All Moved in and Camping…Again

As of a week ago, we are living in our new home. It’s not done yet, but with the lease on our rental accommodation up, we had to move.

Living in a house under construction is no picnic. With 15 workers on site each day, hammering, sawing and asking a million questions, it’s hard to concentrate in the din. Dust flies everywhere, and although we are living upstairs where construction is largely complete, everything is constantly covered in a thin film of polvo.

We have fitted the master bedroom with a makeshift kitchen and office, reserving the guest bedroom for our bed and storage.

The terrace between the two bedrooms has become our living room, where we wind down with a bottle of wine. After each day of construction management, it’s nice to sit quietly and watch the remaining dust of the day settle.

Despite having only one tap in our bathroom that also serves as the kitchen sink, we are in fine spirits.

For us this is déjà vu. Camping amongst the dust and debris, without fully functional plumbing and electricity, is where we started.  

There are differences. This time around we have windows that close and doors that lock. We don’t have glass in the top sections, or paint on the frames, but we now possess a conviction that soon, these things will come to pass.

Some things, however, are just like before. Without a proper laundry, we have resurrected the old clothesline to dry our clothes. Looking over at it fluttering in the breeze, it feels like we’ve come home.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pop Tarts Anyone?

It’s that time of the month again when we lock ourselves in the kitchen to bring you another remixto brunch.

This month’s menu will feature a croque señora (our twist on the French classic), Brent’s special chipotle chilaquiles (we guarantee it ain’t anything like your local cocina economica’s sloppy version) and gooey piña pop tarts, baked in house. And by popular request, we are reprising our candied bacon, lechon benedict and slushy sorbet mimosas.

So what are you waiting for? Brunch will take place Sunday, July 25 from 10am - 2pm at Casa Mexilio. Reserve your table now!

Locking Up More Details

We’ve been MIA planning our latest remixto brunch (we have some photos posted and even a video), but after a couple days rest, we’re back and ready to go.

Today we swung by Galeria Tataya, a fantastic art gallery located on Calle 72 between 53 and 55 near Plaza Santiago. Our friends François and Gerardo travel around the country in pursuit of the best arts and crafts, and lovingly ship them back to Mérida for all of us to purchase and enjoy.

The reason for our visit was to photograph the door lock pictured below.

Hand made from wrought iron, our plan is to order modified versions of the lock and install them on most of our colonial and steel-screened doors throughout the house. They will be a simple yet elegant solution to keeping our doors closed and secured.

Best of all, because they are made of a solid piece of metal, we won’t have to deal with those annoying chains found on typical door locks here in Mérida that swing to and fro, getting in the way of doors closing properly.

Tired of Reno Talk? Eat Brunch!

Last month, we launched our underground restaurant, remixto with our first in a series of monthly Sunday brunches. It was a hit!

Now, we’re back and ready to tackle round two. This month’s menu will reprise the breakout hit, lechon benedict, mixed up with two new creations – green eggs & jamón and a toasted (hen)wich. To top it off, we’re serving up a candied piña colada parfait and a few other surprise treats. Bloody marys and mimosas will be flowing, and this time we promise not to run out.

Brunch will be served at hotel Casa Mexilio on calle 68, #495, x 57 y 59. Seating is limited, so reserve a table now by emailing reservations@remixto.com or calling (999) 9 01 54 30.

Oh, and as for reno talk, we can’t promise you the complete absence of “did you use pasta tile throughout your house?”, but maybe the food will prompt other thoughts.

Getting Ourselves into Hot Water

We are planning to install a tankless hot water system in our house. This has not been an easy decision as we have heard many comments and horror stories about how these systems don’t work and that we should avoid them. This of course made us wonder, why don’t they work in Mérida? After six months of pondering and researching over the topic, we are now ready to share our thoughts.

In general, the problem seems to be getting the tankless hot water systems to stay on. They turn on and run for a bit, then for no apparent reason, turn off again. Frustratingly, the water is hot, then cold, then hot again as if the unit can’t make up its mind.

The issue is really one of achieving adequate water flow. Tankless water heaters require a minimum flow rate of water to start up and stay on - around 1 gallon per minute (gpm) is typical. Achieving this much flow in Mérida is totally possible, but not always desirable.

For most of the year, you really want a fairly cool shower - which means the amount of hot water needed is far less than what is required in colder climates. To complicate things even further, in spring and summer the “cold” water is already pretty warm, so you need even less hot water to get your shower to a comfortable temperature.

In terms of numbers, here’s how it works:

1. For a strong shower with good water pressure, you need a total flow rate of about 2 gpm. Some of this comes from the cold side and some from the hot;

2. At peak annual temperatures in Mérida, where the city hits a balmy 100+ degrees, the temperature of cold water sits around 90° F. That is only about 12 degrees cooler than what a comfortable hot shower needs to be (assuming we actually wanted one at such times); and

3. In our summer scenario, 2gpm of water translates to 1.2 gallons of cold water and only 0.8 gallons of hot water. 0.8 is less than the 1 gpm minimum, and thus the tankless hot water heater never turns on. This results in a cold shower.

How to resolve this? One obvious way is to increase the amount of hot water flowing to your shower. Turn the shower mixer towards “Caliente” and your water heater kicks into gear. The problem is, your shower is now scorching hot.

A second solution is to turn on other hot taps in other bathrooms to keep the flow of hot water up without having it directed to your shower. This is an effective solution except for the fact that you are now wasting a lot of water (and gas).

The preferable solution is to ensure that you install a tankless water heater that has a low minimum flow, one rated at 0.5gpm (or even less if you can find one). Although these units tend to be a bit more expensive, they use significantly less energy in the long term and so are worth the initial investment.

A low-minimum flow water heater is the solution for us. We are choosing between two models, either a 0.4gpm model from Rheem, or a 0.1gpm model from Navien. The second unit achieves an incredibly low flow rate by employing a small 0.5 gallon buffer tank that’s built into the unit. Although not technically tankless, water is still heated on demand, so it achieves our overall objective.