Winter 'off the grid' in Arroyo Seco

We're back in Arroyo Seco for a length of time, after a hiatus last winter while Michael wrote his book, The Fracking War.

The river between El Tecuan and Tenacatita

During our absence this past year we had the usual questions about the viability of living in this little surf village ---- the kind of fantasies that can go either way. Either projecting its absolute perfection, or focusing on the scorpions, the dirt, the lack of amenities.

The surprise this year was opening the gates to the property, standing in the palapa, looking out on to our oasis and once again seeing seeing the dream when we leveled the lot and poured the first concrete footer.

We've now been here enough years that the children that took our English classes the first year we lived there are now waiting tables and working at the new beach restaurants. And graduating from high school, having children, getting married. Our neighbors' son is almost done with his three-year program to become an auto mechanic -- and has arrived home with a cherry-red Mitsubishi Eclipse, which he occasionally now loans to his dad.

Last week we dusted off our Honda 4x4 quad and headed down to the still pristine beaches where my cousin and friends have rented a house for the month. We've started a Zumba class on the beach and we're working on one in town for the locals. We're patronizing the local beach restaurants, still astounded that we have options for times when we don't want to cook.

The beach at El Tecuan, south of Arroyo Seco

The road from the Highway to Arroyo Seco is paved --- no longer the 3k washboard into town. And the phone and electric poles in the middle of the road have been moved to the side of the road. Feels very grown up.

The town now has two internet cafes but the signal is so slow that it's almost impossible to download our emails, much less respond. We can have internet at our house but it's about a two-hour drive to pick up the DSL box so we're forgoing it for this year. And there's still no cell service in the village. I'm surprised to find I'm enjoying the disconnect.

And the beaches! Still remote, still pristine, still magnificent. Not very swimmable because it's open ocean, but we have a few swimming holes we can get to by quad. And it's always a good excuse to ride down the beach.

Bottom line ---- yes, we're still crazy. And we're still crazy about Arroyo Seco.

Cooling the feet after Zumba in La Manzanilla,
Tenacatita Bay

Fighting perpetual motion

The view from the porch

It's a Monday on the lake, the quiet time after the weekend vacationers have left, the ski boats are back at the dock, the occasional sound of a lawn mower in the distance.

 I came back to the cottage this morning after a vigorous and fun Zumba class, faced with a decision --- go to town with Michael, or stay 'home alone' for the afternoon.

That's a big decision for someone who has spent an entire life in motion.

As I eased into the decision, I wondered if this new appreciation for quiet, for privacy, for aloneness, is growth, or age.

No matter.

 It's finally a cool day in the Northeast United States, after a scorcher of a humid, hot week. Yesterday we had a lovely north wind and spent the afternoon sailing around in one of our sailboats, one of many of our fleet of lake boats. I'm comfortably sore, comfortably tired. Comfortable.

 I grabbed my library book and a soft lap quilt and headed to the metal porch glide, savoring the vocabulary, the word selection, the introspection in this lovely book, "The Lost Art of Mixing."

 Listen to this delightful passage:

 "For some reason, everything seemed so much clearer when he was at the lake. Tom had tried to talk about it once to his father, who had misunderstood and gone on a long tangent about weather patterns and a lack of pollution. But that hadn't been what Tom meant. For Tom, life in the city was full of patterns so complex you could never see the separate strands. But the cabin never changed; it was the place he returned to, judged his own progress against his sameness ---- the unexpectedly tall top porch step that tripped him as a toddler later becoming a comfortable resting spot for his long teenage legs as he sat on a Fourth of July watching the fireworks. When he returned after his freshman year in college, he came to see that porch step as a joke played on every newcomer, whose eventual instinctive adjustment to its height would be a sign of their true inclusion in the tribe of summer people."

My daily instinct is to grab the paintbrush to get another coat on the primer, weed the side yard, pick berries or cherries or peaches and get them fixed into jam, do the laundry, wash the car, make a phone call, query that freelance article, do the dishes, run to the market to buy fresh vegetables, sweep, vacuum, dust, wash windows.

Endless motion.

For today, I'm grateful for retirement, grateful to have the will (or fatigue) to stop, sit, read, contemplate, look at lake from this old porch. And try to remember to do it again tomorrow.  Or at least sometime soon.

I'm missing all my friends and family from around the world, hoping you get a chance to join me on this old, sloping porch sometime and listen to the quiet together.

Updates on having your foreign-plated car in Mexico

The meeting this Wednesday in Nuevo Vallarta about immigration and how vehicles and FM3s and other visas are related stirred up a rather large dustup.

Here are some brief clarifications to the original blog, based on information from the powerpoint and Q & A that was just sent out by the Embassy following the meeting:

* First, according to the Question and Answer session information from the meeting:  “For a permanent importation according to this year’s NAFTA regulations the vehicle must be at least 6 years old (please contact your customs authorities).”

Earlier it was reported that the opposite was true. So, your vehicle must be six years or older, and cannot have the letter "J" as the first letter of your VIN number (because it was manufactured in Japan and not eligible for importation).

