Company For Me, In Chacala

Well, my son arrived at the P.V. airport on Monday afternooon. The plane landed on time, but one piece of luggage (full of goodies for me) didn't. It turned out six passengers' luggage had been held in Seattle by the TSA "personnel". Erik's bag arrived on a later flight. While we waited for the bag we had some Pollo Feliz (Happy Chicken chicken/as in the only good chicken is a dead chicken I guess) from the place across the highway bridge. And we visited with others who were waiting.

What they said fit with what I heard around P.V. that morning. At Rizo's (a gringo-oriented market) a woman told me she had gotten the "red light" at P,V. customs and they removed all her food items (mayonaise, peanut butter, Jello pudding, coffee, etc) . A first in 10 years of coming to P.V.Then later, at WalMart, a gringo couple told me they had just arrived at the P.V. airport, had gotten the red light, and also had all their food items removed. This appears to be a new approach by customs. I assume it's an effort to supplement the diets of the families of the custom agents, since none of the items were prohibited. Apparently if you complain they threaten you with imposing duty fees on your stuff.

Oh well. When the suitcase arrived the beef jerky had been removed. I think that's actually on the banned list, because it's a meat product. TSA in Seattle apparently removed glue and some hardware items intended to finished the installation of my internet connection. Whatever.

Had a long ride to Chacala on the Pacifico bus. The driver played an English language movie from hell. Horrible violent movie played at full blast for the benefit of us two English speakers on the bus. I didn't realize the driver thought he was doing us a favor until we got off the bus and he said something. I should have asked him to turn the sound down right at the start, since it was subtitled in Spanish.Got to Las Varas after 9pm. I tagged one of the two taxis waiting. We had eight bags. Erik had 4 (full of stuff for me) and I had 4. That included my new gas mini-stove and groceries.

Got to Chacala, carried everything up, and collapsed. And talked for hours. Looking at all my new stuff. Very good. Especially bandaids and Nuetragena sunscreen. And all kinds of stuff. Cashews, dried apricots, etc etc. It's like Christmas a thousand times over.Yesterday we mainly talked and made three trips over to Pepe's hardware store to get the right fittings for my new little gas two burner with small ove, stove.

I am so excited. It cost $75US at Walmart. I went to Coppel first.That's a big Mexican furniture store. They had the same stove for 12$US more. I was surprised, because Walmart almost always has the highest prices in P.V. We cooked chicken last night, and I am going to see if the oven get's hot enough for pizza today. Okay, that's it for today. It's still in the 90's but not quite so humid.

Koko Bongo's just put up a sign for an Internet connection. That's great.