Dia 2: Canon Buenavista, BC, Mexico

The news of the election was a bit of a shock.  But at least there is a guy in Texas doing the happy dance:  George W. Bush is liking the odds that in four years he will no longer be the worst president in the history of the United States.  

"President The Donald:" that sounds like the title of a bad sitcom.  The only the problem is, we'll be living it.  And I doubt if anyone will be laughing.

At the lavanderia.

There was a bit of news that we received on our second day in Mexico that was more important than learning of the landslide election win for None of the Above.  We received a fraud alert message from our bank, and they said that we needed to call them.  We were planning on buying a Mexican cell phone anyway, so we packed up and drove back to Ensenada to find a laundromat and buy a phone.

Come to think of it, perhaps I should have my name legally changed to None of the Above.  I can run for president without having to campaign, and I'll win in a landslide.  And I hear the retirement benefits are pretty good...

We got lost trying to find a laundromat, but we happened to pass a Walmart, and figured that would be a good place to get a phone (or a full size refrigerator or motor scooter, it turns out).  We stood around the phone counter and couldn't find anyone to come help us, so we did a bit of other shopping and came back to try our luck again.  This time we fanned out to find someone to help, only to find that the counter wasn't staffed until 11 am.  We were told that we could get a cheap phone at a Soriana supermarket, so we went looking for one.

We managed to find a laundromat while doing that, so we stopped to do laundry.  We weren't too sure what sort of coins we would need for the machines, and we weren't having a lot of luck communicating that to the attendant.  Eventually he started two machines running for us (though we didn't know that at the time).  He came back with his cell phone in hand, where had used some translation software to explain that each load was 28$ and the machines were running.  So we hurriedly tossed our soap and clothes in, and then sat down and waited.

It was a good time for me to get Lana out and take a look around the neighborhood.  There was a mild stench about the place, and up the road a ways there was water coming up through the pavement.  Our suspicion is that there was a broken sewer main in the street.  The neighborhood was unremarkable - blocks of apartments, a secondary school and a few small shops.

By this time the temperature was in the 90s, and at one point later in the day we noticed that it reached 99 degrees.  So it was a long, hot wait for the clothes to dry.  But once that was done we resumed our quest for a cell phone.

We stopped at another Walmart farther south of town.  I knew enough Spanish to make it clear that I needed a cheap phone to use for two months.  A young man pointed out the phone that I needed, but he chose to dump me off on his female co-worker rather than dealing with our language barrier.  She picked out a phone plan for 100$ that would allow me to call the US.  She escorted me to the checkout to get the phone activated, but it wouldn't work.  This was the beginning of my three hour ordeal to get a service set up on the phone.

We talked to an AT&T rep who tried a few different ways to get things to work, but he said the system was down right now and that it would probably be back up in a while.  He offered that I could get the phone activated at an Oxxo store (convenience store) or on the phone by using my credit card.  Since it was the fraud notice that started me on this quest, I elected to find a nearby Oxxo.

There was one less than a mile away, and the clerk tried to load service with one of local Mexican providers with no luck.  She then tried Movistar, with the same result.  So it was back to Walmart.

We did the same dance as we had done earlier, with the same result.  This time, after the clerk had made several phone calls, I was told to return in an hour.

One hour later, it was a repeat of my earlier experience.  I was told to wait five minutes, which quickly became 15.  I decided to pace around the store while I waited.  When I returned, they had removed the Movistar sim chip and put me on Virgin Mobile - it worked!

So I called the bank, verified that we had indeed bought gas in Tecate and had them make note on our credit cards that we would be in Mexico until the end of the year.  We kinda figured that was what the fraud alert was all about, and were relieved to finally know that for certain.

By then it was around 3 pm.  We had thought of stopping about 100 miles south of where we were, but in Mexico that would have meant we would get there after dark.  That's because Mex 1 has a lot of stoplights and even more Alto signs.  And the speed limit changes about every mile or so.  We've been warned about driving after dark, with the main hazards being that you either miss a tope (speed bump) sign and ruin your suspension, or you risk running into children in the villages running back and forth across the road, nearly all of whom seem to wear dark gray clothing.  So we needed to find a destination that was closer.

We could have gone back to Mi Refugio, but Lana was pretty stressed out by all the loose dogs.  So we decided to try Las Canadas Campamento (490$, power, water, hot showers).  It was way overpriced for what we needed (about $27), but the other options a bit further down the road didn't seem very appealing, as most were semi-abandoned worker camps from back when Mex 1 was originally constructed.  

Once again, the power was ungrounded, and when I checked the voltage it was a bit low at times.  So after running the air conditioner for a few minutes to cool the cabin off, we shut it down in fear that it could be damaged by low voltage.  By the way, we see voltage regulators for sale everywhere here, no doubt because drops in voltage are pretty common.  We are thinking the AC is the only thing we have that is at risk, and we are hoping that the temperatures will moderate so that we don't need to use it.

The campamento is basically a big amusement park, with zip lines, a water park, ATV trails and a huge amphitheater for concerts.  If any of that was open right now the cost of camping here wouldn't seem as steep.  But it is mainly open in the summer, though parts of it may be open on weekends at this time of year.  But aside from the iffy electrical service, the facilities are all first rate (and they even provide toilet paper).  There are no loose dogs here, and there are lots of places for Lana to get some exercise, so she's happy.

Soaking our vegetables in water and a bit of bleach.

We were joined by just one other camper (there are hundreds of campsites here) - a German named Helmut.  He had shipped his VW camper to Argentina and had driven up here from there.  We asked how long he had been traveling, but he would only say that it had been a long time.  It sounds as though he'll ship the van back home from L.A.

We might as well make note of the roads and drivers here.  The shoulders are just another travel lane to a lot drivers, so you can get passed on the right or left, so you have to stay alert.  And we've been passed a couple of times now on blind curves.  Most drivers seem very competent and courteous, but there are more than enough maniacs on the road.

We spotted one car on the road with an oversized wheel on the back passenger side hub (probably 18", while the others were 14").  That jacked the car up at an angle, and was putting serious wear on one side of the tire.  Yet he was zipping through traffic like Mario Andretti.  We spotted the same car hours later, with the wheel removed,a jack under the hub, hazard lights flashing very dimly, and parked in the deceleration lane leading into the Walmart...