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May 7, 2019

Discovering Mayolica Pottery in Santa Rosa

We recently had the privilege of visiting a pottery workshop called Mayolica Santa Rosa, where a family business turns out breathtaking, intricate, handmade pottery lovingly
created with dedicated fingers and devoted hearts.

The simple two-story cinderblock workshop occupies one side of the street in
the ancient, dusty village of Santa Rosa, high on a mountain about 25 minutes northeast
of Guanajuato. A huge showroom is across the street. (Unfortunately, we were
not allowed to take pictures in the showroom, to prevent any thievery of their
designs.)

It’s not a place many tourists visit, especially Americans, and it’s their loss. Javier Salazar, the wonderful manager of the Casa Estrella, where we are fortunate to be staying, generously drove us and another couple, Carolee and Gilberto, up to
the village to see how pottery is made. The suites and apartments in Casa
Estrella are filled with beautiful pieces from Mayolica Santa Rosa.

The sign over the door of the store

Visiting the Workrooms

The workshop is a high-ceilinged building with two large workrooms.
In the front room is the giant kiln, as well as shelf upon shelf of unfinished
pieces of pottery ready to be transformed into works of art.

The big white box on the left is the oven

We were amazed as we watched one man hand-draw a stunning, detailed design
onto a large pedestaled bowl. His name was Juan, and he was the only one entrusted
to design the pieces.

The artist at work

Up the stairs and in the large back room, the Area de la Pintura (painting area), several painters painstakingly
painted the colors within the lines of his design, carefully shading the pieces, which appeared
pastel and bleached until after they were fired in the huge oven.

Before firing in the oven

The intensity of colors after firing

Mayolica Santa Rosa was founded in 1963, and is dedicated to
the manufacture of Mayolica Ceramics, a porous type of ceramics that originated in
Spain. It gets its name from Mallorca Island, which was on the trade route to
Italy. All the pieces are turned and decorated by hand. The business is
currently represented by the third generation of eight brothers.

Seen outside the door to the painting room

The sign outside the painting room says (in my bad Spanish translation): “Welcome to the Painting Area. Every piece that you admire and acquire is unique because each one carries part of the artist, since it is delivered with a feeling unique for its creation, with the best quality.”

Visiting the Showroom

The entrance to the showroom

This fresco, outside the family’s home next door,
is a great example of their work.

The sheer volume and quality of the pieces for sale in the
massive, two-level showroom is absolutely breathtaking. There were plates and
bowls, cups and saucers, pitchers and vases, fountains and pots, statues and
urns, tiled frescoes, and more. The intricate designs were derived from life in
Mexico: groups of fruit, flowers, village scenes, chickens and pigs, Frida Kahlos,
and many, many Catrinas, the reverential, skeletal image of death in Mexico.

UPDATE, May 26

I just discovered several beautiful pieces of Mayolica pottery in our apartment, Casa Estrellita, at Casa Estrella. (Watch for a blog about the amazing art in our apartment!)

And I found this beautiful tile wall art by Mayolica Pottery in the fitness center at Casa Estrella. Enjoy!

May 6, 2019

The Herradura Tequila Express

(Even
though we have moved on to Guanajuato, we still have a few blogs from our life
in Tlaquepaque to post. Enjoy!)

Living
in Tlaquepaque, we were less than 50 miles from the birthplace of tequila, the
town of Tequila. So of course we had to visit and become acquainted with Mexico’s
most famous alcoholic beverage!

What is
Tequila, Anyway?

Tequila,
a type of mescal made from the blue agave plant, was first made in the 16th
century. Mexican law states that tequila can only be produced in the Mexican
state of Jalisco and in limited number in three other states. Tequila must be
40% alcohol (80 proof) in the US, but in Mexico it’s usually 38%.

There
are over 100 distilleries producing over 900 brands of tequila, and many conduct
tours and tastings at their haciendas.

We
decided to splurge and signed up for a day trip on the Herradura Express, a
special train leaving from Guadalajara to the Herradura Hacienda in Amatitan, a
town adjacent to Tequila. There were three classes of seats on the train. We
selected the middle-class ticket which cost $2400 MXN pesos each, or about $125.

