Gorging on Rambutan

Yay! It’s rambutan season (or ranbutan as they’re called here). These tropical delicacies burst in your mouth with a sweetness and texture similar to lychee.

We haven’t had any since living in Mexico City a few years back, when they would make an appearance at the markets each summer. Seeing them recently at Mérida’s central market looking so fresh and juicy was a treat. 

A crowd of bystanders looked on as we made a purchase. It was clear that quite a few had never seen rambutans before. One guy asked us what they were. With our broken Spanish failing, we handed out samples to him and his friends and instructed them on how to eat them (tear off the red skin and and devour the soft interior).

Who knows how long the season will last, but while i’ts here, we are considering a visit to the central market daily.

A Loo with a View

Okay, so we’re not talking stunning vistas of Florence a la Forster. Instead, think small “view” to an outdoor terrace from our master bathroom.

Since April 2009, we’ve wanted to ensure that our master bathroom open up to the outside (you can see the full history of our drawings here). The idea is to have the flexibility to shower outside without feeling overly exposed to the elements (and to potential staring eyes).

Our solution has subtly evolved to its current state shown below:

1. Looking south through the master bathroom.
Here is what you will see from the bed as you look through the bathroom to the terrace. We have worked hard to hide everything that feels “bathroom-like” from view so nothing distracts from the vista of a few potted plants - represented by the lone tree - and maybe a hammock.

2. Master shower and adjacent outdoor terrace.
This image reveals the shower and its connection to the outdoors. We have carried the wooden shower platform all the way outside to promote the connection with the terrace. At one point we considered having a movable shower head that we could take outside. In the end we nixed it because without cleaning the outside terrace first, it might be a little dirty underfoot.

3. Master bathroom from the outdoor terrace.
The screen door on the right can open up on both ends, connecting either the shower or the area in front of the bathroom vanity to the outdoors. At night, air will flow in through this opening and provide a cool breeze across the bed while we sleep.

With the master bathroom now fully designed we can’t wait for the day when we get to enjoy it.

Have Permits, Will Build

We know it’s hard to believe (hell, we were getting a bit skeptical), but we just found out our drawings officially have both stamps of approval - one from the city and the other from INAH.

After we crack open some bubbly and drink ourselves silly, it’ll be time to sign off on the budget, draft a construction schedule and finally break ground.

We’ll keep you posted.

Like Designers in a Candy Store

We are giddy today. We stopped by this morning to check out our first delivery of tzalam wood.

Stacked together, the wood looks almost deceptively like mahogany or even cedar. But put it through a planer, and this is what you get:

Note the beautiful dark grain and the nice chocolate tones. It is definitely in a class of its own. Now all we have to do is wait two months for the wood to be properly dried - a process that is frequently skipped among other carpenters with ensuing problems. Once dried, the production of our cabinetry, wood flooring and furniture can begin.

Because Everyone Needs a Girl Friday

After years of being in Mexico on tourist visas, flitting in and out every six months as the government requires, we finally broke down and applied for our FM2s.

Until now, living off tourist visas has not been a problem. Friends would invite us to their wedding or a special birthday celebration would demand that we leave the country.

In a sign that we have been in Mexico for a while now, such invitations are drying up. Our next enforced departure was supposed to be this October, but for the first time we had nowhere to go.

Committed to becoming legit, we called Yesenia, a.k.a. Girl Friday Merida, to handle the job. After handing over our passports, tourist visas, some bank statements, and a bit of cash, she gave us a receipt and said all would be taken care of within two weeks.

True to her word, two weeks later we were at the immigration office collecting our shiny new FM2 visas. No filling in forms. No lines. No fuss. The most arduous bit of the whole process was waiting 10 minutes to collect our passport photos at Walmart.

Things have gone so well with Girl Friday that we’re now hiring her to manage a bunch of tasks that we can’t seem to find the time to do - like calling around for material pricing for our build (where we hope to get non-gringo prices) and securing us a kilo of vanilla beans. Having someone local do these things for us is a godsend.

Working the World of Wood

While negotiating our way through the permitting process for our house, we’ve been spending a lot of time investigating wood.

Since our house will be painted white throughout, the primary source of color and texture will come from our garden as well as key pieces of wood furniture that we’re having custom made.

To that end, we are choosing our wood based on a few key criteria:

1. The wood must be able to withstand the heat and humidity;
2. It must be able to resist wood-destroying pests, like termites;
3. It must play well with our other key materials including steel, terracotta and limestone; and
4. It must be beautiful to look at and complement other second-hand pieces we’ve acquired.

