freighter headed to Long Beach, CA and won the at first skeptical crew members to his cause. After disembarking he made his way to a hotel in Hollywood staffed by a transvestite who take a shine to Munro and helps him retrieve his motorcycle from USA customs officials and recommends a used car dealer. Munro buys a 1953 Chevy and talks the dealer into allowing him to use his shop and junk to construct a trailer with which to haul his Indian to Bonneville.

More Public Art

I really like this mosaic wall mural.

I have taken photos of a number of churches which I will start posting tomorrow.

By the way, the dream house fell through, so I'm back to looking for a way out of the dog pound.

Independence Day Decorations

OK, so I got a roll of film developed that's been in my camera for a month or so. Some of the photos are a bit dated.

These photos show a small sample of the decorations placed all around town leading up to independence day last month. I think the outline of the fellow releasing the dove is pretty cool. Sorry I didn't get a night time picture.

The red, green, and white streamers you see on the building are the colors of the nation's flag.

I'm afraid the decorations don't show up so well in this photo of the state government building, located on the East edge of the Parque Juarez.

Pico de Orizaba

Here's a shot of the snow covered peak of Pico de Orizaba peaking through the clouds that I shot from the Parque Juarez. This is the highest peak in Mexico and the third highest in North America, or so I read.

It is a dormant volcano, not extinct, that last erupted in 1687 and erupted fairly often during the 15 and 1600s, or so I read.

If you want to read more about the mountain this web site has a well documented summary of info.

Augmented Public Art

Someone has placed a red flag into the hand of this statue of Al Benemer, I think his name is. I don't know what Al did to merit a statue, but I'll try to find out.

A couple weeks ago, the day after the independence day bash downtown, I noticed someone had place a Sprite bottle in the out stretched hand of a statue of a former Veracruz governor nearby. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera.

My Only Internet Cafe

Here are three members of the family that operates the only internet café whose services I use, and who have been so extremely nice to me as I reported earlier.

These three, along with their mother, are the good looking members of the family. Their father also regularly works at the café as does a brother. All of the younger members of the family have, or are now, studying computers and a few speak English well.

Meet Mari

Mari is the wonderful person to whose lavanderia I take my laundry. When a few weeks ago I told Mari I was looking for a house or apartment to rent she said she would check with a friend who has a rental. It turned out to be occupied by I really appreciated her inquiry. Last week when I told that it looks like I may be able to rent the house around the corner she said she was happy that it was close so that I would continue to bring my laundry to her. Today she asked if the house has a garden, as I had told her I like to garden. When I told her it did and that I would also plant in containers that I brought from Merida she told me she knows a woman who sells soil and to be sure to let her know when I need soil.

Mari has been wonderful to me from my first visit, during which she quizzed me as to where I lived, where I am from, and etc. She really is very sweet.

There is a lavanderia every couple of blocks here, as there is in Merida. Also in every couple of blocks you will find a panaderia where the panadero/a supplies the shelves daily with fresh bread and other baked goods. For stationery needs one goes to the papeleria, for dry cleaning to the tintoreria, for tailoring to the sastreria, for cakes and pastries to the pasteleria, for meat to the carniceria and etc. The shops are generally small and family operated so one may feel very good about trading with them.

Dredging The Dog Pound

Yipee. I have anew neighbor, who moved into the apartment right next to mine yesterday and he doesn’t have a dog. See, I can look at the positive side of things.

However, my new neighbor’s snoring reverberates through the passageway that separates the two apartment buildings with a sound akin to a harbor dredge sucking the sediment from the bottom of a shipping channel. The sucking sound is interposed with an equally load whimpering, as thought the dredge were sucking air.

I was awakened by the dredging at 4:00 this morning and, ultimately, had to get up and play my Tchaikovsky CD at a level necessary to overcome the snoring. He’s still dredging as I write this at about 10:00 AM.

And I thought that the whining and yapping of Bobbie, the Chihuahua in the apartment across from mine, was irritating.

The apartment occupied by the dredge was previously occupied by a woman with two children whose squealing and laughing, as they played in their apartment, I found quite enjoyable. Rosie, not liking children as she explained to me, required that the children to remain indoors unless they were coming or going.