We
Ubered to the train station, checked in and selected our seats. Even though we
had been told the train had been sold out, we had four comfortable seats and
a table to ourselves. There was a bar in our car, which was kept busy the whole
day.

Carlos, our bartender

Tequila on
the Train

We
were immediately served water, juice and a box breakfast. But once the train left
the station, at 10 in the morning, they switched to serving tequila-based
drinks. I can’t even remember what they all were or how many we had, but the
drinks were definitely flowing, including Margaritas, Tequila Sunrises, Horchatas
(a Mexican rice-based vanilla drink), White Russians, a coffee-based drink
called The Bull, and many more.

After
about 90 minutes or so of traveling amid a breathtaking landscape, including fields
upon fields of blue agave, we arrived in the tiny pueblo of Amatitan and
transferred onto buses for the short ride to the Hacienda Herradura. We got
into the English-language tour and were off.

The Tequila Volcano

Agave plants

The Tour

First
stop was walking by some blue agave plants, which we learned take 8 years to
mature to the point they could be used for tequila. Next, we watched a Jimador use
a coa (a wooden-handled cutting blade) to strip the leaves from the plant to get to the heart,
also called a pina because it resembles a pineapple, which is used in the
distillation process.

The Jimador with his coa chopping off
the leaves of the blue agave plant

We saw the row of ovens where the pinas are baked. Next, they are squeezed repeatedly to get the agave juice, which is distilled and then fermented in giant barrels. The pulp is removed and used for other things such as candy and even furniture.

The ovens

A pile of pinas

Tasting

Next
we walked through an ancient section of the facility that is no
longer used, and led to a tasting cellar. Tasting glasses were neatly laid out on
tables.

A bilingual talk was given on the “correct” way to drink tequila:
Swish the glass in a circle to check out the “legs” of the liquid. Breath in
the scent. Breath in through your nose, hold it, sip tequila onto your tongue.
Swallow. Breath out through your nose. Finally, emit an “Ahhh” and empty your
lungs. We started our tasting. To the best of my recollection, we tried 5. We
could taste the differences, particularly the smoothness, between the various categories
of tequila:

“Blanco”
or “plata” is a white spirit, unaged and bottled or stored immediately
after distillation, or aged less than two months in stainless steel or
neutral oak barrels. It is used in cocktails.
“Reposado” is aged two
months to a year in oak barrels of any size
“Añejo” aged one to three
years in small oak barrels
“Extra Añejo” is aged a minimum of three years in oak barrels.

Our favorite was
reposado.

The Barrel Room

After the tasting,
we were led into a huge room in which they kept empty barrels in which tequila
had previously been aged. Herradura has a program where a restaurant or bar can
come to the distillery and purchase an entire barrel for $10,000 USD.
This yields 240 bottles at a per bottle price of $40. The distillery will then
customize bottles of the tequila from the barrel for the purchaser, and the
purchaser gets to customize the top of the barrel.

Lunch … and more
Tequila

By this time we were
ravenous and finally made it to lunch, where we sat at a long table and they served us even more tequila. I sat next
to a guy from St. Louis who had been doing work in Las Vegas and on a whim
decided to fly down to Guadalajara for a few days. He knew a bit about tequila
and told me to ask for a specific high-quality tequila. I did. It was the good
stuff and very smooth. He was asking for them two glasses at a time. They
served a delicious lunch of chicken, potatoes and vegetables, and we were
entertained by a Mariachi band and some folkloric dancers.

Mariachi

Folkloric dancers

Of course, we needed
a souvenir, so we went to the tequila stand they had conveniently set up and
purchased 950ml of one of the Reposados for about $25 USD. We had been told
that they would engrave our bottle for us, but unfortunately, the engraver
called in sick that day. That was probably a good thing; otherwise, it would
have been difficult to part with the engraved bottle and we definitely don’t
have room for it in the truck. (Later note: It does fit in the truck and we are
saving it.)

The Trip Home

It was time to go,
and we loaded onto the buses for the trip back to the train. Once on the train, the cocktails continued to flow until we arrived back in Guadalajara at around 8 PM.
To our complete surprise, neither one of us were feeling any effects of the
non-stop day of drinking, although there was one group on our train that was
definitely loud and raucous on the ride back.

Cocktails on the trip home

All in all, we had a
great day. It was pricey but the experience was worth it!