* Second, although several people reported that the new vehicle rules require that you get your vehicle imported within 60 days of getting your renewed FM3, the published Q & A does not have any time frame information included. So we're still researching how long we have to get our truck imported. Or get it out of the country. We did read that there will not be a 'grace period'. But not how long we have to resolve it legally. Stay tuned.

* Third, the question of “where” you can import your vehicle was answered this way: “ You must always contact a registered customs agent for any permanent importation at the northern border or maritime terminal if the vehicle came by sea into Manzanillo or Cancun.”

Reading all the documents so far, it sounds like we would have to drive our truck back to our point of origin when we first arrived in Mexico (Nogales, for us), have our current import sticker legally removed (the one that is currently attached to our FM3). Then we would have to start the importation process.

From the documents we've received, it definitely sounds like no foreign-plated cars will be allowed in Mexico for longer than 180-days without being imported, and importation has to happen at the border.

You can still get the 10-year importation for boats and RV's.

Perhaps the customs regulations will evolve to allow us to import without going back to the border since so many gringo vehicles will be impacted. Unfortunately, Michael and I are about to receive our new resident visa card and might have to drive the truck out just because we're renewing at the beginning of the process, before anyone knows quite how it will shake down.

We'll continue to update as we work on our specific case. Love to hear from anyone who is even earlier in the process than us.

An informational meeting the new Mexican immigration laws

I attended a 'town hall' meeting today by the United States Consular Agency of Nuevo Vallarta  "intended to educate the public on the new Mexican laws regarding visa renewal and the temporary importation of a foreign plated car to Mexico."

700 plus expats for today's immigration meeting

It was apparently a pretty hot topic for expats. The Consulate expected 200 people. More than 700 people showed up.

They started with the caveat that these are the local immigration officials and not those that enacted the law and to please "not shoot the messenger."

My own caveat is that I'm NOT AN EXPERT and I'm just posting my notes from today's meeting. I'm not guaranteeing the accuracy on their part or on my part. To the best of my ability, I'm just relaying what I heard."

So with that, here goes a summary of my notes:

Let's start with the basics. If you're not already up to speed on the nuances of Mexican immigration, please look elsewhere online for info.

Here's the new time frame for the current application process since the law changed Nov. 7:
* You still renew 30 days prior to expiration.
* It should take 20 working days to process your application in order to take your fingerprints.
* After your fingerprinted, the completed applications are sent to Mexico City.
* Mexico City issues the final forms.
* There is a two to three week wait for the card to return to your office where you applied.

So, expect about 6 to 8 weeks for the application/renewal process.

They also said that the replacement cost for lost or stolen residency cards is quite a bit higher --- maybe $2000 pesos or more to replace the permanent card.
As to the types of visas, it sounds there are still four levels of visas --- temporary tourist visa, FM-3s, FM-2s, and the Permanent Resident.

I'm still not clear on the difference between the FM-3 and FM-2 at this point because although I have been hearing that they no longer exist, they were still referred to during the presentation. But it sounds like either one leads to the application process for Permanent Immigrant status six months before your visa expires in your fourth year.

We're waiting on our FM-something card to come back from Mexico City, so hopefully that will clear it up for us. 

For permanent status for those of us retired, you have to prove a monthly income of over $32,500 pesos per month or investments equal to over one million and something. I could find this number online but I didn't catch it today.

It also sounded like there might be exceptions but it was only briefly alluded to and it would take a trip to immigration for each case.

If you're out of the country when it's time to renew, you have 55 days to re-enter the country and five business days to renew. But the total number of days cannot exceed 60, regardless of the situation. It sounded like there wouldn't be any exceptions for that, and that might have to apply for an extension. That part wasn't clear.

They also said if you leave or return on a tourist visa while you have your resident visas, it will cancel your resident visas and you'll have to start over. Don't know how that would happen unless it is now all computerized. But apparently they really don't want any of us doing this (anymore?).

The big news which the local immigration specialists said they are already challenging is the change in the customs laws concerning foreign plated vehicles in the country.

An official announced.... drum roll, please.... that once you've received your new immigration card (all levels), you have 60 days to get your vehicle out of the country.

Sixty days?

I'm guessing that most ex-pats living in Mexico are hoping that they don't know what they're talking about on this issue. We talked to our immigration specialist after the meeting who said that they are already investigating this information and have not been told this. Nor has anyone read it in a law anywhere.

So ---hopefully this is a misinterpretation said to a mere, oh, 700 PLUS PEOPLE IN AN AUDITORIUM. Who probably all of have foreign-plated cars.

Hoo boy.

They also said that if it is a six year old vehicle or newer, it can be imported. Under this new change in customs, the only foreign plated cars in the country will be those coming down with people holding tourist visas, and must be taken out of the country within six months.

 I'll post whatever news I hear about cars as soon as I hear it, since we would part of a huge caravan of vehicles that would have to leave the country pronto.

In the meantime, I would encourage all of you reading this to follow our lead and just wait for more information to settle out before we all panic and head for the border.

Those of us who attended the meeting are supposed to receive the power point and Q & A's (which had to be submitted a week before the meeting) by email. When I do, I'll be glad to share the information. But it might take a while.

