We had a fun weekend with my uncle and his partner, planning to move out to the land Sunday. Over Chinese lunch (comida, so 4pm) Edith said she didn't think we should go yet, that we wouldn't be secure and should stay with them or at a friend's airbnb-style house, until we could get some hut built. As we talked more, with my uncle's translation, we learned that she's not worried about our own safety so much as our stuff, that she expects anytime we leave for more than an hour we should expect someone will try to steal our stuff.

We do plan to build a shack and have an idea about security (hint:root cellar) but that will take a few days. And once we move any of our stuff to the land we have to stay with it. And the trek between their hood and the land is about 20 minutes and includes muffler-stealing roads.

So we moved out and we'll try to not both leave until we have some sort of secure space. The good thing about theft here is that if we come amidst a robbery we can expect the thieves to run (not fight) but the seriously lousy thing is that people will steal anything: clothes, dishes...not just the "valuable" stuff like tools and electronics. We'd been expecting to secure the "valuable" stuff (and tried to bring as little as possible) but if our clothes and cooking pots are stolen that will be such a hassle.

Of course, this land is a glorious place to be tethered to. We do like navigating Spanish together, and we'd rather be together all the time, but being stuck to this spot is still a treat.

We moved over, as in, drove the van with all our belongings, Sunday evening in time to get minimally situated before dark. I have many more fun photos but can't upload them through the weebly app, so when I go somewhere with wifi I'll post more.

Why El Terreno Reverdercer?
​Re-green
Revive
Reanimate

This land we're relating to on the outskirts of Morelia has life, thirsty life, hungry life. As we spend time here we'll be shaping the earth to slow water, slowing erosion, watering life deeper into this land. Permaculture is one way to name the harmonious living we're striving for, but it's simply a new name for the way life usually lives, interconnected and thriving.

In a couple days there will be a big old green van and three old dogs and two happy vagabonds living here.

We're not living on El Terreno yet, because we're staying at my uncle's place while he's traveling. In a week we'll be out there, living in the van again, setting up some shacks for us, chickens, goats, and scouting out pond sights. Those are the first priorities.
When we started talking with my uncle about doing this on the land he's owned for nearly 20 years, he was glad for someone with more time to dig in. He said he'd just planted "a few trees" over the years, but it's actually about 50. I look forward to telling you more about them in the months to come. Here are some pictures of El Terreno, now, much greener than we expected for the end of the dry season! Hover over each for notes.

One of our favorite things about our first week in Morelia is biking. it's not as scary as we expected, and I much prefer biking to driving (in any country). Actually, I haven't tried driving in Mexico yet, though Phillip is a natural. But Morelia's parking rules are infamously obtuse and we're not chancing parking unless we need to drive for dogs or something.

We bike to and from Spanish school every day, which is about 5km and google maps says it should take 15 minutes, but it takes 20-30 with long lights, heavy traffic, and so many baches (potholes) and topes (speed bumps). We're biking to stores, too, though I'm not sure we'll be able to bike between my uncle's home and the land where we'll be living (it just might not be worth it since we'd have to walk our bikes for some "roads" that are hardly drive-able. We'll see.

I think biking here is only slightly more scary than biking on Cold Springs Rd (Huntingdon PA) cause the cars are way faster there. How much of my attention I need to put towards biking is circumstantial

• Morelia requires 96% of my attention
• Huntingdon, PA got about 70%
• bike paths in Atlanta perhaps 60%
• Lower Trail in central PA usually 50%

My first couple days biking here somehow I managed to use 102% of my attention, but now I'm getting the hang of it, getting a feel for my refurbished old mountain bike on the baches and topes, and now I can get to school in 20 minutes if I don't wait for all the lights and bike somewhat assertively.

Other than this special occasion, advertising the bike rental company bicicom, I've seen about, maybe 8 other cyclists on each trip I take downtown (maybe 3 when I just go for groceries). There doesn't seem to be any consensus on how bikes behave within traffic, some use sidewalks, most use the street. I haven't seen other cyclists wait for signals or wait within a lane when a sidewalk was an optional detour. So I'm starting to use those tactics.