May 1, 2019

Leaving Tlaquepaque & Guadalajara

It’s time to leave Tlaquepaque and move on to our next
destination, Guanajuato.

We’ve been here nearly 4 months, a little longer than we
planned to stay in any one place, but wanted to have a familiar, reasonably accessible
place for Aryk to call home on their Spring Break from Keele University in
England.

With only a few days left, we’ve been going over our lists
of things we wanted to do here and we’ve whittled it down to just a few.

We’re Sad to Go

Both Lisa and I are feeling a little sad about moving on.
There is a lot to like about Tlaquepaque and Guadalajara. We love Tlaquepaque’s
colorful, artistic character. We love its relaxed, friendly vibe. We love living
within easy walking distance of the TLQ town square, Jardin Hidalgo, and all of
the energy, activities and food options there. Lisa has recently started making
Mexican friends.

We’ll miss the regular routines that drive the city — the water guy’s cries of “a-gUAAAAA!,” the Zeta Gas truck’s song, the ringing bell of the trash men, the double chiming of the church clocks in Jardin Hidalgo every 15 minutes around the clock, the early-morning cacophony of dogs and roosters, the music in the streets (whether a Mariachi band or a single hombre singing acapella), the busy mercados (marketplaces) and tianguis (pop-up markets) with countless people in your face trying to sell you their products.

We love all of the activities available in Guadalajara and
the fact that a subway from our neighborhood to Zapopan, on the other side of
Guadalajara, is scheduled to open sometimes in 2020. And with a new road under
construction, Guadalajara could soon be just two and a half hours from the Pacific
coast.

There are some things in Tlaquepaque that aren’t perfect. The running, bike
riding and our apartment are barely acceptable, but our home’s location has been perfect
for accessing the town square. We’re definitely going to miss being here. We’ve
even started discussing that this area may be a place we want to come back to
and spend even more time getting to know, perhaps living in Guadalajara proper.
But first, we need to experience more of Mexico.

In the meantime, we’re busy revisiting our favorite places
and restaurants for one last time.

Our loyalty to Guadalajara won us GDLt-shirts
at a promo event in Lake Chapala last weekend!

Today, it’s on to Guanajuato!

April 29, 2019

Obstacle Cycling: Riding Road Bikes in Guadalajara

We are avid road cyclists. We loved living in Colorado
because of the many glorious riding routes we could choose from, ranging from bike
trails into Denver to loops on mountain roads. We usually rode two or three times
a week, including a long ride on the weekend. Lisa rocks a Specialized carbon
fiber road bike with about 27 gears, and Bob has a classic green Bianchi.

So we optimistically brought our road bikes to Mexico on the
back of our car, hoping to continue our healthy habit and explore Mexico on two
wheels.

Trying to Find a Safe Place to Ride

I knew we were coming to a city of 5 million, people and despite
researching online, I couldn’t find any active road cycling clubs, or even
decent rides, on our favorite cycling route app, MapMyRide. Nonetheless, every night
during the drive to Mexico we dutifully took them off the car and took them
into the hotel rooms, and now the bikes live in the guest room of our house in Tlaquepaque.

But they don’t see the road much, and neither do we.

The roads in Tlaquepaque are rough, narrow, virtually
unsigned, and often chaotic. We’ve only driven the car four times in the four
months we’ve been here because of the challenge of the roads. There are
virtually no bike lanes in our section of Guadalajara. However, the city does
have what is called “Via RecreActiva” on Sundays and holidays, where they shut
down several major roads for recreational purposes for six hours. We’ve come to
accept that as the best we can do.

Thank God for the Via RecreActiva

So every Sunday morning, we pull on our cycling clothes,
pump up our tires, fill our water bottles, and hit the Via RecreActiva. To get
there, we have to ride almost two miles on a busy street with no bike lanes, Avenida
Rio Nilo. Bob
has almost been “doored” by cars several times, Lisa was almost run off the
road by an aggressive bus driver, and almost rear-ended a cab that pulled in
right in front of her t collect a passenger. But it is what it is. Rio
Nilo gets us to the Via RecreActiva, and then we get to ride for one day a
week.

If you can call it riding.

