One could say a lot of bad things about living in Mexico (and I certainly have) but one thing for sure, it is never boring. We always have a little excitement. During the five years I have lived here, we have had a dozen hurricane warning, but usually nothing happened, but a little rain. So when I heard that a hurricane was due to hit us the following day, I thought nothing about it. The next morning, the warning were a little more dire. The airport and all businesses were advised to close. Not knowing that, I went off to the gym and found it closed. I also noticed that nothing else was open. On my way home, I did stop at my little tienda (that never closes) and picked up some stuff to make a few things to eat.
Hurricane Patricia was billed as the worst storm ever to hit the West Coast. They predicted winds over 200 miles per hour and said it would drop at least 20 inches of rain. Puerto Vallarta could be devastated as Cabo San Lucas was two years ago. Last year was the best "season" in at least five years. People who normally went to Cabo came here and no one goes to Acapulco anymore as it really is not safe. Everyone had great hopes for this season, then suddenly it could all end.
When I got back, I received word that the electricity and water would be shut off at 2:00 in the afternoon. It isn't supposed to hit until 5:00 or 6:00 so why 2:00. Also, I can understand the electricity because of downed power lines, but why water? It runs under the streets. I decided to make up some food and do a little laundry. I was waiting for the dryer to finish when suddenly it stopped. At first I thought the lights had been turned off early. No, the dryer just died! This was not a good day to hang out laundry to dry. Then my friend called and said to not only close and lock all window, but to cover them with blinds or drapes to prevent being hurt with flying glass from broken windows. I peaked out and saw windows covered with plywood or crossed with tape. Good God!!
I did pull in the furniture on my balcony, but nothing I could do about the furniture on the terrace. Also with 30 potted plants, all I could do was to try to position them so the wind would do the least damage. I added more boulders to some of the taller plants. I have nine palms and one rises three feet over an eight foot wall. I took the plates and hanging ceramic stuff off the wall on the terrace. I also put out a bucket to catch the rain water. I have plenty of drinking water, but I wanted plenty of water to flush the toilets. Luckily I had just purchased five large votive like candles for my party in January. I placed them around the apartment so I could manage when the electricity went off. Then I charged up my Sony Reader, so I had something to do and poured myself a beer.
All the doors were bolted and the drapes closed. I could not think of anything else I could do to prepare for the hurricane. At 2:00 I stepped out side and was shocked at what I saw. There were no moving cars or buses and not a sole. What was really eerie, there was no noise. It was absolutely silent. As I have said before Mexico is a very noisy place. I had never known it to be so quiet. Even the church was closed. Unlike The States were churches take in the homeless during a natural disaster, here they lock the doors. If you are not a paying parishioner, you are not welcome. And of course the ever hateful Telecable cut off my TV cable and my internet. With no TV and no internet, I had no way to learn where Patricia was, or when she was going to hit us. Yes, I know, I know, "If I had a smart phone" Well I do not !! So I waited. It continued to sprinkle a little, but no wind. Then I heard that it would not hit until nightfall (is that the same as sunset?) Nothing happened. The lights stayed on and so did the water.
I wondered where that story came from about cutting off the electricity and water. You can not believe what you hear in Mexico. What is passed on as absolute gospel is really just a rumor. I have never known a town where rumor and gossip are so rampant (well, maybe Palm Springs). At 9.00 the rain got a little heavier. I poured myself another drink and went up to my deck. I love sitting there and listening to the rain on the roof of my palapa and watching the rain pour off the roof. During a heavy rain, it is like sitting under a water fall. I love it. But tonight not that much rain and not a breeze. With all my palms I can tell if there is any breeze at all. Then about 10:00 a little wind come up (certainly not 200 miles an hour). I thought, "Well, here is comes" Within 20 or 30 minutes the wind stopped and the rain went back to a drizzle. I got tired of waiting for Patricia and went to bed. The following morning, the streets were wet, but no puddles, then it started to rain and I thought "Okay, here is come". No, the rain ceased. I decided see if Telecable had restored my cable and sure enough, I got CNN news. Patricia was now in Texas and causes very little damage there as well. There was nothing on Mexico. As my friend said, "Once CNN did not see and corpses floating in the water, they dropped the story. Apparently it hit land in an almost uninhabited area south of us. There isn't even a road south of Boca de Tomatlan.
