A Slightly Smelly Post

On our corner of the street we are lucky enough to have a water shutoff point underground.  I say lucky for this as we can easily see whenever the CEA (water company), guys come and shut off the valve when they are fixing a problem elsewhere and we can also see when they come back and turn it on.  There have been times when they have forgotten the return trip to turn it back on; but someone has usually seen them shutting it off so they know what the problem is and call to get them to come and turn it on again.  A good thing.

On the same corner; although not in the same spot, we also have a sewer manhole.  If there is a problem the same CEA guys come and unplug it or snake it out.  A while back there was a problem with it being plugged and it was backing up, not a good thing.
They came and tried to unplug it manually, (you couldn't pay me enough to do this job).  As an aside, they always show up in their uniform outfits and they are clean as can be, when they are done their dirty job they are still as clean as can be.  How do they do it???
Anyway they couldn't get it unplugged so they called in the big gun.
  THE PUMPER TRUCK.
 The unit arrived and did their thing and then left.  Problem solved, right?  Nope, a short while later it was bubbling over again.  The truck returned, did its thing, went down to the next corner and did the same thing and left again.  A short while later, same old, same old.  They returned again, by this time it was getting dark, and they continued working.  They worked until almost 10 PM until they finally got it working again to their satisfaction.  Our neighbourhood is an older one, developed probably in the 1960's I was told and we have lots of big trees with lots of big tree roots.  Apparently the roots had gotten into the pipes and some of the pipes had collapsed/broken or whatever so it was a fairly big job.
They stayed with it until it was working again.  Kudos to them.


The guys with the pump out truck.

Hmmmm, I wonder if there is a 12 step program for bloggers who are so desperate for blogging material that they video a sewer being pumped out.    
     

Back To Normal

I guess we are back to normal with the weather. The clouds are gone and it is clear and sunny again. As I write this at 7:44 AM it is 28 C./86 F. feels like 34 C./93 F. with the 74% humidity. On the other side of the country Tropical Storm Dolly is blustering, hopefully she is not causing too many problems.
The landlords daughter in law had a false alarm Saturday evening and we thought perhaps by Sunday morning there would be a new baby; but not yet. She is back at home now and still waiting. Oh well, it is too early yet anyway.
We are supposedly without city water still, we are lucky as we have a tinaco that is fed by our landlords reservoir and the landlady didn't seem concerned when we talked about it the other day. We are being careful though and conserving carefully as we don't want it to run out before the city supply returns. We are generally very conscious about our water use, as after all we do live in the desert and I don't believe in wasting fresh water no matter what your situation is. Too bad others in the neighborhood don't feel the same. Leaks go on forever it seems and no one seems concerned. I can't figure it out, such a total lack of concern as if the supply was infinite.
Just some random photos today. The first is a back stairway in the Palacio Municipal and the next two are just shots taken downtown from the Plaza de Tres Presidentes during the Mar Bermejo festival.