Salt strikes again...twice!

After yesterday's post I really wanted to post something nice today. Forget it. Things haven't been going nicely lately.

Our 3 year old stereo recently gave up the ghost. It wouldn't turn on and it still had 5 CD's trapped inside. I asked our friend Luis (the carpenter and coconut remover!) if he would pick it up and take it to a repair shop for me. Understand, I am not too lazy to do it myself but there are two sets of prices here. Mexican and Gringo. Gringo of course being the more expensive. So if Luis took it for me, the technician would think it belonged to him and charge the Mexican price. So, miracle of miracles, Luis showed up this morning right on time! He loaded the stereo in the back of his truck and took off. Thirty minutes later he was back with the stereo AND the technician! So much for keeping the ownership a secret! Evidently the technician likes to work on electronics in the home so that people can see that he is being honest with them. Fine.

Luis left to go back to work and left us alone with the guy. Thankfully, he spoke English about as well as we speak Spanish so we were at least able to communicate. Fast forward 2 hours and my stereo is now spread out in pieces all over the dining room table. He examines every piece very, very carefully and then shows us the problem. The mother board circuit thingee (at least I think that's the technical term!) was so corroded from salt that it no longer was making any connections. The whole inside was just greasy from all the salt accumulation also.

He said he might be able to get the part in Cancun but it would cost between 800 and 1200 pesos, or $80 to $120! Based on what the rest of the insides looked like, we decided not to invest in such a costly repair. Fine with him. We did give him the main unit to take to use for spare parts or a boat anchor. We kept the speakers. Total cost: 200 pesos

So it looks like a trip to Telebodega in Cancun is in our future. In the meantime we are making do with the little MP3 player from the cabana. There is nobody renting over there at the moment so we can keep it here for awhile. Got to have my music!

I was going to tell you about the car problems too. Salt again! I think I will wait on that. This is all just too depressing.