Patience! Living in Mexico is all about patience

“Living in Mexico is all about patience,” Tiffany Yenawine-Wareing philosophically wrote on her FaceBook page, “things happen when they happen.” 

You can almost hear the exasperation in her typed words.

Tiffany was referring to the road construction and daily changes to the intricate detour routes that allows access to the middle section part of Rueda Medina, the main north-south route on Isla Mujeres. She and husband Brad Wareing jointly manage the Marina Paraiso hotel/marina/restaurant/dive shop complex located behind the detour barricades.

First road block - near car ferry entrance

Rueda Medina is the route that gives customers access to at least eight other restaurants, a handful of bars, several hotels, four marinas, the cement plant, the building supply store, the middle school, a pharmacy, the one and only auto parts store, plus hundreds of homes that are located on the west side of the island between the car ferry and the Chedraui Super Store.

October in front of the Soggy Peso Bar & Grill

The repaving project started in early October and was to be finished within two months. In the meantime, a group of business owners met with the municipality and asked if a sewer line was being installed at the same time. 

They were told there were no plans for a sewer in that area for the next few years. Then the business owners met with Aguakan, the water/sewer provider and asked; “Why not? The road is already torn up, why not do it now, not in a year or two from now and repeat this whole painful process?”

Why not indeed.

November a few hundred feet south at the Marina Paraiso

Eventually with a lot of managerial scrambling the budget was allocated to upgrade the water lines and install a sewer. 

For those of you who have never been to Isla, you probably can't figure out what the big deal is. 



Perhaps you have noticed in your travels through Mexico signs that say: Please do NOT flush the toilet paper! Place it in the waste basket provided.

 That is because most homes and businesses operate on holding tanks, not sewers. The extra paper waste in the holding tank causes a big problem with space, necessitating weekly, or sometimes daily pump-outs with, as our grandson says, “the poo-sucker-truck.” Expensive! Smelly! And not very sanitary when the toilets backup or the tank overflows onto the street. Sewers are needed.

Point south and say you are headed to a restaurant

Besides the dust, dirt, noise and the daily confusion about how to access this area there is a personal cost for the employees. Their earnings (tips) are dramatically reduced with many customers avoiding the area, unsure as to how or where to gain access. 

Many taxi drivers are reluctant to drive customers or employees to the various restaurants and bar. A few taxi drivers have been demanding more money for the nuisance factor of traveling on bumpy dirt roads, worried about damaging their cars. The local Policia are telling people that the businesses are closed. Not so. They are all open, and waiting for you.

New sewer lines and upgraded water lines

The new construction completion date is set for the first of the year, but right now I am looking out my window at a torrential downpour of rain that is turning the dirt streets to mud-holes, filling in the trenches with goopy muck, and slowing down the process yet again!

This week the detour route starts at the north end of the project, near the car ferry docks. When stopped by the police at the barricades, just point south and say you are going to a restaurant, then head on into your off-road adventure. Keep a sharp eye out for the propane delivery truck, and of course the poo-sucker-truck. You really wouldn't want to have an close encounter of any kind with these two behemoths.

Expanded deck area at Marina Paraiso bar

The staff and management of the various businesses would really appreciative your support. Since I wrote this article yesterday, the road has been preliminarily paved up to the entrance to Marina Paraiso & Barlito's. 

Patience my friends, patience. Eventually it will all be finished. 

Hasta Luego

Lawrie & Lynda

Today's "pretty picture" - three amigos fishing near our house

You can find us on the web at:

Humerous stories about critters we have known:

http://animalsandfamilymembers.blogspot.mx/

AND

The Adventures of Thomas the Cat: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Adventures-of-Thomas-the-Cat-Las-Aventuras-de-Tomás-el-Gato