Well, another disaster averted. Now I must put my apartment back together. I unbolted the door to my terrace and decided I wasn't ready put all the plants and furniture back in place. Also I noticed there was about three inches of water in my bucket. A bucket is not a good rain gauge, but it sure wansn't anything near 20 inches. But first I had to answer the 20 messages and half a dozen phone calls I got while my internet was out. It seems I have spent my life trying to avoid another disaster, sometimes I win. There are no photos as there was noting to photograph.
P.S. Over a week after the hurricane that never happened, I had just cleaned my apartment. I start with sweeping and hosing the terrace. Then sweeping and mopping all the tile floors. That night while lying in bed reading, a heavy wind came up. It got so bad, I got up and closed the sliding glass door to my bedroom. Later that night I went upstairs with my nightly glass of Scotch and it looked like someone had emptied a bag of trash on my stairs. For some reason wind on my deck goes into a spin and throws all the trash down the stairs and into my kitchen. Once arriving at my terrace, I found four palm trees had blown over and my lime tree. One knocking a branch off my price crown of thorns and another knocking over my Boston fern and my maiden hair fern. I decided there was nothing I could do that night, so I simple sat there and finished my Scotch. As I said, I do not win all my battles.
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Monday, October 26, 2015
Saturday, October 3, 2015
TELECABLE EL TERRIBLE
A friend of mine once wrote me that anyone who read my blog would never consider living in Mexico and might never want to even visit. This was certainly not my intent, however this blog will certainly enforce that opinion. There are many things that I enjoy about living in Mexico (it is warm and cheap). Most all of the people are wonderful and I love sitting under a palapa at a table and chair just a few feet from the waves while sipping a pina colata or just getting drunk at one of my local bars, but this would not make for very interesting reading. Frustration is much more fun to write about, so here goes another story about Telecable. Why do I write so much about Telecable? Well, because it is such a "fun" company to do business with (fun translating as frustrating)
One night the internet stopped working. This happens frequently but usually cures itself in a few hours or maybe one day. The second day it was still off so the following morning I called Telecable. Amazingly they answered on my first call. I later learned this was a one in a thousand chance. I had already decided it was the modem and told them I needed a new one. The woman told me there would be a technician there by 3:00. Knowing how unreliable these appointments are, I decided not to leave the house the entire day. No one showed up, so by late afternoon I started calling again. You get a recording telling you "push 1 for Spanish, push 2 for English. Once you push 2 another message comes on and then it goes to a series of recordings all in Spanish. After a dozen calls I realized that they were asking me to leave my telephone number for a call back. This I did at least 6 times. Nothing!! That night (while getting drunk at my local bar) I was telling everyone that I had had no internet for 3 days. Everyone agreed that Telecable was terrible and suggested I just take the modem into the office and exchange it for another. This I did early the next morning. They not only claimed that they did not exchange modems at the office and did not even have any in the office (this I later found out to be a lie). I thought about telling her that everyone at the bar said you could trade in the modems, but decided against it. But it did make me ponder, why is it that drunks are always offering advise about things they know nothing about.
I told her that I needed a technician and had an order number for one. She looked at me and said, "But you only reported the problem 24 hours ago" She had this incredulous look on her face like if you expected someone in 24 hours you are either insane or have not lived in Mexico for very long. I told her that I was told someone would be there at 3:00 yesterday. She said "Well, they were wrong" I explain that I had to have an estimated time when they would arrive. Since I cannot hear the door bell if I am in my bedroom with the television on, I had to stay in my living room. This also meant I could not use my air conditioning in my bedroom and the summer heat has returned. After many protests she called someone and said they would be there at 10:00 the following morning.
This was good news as I had bridge that day. All summer we have had a problem getting the minimum of eight people to play duplicate bridge. Mid way through the tournament, my phone rang. Now during the winter when all the heavy hitters are here I would not even dare answer it, but I was among friends, so I did. Although the woman was speaking rapid Spanish I did determine that it was Telecable calling. I handed the phone to someone who is bilingual and he told me that the technician was in front on my house. Everyone agreed that I should run the one block back to my home, for they all knew what it was like to deal with Telecable. The modem was still in the bag I had taken it in to the office. I told him it was not working as the little lights were not flashing. He (of course) decided to reassemble it only to discover I was correct. Finally he sent his assistant out to get a new modem. He attached it. Then he made a few calls and then did something else with his Ipad and then sat back and stared at it. I asked what was happening and he said it had to download and that could take 10 or 15 minutes. I had 7 people waiting for me and told him that if he could assure me that this modem would work, he could leave. I rushed back to bridge.
