Lo de Marcos

We have been in Lo de Marcos, about 1 hour North of Puerto Vallarta, for about a week. We have decided to stay for another 3 weeks. So a month in all. With the holidays we thought it best not to be traveling. Also, thinking as we head further south it might get busier and we wanted to make sure we had a place to stay.   The beach varies by day.  Some days it is good for surfing and others good for swimming.

  

 

The pangas take tourist out to see the whales, go snorkeling or fishing.   The waves can be a challenge and it takes a couple of good healthy workers to get them into the water. 

We got to see some humpback whales.  Amazing.  Look at the spray they create!

 

 

There are always vendors selling pastry, jewelry or fish on the beach.

 

 There are also other vendors that come around.

 

There is always the friendly Iguanas to look for.

 

Christmas was low key.  The RV park did a potluck. 

Think this group of kids were practicing for a Christmas program.

 

 

We have taken a few sight seeing trips, but plan on doing a few more. Lo de Marcos is a very low key town not much for a tourist. Just down the road, south of us, is Sayulita. A tourist town with lots of restaurants and tourist type stores. We are amazed at the difference just a few miles can make in the economy of the town. In San Pancho, before you get to Sayulita, there is a huge expat community with hugh homes. It even has a polo club. The beach is not one you'd want to swim on. The waves are massive, but apparently good for surfing. Spent one day in Las Penita, north of us, which is an agricultural town and where the market is on Thursdays. The market was one of the largest we've seen so far.

The big excitement has been that last night the toilet broke at 3 in the morning. Tom decided to stay up to see what the problem was. So today he spent most of the day trying to repair it. Apparently a cable that operates with the foot pedal broke. Asking a couple of teenagers, who were here selling fresh chickens, if they could show him to a hardware store and motorcycle repair store he was able to get a cable that would work and a few other items. The cable is about the size of a bicycle brake cable. So hopefully the modified fix will last until we get home.

San Blas

                                                                On the toll road you still see many vendors vying for your business. 

 

The road into San Blas was interesting, about as narrow as the roads in Baja, but there were trees and shrubs on the side of the road hitting the sides and top of the rig. We discovered later that the regulars use a different route. But, until you do something you never know and it was an experience. We didn't stay in San Blas, but further down the road as our RV book stated “another memorable San Blas attraction, the mosquitoes and jejenes (no see ums)” After Teacapan and still dealing with all the bites we decided that we didn't want to camp in San Blas. Another attraction of the area is a boat ride in the swamp to see crocodiles and snakes. Neither one of which I'm a fan of. So we passed on that sightseeing. 

 

This is the wider part of the swamp without all the foliage overhangs.

 

    

San Blas is a very old port city that at one time had 30,000 people. There are two churches side by side and I was enthralled with the oldest one. 

 

 

This picture of the downtown is taken from the fort on top of the hill.  

 

 

The walls of the fort that remain.

     

 

A little ways down the hill from the fort is the remains of a church. San Blas has a lot of history. 

 

 

On the beach, where we stayed, there were tons of palapas with only a handful of people using them. I don't understand why they place them where the ocean can reach them. Hopefully the palapa use will pick up as the tourist season progresses. The disadvantage of being so close to the beach is the locals come down for the day and play loud music. One night it was 3:30 am when they started! 

We had the laundry done while here. So nice not to have to spend the day doing it. The lavanderίa charged 10 pesos per kilo, not by the load. That's about 80¢ a kilo to wash, dry and use their supplies. Beats doing it.

 

Things are very green.

Teacapan

 We spent a week in this fishing town. The RV site we originally wanted to stay at was no longer. As we drove into this RV park the people in the restaurant next door came out to see what we were doing. We had to unhook the Jeep and then Tom and to back and fill to get the rig turned around so we could go back out. We left the rig there to go in search of another RV site. I had seen a small sign that said RV with an arrow. We went to see what that was about. It was someones residential lot in which they installed 4 full hook ups. Seemed nice, but went to check on a couple of others further down the road. The other RV sites were next to sandy beaches, but no kayaking. We decided to take the first RV site back towards town, which was near the entrance to the estuary. It was a little difficult getting the kayak to the beach across the way because they had put big rocks on the bank to stop all the erosion. But I got to kayak and Tom was able to swim every day. The people in the neighborhood were GREAT. We had happy hour with them and dinner another night. 

Dec 12 was a holiday “Dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe” We were going to leave this day but we were convinced to stay to see the celebration, with the neighbors. I'm glad we did. A castillo was erected with all sorts of fireworks placed on it. Some spun others were rockets. There were balls made from bamboo strips and then what looked like two bottle rockets without the sticks attached. These were thrown into the crowd and the kids and teenagers would chase them, pick them up and throw them somewhere else. It made for bedlam, but fun. When the castillo went off the spray from the fireworks went everywhere and people were trying to get away. Very interesting and fun night. We came away from Teacapan with no see ems (biting gnats) bites all over our bodies and are itching away with the bites oozing. Not pleasant. 

