Lazy Days in Catemaco

The weather here has been a little cool with off & on drizzle. Gene says he will fill the pool when things get warmer. On Sunday the couple from Michigan that was camped in their minivan next to us decided to move on to Chiapas where it was drier and warmer, They plan to go into Central America, maybe as far south as Costa Rica.

Things dried up after they left so we took a walk along the malecon listening to the cries of La Lancha from the local boatman looking for customers. They built a nice new fishing pier but I forgot my camera, so maybe tomorrow I’ll get some pictures of all the new stuff in town.

I stopped in a two little Telcel stands but my Spanish was so bad and their English lacking that I could not get them to understand what I needed to get my Banda Ancha working again. Not a problem yet since we have Wi-Fi here at camp that works quite well.

When we got back to camp a new couple arrived in their little German truck camper. They are Swiss and had the truck and camper shipped to Halifax, NS early this year. They toured Canada, Alaska and the west coast of USA before dropping down into Mexico. They must have gone down the West coast and all the way around the Yucatan and were now travelling up the Gulf coast back to the USA. Their plans are to continue around the Gulf coast and down into Florida . After that they will drive up to Baltimore where they will ship their rig back home.

We finally got a chance to wash all the road grime from our RV and compared to the little Swiss rig our little RV actually looks big.

We woke to a light shower again on Monday morning but the weather quickly cleared and there was plenty of sunshine. I decided to take a bus over to San Andreas Tuxtla which is a much bigger town of 150,000 people compared to the tourist town of Catemaco’s 20,000 people. The round trip bus ride on a local bus cost a little over a dollar for the 18 mi ride.

The center of town is about 1/2 mi. from the main road. If you get off at the Bodega Aurrera (mini Wal-Mart) there is a nice walkway that follows a canal into near the city center. Somehow I spotted a small Telcel store right off the town square. I explained my problem in my best Spanish which was good enough for them to understand. They did a few things, got on a computer, did some more and showed me that the account was magically valid again. They suggested I go a few doors down to a Coppel store and recarga the phone number associated with the card. I have no idea why the Telcel store couldn’t do it. I added 400 pesos to the account with no problem other than the long lines of people buying other things. I walked back to the Telcel store showed them my receipts and they said all is well, no charge.

When I got back to camp I found out that yes indeed my account was operational with 400 pesos credit awaiting me to sign up for 30 days service. I’ll do that tomorrow so that the card will work until we fly back home from Cancun in December. That way when we return in January I can add more and pay for 30 days from that point.