When I got home, I found that I still did not have internet. I think I told you that without internet I have no communication with the outside world, as well as all the searches ones does. Plus I do banking, pay bills and also play tournament bridge on the internet, so a week without it is a long time. I made several more calls but got the same message (in Spanish) that they were busy. By the way the recording also says "this conversation may be recorded for quality assurance". I thought if I actually got a real person on this line they would definitively not want a recording of the conversation especially for "quality assurances" Of course it might be used in a libel suit for slander, but they do not have such suits here. Probably because one would be very hard pressed to think of something really horrible to say about Mexican businesses that would not actually be true.
The following day, I took the bus back to Telecable. Finally I did get to speak to someone who said they would reboot the modem from the head quarters. I said what if it does not work? She promised me she would call in one hour. She did not and it was not working, so I took the bus back. They did not care. All the screaming and yelling I did, was to no avail. There was nothing to do but go home and wait. The next day a man did arrive and without touching the modem asked about my television. I told him it still worked although poorly. He went through a few channels and pronounced that the problem was the cable and he left. You would expect someone else to arrive, but after sitting in my living room until 8:00 at night I went back to the bar. I waited all day long on Saturday and then noticed someone climbing the pole across the street. I ran out and asked if they were Telecable. They were and they were putting in a new line. The next thing I noticed is that they were gone and I still had no internet. Surely they would send someone to my home.
Sunday was a loss, but surely someone would come by on Monday. No! Luckily I do read a lot, but still I did not like having to spend a whole week siting in my living room without being able to leave ( and no air conditioning). So I decided I needed some help and called my Spanish tutor and asked him to go with me the following day. He showed up about ten minutes after our agreed time which is very good for Mexico. We took the bus and I was hot and sweaty and in a very bad mood. Ivan tried his best, but I could see that he was being stonewalled by the girl just like I was. I had had enough. I began screaming and pounding on the counter and refusing to leave or stop until I got some answers. Yes, everyone was staring at me, but I figured they were also Telecable clients, so I was sure they would understand. Ivan plodded on in his very polite way. I don't know whose act worked best but finally we were allowed to talk to someone in Guadalajara. He promised he would call and give Ivan some instructions within one hour. I had very little hope that anything would happen, but I chose Ivan for he used to have his own computer store and he knew what to say.
We went home, had a couple beers and believe it or not, the guy did call (not one hour later, but two hours later). He had Ivan open their web site and do all sorts of stuff I do not understand. I also got a new "password" (did not know I needed one). It began to come back, slowly at first but it got better. The Guadalajara guy was very upset with what Ivan was telling him and took notes on the shoddy service. Will anything change Not in Mexico. I had planned on talking to TelMex about their internet service, but Ivan told me to wait for AT & T is supposed to have bought TelMex and they should be here in Puerto Vallarta soon. Since TelMex works through a phone line, a new one would have to be installed. About one year ago a branch on the tree across the street broke off in a storm and took the phone line with it. It was never replaced and the broken line is still wrapped around the bottom of the telephone pole.
. So we will see what TelMex has to say, but that will be a whole new story, I am sure.
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One night the internet stopped working. This happens frequently but usually cures itself in a few hours or maybe one day. The second day it was still off so the following morning I called Telecable. Amazingly they answered on my first call. I later learned this was a one in a thousand chance. I had already decided it was the modem and told them I needed a new one. The woman told me there would be a technician there by 3:00. Knowing how unreliable these appointments are, I decided not to leave the house the entire day. No one showed up, so by late afternoon I started calling again. You get a recording telling you "push 1 for Spanish, push 2 for English. Once you push 2 another message comes on and then it goes to a series of recordings all in Spanish. After a dozen calls I realized that they were asking me to leave my telephone number for a call back. This I did at least 6 times. Nothing!! That night (while getting drunk at my local bar) I was telling everyone that I had had no internet for 3 days. Everyone agreed that Telecable was terrible and suggested I just take the modem into the office and exchange it for another. This I did early the next morning. They not only claimed that they did not exchange modems at the office and did not even have any in the office (this I later found out to be a lie). I thought about telling her that everyone at the bar said you could trade in the modems, but decided against it. But it did make me ponder, why is it that drunks are always offering advise about things they know nothing about.