There are essentially two main problems with Via RecreActiva.
First, literally thousands of people take advantage of it –unleashed dogs
chasing each other back and forth, kids learning to ride their bikes, teenagers
doing tricks and popping wheelies, old ladies pulling carts crossing the street
at a mercado, boyfriends on bikes teaching their wobbly girlfriends how to skateboard,
and people just walking three or four 4
abreast. It is just plain crowded and you have to be extremely vigilant to
avoid running into someone. Lisa calls it “Obstacle Cycling.”

The other main problem is traffic on the cross streets. While
your road is closed for a few hours, other roads aren’t, so you have to stop at
multiple lights and wait for traffic. This
means that you only get to ride several blocks before you are forced to stop so
that cross traffic can go.

It is better than nothing, but it is not for the faint of heart!

Trying to Find Other Riders

We have tried to make contact with other cyclists in Expat
forums here, but didn’t get anything really solid from those groups. We have
also seen cyclists riding on the sides of highways outside of the city, usually
followed by a sag wagon. But at this point we are leaving Guadalajara soon, so
we don’t plan to pursue that option.

We hope to find better cycling in our next stop, Guanajuato.
Lisa has already found a few promising routes on MapMyRide!

Enjoy a video of the Via RecreActiva here!

April 28, 2019

Driving Our Car in Mexico, Part 2

Because it took us a few weeks to start our Visa processing,
the first thing we did after our first trip to Immigration in Guadalajara was
to go to the tax office to get our TIP expiration date extended. Unfortunately,
no one at the Immigration office seemed to know what we were talking about, so
we showed them the paper they gave us at the border. They directed us to a SAT
(Servicio de Administracion Tributaria, or Tax) office in Guadalajara.

SAT #1: Guadalajara

We Ubered there an eventually found someone who spoke enough
English, who told us we were at the wrong SAT office and that we needed to go
to another one even farther away, in the far northeast neighborhood of Zapopan.

SAT #2: Zapopan

We went there, once again found someone who spoke English,
who told us we were at the wrong office and that instead of SAT, we needed to
go the Customs Office at the Guadalajara airport, south of the city. It was
getting late so we decided that I would do that another day.

SAT #3: Guadalajara Airport

Two days later I made the trip to the Guadalajara Airport,
not knowing exactly where I needed to go. As I Ubered into the airport I saw a
big gate with a SAT sign, but continued on to a Customs Office address I had
found online. No one there seemed to know what I was trying to do. I proceeded
to walk to the SAT sign, and was shown to an office where they seemed to only
be mildly confused as to what I was trying to do. There was no English spoken.
Eventually, I filled out some forms I didn’t understand, gave them copies of my
TIP and passport, and received a date-stamped form. I was expecting another
official looking TIP, but I didn’t get that, so now we have the expired TIP and
a stamped form with no expiration date.

I was told online that I needed to go back to the same office
once we finally got our Residente Temporal cards, so I returned with the green
card, expecting to get a more official document. The people at the office
looked at me like I was crazy. They initially told me that I didn’t need
anything new, but eventually had me fill out the same forms and gave me a new
stamped form. Again, no expiration.

Crossed Fingers!

We can only hope that we’ll get our $400 deposit back when we
cross back over the border into the United States with the truck this summer.

April 27, 2019

Driving Our Car in Mexico, Part 1

Since we were moving to Mexico with three people, three cats
and three musical instruments, we wanted to take our Toyota Tacoma with us.
Many people just hop on a plane with a couple of suitcases, but we needed more
space. So before we left Colorado, we ordered a topper for the back of our 2012
Toyota Tacoma. When an accident totaled the truck, we replaced it with a newer
model that still fit the topper.

The car and all the stuff.

Car Rules in Mexico

There are strict rules surrounding the importation of
vehicles into Mexico. You’re OK if you only plan to take a vehicle within
Mexico’s Free Zone (Baja peninsula, large parts of Sonora and up to 20-26
kilometers from the border). However, if you want to go further than that, you
need to get a Temporary Import Permit(TIP). You can get this online or at the
Banjercito at the border crossing.

