Martes Octubre 19, 2010

Buenos Noches. It is Martes Octubre 19, 2010

What a night. Lots of thunder and lightning in the mountains outside La Crucetia, though no rain in town since September 30.

Made the drive to Salina Cruz and glad we did, but nothing for us to go back and see. If we went back, it would be because they have way more construction items there (plumbing etc).

So Salina Cruz is a refinery town on the ocean. They have lots of tankers lining up for oil/gas and it shows in some of the smog. It is a cute town and then you hit the commercial area and finally, the all important town square. SC is 140 km away and it took 2.5 hours to get there and 2 hours to get back.

The first 70 km is all mountain highways, sometimes 25 km/hr. Kinda like the old road to Whistler when you got stuck behind a big rig. The second half is a mixture of hills and valleys and some beautiful country…and straight roads with no topes!!

We saw a truck broken down and the ingenious Mexicans use old coffee cans and light a little fire in them as their way to warn traffic about the impending disabled vehicle.

You pass through Copalita on the way to SC so we had the military checkpoint and they searched the vehicle again. Looking for weapons and drugs. There are 4 topes as you leave Copalita and we had the pleasure of stopping not only for the topes, but also for a dog that was rolling around and scratching his back on said topes.

Here are two photos from the drive:

A caballo (horse)

And here is a bit of a smoggy photo of a neat playa. You drive down what looks like a man made strip of land and then you end up here. We will go back some time and check it out.

Any way…there is NO Walmart in Salina Cruz. We drove through this little town and then decided it might be left at the junction (towards main highway) vs right (towards SC). We stopped at OXXO (Mexican 7-11) and after saying Buenos Dias, the gal said, “how can I help you” in perfect Ingles. I asked about Walmart and she said there wasn’t one in town.

But I swear the Walmart website stated they had one. Why would we drive all this way? We drove back past the junction and then we stopped at a coffee joint and the lady there said si, abierto (yes, open) and pointed further down the highway. It ain’t there either!!!

We kept going and hit a smaller town, drove the town square and then headed back. Saw an internet place, stopped and after googling Walmart, we found out that in Mexico, Walmart has 5 or 6 different types of stores. We were looking for the Bodega Aurrera and had passed it BEFORE the coffee shop. Who knows where the coffee lady was sending us? Good news was that we were only 10 minutes away.

So the Bodega is a lower version of Walmart…maybe a small Kmart. We found and purchased some of the items we were looking for, but as always, unless the Mexicans use it, you will pay through the nose. All in Cdn prices…$8 for shave cream, $100 for a small toaster oven…and then 50 cents for pudding and $1 for dish soap.

Will be requesting M&D bring down a 3 prong extension cord when they come. Most Mexican houses do not have the ground wire, thus no need for extension cords with the third prong/hole. But our condo does have this as does some of our electronics…cannot find this extension cord anywhere!!

Went next door to another store and saw the same vacuum cleaner that comes with the condo. But, alas they did not have any of the specific bolsa (bags) in stock. The guy that helped me wanted to practice his Ingles…isn’t that the way?

We were tired and hungry, but since we had driven all this way, we decided to go back into SC to experience the town. It has a big town feel compared to Huatulco and La Cruceita. Lots of cars, buses and people.

Bex did some browsing and I went here:

This is a street comidor and here I ordered a torta con pollo. It is a sandwich served hot and mine had a bun, mayo, tomato, onion, HOT pepper, avocado (yikes) and pollo…all for $15 pesos…$1.25 Cdn. It looked and smelled great so I tipped $5 pesos (30%) and the gal was very happy with this propina.

Did a small walk around and here was my favorite store.

It is a combo hardware/muscle building products store!! Washing machine parts on the top shelf and protein powders on the second!! I took two photos and then the owner came out and in Espanol asked why I was taking photos. I told her I was a tourist and asked “con permisso?” and she said ok and let me be. Maybe she was worried about the GNC policia? LOL

Well, I was still hungry and we didn’t find the Arches we had been told about, so we went to the King and I had a Whopper Doble no queso. Here is our momento of this experience:

Note the wild wrestler on the right!!

We made it home, lots of rain clouds in the Copalita valley and lots of thunder from the mountains near the airport.

Dinner time and then off to post the blog.

Until manana,

saludos