I told her that I needed a technician and had an order number for one. She looked at me and said, "But you only reported the problem 24 hours ago" She had this incredulous look on her face like if you expected someone in 24 hours you are either insane or have not lived in Mexico for very long. I told her that I was told someone would be there at 3:00 yesterday. She said "Well, they were wrong" I explain that I had to have an estimated time when they would arrive. Since I cannot hear the door bell if I am in my bedroom with the television on, I had to stay in my living room. This also meant I could not use my air conditioning in my bedroom and the summer heat has returned. After many protests she called someone and said they would be there at 10:00 the following morning.
This was good news as I had bridge that day. All summer we have had a problem getting the minimum of eight people to play duplicate bridge. Mid way through the tournament, my phone rang. Now during the winter when all the heavy hitters are here I would not even dare answer it, but I was among friends, so I did. Although the woman was speaking rapid Spanish I did determine that it was Telecable calling. I handed the phone to someone who is bilingual and he told me that the technician was in front on my house. Everyone agreed that I should run the one block back to my home, for they all knew what it was like to deal with Telecable. The modem was still in the bag I had taken it in to the office. I told him it was not working as the little lights were not flashing. He (of course) decided to reassemble it only to discover I was correct. Finally he sent his assistant out to get a new modem. He attached it. Then he made a few calls and then did something else with his Ipad and then sat back and stared at it. I asked what was happening and he said it had to download and that could take 10 or 15 minutes. I had 7 people waiting for me and told him that if he could assure me that this modem would work, he could leave. I rushed back to bridge.
When I got home, I found that I still did not have internet. I think I told you that without internet I have no communication with the outside world, as well as all the searches ones does. Plus I do banking, pay bills and also play tournament bridge on the internet, so a week without it is a long time. I made several more calls but got the same message (in Spanish) that they were busy. By the way the recording also says "this conversation may be recorded for quality assurance". I thought if I actually got a real person on this line they would definitively not want a recording of the conversation especially for "quality assurances" Of course it might be used in a libel suit for slander, but they do not have such suits here. Probably because one would be very hard pressed to think of something really horrible to say about Mexican businesses that would not actually be true.
The following day, I took the bus back to Telecable. Finally I did get to speak to someone who said they would reboot the modem from the head quarters. I said what if it does not work? She promised me she would call in one hour. She did not and it was not working, so I took the bus back. They did not care. All the screaming and yelling I did, was to no avail. There was nothing to do but go home and wait. The next day a man did arrive and without touching the modem asked about my television. I told him it still worked although poorly. He went through a few channels and pronounced that the problem was the cable and he left. You would expect someone else to arrive, but after sitting in my living room until 8:00 at night I went back to the bar. I waited all day long on Saturday and then noticed someone climbing the pole across the street. I ran out and asked if they were Telecable. They were and they were putting in a new line. The next thing I noticed is that they were gone and I still had no internet. Surely they would send someone to my home.
Sunday was a loss, but surely someone would come by on Monday. No! Luckily I do read a lot, but still I did not like having to spend a whole week siting in my living room without being able to leave ( and no air conditioning). So I decided I needed some help and called my Spanish tutor and asked him to go with me the following day. He showed up about ten minutes after our agreed time which is very good for Mexico. We took the bus and I was hot and sweaty and in a very bad mood. Ivan tried his best, but I could see that he was being stonewalled by the girl just like I was. I had had enough. I began screaming and pounding on the counter and refusing to leave or stop until I got some answers. Yes, everyone was staring at me, but I figured they were also Telecable clients, so I was sure they would understand. Ivan plodded on in his very polite way. I don't know whose act worked best but finally we were allowed to talk to someone in Guadalajara. He promised he would call and give Ivan some instructions within one hour. I had very little hope that anything would happen, but I chose Ivan for he used to have his own computer store and he knew what to say.
We went home, had a couple beers and believe it or not, the guy did call (not one hour later, but two hours later). He had Ivan open their web site and do all sorts of stuff I do not understand. I also got a new "password" (did not know I needed one). It began to come back, slowly at first but it got better. The Guadalajara guy was very upset with what Ivan was telling him and took notes on the shoddy service. Will anything change Not in Mexico. I had planned on talking to TelMex about their internet service, but Ivan told me to wait for AT & T is supposed to have bought TelMex and they should be here in Puerto Vallarta soon. Since TelMex works through a phone line, a new one would have to be installed. About one year ago a branch on the tree across the street broke off in a storm and took the phone line with it. It was never replaced and the broken line is still wrapped around the bottom of the telephone pole.
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