Unfortunately, due to a long delay in getting a title from
Colorado for the new truck, we didn’t have the title or registration when we
left. We eventually got the title, but we needed to have some physical presence
back in CO to get the registration document. So we changed plans. Since we were
going to be spending time at one of our vacation homes in Ludlow, VT, before
heading to Mexico, we decided to register the truck in Vermont, expecting to get
the plates and registration on the spot. It didn’t happen that way. Vermont
took our Colorado title away and told us that they would mail the new
registration and title. Unfortunately for us, they entered an incorrect address
into their system and these two documents ended up floating around the Postal
System for a long time. So we were forced to drive to the Mexican border with a
handwritten registration application from Vermont and hope for the best.

Turned Away at the Border

Alas, Mexican authorities wouldn’t let us enter with the
truck without a permanent Vermont registration. We turned around and
frantically called the Vermont DMV, trying to get a copy of the registration
that had never arrived. After getting a couple of robotic bureaucrats who
offered no assistance and told us they could not help, we were fortunate to
reach a helpful woman who told us that our registration had been returned. She
offered to FedEx a replacement to us that day. We therefore spent an additional
two days in Laredo, Texas, navigating this paperwork before heading back to the
Banjercito.

Trying Again

At the Banjercito, they remembered us and quickly processed
our paperwork. The cost ended up being about $1,150 MX pesos (about $40 US) for
the permit processing and another $7,800 MX pesos (about $400 US) for a
deposit, which we should get back when we return the Temporary Import Permit (TIP)
sticker upon crossing the border back into the U.S. We were told that our TIP
was tied to our Immigration permit, so it expired in 30 days. This meant that
we would have to get our TIP renewed when we got our Visas processed.

Bob putting the temporary sticker on the truck

We also had to get Mexican insurance for the truck, as American
insurers don’t insure vehicles in Mexico. We got ours through Sanborn’s, and canceled
our US car insurance.

To be continued …

April 22, 2019

Learning Spanish in Guadalajara, Part 2

There didn’t seem to be a lot of structure at Guadalajara Language Center, but somehow it
worked.!

We weren’t given books, the instructors had some notes and only occasionally
referred to a book they had. It seemed that there was some coordination between
the morning and afternoon instructors, but only in an overlap of general
concepts. It wasn’t a direct continuation of what had been previously taught. Each
week we could be in class with different people, so some weeks we were ahead of
the other people in the class and others we were slightly behind. You wouldn’t
expect it, but for some reason this organization worked. After a while, since
we were there so long, it seemed like we progressed and other students were
shoehorned into our classes.

Excellent instructors

I thought the instructors were very good. Classes combined
grammar with conversation, and content was flexible, sparked by what we did
last night, our weekend plans, the weather, Mexican traditions. Sometimes there
was a lesson on a specific subject, such as the simple past tense or personal
pronouns. But other days, the class might consist almost entirely of free-form
conversation, during which we learned a lot about the history and culture of
Mexico.

For most of our time at Guadalajara Language Center, we had
Monica for a teacher in the morning and Edith in the afternoon. Monica was a
raucous, loud, animated woman and an outstanding teacher. She was the kind of
woman you would want to hang out with at a party. Edith was tall and refined,
more reserved, but eventually revealed a wicked sense of humor.

Monica explaining pronouns

Edith watching a lively discussion

After four hours of Spanish every day, we were pretty tired.
Many other people who came down for two or three weeks spent additional time
studying, but we knew we had eight weeks of classes, so we didn’t feel like we
had to jam everything in. Besides, we wanted to also experience GDL and TLQ. In
fact, at the end of the first four weeks, we felt like we needed some time to
review everything we had learned so we took a week off. Lex, on the other hand, liked the school so
much that she continued for the full eight weeks, and then did two hours a day
for three more.

Lex in class

Lots of work left to
do

Our official studies have ended. We’ve been exposed to the
grammar basics and have certainly expanded our vocabulary. We can get by. We
can understand the basics when speaking with Mexicans who speak clearly and not
too fast. We can have conversations with Uber drivers and market people. But we
know we have a lot more work to do. The Department of State’s Foreign Service
Institute’s School of Language Studies says that to obtain a Professional Working Proficiency (Speaking-3/Reading-3 on a scale of 1 – 5) takes anywhere
between 600-750 hours of classroom study. We have spent 160 hours in class so
far. Granted, we did come in with some basics, but probably at best we’re 1/3
of the way to where we want to be. We know what areas we need to address, and
we have found other resources to continue our study independently.