 Of coarse we took some day trips and we tried to visit the central plaza and church in Escuinapa. We couldn't find a parking place! Driving around the town we passed the same policeman 4 times. I liked the feel of the city as we drove around, very vibrant and alive, seemed like a true Mexican town.. 

We also went back to Rosario and looked at the church there and then out to the Playa El Caimanero.  

 

You find interesting things in the middle of the street. Notice the light on the corner so you wouldn't drive into the waiting area of the car wash.

Traveling Mex 15

 

We have been traveling using the Toll Road Mex 15. While it makes for easier and faster driving for Tom it doesn't have much in the way of interesting scenery. All sorts of transportation use the road. 

 We left Bahia Kino and traveled to San Carlos. We were last here in 2006. Not much has changed, there is now a Leys Express. But we were not impressed. They didn't have everything we wanted and still had to run into WalMart in Guaymas. There isn't much choice in campgrounds, we stayed at Totonaka which is across the street from a rocky beach. In order for me to go kayaking I would have had to take the kayak to Emerald Bay or the Estuary. We needed to do laundry and thought it was great to have a laundry at the campground. The laundry was a disaster. One washing machine leaked and another didn't spin the clothes. The dryers didn't work well and it took 3 tries to get things dry. I had 6 loads and it took us 4 hours to do it. We only stayed 2 days to do laundry and stock up. 

 From here we were headed for Celestino Gasca. We split the distance by staying one night in Los Mochis. This was the only campground in the city. It was very old and right on the main road. At least the showers were HOT. An interesting ad from days past at the campground.

The road in to Celestino RV.

The Celestrial RV park just South of LaCruz was nice and if you just wanted a beach with surf. It was a good stop. There were other RV parks but noone in them. Celestino only had two other campers besides us. We were told that 5 years ago the place was hopping and all the campgrounds were FULL. Seems to be the theme of this trip. No Visitors. The lack of tourism is really hurting the Mexicans. 

The beach in front of Celestino RV

 

The other two couples and us took a run into La Cruz for supplies and went to the neighborhood bakery (“panaderia”) which is part their home.  Can't beat the price 4 pesos each (about 35 cents ea)

 

Tom got carried away.

The Baker and his oven.

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There are still some things that are done the old way, like this farmer using a horse with plow.

Bahia Kino and Pelican Island

 The town of Bahia Kino seems very depressed.  These were typical homes.





There is a lot of fishing by large boats and pangas.


The locals went out to the large ships and brought back bags of shrimp.

I kayaked around this island known as Pelican Island.                            You can see why it's called that!

 








  







More Pelicans

 

Sunny Mexico

We crossed into Mexico at Lukeville on Nov 20. We tried to get our visas but didn't realize it was a holiday so no bank open to pay for the visas. The custom offices were 100 km down the road! It looked like a new facility with easy access. We paid for our visas there and processed our import permits. The two check points, so far, just gave us a green light so no stopping or inspection.

 

Just past Santa Ana going North you can see the long.... line of vehicles waiting to get inspected. We could see at least 3 buses where the passengers had to get out and get their luggage for inspections. The drivers of the big rigs were out of their rigs and pacing. You could see they were wondering what the hold up was, as they couldn't see the customs booths. They were too far away.

We stayed in Hermosillo for a day to get a sim card and internet. It took all day! Went in am and got the paperwork done, then Telcel's system was down so couldn't activate the phone or internet. Then the lady we were working with went to lunch from 1 -3. Back at 3 and told she would be back a 3:30. So went back again at 4:00. It took another hour to get the phone up and running. Mexico time!

We are currently in Bahia Kino. We were lucky to get a site on the first row looking at the ocean. Nothing much here. The town is in pretty sad shape. Kayaking is great.

     

                                        Sunset at Bahia Kino.

Not sure if these fishermen were using the umbrella as a sail or for some shade.

Salt Lake City, Utah

We had hoped to be out of the cold and snow. We happened to get into Salt Lake two days after they had a major snow storm. The ski slopes were going to open today. But it was so cold, it got down to around 22 degrees fahrenheit last night. Burrrrr

Wonderful blue sky.

A triple trailer.  Not something you see a lot of.

There were stop lights on the on ramps.  Can you image the traffic during rush hour.

Interesting gas pump at the local gas station.  How many states have this?

I can remember when 55 miles on hour was the max for the country.  Tom says we'll never see this speed with the motor home.