Overall, being on a bike among cars, trucks and pedestrians feels safer here than in the US. The part that feels more dangerous is simply the state of the roads - that I have to either charge through a terrible pothole or messy manhole, or dart around and risk being smashed by the truck behind me. I don't think I'll ever successfully bike eggs from the store here, the way I generally could in the US. Soon we'll move to the land and get chickens and I don't think we can deliver them successfully by anything but drone over the roads up there!

Being in traffic feels safer here because people are going slower (due to crappy roads) and because, overall, people are watching all around much more attentively than in the US. I make much more eye contact with drivers and pedestrians here than anywhere else I've biked, because we're all looking up, looking around, negotiating. Traffic rules may not be posted as consistently, but they're consistently common sensical. In the centro, where we have Spanish class, most roads are one-way and most intersections are uno en uno, so one car gets to go from one street, then one from the other, etc.

The roads remind me of India, but less chaos: India's drivers use their horns constantly, here it's more frequent than the US but nothing like India. Here there are occasional dogs on the road (sadly, sometimes dead) and even occasionally a cow (sadly, sometimes dead) but most trips I don't see loose animals in the road. Here there are vehicles without headlights or taillights, perhaps as common as in India. Here lane boundaries are porous and shoulders are used as lanes, but one any street I could say how many theoretical lanes there are (not necessarily in India). The harder thing in Mexico might be that when the road is in good condition people speed up as much as possible, then have to slam the brakes at the next tope or bache. In India that was true on highways, but smaller roads had, perhaps, a more consistent low quality so speed was rather even. One great reason to bike - I won't lose my muffler on a tope.

We went to Los Azufres Park last week to see some of the geothermal wells and to hike. An inactive volcano heats underground springs so the geothermal wells are a little like geysers.  Max has neuropathy and is mostly blind, so we carried him most of the hike, which contributed to feeling way out of shape in this high altitude! But we're motivated to keep moving and breathing because this hike was 1/8 of the way to a monarch home (San Andres, the mountain in the picture) and we hope to go back this winter and get there.

The geothermal wells produce 250 MW, which apparently is a lot (I still don't speak electricity). Not sure what the waste products are, other than noise, but there must be some.

The procession used to be (at least more) silent and solemn, but now it's bordering on a parade. The sales officially stop (or at least move away from the street) during the procession.

The next day we witnessed an old Semana Santa tradition, people dressing up as a bull and other "scary" creatures to scare people into confessing their sins and restoring/claiming faith during Holy Week. I don't know how long ago it stopped being scary, but it was definitely captivating!

We thought the hardest part of living in Mexico would be biking and driving on the roads. Or that the hardest thing about Mexico would be learning Spanish.
All legit challenges.

But the hardest part of living in Mexico so far is the dogs and the people.

Specifically, the beastly strong dogs that belong to my uncle and his partner, and some people in the neighborhood.

Puki is a young pit mix, and seriously, he's just stronger than the rest of us. Even our cousin Ben who visited for a couple weeks, one of the strongest people we know who bikes up mountains to get "a little" exercise - even Ben had trouble walking Puki cause Puki is one strong dude.

Luna isn't as strong physically but still has pit bull in her and even her large belly and short legs don't disguise it.

Yesterday afternoon we wanted to take compost out to El Terreno, the land where we'll be living after dogsitting. Taking all five dogs seemed like too much for one vehicle, esp since Puki likes to roam the car and Max falls down a lot.

3pm
But as we prepare our three to go, all five think they're getting an adventure and enthusiastically jump all over each other. Happy they're teamed up in glee, I don't want to break the momentum and leave Puki and Luna to feel jealous as our three go. Unfortunately I suggest that Phillip start walking Puki and Luna while I walk our three to the pickup, and then I'd join him to help with one trip around the block, then we'd go in the truck.

Simple? No.