Our plan is to continue studying on our own and supplement
that with several sessions of conversation each week with private Spanish
tutors. As they say here in Mexico, “poco a poco” — or little by little!

All in all, we enjoyed our time at the school and found it
worthwhile. At some point in time, we will probably take some time to go back
to school, perhaps doing the monthlong summer program at the University of Guanajuato,
but not this year!

April 21, 2019

Learning Spanish in Guadalajara, Part 1

Our first priority in starting our life in Mexico was to learn
the Spanish language. If we are going to spend the next few years living in
countries where Spanish is the primary language spoken, we felt we needed to
get a good grasp of the language early on.

And while we had lived in Puerto Rico for a time in the
mid-90s and were not Spanish beginners, we knew that we had a long way to go
before we would feel comfortable with the language. We want to obtain a level
of proficiency so that we can develop friendships and truly feel part of Mexico
(and other Spanish speaking countries we choose to live in or visit). Knowing the language is also important
logistically, to allow us to navigate daily tasks such as asking where a
bathroom is and understand the answer, being able to order food at a street “puesto”
or in a restaurant, asking for directions, buying groceries, paying for items
at stores, going to the doctor’s office, and more.

Before we left the United States, we both studied Spanish independently,
using books we still had around, a CD series and an app called Duolingo, and we
decided to immerse ourselves in learning the language as soon as we arrived in Mexico.
We chose to attend a language school in Guadalajara (GDL), Mexico’s second
largest city, in the central region of Mexico. Like most Americans, we had
never been to the region, spending our previous trips on Mexican coasts for
beach vacations. This would give us an opportunity to begin our learning
process while exploring a new area.

Guadalajara Language
Center

We chose the Guadalajara Language Center (GLC), which is actually located in Tlaquepaque, a town at the southern edge of
Guadalajara known for its pottery and ceramics. In fact, our apartment is less
than quarter-mile from the city boundary and we routinely run in GDL. The school
offered several language programs, including an advertised CLEP prep class,
Lexie could take and get college credit for. We signed up for the immersion
program, where we would take 4 hours a day of classes for 8 weeks, Monday
through Friday. We took written placement exams and were a bit surprised that
we all tested higher than expected.

Once we arrived in Tlaquepaque, Lisa and I were ready to go
first thing Monday morning, while Lex decided to take a week off to recover
from the long trip from the east coast of the United States before starting.
The location of our apartment was perfect, just a seven-minute walk from the
school. Daily classes ran from 9 -11 AM and then 11:30 AM-1:30 PM, after which
we walked about 3 minutes to the Tlaquepaque main square to choose from the
food trucks and local eateries.

The school, run by an easygoing Dutchman named Wouter Stout
who is married to a Mexican woman, is located in an unassuming two-story blue
building on a street corner just two blocks from the Centro Historico. It
contains five small classrooms, a little kitchen for brewing coffee each day
for grateful students, a large hallway with a couple of computers for students’
use, and a larger gathering room with a couple of couches and chairs, and
Wouter’s desk in a corner.

Wouter and his dog, Estrella

Every week a new group of students arrives from all over the
world, though they seem to be clustered on the California coastline and western
Canada, probably because of easy flights to Guadalajara. Some stay for only a
week or two, some for the winter, so new placements need to be made every week,
and the first thing Wouter does on Mondays is assign students to classes based
on their tests and hope for the best. If it’s not a fit, changes can be made
after the first session on Monday. In the mornings we had one instructor and in
the afternoon a different instructor. Wouter also provides resources for doing
other activities to help discover the area, including organizing a weekly hike
into the Barranca (canyon), and providing students with info about Lucha Libre,
salsa and bachata dance lessons, a walking tour of Tlaquepaque, and more.

Lex with the GLC resident dog, Estrella (Star)

Ay, Caramba!

Our first day was rough. We were placed together, which was
fortunate, but in too high a level for our comprehension skills, and Spanish
words just flew over our heads. Fortunately, during the break adjustments were
made, and we were placed in an appropriate level class and could get down to
the business of learning.

