day 22 - may 2, 2014

9 pm

whew!

we had quite the day today. this morning was pretty low-key. i went and fed the mama perro, and went for a swim.

at the direction of the lady who runs the place, carolina (her parents own it), we headed into acapulco at 1:30 to be at the dentist for 3. it's a damn good thing we left so early, because despite the fabulous map carolina drew, we still got totally lost and did a bit of a back-alley tour of acapulco. we eventually found the place after driving around for an hour, and carolina's mom and neice were waiting there for us!! how unbelievably sweet! they showed us the dentist office (not marked in any way as such, no address even. MEXICO!!), and ensured i was in good hands before leaving. while we were waiting in the waiting room, we talked to carolina's mom about her life. they seem quite well off - she has traveled to canada, alaska, italy... and more. apparently they started the campgrond as the only mexican branch of the KOA (which explains why the sign boasts "kamping"), but KOA made them create 113 huge camping spaces with full hookups, the pools, showers, etc, promising they'd be 90% full all the time. of course this wasn't the case. mexicans seem into camping, but very few people have the sort of rigs that would require hookups, etc. as well, most of the americans we've met down here are pretty adventurous folk - not so much the normal KOA crowd in my experience. anyway, the business does fairly well now, but they ditched KOA and diversified a bit (like the wedding they're hosting this weekend, the group of kids that was here earlier this week). we talked also about people's perceptions of mexico, and how so many people are too scared to travel like this, even though we've found mexico to be very safe and friendly thus far.

anyway, i got in to see the dentist, and she spoke okay english, but had a dental student there with her named edward who spoke perfect english. she cleaned out my tooth and put in a temporary filling and asked me to see how it is this weekend - if i feel pain in it, i'm going to have to get a root canal :( however, the root canal is only $2000 pesos (about $170 CAD), so... it could be worse. i talked with edward a bit, and it turns out he's from chicago, and is studying dentistry in mexico. he said he pays $4000 pesos a month for school/living here, which is crazy. he also informed me that monday is cinco de mayo, and so nothing will be open!! sooo, that means that we can't go look into the paperwork for the defiant until tuesday (we really should've gotten off our asses on wednesday it seems, but we were exhausted and had no idea a 5 day weekend was looming). however, i got both the dentist's number and edward's, with promises that if i'm in terrible pain they will make time for me on the weekend or monday to get to work. i didn't even have to pay anything for my visit today - it's all included in the $2000 pesos, or whatever it ends up being depending on what needs to be done. my face was numb for a bit, but it's been 6 hours since i was frozen and no pain so far, so i'm hopeful!

after the dentist, we came home to the campground (sorry, kampground ;), and attempted to pop the camper up. but... something was wrong. the front corner over the passenger side of the truck was simply not popping (mike's tope-sense failed him at one point on the drive home, and i theorize that's where the damage came from). after some investigation, it was determined that the popping works on a series of cables/pullies, and one of them was loose. how this happened is not clear - it wasn't broken anywhere, and none of the connectors were loose - but it happened nonetheless. mike needed access to the pully system, which meant lifting the camper off the truck. well, good lord did they have some weird ideas about these things in the 80's, because the camper has three (3) legs!! WTF?!? he propped it all up (which was even sketchier because the camper wasn't made for a duelly, so there were little extenders made of rocks as part of the deal). it wobbled like a newborn giraffe. we propped up one corner with the crazy table that came in the camper, and also tied one side off to a tree. it was all very... mexico (and very mike). in the end mike just drove the truck about a foot forward (having to push the camper along as it was still resting on the bed in places) to give about a foot of access to the pullies. i honestly believed we were going to lose the camper. after an hour of being stabbed and swearing, mike had the pully fixed (at one point up and down got mixed up on the crank, and at another when the front went up the back would go down. it was quite a thing to see). after that, i inched the truck backwards while mike maneuvered the camper into place. we let it down off it's sketchy legs and ratcheted it back onto the truck. this whole operation took about 2 1/2 hours. i helped when i could, but i also spent some time taking tons of pictures of the process (which i will upload whenever we have actual wifi, i'm using my phone as a hotspot right now), and making us a delicious feast!

after the camper fiasco, i cleaned it again (which seems to happen 2 or 3 times a day, lol), and we had a much needed swim. while in the pool i noticed that i somehow got a sunburn today! i only spent about 15 minutes outside without sunscreen, but there it is, watch tan and all.

later, there was probably the most beautiful sunset we've seen here yet (which is saying something), so we took a bunch of pictures and walked down the beach a bit. there were some locals who looked like they were setting up for a big bonfire, which would be cool.

we're going to go to bed nice and early tonight, if that one-year-old's birthday party in oaxaca was any indication of mexican partying, tomorrow's wedding is going to be a rager. and hey, i missed my siesta today!