Mexico has a number of cities that offer pleasant daytime temperatures and cool, pleasant evenings in the summer. Mazatlán, my home, is not one of those cities. (Neither is Merída, Playa del Carmen, Puerto Vallarta nor any other coastal town in Mexico). The humidity can be so high in Mazatlán that pasta melts together in the box. Grocery store packages are taped shut with plumbers thread tape to keep the glue from melting. A trip to the corner to get your mail is enough to require a cool shower afterward.

The other factor in the climate on the Pacific coast is the salt in the air. Mazatlán has some of the saltiest air in the world. In the kitchen, potato chips go soft within the hour, garlic salt hardens to stone in the bottle and the laundry on the line dries stiff as a saltine cracker. I’ve heard the Yucatán, Mexico’s Gulf of Mexico is worse.

Two things make living with Mexico’s coastal heat different from living with the heat in Miami, New Orleans or Houston. First, air conditioning is used more sparingly in Mexico. If a store or restaurant even has it, the air is often set at barely-tolerable-degree Fahrenheit. The air conditioning systems often seem to lack dehumidifiers, providing only a damp cool, like the swamp coolers of yesteryear.

There are reasons to go to these areas in the summer however. Summers in Mexican Pacific coastal towns will offer you splendid sunsets and rollicking thunderstorms. Prices are much lower on lodging. Expat-popular cities aren’t full of snowbirds.

When I was living part-time in Mazatlan, for the first few years I arrived only in the summer months, just when all the snowbirds had left, which gave me a welcome notoriety among the natives and more space to develop relationships with residents without having to weed them out from people who would be there only a few months, endear themselves to me, and fly away forever.

Anywhere you’re considering moving, you should go there the worst months of year, as I learned from a friend who visited Portland only once, in September, it’s sunny, perfect month, and decided moved there. Her residence lasted a year. Apparently, there’s quite a difference between 144 sunny days a year (Portland) and 210 (Virginia).

An off-season stay is a also good environment for getting a special project done. The lower rental rates in the summer allowed me to afford a place with a terrific ocean view I could ponder from a nice air-conditioned office. Writing my first book that summer was much easier without the busy social calendar some have during high season. I know couples who go out, entertain, or are entertained by others every night of their three-month stays. Summers are languid affairs.

If you do plan to rent between mid-May and November, know how electricity is billed. Saving electricity is an obsession in coastal towns in Mexico due to the system of billing that punishes waste. You will hear horror stories of $800 (that's dollars U.S.) run up by visitors or new home owners who didn't read up.

In essence, the government subsidizes the cost to a certain degree of usage between mid-May and November 1. If you over consume, which is easy to to if you’re used to central air conditioning, the government penalizes the home owner with much higher rates not only for that month but for a year or more, until you show you’ve learned your lesson. I speculate that’s why so many really gorgeous places lie empty in the summer. The owners couldn’t trust the occupants to adjust their usage.

It’s easy to adjust, you just need to be aware. Rooms in homes are individually cooled by splits. If you’re doing it right, you’ll move from room to room turning mini-splits on and off as you go through your day. Of course Mexicans are more accustomed to the heat. My Mexican friends will huddle under blankets in a 75 degree room, and glow in the summer rather than the take on sweat-soaked demeanor I assume.

You can stay comfortable and enjoy the advantages of off season, especially if you’re female, beyond the usual admonishments to drink a lot of water, stay inside during the warmest periods and wear light clothing. Use an umbrella rather than a hat. You’ll be surprised how much cooler they are than using a hat.

An entire summer went by before I re-discovered folding fans. Spanish and Mexican women still use them with aplomb in both countries. (A friend of mine in Spain keeps one in every purse.) At any group gathering like concerts in Mexico, you will see hundreds of them, like so many colorful butterflies waving in the air.

Even inexpensive hand fans are pretty. You can buy a few at the vendor stalls in any Mexican plazuela to keep handy for when the breeze suddenly dies or the window on a bus won’t open. I once met a guy at the Mazatlán immigration office who fielded the idea of inventing the “man-fan,” bringing to mind images of mud-flap graphics, leather threading, and eye contact that would be hard to break.