Interesting Classmates

During our eight weeks taking classes, we usually had just
one other person in our class, and at most a total of four. Since we often
shared stories from our lives in Spanish conversations, we got to know some of
those people fairly well. Everyone had an interesting story as to why they were
there. Aaron, from Napa Valley, was our classmate for several weeks. He worked
for a small vineyard and wanted to be able to communicate better with the
Mexican workers when he traveled. He also had financial incentive from his
company, so he immersed himself in and out of class, living in a homestay so he
could speak with his hosts in Spanish and enjoy home-cooked Mexican meals. Shireen,
from Boulder, CO, spent winters in an RV with her partner in a small beach
community called Guayabita on the west coast of Mexico. Jack, a gay librarian
from Vancouver, talked about the drag shows he attended at home and the Mexican
friends he partied with in Tlaquepaque. Eva was a retired English teacher who
spent several weeks in Mexico. David worked on a boat that took people on
National Geographic eco-tours from Alaska to South America. Francine, originally from Iran, was
a scientist-engineer studying Spanish between jobs. We met retirees and
backpackers, and a young Catholic couple with seven kids who were starting life
as missionaries in Ecuador.

Our buddy Eva

Find out more about our Spanish learning experience in Part
2!

April 18, 2019

Getting Our Mexican Temporary Resident (Residente Temporal) Visas – Part 2

Due to the gas crisis that was occurring in Mexico when we
arrived, we were delayed in the city of Leon for a week before finally arriving
in Guadalajara. Then we wanted to jump right in to language school, so it was
almost 3 weeks before we finally made it into the immigration office in
Guadalajara.

Step 3: Visit the
Immigration Office in Mexico

We found the Mexican Immigration page online, downloaded the
in-country immigration forms we needed, and filled them out. We dutifully made copies
of our passports and had more passport photos taken at a (rather pricey) photo
studio in Tlaquepaque. We then arrived at the Immigration office a few minutes
before it opened and showed the greeting staff the forms. They gave us a ticket
and showed us where to sit. We were quickly called up to a window and showed
the woman our paperwork (no English spoken there). She didn’t like my paperwork
since, as I had been warned at the Mexican Consulate in Denver, I needed to use
my full and complete name for everything. (Lisa, who had filled out the online forms,
had not been aware of this.) I was sent to a computer kiosk to refill it, not a
pleasant experience, as everything was in Spanish and a line was forming behind
me. Nonetheless, I was eventually successful. Lisa joined me in the line to
redo hers for another picky reason.

Back at the window, we were given another document that we
needed to immediately take to a bank, where we would pay approximately $200
each, obtain a receipt, and return to Immigration.

Step 4: Pay the Fee at
a Local Bank

We walked a few blocks to find a bank, took a number, and sat
in the waiting area. Mexico is basically a cash society, so people go to banks
with cash to pay their bills – water, electric, cable, phone, and, in our case,
Immigration payments. There’s almost always people waiting in the chairs. When
our number was called, we went to the window and showed the form we were given.
The Immigration woman told us that the receipt we got from the bank had to have
our names EXACTLY as they were on our passports. The bank’s system wouldn’t
allow the hyphen in Lisa’s last name (Hamm-Greenawalt), so she is Lisa Hamm
Greenawalt in Mexico.

Step 5: Back to
Immigration

Returning to the Immigration office, we waited until the
woman who had previously helped us was available, and gave her our receipt. She
took that, along with our copies and the Immigration permit we got at the
border, and told us that we would get an emailed approval in one or two weeks.

Lisa and Lexie got their emails in a week. We emailed it to
Lisa’s Mexican friend in Evergreen, Gabriela, to confirm that the dense
legalistic language in Spanish said we were approved. She said yes!

But mine didn’t arrive until a week later, causing a bit of anxiety.
We were each given an official Mexican identification number called a NUT, for
Numero Unico de Tramite.

But we weren’t finished.

Step 6: Photos and
Fingerprints

We now had to go back to the Immigration office again to get
our fingerprints taken and give them photos, since they deemed that photos we
had submitted earlier in the process were slightly too big. So we got a new set
of photos taken (in the designated “infantil” size), and scheduled to take
another morning off from language school to finish the process.

We again arrived at Immigration right before it opened, got
our tickets and were shown to a different set of seats. Lisa went to one window
and Lexie and I ended up going to another. They accepted Lisa’s photos and took
her fingerprints, giving her one small napkin to get the purple ink off her
fingertips. They also accepted Lexie’s photos, but not mine. They said the
white background, which looked pale gray, was too dark and I needed to get new
photos again.