3:05pm
Max gets caught in his leash, Booker needs to sniff everything, and Puki is just raring to GO, so I'm behind Phillip half a block when I notice a loose dog heading toward him in the street. He sees it too, and knowing it could agitate Puki and Luna, he moves them to the far edge of the sidewalk. What he can't see on the other edge of a brick wall is a dog (turns out his name is Honey) gearing up to engage Puki and Luna. He sticks his head through the gate and barks something like "get the hell off my sidewalk" and Puki and Luna respond ferociously.

I hear it before I can see it: yowling, barking and Phillip shouting "no!" again and again.

Phillip is an amazing driver, and we are truly grateful to be safe and sound in Morelia. Our first couple weeks will be in the city dogsitting, so stay tuned for El Terreno Reverdecer updates in mid-April. In the meantime we'll be walking dogs, keeping tough dogs away from little dogs, going to language classes and eating mangoes. Oh, and figuring out 2017 taxes.
Pictures are from our trip through Mexico, and hanging at UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónomo de México http://www.morelia.unam.mx/campus) where my uncle works.

Smooth border crossing; only papers reviewed were our passports (glad we didn't spend $600 on health certificates for the dogs, and they didn't even check the vaccine records we brought). The bikes and grill must've made us fit some camping stereotype for travelers because once they inspected the box Phillip built to hold the kitchen and be a bike rack, they weren't concerned with any of our other stuff. One agent did lift a corner of the bed and then seemed to agree with my conclusion that it's too much hassle to get into the storage tubs below, and he waved us through.We asked how to get stamps in our passports, having heard we might need those when we go to the consulate in Morelia to buy our actual temporary resident visas (see earlier post). Waiting and filling out that form took longer than our inspection. We left eager to get as far into Mexico as we could before dark, with nearly 700 miles to Morelia.
We stopped for fuel, bathrooms, letting the dogs out (they haven't noticed we crossed a border, by the way). An hour into this trip we reached the edge of the borderlands, at least in the sense that we came to the checkpoint at which they check vehicle import permits. "Isn't that part of our temporary resident visas?" I asked, and showed him our approval. "No." But we already have Mexican auto insurance, we're so official, it seemed to me, so I showed him our proof of insurance. "No." We had to return to the border.
As we drove we realized all this did sound familiar, but the process of moving to Mexico has been slow and often imprecise, and we're really sleep-deprived (see last post).
We drove back, had to pay US$1 per page of copies and needed copies of all sorts of things, including our van registration. At first we could only find last year's, and had flashes of horror that we might have accidentally left it in files in my parents' barn. In that case we would've either gone back to the US and applied anew for temporary resident visas (our current approval is only good for one entry to the country, so we really need to get to Morelia and buy our official cards) or waited for my mother to find and FedEx the registration to... where? The hour we spent between border and vehicle checkpoint was nearly sin servicios. Desperately, we explained that we had an up-to-date plate, could we just show him? "No." One more search...yes!
Oh, stress and sleep deprivation do not bring out the best in us!
So now we're back on the highway hoping the sun sinks ever so slowly and we can drive out of Nuevo León before dark (considered a particularly dangerous place to be).
Still, grace. As we left San Antonio today we realized that when we'd applied for these visas in Atlanta we expected to cross in Nuevo Laredo and she put that in our records. Later Phillip read that crossing by told road a few miles away in Colombia would be easier with less traffic since many people avoid the US$3.50 toll.
We called the Atlanta consulate and left a voicemail on the visa line asking if this would make a difference. After I hung up I realized I said our names but not our phone number. Even so, Consular Maria called us back to say, "it won't make a difference, have a great trip!" (See earlier post about this friendly, helpful official)
Why am I surprised when people are so kind and helpful along this process? Oh right, because in the US many people first feel suspicious of anyone who wants to be in our country.
One of many reasons we are drawn to Mexico for this van-dwelling permaculture adventure is to increase care and interest across this border. More soon - love from 3 hot dogs and 2 tired humans