The car will be ready Saturday at 11…the mechanic said. Then on Sat a call came…there has to be some modification in order to set the domestic alternator. Mechanics don’t work on Sat afternoon so the car will be ready at 11 Monday morning. Eleven came and went. Car will be ready at 1pm. 1pm came and went. A call to the garage indicted that the mechanics went out to lunch and won’t return until 4:30pm. Gerardo, who has been making the calls, chewed them out…all lies…no wonder Mexico has such a bad reputation among Americans he said. They delivered the car…one cell of the battery is “boiling” the mechanic said. Now I suppose I will have to get a new battery before I end up stranded in the mountains somewhere.

To charge the battery, Gerardo and I drove to Huayapam again. We picked up Max at 5pm in the Zocalo. He was tickled to get out of town.

Bardo was not at home. His nephew had had an accident with his mother’s car and rolled it…was at the hospital with cuts and bruises…and Bardo had gone to check on him. Bardo soon returned and we sent out for pastor and asada tacos, grilled onions, limes, hot guacamole sauce and hot green sauce…adding a few tiny very hot green chiles from Bardo’s bush by the outdoor kitchen. After some of Bardo’s freshly roasted and ground pluma organic coffee, we piled Max into the car, which thankfully started up, and delivered him to his apartment.

The last thing we heard was “noon tomorrow in the Zocalo!”