In the meantime, we'll all just Stay Tuned to 'As the Visas Renew'....

Beach chair hoarding doesn't bode well for humanity

 The palapa wars --- or chair hoarding --- on the beach here in Nuevo Vallarta has gone nuclear and it's  positively embarrassing for humankind.

 Here's what's happening in Mexico --- although Florida must have its identical stories about its Snow Birds and anyone who has stayed at a beach resort has probably witnessed it.

Stacking and hoarding beach chairs -- a Gringo sport?

When we first arrived in November in Nuevo Vallarta, people would slip down to the beach early in the morning and 'claim' their beach chairs and the shade of a palm-frond palapa by leaving a beach towel or a book or a personal item laying on a chaise lounge.

I thought that was silly enough, but okay.... if that chair and that palapa are that important to your happiness, go for it.

But now it's gotten to Palapa Insanity. As has our world.

Now people are stacking a half-dozen chaise lounges under one palapa, with another half dozen upright plastic chairs stacked nearby and a towel draped over all of it the night before!

Seriously?

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the chairs were actually used?

What it means in this small expat community is that even the relatively sane people who don't want to be reduced to chair claiming (or chair hoarding) are finding themselves forced to play the game, or they won't have a place to sit --- even for an hour or two.

Worse, these reserved chairs sit empty for most of the afternoon, their possession-crazed owners likely up in their condos, not even on the beach, catching up with a little TV.

Last night while we were down watching yet another sunset,  a friend apologetically put her towel on a chaise lounge in the back row because she wanted to make sure she had a place to sit the next day.

But by the time we arrived on the beach at 8 this morning to do a little Zumba, her towel had been tossed aside and another set of towels were there to claim possession.

Really? How embarrassing for all of us.

It's stunning to watch adult humans reduced to this open warfare. But the hopelessness I feel is that it is simply a microcosm of what is going on in the human race --- the selfishness, the greed, the self-centeredness.

The big 'MINE' of resources, energy, land, money, food, stuff.

I have no idea how the Palapa Wars will get resolved on this beach, other than the season ending and the sport of chair hoarding will no longer be fodder for the daily amusement of the Mexican employees.

But it doesn't bode well for us as a species. If we can't even get it together to figure out how to cooperate on as simple an issue as beach chairs, how likely is it that we'll figure out how to share fuel, food, medicine?

It's a topic I'll try not to think about when I wander down to the beach later on this afternoon and look for a place to sit. I'm sure someone will offer to share....

Living within our means doesn't mean hardship

It's rainy in Puerto Vallarta, and quiet. Both unique in Mexico for January 1 of any year.

Michael and I started our New Year's Eve last night with our annual 'Budget Summit' -- something we started doing monthly when we made the decision to retire more than five years ago. We had accumulated some credit card debt, had lived beyond our means for a bit (had a great time too!) but it was time to hunker down and figure out how to get out of debt. Get adequate savings. And retire.

Wishing you a great New Year from Mexico!

We started because although I was absolutely ready to retire and walk away from my university teaching job, we couldn't afford it. But I also knew I could keep on plugging away as long as I could see we were making progress toward pulling the plug.

I just suited up, showed up, got my direct deposit, only spent cash and then only frugally. And Michael reported monthly on how much progress we were making on paying off our debts, how much money we were able to put into savings.

We hunkered down together with a mission to be debt free in two years ---  we got in the life raft together with both of us rowing in the same direction ----  and we accomplished that goal in 18 months. And immediately filed for retirement.

A sweet reward for some self-discipline and working together as a couple.

Last year we added a philosophical level to it: apply a matrix of our personal priorities/dreams.  It was after Michael read the Steve Job's biography where Job's said everything you do, every decision you make, should be connected to the top categories in your matrix.

For Michael, it was health, family, writing, friends. For me, it was health, community, adventure, fiscal prudence. Basically, living within our means. I guess I was concerned about living on a retirement income.

But regardless of what is in the matrix, it's a great conversation to have with a spouse. Hey, Hon --- what are your priorities for the year? A seriously important --- and interesting ---  conversation.

So last night we had our budget summit. Today we talk about our personal priorities, see what has changed, what has stayed the same in our matrix. How does it overlap? How is it different?  And then I'm hoping we will be able to apply that to our spending:  is what we're about to spend directly related to one of our agreed on categories as a couple?

Hopefully, more travel! More family time! But we'll talk.

What triggered my frustration this morning is reading about this supposed compromise to our national  'fiscal cliff' by our elected leaders. It isn't a surprise that our elected leaders aren't providing the leadership required for this country to pull itself out of the abyss. Regardless of party.  It is not a surprise that our leaders don't believe we --- the American public --- can understand or be persuaded that we will all have to sacrifice and we will all have to live within our means, as a country.

But that's the leadership I want. And I believe it's the leadership that is required.

Perhaps it's time to have that conversation as a family first, then as a country and not wait for our elected officials to solve this. Because they either can't or won't.  I can barely stand to watch, like a slow motion car accident, but I can't avert my eyes either.

So, personally, 2013 is going to be a great year. Nationally, well, not so much?

Feliz Año Nuevo, friends, wherever you are.