May 2023

May Overview –

As excited as I was for us to have a long weekend April 29 – May 1 (Mexico’s Labour Day), we spent most of that weekend dealing with a backed-up kitchen sink.  Our sink was becoming slower and slower to drain, and Lorne treated it with everything he could think of which seemed to help for a short amount of time, but then it would start all over again.  That Friday night it wasn’t draining at all, so we didn’t run the dishwasher and waited to see what we could do in the morning.  Next morning, the water that had been stuck in the sink the night before slowly drained overnight so that gave us hope.  Lorne tried snaking the drain, which helped a little bit and for the day it was good but at night again, about eight inches of water just sat there not moving.  We assumed it would slowly drain overnight, but Sunday we woke up and nope…. It was all still there.  

Lorne called Angelina (our property manager) to ask her to get a plumber to come. Most people in Mexico do not work on Sunday as they usually go to church and then spend the day with their family.  And this specific Sunday that we needed someone to come was also Children’s Day, when all the family gathers to celebrate the children in the family.  No plumber was willing to make a house call that Sunday, but she did finally find someone who would come out on the holiday Monday, of course for a very special (expensive) holiday price! 

Lucky for us he came around 10am and by 11:30 everything was running great.  It was interesting to us that he used a shop-vac to suck the clog out, instead of trying to push it through, and it worked really well!  After that we had 3 loads of dishes to run through our dishwasher but by evening everything was back to normal, just in time for Lorne to go back to work in the morning.  So much for a fun long weekend!

Then, not even a week after our kitchen sink problem, I ended up needing an emergency dental appointment.

Last year at some point I broke a crown on the top right side of my mouth, but it didn’t give me any pain, so I basically ignored it.  In the past couple of months, I’ve had a bit of tooth pain on and off, but it seemed like a sinus problem, mostly because it’s dust season and our allergies have been crazy.  And it seemed that whenever the allergies subsided the tooth pain settled down. But that first week of May the pain started getting worse. 

On May 4, I noticed some swelling in my face and the right side of my face went numb.  The numbness really worried me, so we contacted a dentist, and they booked me in for an emergency appointment Friday afternoon.  Turns out the crown I thought I broke wasn’t a crown at all, but an actual tooth.  Funny that there was no pain when I broke it, and instead the pain only showed up a year later.  However, the pain was not from the tooth itself but from a massive infection that had grown above the tooth. The infection also spread to the next tooth and was pressing on my sinuses, which was making me think I had a sinus problem. 

After discovering the problem, the dentist had to drain this huge infection.  OMG… that really hurt!  They advised that the tooth I broke could not be saved, but the tooth next to it needed an emergency root canal because the infection had done a lot of damage to it.  After draining what they could of the infection, they sent me home with massive amounts of antibiotics and painkillers and scheduled the root canal for the following Monday.  

I’ve had a couple of root canals in my life, so I knew what to expect and was sure it wasn’t going to hurt as much as draining the infection did.  They froze my mouth and started to drill, and OMG… I almost climbed out of the chair!  They had given me lots of freezing, but with a massive infection the infection can apparently neutralize the freezing (something I never knew!) so they were pretty much doing the root canal without any freezing.  I seriously thought I was going to die!!  Because of the pain and because there was still so much infection (I had only been taking the antibiotics for a couple of days), they could only do half the root canal, so I needed to go back a week later for the second half. 

I was exhausted from all the needles, procedures, infections etc, that I spent most of that week just resting and watching Netflix as I found it so hard to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. 

I went back the following Monday (May 15), extremely nervous to do the second half of the root canal.  I was so happy that most of the infection was gone and that the freezing actually worked.  There was no pain at all for the second half – Thank God! 

The following Friday (May 19) I had to return yet again to the dentist, this time for the extraction of the broken tooth.  The extraction itself went well (no major pain during the procedure), and they sent me home again with massive amounts of antibiotics and painkillers (for the pain that came after the procedure when the freezing wore off!). 

Now we need to wait at least a month to make sure the entire infection is gone, and then we proceed to the next step, preparing for a bridge to fill the empty space.

Then, as if having to contend with a clogged sink and massive dental issues wasn’t enough, Lorne was still dealing with allergies and sinus issues that seemed to be lasting way too long. He made an appointment to see a doctor, and sure enough, he had a massive sinus infection.  The doctor sent him home with antibiotics and antihistamines which, thank heavens seemed to clear it up in about a week.

It has been a crazy month for us and, between all the problems and infections, we have also been trying to get ready for our trip to Los Angeles (May 28 – June 2).  We are so looking forward to it and really hope we are both healthy enough to enjoy it!  We will share all about our trip in our June update.

And now, here’s what’s been happening around here in May…

Labour Day

Día del Trabajo (Labour Day) is celebrated annually on May 1 in Mexico and, except for a short list of countries, the rest of the world actually celebrates Labour Day on May 1 as well (which is linked to International Workers Day).  Canada and the US both celebrate Labour Day the first Monday of September. 

