Tuesday, 13 Dec. Unscheduled, we decided to go to the notario's office to see what was happening with our house purchase, now that the paperwork had been in Xalapa since Thursday of last week, and over the long weekend. Shortly after he arrived at 10:30am and was updated by his staff, we met with him. It was clear that Sr. Limón Krause was in a very upset frame of mind. He told us that we were not going to get the sale finished by the end of the year because the papers he had sent to the SRE (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores) office in the state capital (where they needed to approve that we foreigners could purchase property in Mexico) had been rejected, and holiday office closures in Xalapa started at the end of the week.
The laws have changed this past year, and part of the changes have to do with how parcels of land to be acquired by foreigners are identified, using UTM coordinates (not degrees, minutes, seconds). He had just called Fortín, and the folks at city hall there professed to know nothing about this coordinate system. He also explained that the form he had sent them, which included both of us as 50:50 buyers was rejected, because only one person's name can be on such form. We now have to send in two new forms, one for each of us, along with another MXP$5100. He simply did not know how to best continue and said it would take some study to see how to progress from here. He has been in this business many years as his grey hair shows, and he has never had this problem come up before. Since the laws have changed, all the government offices at each level are afraid to make a wrong decision, so refuse to sign off on transactions. He told us to come back Wednesday and he would have worked something out.
In the new house, Dan would like to insert an angled metal flashing between the roof slab (losa) and the wood boards (tablas) that are the underside exposed surface of the eaves (and interior ceilings), which are supported by large beams (vigas). Rain coming off the roof tiles drips down over the edge of slab and back onto the wood--left untreated, the boards will eventually rot at the roof edge perimeter of the house. While the wood is merely decorative, as the slab is self-supporting, we would like to preserve the appearance of things, and inserting and caulking into place a drip edge will make everything shipshape. We decided this would be a good day to find a source of metal flashing, which, after a lot of wandering Córdoba streets, we learned apparently does not exist down here.
This city has sections of the town with different items for sale. Like all the shoe stores were together, also the steel warehouses, hardware stores, what passes for lumberyards (all roughcut wood), etc are all grouped together. Many blocks for each type store. No luck finding any preformed flashings of any type, though we did find a source of galvanized steel sheet stock (lámina), which would necessitate a lot of work with tinsnips and bending, not a pleasant task to anticipate. Anyhow, we sure are getting to know our way around some areas of Córdoba. On the way home, we stopped by Walmart for Dan to check out the paint department for wood treatment. A poor selection, although there were lots of colored paints, there were only a few cans of tinted varnish (barniz) for bare wood. Carmen bought some boxes of giftwrapped chocolates to give our housekeepers and caretaker here at the hotel for Xmas. By the time we got back to Fortín we were again exhausted. In passing, we purchased a rotisserie chicken for supper which comes with roasted potatoes, rice and sauce. Yum.
Upon returning home and after the quick meal, we had time for a wee nap, interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Carlos, with a letter from Harmony, Dan's youngest daughter, in hand. It had apparently arrived at the Fortín post office (correos) on Friday, but took until today to make it to the hotel due to the holiday weekend. School pictures of her children, Dan's grandchildren Eliana and Braden. We now have them displayed on our wall. Our very first mail in Mexico!
Ania stopped by as it was getting dark to pick us up and take us to their home for a visit and refreshments. We met her mother, who is visiting from Poland. What a pleasant lady, and nice evening of conversation. Ania plucked some fresh herbs (mint, lemongrass) from the garden and we had herb tea and homemade cake. Frank drove us back home. Their B&B is where we stayed a year ago, but it is easily an hour-long walk along some busy roads from downtown Fortín. Also, not likely something we would likely do in the dark. No direct bus routes between there and Fortín. We are always thankful for the occasional driving around with Ania and Frank, and especially for this opportunity to meet Vanda.
Wednesday, 14 Dec. Back we go to see Sr. Limón at 11am, He was in the process of leaving, and immediately told us to come back in an hour because he was on his way to Fortin to try to get some things taken care of for us. Not knowing what do do with ourselves in the middle of the shoe store district, we headed up the street towards the central park. On the way we passed what is like one of our dollar stores. Quite a sizable one. The prices ranged mostly between 13-15 pesos (14 being near a dollar US). We spent the whole hour here at Waldos. Our big purchases were a bag of granola, mouthwash, and a set of three flexible spatulas. We had searched all over for rubber spatulas in every store we visited, with no luck until now.