Finding a pest-resistant wood that works well in the climate typically means choosing a hardwood, preferably one available in the region. Choices here include cedar (often used to make colonial doors), pucte (a hardwood from South America that is yellowish in color), American poplar, tzalam, and a few others.

The above image shows a box made from Ziricote and a plank of American poplar sitting on a mahogany table.

Ziricote is an incredibly hard local wood. Popular for making small items, such as the box above, it’s too rare and expensive to use in our house. Poplar on the other hand is cheaper but ruled out because it’s too pale.

Amazingly, our wood guy says that mahogany is technically a soft wood, but due to its natural resistance to termites and other pests, it also works exceedingly well in this climate. It’s a popular choice for cabinetry here in the Yucatan. We are ruling it out, however, as it’s a bit too red for our tastes. 

This image shows pucte (the lighter wood) and a reddish hardwood whose name we can’t recall that is similar in color to mahogany. We really like pucte and would love to use it in our house. Used primarily in boat building, it’s not a common choice for cabinetry. We love it because of how well it goes with our terracotta and crema maya tiles (shown above).

Unfortunately, our wood guy had a tough time sourcing pucte, and suggested another wood instead called tzalam. Similar to pucte, we love the grain and feel its varied yellow-to-brown tones will keep our house feeling warm without feeling overly hot (something we find happens when there’s too much mahogany around). The dark chocolate grains will also complement the dark steel that will be used for accents and structural support.

Tzalam, our choice for wood.

With our choice made, its time to put some money down and get some in our hands. Although we won’t start building our furniture for months, it’s important to get it now so that it has sufficient time to dry and shrink before our furniture guy starts cutting.

Permitting Headaches

As some of you may know, Mérida recently held local elections. After over 21 years, the ruling party PAN was thrown out of office.

With this change in government came a massive shuffling of administrators and some changes in permitting procedures. As a result, our application for a building permit, previously little more than a rubber stamp, has been rejected based on building code violations in our proposal.  

The major sticking point is the placement of our pool at one meter from the boundary wall. City code mandates that all pools must be situated at least two meters from a property’s boundary line. 

Prior to the recent elections, the city allowed exceptions to this rule if a structural engineer was able to sign off on your drawings and guarantee no damage to your neighbor’s property during construction. Not any more! Thank goodness our property is wide enough to retain the pool (albiet moved) with the now strictly enforced rule.  

With some adjustments, we’ve come up with a reasonable solution. With this revision made (as well as a few others), we are ready to resubmit. Fingers crossed we get the green light this time.

World Cup Fever (of Sorts)

We have finally found a reason to love the World Cup. Although it’s a few weeks gone, better late than never.

The other day, while at Superama, we spied bottles of Mrs. H.S. Balls Original Recipe Chutney sitting by the entrance, marked down and unloved. This chutney, a staple in South Africa, was presumably being sold as some sort of promotion for the great sporting event just gone. Thank god nobody bought it, as it’s all the more for us.

With four bottles now sitting in our cupboard, it’s time to make us some bobotie, a South African shepherd’s pie of curried beef topped with a savory egg custard. It’s the perfect foil for our Mrs. Balls and some yummy comfort food is just what we need after surviving our latest remixto brunch.

Inching Ever Closer

Well, one huge hurdle is over. We heard yesterday INAH, the government agency responsible for overseeing the preservation of historic buildings, has given us its stamp of approval. Now it’s up to the city to review our documents and give us the green light.

Until recently, this was a mere formality that happened within a few days. We heard, however, that change is afoot and the process is becoming more heavily scrutinized. We’ll see how things go.

Once this two-step permitting process is over, we can legally break ground. Wish us luck!

In Cafe Heaven

Finally, a decent coffee shop in Centro!

We can’t say enough about Boca de Nube, located on Calle 60 near the corner of 55. It’s locally owned and operated, which means by going there, we are not supporting that US corporate monstrosity with origins in Seattle. The interior is tastefully simple, the espresso is pulled to tremendous satisfaction and the chocolate croissants are packed with lots of good-quality chocolate.

Granted, it’s no Blue Bottle. The milk lacked in creaminess (we could tell it wasn’t going to be great when we heard the steamer screech as it began frothing) and the croissants were a bit flat as the pastry wasn’t quite as flaky as it could have been. All in all, however, it was the best cafe experience we’ve had in the city.

To top it all off, Brent, who is an avid black tea drinker (it’s the Kiwi in him) walked away satisfied with the pot of tea that was served. Good quality loose leaf English Breakfast tea, served in a real teapot with water hot enough to actually brew it properly. On the face of it, this doesn’t seem that hard, yet it’s a rare place that gets it right. Kudos to Boca de Nube.