The Mexican Constitution was put into place in 1917, which laid out a significant number of social reforms and human rights changes that affected labourers across Mexico.   To celebrate these changes, the Labour Day holiday was created in 1923, to serve as a time to commemorate the struggles that Mexican workers faced.  

Labour Day parades, rallies, and demonstrations often feature large crowds holding banners to promote workers’ rights in the main streets of major cities.

Most people have a day off and spend it resting or with family and friends. Depending on when in the week May 1 falls, it may create a long weekend in Mexico, which gives people the opportunity to go on a weekend trip away from home.

Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo is an annual celebration held in the Mexican state of Puebla, to honour Mexico’s victory over the Second French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.  The rest of Mexico does not celebrate Cinco de Mayo – instead they honour Mexico’s Independence Day on September 16. 

Although Cinco de Mayo translates to the Fifth of May, that is not what it is called when celebrated in Puebla, Mexico. Instead, the official name of the holiday is El Día de la Batalla de Puebla, which translates to “The Day of the Battle of Puebla”.

However, in the United States, Cinco de Mayo has become an annual celebration of the Mexican American culture.  It was first celebrated in California a few weeks after the Battle of Puebla, and then in 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped create the “Good Neighbor Policy” (to establish positive relationships between the US and their Latin American neighbours) and Cinco de Mayo celebrations then started to extend from California across the entire USA.  In 2005, The United States Congress made Cinco de Mayo an official US holiday; however, it is not a federal holiday, and so banks, schools, and businesses stay open for the day.

These days the United States holds celebrations across the county, especially in cities with large populations of Mexican Americans like Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. In fact, Denver’s “Cinco de Mayo Festival” is believed to be one of the largest Cinco de Mayo celebrations anywhere, with an estimated 400,000 people attending over two days to participate in parades, carnival rides, and taco eating contests.

Mother’s Day

Dia de la Madre (Mother’s Day) is celebrated in Mexico on a fixed date – May 10, regardless of the day of the week.  In Canada and the US, Mother’s Day is always the second Sunday in May.

The first official Mothers’ Day celebration in Mexico was held on May 10, 1922. The celebration soon took on religious undertones and, these days, Mother’s Day in Mexico reflects the familial and religious values of its Catholic heritage.

Las Reinas de la Casa (Queens of the home) are celebrated on this day with food, flowers, and song and family gathering to honour them.

2023 Hurricane Season Begins

Our 2023 Eastern Pacific Hurricane season officially started May 15 and will end November 30.

In 2022, our region had a total of 19 named systems which included 9 tropical storms and 10 hurricanes (4 of which were considered major hurricanes of Cat 3 or higher).  Of these 19 storms, only two ventured close to us:

Tropical Storm Javier (Sep 1 – Sep 3)

On August 29 a weather formation intensified south of Acapulco, and by September 1, it had become a tropical depression moving north.  September 2, it had strengthened into a tropical storm and named Javier.  Later that day, the storm crossed over cooler waters and began to weaken and by September 4, Javier became a post-tropical cyclone and moved out to sea. 

We felt the effects of Tropical Storm Javier on September 2 as he brought heavy rain and wind gusts of 85kmh/50mph to the southern Baja California peninsula as he passed offshore.

Hurricane Kay (Sep 4 -Sep 9)

On August 30, another weather formation intensified south of Acapulco, and by September 4, it had become a tropical depression, strengthening into a tropical storm that same day and named Kay. The storm intensified and early September 5 had become a Cat 1 hurricane.  On September 7, while moving north-northwest, Kay intensified into a Cat 2 hurricane, however the storm became less organized and weakened to a Cat 1 hurricane again.  Kay made landfall along the central Baja peninsula on September 8, then weakened to a tropical storm and moved back over the ocean. 

Hurricane Kay passed by us on September 7 as a Cat 1 hurricane but remained 330km/205mi offshore with sustained winds of 155kmh/100mph, so we had no direct impact.  She was not in much of a hurry as she was only travelling 22kmh/14mph northward, so it took almost 48 hours for her to arrive and leave again.

Early this May, the SMN (Servicio Meteorológico Nacional) and the NHC (National Hurricane Center) released their 2023 storm predictions for our region:

During the last three years, Los Cabos has had very mild hurricane seasons thanks to the weather anomaly La Niña, but the 2023 hurricane season looks to be more active due to the arrival of El Niño.  Everyone around here remembers how Hurricane Odile (in 2014 – an El Niño year), became a Cat 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 220kmh/140mph, which blew the roof off the international airport as well as caused 18 deaths and $1.25 billion in damages. 

So, with the arrival of El Niño does this mean we will have a big one this year?  The answer is: yes, no, well maybe.  No one ever knows for sure. All we can do is be prepared, and after living through Hurricane Olaf (Cat 2) in 2021 we now have an extensive to-do list of things to prepare in the event of a massive storm.

ps…  Don’t forget to check out the latest Snippets!