Blog a little…
In the meantime, a photo can tell a thousand words and Dad´s pix are worth a look too.
I`m told it takes one day per hour of time difference to get used to the jet lag, which gives me 3 more days of excuses for naps and waking up in the middle of the night and eating twiglets and cheese sandwiches.
David Bowie and Bing Crosby are singing in the background and we’re heading to Oakland tomorrow…
Season’s Greetings y’all
…for the turnout yesterday, quite the night. Many, many thanks and indeed, gracias. Needless to say it pushed the time we set off forward by a couple of hours (5am was a bit ambitious…) and a flat tire on km 4 on the toll road to Tequila didn’t help along with repairs in Magdelena… Still, we’ve made pretty good time considering and are now in Los Mochis, about 500-600 miles from Gwod. It’s dark and we’re too knackered to go exploring. I have it on good authority (from a bloke called Mochis, named after his hometown, no less) that it’s not amongst the wonders of modern Mexico…
Still thinking about all our many despedidas and fine friends from along the way.
And, more prosaically, also thinking about where we can grab something to eat…
Best wishes to everyone, y sobre todo a nuestros amigos queridos de Guanatos.
Some things are easier to cancel than others. In the spirit of public service, here’s the list:
CFE: Electricity. You can read the metre and they’ll tell you how much you owe, however you can’t pay it until the next bill comes along unless you want to stop the service completely.
Megacable: Basic cable is easy to cancel, you have to do it in person at one of the outlets and you just pay the percentage of the unbilled month. A day or two later they disconnect you and you never have to suffer The American Network or Holy Channel 22 again.
Gas: Zeta gas, since there seems to be no gas pipes to anyone’s house in Gwod you just fill your tank to whatever level it was at when you arrived. It’s probably for the best given that entire streets have blown up in the past that were meant to only be water drains… Minimum order for a tanque estacionario 300 pesos.
SIAPA: Water. Easy, bless them. You go to your nearest office with the metre reading and pay it and you’re done. They’re just happy to be paid at all it seems, as half their advertising campaign right now starts “Are you one of those people who don’t pay for their water?” And has a fresh faced young lad with an admonishing stare saying “Qué poca…” which means You´ve got some nerve, more or less.
TELMEX: Phone and interweb. This is a heady mixture of going to offices and fighting to not get disconnected from their labyrinthine phone menus. They´re split into different corporate sections, each with a different phone number, “Your call is important to us” muzak and wildly varying degrees of professionalism. Removing extra phone services was easy enough, just a question of 7 menus and a 10 minute wait on the phone, but to cancel the interweb tubes they gave me another number which didn´t even get answered when I rang the first 10 times. Then I finally got through to a human, then he said “un segundo” and disappeared for 20 minutes and I got cut off. All the conversations start badly when they ask you for your name and I have to spell out Gwyn and explain my lack of a 2nd surname… Anyroad, I could go on, but basically you have to take the complimentary modem to the Telmex office with a “victory” code that you earn if you win your phone battles and then they´ll cancel it. Sisyphean, I tells you.
Because of the aforementioned trials today we didn´t make it to Tequila, which is a shame but it would have been a long day…
Bit tired now, in 4.5 hours I´m making sure powerpoints work… saludos!