5C's Que Pasa

Feb 17, 2017

Where has our shower water drained to?

A few nights ago I noticed that our tile floor next to the shower was wet. It was not supposed to be. Same thing the next evening just after our showers. So we started to check things out.

Looks like we have a severed pipe.

When did it happen? No idea. How long have we been draining our shower water along the floor boards? How bad is it? Will our tile floor come up? Do we have mold? Well not so far. So we set a fan to blow directly on the area. After 3 days it is still somewhat wet. Of course the first thing we did was get in contact with our super RV tech, Erik. He came the very next day. This was deemed to be an emergency.

Quite the challenge, working in such a tiny area.

This could have happened last year or very recently, no idea whatsoever but the pipe was definitely in two pieces.

The fix was a new white pipe connected to the grey flexible joint shown between the two clamps. Apparently the original pipes did not exactly match up which might have led to the break. I think that we have done very well considering our RV was built in 2001.

All I can say is how very lucky we are to have an RV tech in the area here in Mexico. Erik even checked under the shower where the grey tank is and there was no evidence of excess water sitting on top of the tank. I’m sure that many will be upset with me but I told Erik that he should charge extra for emergency visits. After all he does have to delay another client to handle the urgent matter.

When something like this happens, I always wonder what else is happening here in the RV that we don’t know about 😥

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Feb 16, 2017

Starting to relax once again

Carmeh is doing much better and almost seems normal to most people. We see her weaknesses but are so very happy to see her running like the wind once again on the beach. We still are taking it once day at a time but have started to talk about next winter here on the Isla and are including her in those plans. I will however have to get her on another diet once we get back to Canada. Meanwhile my mind wonders how the heck I am going to get her chicken into the US as it is not allowed and nor into Canada. After a full day of travel we usually end up boondocking with no place to start buying chicken at 5PM and to cook it. Thank goodness that is at least a month away.

We have been having some unusually cool temperatures around here this week. The forecast does not look promising. Many of you in the US are much warmer than we are.

I am not complaining but a bit more heat during the day would be greatly appreciated.

Yesterday it was too windy to sit in front so I sat in the back garden but soon became cool after lunch. The glass of wine and the blanket soon had me snoozing.

Not long after Colin took the photo of me napping I was awoken by a motorcycle. Yikes, we had visitors. We had no idea that Terry and Janice were going to drop in. In fact they were on a mission to check out the RV park for friends. They live in Mazatlan and their friends are enroute, driving in Mexico for the first time ever. We had a great visit, amazing how quickly almost three hours passes, almost like the blink of an eye.

A special hello to new blog readers Claire and Pierre. It was lovely meeting you here in January, looking forward to your return visit in March. They became aware of my blog as they were looking for an RV tech in Mexico. Thank goodness for Eric, where would we all be without this RV genius.

Meet Audrey and Darwin. They arrived here on the Isla in early December planning to stay a few weeks. They never left until early February. What is most amazing is that we had met them way back in February of 2004, 13 full years ago. We were all staying in Lo de Marcos at Tlaquepaque Trailer Park for a few months. It was great to reconnect and share some travel stories over years past.

My kale and swiss chard are definitely ready to eat, all 6 pots at once! Wish you were here Rae.

I steamed some for dinner last night along with a fillet of dorado dipped in flour, then egg and then Panko bread crumbs, served with Singapore curry noodles and a Caesar salad. Colin cooked the fish on the BBQ on the mat.

Have a good look at this image sent to my by a blog reader. If you do chose to enlarge the photo you will have to drag it to your desktop first.

Simply incredible.

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Feb 15, 2017

A walk through a colorful Mazatlan street

Yesterday we went to the chiropractor. It appears that we are making progress, finally. The last few times we have walked from the nearby Playa Sur Embarcadero where his office is located, to the mercardo. Today we took a different route through Centro to the mercado. Such a great walk. We plan to take a new route each week.

As we walked away from the Mazatlan side of the embarcadero I noticed how all these boats are tied one to the other. How does one get from the shore to the third boat out?

Just outside our chiro’s gate, across the street, we saw this fellow walking one very large dog and two very tiny dogs. There is a small white Chihuahua to the right of the black one. Quite the combination.

Love the colors.

So many ups and down in the Mazatlan sidewalk system. I certainly could not wear heels like these.

Anyone looking for the perfect fixer upper?

This old relic is best just admired. But what stories would this home tell?

A few blocks further, I saw this fan palm which looked so much like mine on the Isla, except that this one fanned out at the top of a long trunk. Mine fans out from the ground up.

No idea where these stairs lead to, they are behind a locked grilled gate. How I wish that I could have climbed this stairway to the unknown.

What lies behind this wonderful geometric gate? What inspired the design? So very beautiful.

We took a slight detour to the Plaza de la Republica as I wanted to see the two Carnaval monigotes. As I walked through the pigeons I got some flight action.

Colin pointed out this pulmonia to me. I wonder if the vendor leaves it set up overnight or drives his business home every night?

Nice to see a bit of Carnaval right in Centro.

Love the colors.

From the Plaza we moved on to the mercardo where we made a few purchases and headed back to the Isla.

We hadn’t been back very long when Eric, our RV tech showed up to do some repairs. This was the second spring he was putting into the toilet pedal. The first one appeared to be faulty. All is well now.

We have a long list of things to get done before we head North. One of them was applying new sealing rubber under the bed platform. This is what keeps the dust from the road and the engine floating into the bedroom as we travel.

