Sabado, 14 Julio 2012. Yep –
laundry always makes a nice start to the day no matter what part of
the world you live in. We both pitch in, with Carmen doing the washing and Dan doing the wringing & hanging. Frank and Ania stopped by this morn. Frank
needed some books to read. They were on their way for a day trip to
Yanga, taking one of their cottage guests to see the area, as the
guest is writing a paper on the area. Yanga is a small town east of
Cordóba, from which Gaspar Yanga, a Gabonese AfroMexican slave
leader led raids on the Spanish supply corridor that ran between the
port of Veracruz and Puebla. Never vanquished, Yanga signed a treaty
with the Spaniards in the early 1600's, establishing the “free
town”now named after him.
We walked up to the park,
hoping to find the Telcel store open. Seems like Frank has been leaving us messages, which we have not received. So we have questions on how to
navigate some of the menus and retrieving messages, and can't
understand the brief recordings in Spanish that play when we attempt
some things. This is just a basic no-frills model--hate to think how we'd deal with a "smart" phone. Just need to be shown, and Frank doesn't have this
model phone so he can't help with these things. They seem to have
exceedingly irregular hours. Closed again, so we'll try to get our
questions answered some other time. On to the bus station where we
purchased our tickets to the east side bus station in Mexico City
(TAPO) – one of the largest in the world which we described in an
earlier post. Cost P$304 each, or D$22.50.
Next we trekked thru the
afternoon hot sun, trying to find the #64 IMSS clinic we are assigned
to. Never found it. Asked several folks and none knew about this new
clinic. We even walked to the north part of town that lies beyond
the Puebla-Veracruz highway (the autopista), where we thought
it might be situated. Is it possible that we misunderstood it's
location? We came back to the centro and checked out the Telcel
office again. Still not open, so we sat on a park bench in the
parque and kept an eye on Telcel for the next hour, hoping someone
would show up – surely the store will be open by then. Nope.
Now we crossed the street
from the park to the atm at the Banamex, where we did our last
withdrawal for this trip – actually got some of the pesos we'll
need for our car trip in September. Went to a stationery store, with
a sign that said they were Telcel reps, but no luck with advice on
our model of phone. Next to the bakery next door which has the best
yeast donuts in town. Disappointing that they had but one with sugar
only, so Carmen selected another with chocolate frosting covered with
sprinkles. All the others on the tray were the filled type, and
their filling is not the best. The best filled ones come from the
town grocery store—it seems we are getting pretty selective on
where we buy certain things, as we come to know the shops in town.
On our walk towards home – after our four hours of walking – we
stopped by a tiny fruit stand and bought bananas and some sliced and
peeled pineapple. Wow – talk about sweet and juicy! Remember that
morning laundry? Got it in the house just before the afternoon rain
hit.
