Tag Archives: safety living in mexico

A Quiet Sunday In Paradise

9 Jul

The front gate is almost complete. It’s not only beautiful but it adds another level of security, dogs in, unwanted people out.

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Pouring a foundation. Materials delivered.

We’ve been reminiscing of our early visits to this property four years ago. The non-descriptive turn off the highway gave us access to our lake-front lot. One day, out of curiosity, we drove past Teresa’s, our neighbor to our north and the trail ended in the jungle 100 yards away. We had to turn around. It was quite primitive and isolated, just the way we liked it.

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The stonework is a lovely detail.

Today, that primitive trail is a well travelled lane where we walk the dogs and guests and workers arrive to visit the houses popping up along the Laguna. We brought in electricity from the highway and sold it to our neighbors. And the games began.

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The blue wall is a great contrast to Alice’s orange house that sits behind it. 

Development is always a double edged sword. We want services such as trash pick-up and pharmacies that carry more than hair dye and nail polish. For this we need to grow the population. Hotels and tourism is booming. Everyone loves Bacalar.

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The ironwork and lights have been installed. We must clean up and do some landscaping to finish.

Which of course leads to an increase in crime. Our friend’s rental property was broken into this week while guests slept. All their electronics were stolen. Crimes of opportunity are on the rise in Bacalar as they were in Austin when we lived there. I guess we thought we could outrun it.

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Luna loves the new gate. Eventually it will open by remote control.

Our solution is to make it harder on the thieves and not to be afraid. We have house sitters for our extended times away. The dogs, as annoying as they are, do their part in alarming us of unusual activity. It’s only stuff. There is little violent crime. Living in paradise comes with a price we’re willing to pay.  DOS TORTAS

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Mass Shootings or Farmer’s Markets

6 Dec

Bloggers living in Mexico notice with increased interest when scarey stuff happens in the USA. By comparison, Mexico is looking good. 

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Myself, I try to avoid the news. It’s hard to do I admit. Whether online or on TV there’s such a pull to understand the non-understandable. I refuse to be afraid.

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So instead, I will present another aspect of California that hasn’t made the news lately. The Tortas visited two really nice farmer’s markets on our recent trip to California. I always head to the ethnic food vendors. Mediterranean was especially good at both Windsor and Bakersfield markets.

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Olives, dates, tabouli, hummus and pitta bread are all impossible to find in our little corner of Mexico.

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Of course, every Mexican village has the most wonderful mercado. They are filled with hundreds of items you don’t get in the US, fresh coconut water, tree ripened bananas, and plants and pottery that are really, really cheap.

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US-style farmer’s markets are catching on in Mexico where there are large foreign populations. I attended one in Merida and they were selling bread! Mmmmmm. Fortunately or unfortunately one will never appear in Bacalar. We live in a part of Mexico with a very small foreign community. Which is just the way we planned it.

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Green juice vendor in Bacalar.

So if you’re looking to move to Mexico, don’t come because you’re afraid of the US. You’ll bring your fear with you and be equally unhappy here. Just my opinion.

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Electronic Hell

15 Dec

I have a brother who has no email address. He has never Googled nor ordered anything from Amazon. He doesn’t know what a Kindle is. I booked his recent flight to our family reunion while he was on the phone feeding me credit card information. I can’t send him pictures from our vacation, and he’s never read my blog. He takes great pride in not participating in a much bigger world, preferring his life on simpler terms. No passwords, I get it.

I remember when I got my first cell phone. I didn’t like the idea of being tethered to anyone who had my number. Then like everyone else, I quickly couldn’t live with out it. I purchased an IPhone to keep up with my kids and feel like technology wasn’t passing me by. Without my laptop and internet, I couldn’t have spent hours researching “retiring to Mexico” from the comfort of my lap. It would have been old school library and books.

Since coming to Mexico, we have heard of many ways to stay plugged in. For the past few months we have used wifi (in Spanish weefee) to access the web and Skype to the States. I believe there is a data plan in Mexico that can be used with an IPhone which will allow people to reach us via Skype and can also serve as a Mexican phone, all in one. Probably when we get back from the States in February, we will look into it.

This week Lisa had a liquid explosion which dumbed coffee on her laptop and I lost my IPad, both on her birthday. The laptop was rescued but the IPad is gone. It took me about 12 hours to pull myself out of a pity party and get my head on straight. The IPad allows me to take the lovely sunrise pictures that I post to Facebook daily. Sometime during the sleepless night following our disaster, I had a vision of a Bush man of the Kalahari Dessert. He was wearing a loin cloth and carrying a spear used to provide food and water. No laptops, I-this and that, charging cables, internet woes, error messages, and above all no passwords. While I will likely get another IPad, the freedom from electronic hell does sound appealing. I’m just not sure about the loin cloth.

Easier Than You Think

Easier Than You Think

Revisiting Some Favorites

Revisiting Some Favorites

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First Sunrise Living in Bacalar

First Sunrise Living in Bacalar

So What Exactly Are We Talking About Here?

31 Mar

What is an adventure? When I think about having an adventure, I think of an experience outside of my day-to-day vida loca that is foreign or sometimes a bit scary. The numero uno question that we get when we tell people we’re moving to Mexico is, “Is it safe?” While I admit that everything in life is a risk (when I’m feeling snarky, I’m tempted to say that if I wanted to be safe, I’d stay in bed) some things are riskier than others. When people talk about Mexico and safety in the same sentence, I find that they:

1) don’t really know much about Mexico except what they read in the news.
2) don’t know us very well and don’t consider that we know much about Mexico and have done our homework; and
3) don’t really put risk into perspective.

In 2012 34,767 people died in automobile accidents in the US, almost exactly the number killed in the four year period prior to 2010 in the Mexican drug war. While it’s not a perfect comparison, it’s a bit of perspective. The country of Mexico is big, three times bigger than Texas and the drug war is not targeted at US expats.

In spite of the risk, we still ride in cars everyday and we’re still moving to Mexico.

Dictionary.com states:
ad·ven·ture [ad-ven-cher]
1. an exciting or very unusual experience.
2. participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises: the spirit of adventure.
3. a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.
4. a commercial or financial speculation of any kind; venture.
Obsolete .
a. peril; danger; risk.
b. chance; fortune; luck.

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