Hell’s Half Acre

While Mexico is well known as a source of cheap prescription drugs; you can walk into any farmacia and purchase the quantity of Ciprofloxacin, Flagyl and just about any drug you can imagine. Some drugs are controlled, however, and you need a doctors prescription (receta) for those. This is normally not much of an issue; when Jamie had typhoid in 2005 in PaaMul, we simply paid the doc who was treating him $200 MXN (pesos) for the receta. In Zacatecas we were able to go to the $20 MXN doctor and simply ask for the receta and quantity we wanted. Getting the drugs is sometimes challenging as not every farmacia will carry the controlled drugs. Generally, with enough time, however, even the farmacias in the supermercados will make a pedido (order) and you’ll get it in a few days.

This year, in Quintana Roo, it was a bit more work.

Generally I send Jamie in to the doc to get his receta, but he just wasn’t up to it this year. It never occurred to me that I could do it myself but it sure makes a lot more sense. I’d just pretend to need the drugs myself. With the hopes of getting, 1) the receta and maybe even the drugs, 2) tires ordered for the trailer (we need to replace the spare), 3) groceries, and 4) LP gas, I headed out. I’ve already written about the gaz saga (and honestly it was pretty easy, just The Most Out of the Way gaz station in Mexico). On the way to the gaz station, I noticed two doctors consults on the way and tried the closest first. I arrived at 4:50 and the office opened at 5:00. I had NO hopes it would actually open at 5pm, but figured by 5:30 it MIGHT be open. After a wait of 20 minutes in hot hot sun with no shade, I decided to try the next doc. He was a shorter wait; only 10 minutes or so, but he had only copies of his receta form and wanted $100 MXN for each receta. He’d write one box (we wanted 3) on each receta for a grand total of $300 MXN. Nice profit for 5 minutes of work. I was getting a little peeved as we paid only the consult fee at the same type of place in Zacatecas for a total of $40 MXN for the same recetas… Of course, it was a moot point as the only recetas he had available were copies and those won’t work. “Come back tomorrow and I’ll bring the real recetas in.” I headed back to the other doc but she still wasn’t open (nor was she open the next day).

The next day we were in search of a replacement breaker for the trailer and stopped at 3 doctors offices while dragging the poor kids all over Playa, the colonia and the ejido looking for breakers and a doc to write the receta. One doc wanted $300 MXN but Jamie couldn’t understand her Spanish so we never figured out what it entailed. Another doc wanted $300 MXN for a receta for 2 boxes but again, he didn’t have recetas with him - not copies; nothing. Apparently, late afternoon is a BAD time to get a receta; they’re easier to get in the morning.

Next day I headed to the $100 MXN / receta doc and his replacement had NO idea of the arrangement I’d made and besides, even though it was 10am, he had, you guessed it, only copies. Luckilly, I found the closed doc OPEN! In the waiting room was only one person, hooked up to an IV of yellow liquid. This actually looked promising as there looked to be actual medicine happening in the place. After a short and painless grilling, I got the receta for two boxes - only $200 MXN! I won’t bore you with the details of finding a farmacia carrying the contraband. One one hand, it is so easy to get drugs and on the other hand, it can be a lot of legwork. Persistance is the key.

We had amazing luck with trailer tires; we’ve been trying since Veracruz to get a replacement for the spare; we changed a tire in Ciudad Valles thinking it was looking bad and used the spare for it, so our spare is one we’d like to replace. After looking all over Cancun and Playa, we finally started asking around PaaMul. We found SIX excellent tires and took two and are considering a third. The owner was happy to have us take them off his hands and it took a little convincing for him to take $50 MXN each. It felt like highway robbery but he was so happy to have them gone.

We’re supposed to leave tomorrow for Merida, but the kids JUST started playing with Katie and don’t want to leave. Sigh. We’re also looking seriously at two different palapas. I keep going back and forth between being conservative and working a ‘normal’ job and trying some real estate as investment in Mexico.