First we went to the bathrooms to try to scrub the
fingerprint ink off our fingers! In the Men’s Room, a man sprayed my hands with
some solution and gave me paper towels, so I was fairly successful. Lisa and
Lexie didn’t get the same treatment in the Women’s Room so they had to work
harder, and Lexie’s fingerprints were purple for a day or two.

Then we went in search of a nearby place to get photos taken,
found one a couple blocks away, and went back to the Immigration office with
the new pictures. Success!

Then they told us to
come back in a week for our Temporary Resident (Green) cards.

Step 7: Temporary
residents!

A week later we went back to the Immigration office a third
time. Once again, very efficiently, we got our numbers, got called to the final
issue and signed for our Green Cards.

Finally, six months after the first visit to the Denver
Consulate and 6 weeks after we crossed the border, we held our Mexican Green
Cards in our hot little hands! We were officially Temporary Residents of
Mexico.

Celebrating the success of the process and our new status as temporary Mexican residents!

April 16, 2019

Getting Our Mexican Temporary Resident (Residente Temporal) Visas – Part I

Whether you realize it or not, every time you visit Mexico you’re required to have a Visitor’s Permit or a Visa. Most people get a Visitor’s Permit, which is the form you fill out on the plane. Included in your ticket price is the $25 fee for this permit, which is valid for 180 days.

Since we planned on staying in Mexico for longer than 180 days, we had to obtain a Visa. We applied for a Temporary Resident (Residente Temporal) visa, which would allow us to stay in Mexico for 1 year (renewal for up to 4 years) and allow us to import our car (a blog post on that at a later time). This Visa requires that we meet certain asset/income requirements: have monthly income equal to 300 days of the Mexican minimum wage or $30,804MX or savings/investments equal to 5,000 days worth of the minimum wage or $513,400MX. The deciding factor for us was that because we wanted to import our car, because we were bringing the cats with us. So we decided on the Temporary Resident Visa instead of the Permanent Resident Visa, which would not allow us to import our car.

This ended up being a 7-step process for us.

Step 1: Denver

We started in the Mexican Consulate in Denver. We knew that once we the Visa was issued, we would have to cross into Mexico within 6 months. Since we knew that we would be traveling for several months, and to allow for any unforeseen issues, we thought that getting the Visas in August would be good for our planned January entry to Mexico. I had read about other people merely walking into consulates to start the process. Therefore, about a week before I wanted to go to the consulate, I went to check on the consulate hours so we could get there first thing in the morning. To my complete surprise, I discovered the Mexican Consulate in Denver only processed Visa applications by appointment. To make matters worse, they only had 3 available slots in mid-September, very close to when we were planning to leave Denver. They weren’t together, but we grabbed them, signing up online and printing the forms we needed for our appointments.

Lexie and I had our appointments on the same day. It was a bit of a culture shock at the consulate, as everyone spoke Spanish and we didn’t (yet). We were shown some chairs to sit in and watched the very orderly process of Mexicans taking care of their business at multiple bank teller-like windows. A woman came out and took Lexie and me into a back room. She couldn’t find my appointment and subsequently taught me a very valuable lesson – I needed to include my full name on everything Mexican. That includes my middle name, Keefer, and my suffix, III. She took my financial verification data and sent us back out to pay our $36 Visa fees while she found my appointment and verified the info I had given her. Because I had given my full name on the online form, she needed to create a completely new appointment with the full information. This made the process take longer than it should have. She was extraordinarily nice, and fortunately spoke English. We got our mug-shot photos taken and signed some unknown forms, then called back into the office 20 or so minutes later and given back our passports, which now had the Visas in them.

Lisa went to the consulate 10 days later and came home with her Visa. (Note that different Consulates have different procedures and requirements than what we experienced in Denver. Check your local Consulate!)

Step 2: Border Crossing

The second step of our process came when we crossed the border into Mexico in January. We knew we couldn’t get the normal tourist permit, which would invalidate our Visa. Therefore, we very carefully showed our Visas and made sure that our immigration form was marked accurately, giving us 30 days to visit the Immigration office in Guadalajara.

Lexie filling out her paperwork

This is the form we needed to have marked correctly

Next … Part 2, The Mexican part!