We are hoping to get fitted leather sleeves made for our driving chair arms. Eric took one arm with him and we will see what he comes up with. We are also getting the windshield wipers powder coated black as eventually the paint flakes off and they rust. This will be an inexpensive permanent fix. While Eric did his thing I was in the kitchen cooking up 10 days worth of chicken and some more sweet potato. By the time the chicken was weighed into 2 day meal packages and the kitchen cleaned, Eric was ready to call it a day. I was ready to call it a day, I had been in the kitchen for 4 hours 😯 . By the way Carmeh continues to do well on her new food.

We received this bottle as a gift and thought that yesterday, Valentine’s Day was the perfect day to open it. The cupid and arrow say it all.

A cute wee story on the back. We must check out Dirty Laundry when we get back to Kelowna. Thank you Ruthie & Patrick.

A colorful end to a most colorful day.

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Feb 14, 2017

Whirlwind weekend ~ part 2, the best part !!

Is that a birthday cake?

Yes it is! This whirlwind weekend visit was a gift from Chris to Juan whose actual birthday is the 23rd of the month.

Happy birthday dear Juan. May the year ahead be as special as you are.

…and so the party continued.

Never a dull moment at a fiesta at our place.

Juan & Colin are lighting the floating sky lantern, one of Juan’s favorite things to do here on the Isla. We only have three lanterns left, one for each subsequent visit. They aren’t good for the environment so we aren’t going to get anymore. The lights above the lantern are a ship way out on the horizon.

Some left at that point but the party kept on going until their were only six of us. Colin played a bit and the rest of us conversed. I think it was well after 10:30PM before we all said adios. For certain it was after midnight before we got to bed. Yet another fun party here at our Isla home.

Midday Sunday found us at the Plazuela Machado checking out one of the Carnaval monigotes of which there are 11 in total this year.

Next stop was the Sunday symphony at the Teatro Angela Peralta which featured Voz en Punto, a Mexican vocal ensemble.

However they were not just a vocal ensemble but rather a most spectacular a capella group. They have performed in over fourteen major countries around the world. I love this genre of music but I have say that they blew me away. Here is a link to a video taken a year ago of the first song they sang, El Viajero

The group was brilliant. They used their voices to create the sounds of instruments and they were also very dramatically talented. This photo depicts the song Copitas de Mezcal…..a drinking song. So very well done. They also performed two of my favorites, Besame Mucho and In the Mood. What a great show.

From there we headed to a late lunch/early dinner at La Bohemia at the Plazuela Machado. The drinks were great and the food even better.

As we enjoyed our beverages, the members of the Voz en Punto ( voice on point ) strolled past us towards another restaurant for their meal. The patrons in the restaurants along their path broke out in spontaneous applause in yet another thank you for such a spectacular performance. We were so happy to be a part of that appreciation. Such a perfect Sunday afternoon.

As we crossed the shipping channel back to the Isla, we saw how busy it was, a smaller cruise ship berthed between a freighter and an immense car carrier.

This sunset shows how far the sun has traveled towards the NW in these last months before setting.

Fisherman out on the ocean watching the puesta del sol.

A few visitors in our bay for the evening.

Sadly this moment had to come.

Adios dear friends. Hasta luego.

Now that was a whirlwind weekend 😀

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Feb 13, 2017

It was a whirlwind weekend

Our good friends Juan & Chris who live in Monterrey, Mexico flew down to Mazatlan for four nights of rest, relaxation and fun 😎 Most of my readers know that our friendship goes back many years and that the fellows have RVed here to the Isla for the last two Christmases so this makes it their third visit in three years.

Last Thursday was our first cocktail hour.

……followed by the first sunset of their visit. We next walked down the road to Miguels for dinner. Sorry no photos as we were having too much of a good time catching up on various life events.

I can’t remember what happened Friday day but it included visits here and there and beach walks and just a whole lot of relaxation.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, El Velero on Friday nights has become the place to be. Jazz night. Yet another great place to meet other RVers and friends who live on the Isla and to catch up on the que pasa of it all.

This beach dog was having a good time rubbing her back against the chair in time to the music.

It was rather comical.

The two resident ducks just had to show off for the guys. Waddle, waddle.

Not sure what happened to Saturday, I think that the fellows went into Mazatlan for a while.

Our Saturday happy hour started out with some offshore visitors.

We were twenty for dinner and a few more for the happy hour.

Yes I know the photos are not clear and guess what, I wasn’t taking them. While still in Palm Springs in November it became apparent that my beloved Canon SX280HS developed a scratch on the lenses, likely due to the repeated opening and closing of the shutter. I do take tons of photos. We only had a few hours to make a decision on a new camera re 24 hour shipping and ordered the new replacement camera, a Canon SX600HS, which had great reviews. Sadly it is not a good low light camera. I am looking for a new camera once we get back home.

It was a pot luck dinner and we had five salads, two quinoa, a mango, an avocado/tomato and my Caesar salad.

Lots of veggies, ham. chicken wings, a vegetarian enchilada casserole, etc. I know, lots of food and people photos but these are also serving as a record for my friends visit.

We had three kinds of scalloped potatoes, including dairy and gluten free and a triple recipe of homemade beans which I think were great even though I made them myself 🙂 All of the food was very tasty. It was a great potluck dinner and our Isla vegan friends found much to fill their plates and stomachs with.