In the 14th century, the use of the fan developed into a secret language used by women to communicate with young men since women were always chaperoned. For example, a woman touching her nose with her folded fan meant she thought of him every day

Freeze everything liquid

I had often read older people sweat less. For that reason believed myself no longer capable of producing the torrent that I now achieve regularly when I go to the gym in Mexico. I felt 10 years younger just knowing I could sweat like the 22 year old next me.

Soak the washcloth in water with a few drops of essential oil, like lavender or peppermint. Roll it up and put it in your freezer. Before you go to the gym or a warmer outing, take the completely frozen wash cloth out and put it in plastic bag to take with you. In about 30 minute, the cloth will be perfect. You might just complete your work-out without having a stroke.

Same thing goes for water. Freeze bottle of water halfway. Before you leave for the day, fill the other half with the cold water from a pitcher in your refrigerator. It should be perfect to drink after your first set of pickleball. Keep frozen fruit in the freezer as a snack that lasts forever. Fruits can be blended with a little agave syrup and poured into ice cube trays for healthy frozen snacks, a great way to use past-prime fruit.

Cooking

While it may be counter-intuitive, home-make hot soup is hydrating and light at those times when the heat affects you appetite. I eat the soups included in my cookbook, The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes that Translate in Mexico year-round. They’re packed with vegetables and keep well, reducing the need to heat up a kitchen.

**Replace electrolytes often, very often (ask for Suero (swear-oh.)**

Heavy sweating depletes electrolytes. Symptoms of imbalance include weakness, twitching and…seizures. Older people are particularly susceptible because they have more problems regulating their body temperature. You can buy bottles of premixed electrolytes in even the most modest store, but the cheaper option in Mexico is powder that is sold for babies that you mix yourself. Doctors here recommend four bottles of Suero a day minimum in the summer.

Coca - Colas: Feel the power. (humor, kind of)

Forget all those terrible things you read about how bad Cokes are for you. I am sure that doesn’t apply here in Mexico. Officially, the urban myth that Coca-Colas are different in Mexico has been debunked, but oh, watch me writhe in ecstasy after that first draught. I can almost hear you up there, across the border saying, “Drinking Coke? Not me! Never!”

Ha-ha-ha (or as they say in Spanish, 'ja ja ja"). Coca-Cola sells more of their product in Mexico than any other country in the world. Go into any convenience store early in the morning and you'll see a line of day laborers with their 1.75 liter-size bottles in one hand and their plastic container or refried beans in another. You'll learn.

When you see Mexicans like these doing things that you think are wrong, rest assured - there is a damn good reason for it. They are descendants of an ancient culture, with mysteries and secrets we are only now just beginning to understand.

In time, my need for the sights and sounds of the ocean and graciousness of the Mexican people became so great I came to embrace the heat and humidity the way Mexicans in Mazatlan do. These are the months that rather than huddle in their houses, they crowd the malecon in droves. The summer nights are awash with strolling Mexican vacationers and music from the pulmonias and aurigas strung with party lights.

I have come to relish the summer sweat fest in Mexico in much the same way I used to enjoy wringing sweat out of my jersey mountain biking in Snowshoe, West Virginia. Like the vodka and lemonade that would follow such rides, in Mexico the occasional cooler night, a well-air conditioned room, and the icy beer after a walk are things you’ve earned. In fact, I’d feel a little guilt-ridden if I swooped into Mazatlán for only for the cooler months from November to May like the snowbirds do. Maybe those of us who live here in the summer have a little bit of Mayan in us, and understand Mexico’s demand for a little human sacrifice.

Kerry Baker is the author of three books. Her second book is If I Only Had a Place, a book on how to rent well, beautifully and cheaply in Mexico.

Her third book is The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico. The manual on how to live in Mexico out there that won’t leave you numb. Her most recent book, The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico, is a cookbook for travelers, snowbirds and expats who want to maintain a healthy diet in Mexico. (You must cook.)

Ventanas Mexico

Thinking About Living in Mexico? Brace Yourself for Mexican Summers