Upon return to the notario's, he now informed us that we now need, for the packet going to Xalapa, photographs of two sides of the property, with four copies required of each set of pictures. Okay, we brought a compact Canon printer with us and we have pictures on the camera back in Fortín. We bus back to Fortín and get back to the motel. Dan takes time to use google earth, locate the property and determine it's coordinates, and then convert them to UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) numbers on a sketchmap of the property, just in case Fortín needs help with the process. Dan gets the printer set up, we choose the two pictures, and print off one set and in the middle of the second picture on the page the colored ink runs out. No problem, Dan had also brought down some new cartridges of ink. Puts them in and yes you guessed it - they do not work. At this point Carmen is having a not so good day, so she naps while Dan went out by himself to find more ink. He went all over Fortin and then into Cordoba (Walmart, Office Depot). No cartridges to fit. Finally he came back to a small place in Fortin where the owner refilled the cartridge for him. Printed off the rest of the needed pictures, had a bite to eat, and bused back to Cordoba, all by 5pm.
We now learned Sr Limón had located an environmental engineer to go to the property and do a GPS survey of the property because city staff in Fortin refuses to help with the forms and siting of the property. When we got back home, Dan first calls Manolo to tell him what's up, then sends detailed emails to him and also the engineer that Limón gave us the name of, requesting that the survey be done as soon as possible. We fell into bed exhausted again. And we thought buying a house would be fast and easy, as long as we had the cash! The bus ride home at the end of the today was bad, in that every couple minutes the alarm went off for someone to disembark, though no one was ringing the buzzer. Poor bus driver must of been out of his mind by the end of the day. Today we have first noticed a few people are getting colds. We are still healthy.
Friday, 16 Dec. Again we were at the notario's by 11am. Our bus was 15 minutes early so we went to a big office supply store shopping for ink. No luck. We were told to return to Limóns office at 5pm, when he would have our new SRE forms and an accompanying escritura ready for signatures. We took the opportunity to run around following leads on getting some ink cartidges (cartuchos) for the printer. We have finally realized that we'll have to special order these cartridges as no one stocks them in the city. This will not be cheap, and generic cartuchos are out of the question. Maybe it's best we buy in the US and bring them down, along with bulk ink to refill them here. Sounds like it will be one of those things we'll hope we can coax visitors to bring down with them.
Went home and napped, then did return at 5pm and this time were there for a couple hours. New forms were typed up. Dan found an error in the description of the property site, so they had to be redone. The state's public offices are supposedly closed from 16 Dec until 02 Jan. However, the notario said that he was sending the signed papers to Xalapa on Monday anyway in case there was someone in the office who could process things. Also he has relatives there in Xalapa, also notarios, who could have the papers there first thing when the office reopens in January. However, since it may happen that no one wants to take a chance on doing something wrong, the forms may all be sent to the office in Mexico City. Hopefully we will have some idea of what is happening early this next week. Still hoping to have this house purchased before our plane reservation on 11 Jan, so that we do not have to extend our time here.
Since the bus passes Walmart going to and from Córdoba, we stopped and did some grocery shopping. Lamb, ground pork, ground beef, and a pork sausage (longaniza) made with anatto, a deep red Mexican spice with no hot to it. Keeping in mind that we must use oil to cook all these meats, as they are all very lean. Well, we also spent extra monies on ourselves just because Christmas is coming. Cheeses (blue, one with pecans and an emmental), wholewheat (trigo integral) crackers, dates to nibble on and a box that still sits up on a shelf of extra dark chocolate with caramelized cocoa nibs which will get opened Xmas day. On the way to the bus when walking thru the park in Fortín, we saw the cutest tiny month old curly haired white puppy. Stopped Carmen in her tracks. The two boys with it were so proud of their one month old puppy. Good thing we are not living here full time, or we might be succumbing to finding a replacement for our dear Pepe.
Saturday, 17 Dec Today is rainy and cool, the first gray day for awhile. The poinsettia trees or bushes are droopy today. So are we. We are thankful for occasional weather that makes us want to stay inside and relax. As a special treat, Carmen spent time cutting, pitting and filling dates with blue cheese for Dan. Surprise, Dan does not prefer them together. He enjoys the sweet of the dates and the sharp of the cheese as separate sensations. So she took the blue cheese back out and put it on crackers. Oh well, she had something to fill her time. Amazing how much TIME there is some days. On the other hand, other days we are so busy, one wonders how there was ever time to work at our jobs. (It is so good to find a sharp cheese here, thank goodness we both like blue cheese. Finding any other hard sharp cheese, like a cheddar, has been a failure so far.)
