Los Ayala

View Lot is 1/2Km from Beach


Our Campsite


Punta Raza - FONATUR SITE


Ben's Birthday Party


LOS AYALA

Lil

This is just like coming home. We arrived here after an easy trip from Zihuatenajo, roads were good and we arrived on the Jan 28th.
The campsite the Wahl’s arranged for us is a great location, with a pool fronting on the beach. There are only five spots and although they are quite close together, there is a cement patio and full hook-ups. Also Wifi, and a neighbour with Star Choice who invited us to hook up to his. Pretty good!

The weather is a little cooler, only about 80 during the day and down to 60 at night. I must admit it does suit us better than the 85 - 95 stuff down south.

It only took a few days of relaxation and visiting with the Wahl’s and others in the place we have stayed in the past years to change Herb’s feelings about being in Mexico.

In fact, the Wahl’s have found a great view building lot…and Herb, decided to purchase the lot next to theirs. It is pretty exciting, but very frustrating too, as things move very slowly and having an appointment with anyone regarding the papers etc, means nothing. They see you whenever it works out. You just have to chug along with the system.
It’s not likely there will be a house on the lot before the winter after next. We expect to meet with a builder/designer next week. As he is an American married to a Mexican, at least we can speak directly to him, no translator.

We are expecting to start home next week, maybe the 29th but a day or two earlier if all this legal stuff gets done.

Herb

Hard to believe we have been here almost a month, time has really flown by, along with renewing old friendships, the building lot, and getting the Suzuki repainted & reupholstered.

Everything in Mexico takes much longer that at home, the Suzuki took 9 days, instead of the 6 days originally promised. For $750, they cut out the rust, took out the dents, and repainted it the original colour. In Chase they quoted me $3000.
The upholstery of the two seats in really good material is $150., in Chase they wanted $300 each.

Property in Los Ayala has really gone up in the past two years, as the Mexican Government through their Tourist Department FONATUR, are planning big things for this area. They have named the stretch of coastline from just north of the airport in Vallarta to San Blas, about 100 miles, RIVIERIA NAYARIT. There are many miles of undeveloped beaches, with warm water.

Fonatur has developed, Cancun, Cozemel, Huatalco, Ixtapa, Nueava Vallarta and now Punta Raza, which is about 2kms south of Los Ayala.
They are putting in a 400 slip Marina, Golf Courses, Residental, and the usual array of the large chain hotels.
There is a new Toll Highway planned from Tepic to Punta Mita, with access to this area, and an International Airport.

As Lil said, we plan to leave as soon as we can, we go from here to San Carlos, Sonora, to visit with a friend from school days, Terry Coggan & wife Maggie.
From there we head into Arizona to visit friends & relatives, and have some work done on the camper. We then head for California to visit more relatives. We hope to arrive home in Chase around the end of March.

Herb & Lil

P.S.

This will be our last Blog till we get home!!

Head north on the 27th, home in about three weeks.

Zihautenjo

Zihuatanejo

Lil’s Turn to do the Post

We have been a long time between updates, but here we are nicely settled in at Zihuatanejo for a couple of weeks.

We left the Caribbean coast with no reluctance. It is such a busy, to the point of hectic, place, you hardly know you are in Mexico. There were a few tourist attractions we might have taken in, but the line ups were very long and prices outrageous.
We did enjoy Paa Mul and the beach and got well rested. Made new friends who we plan to keep in touch with.
While we were there, they had their "Annual Great Crab Race", there is a picture included, so you get the idea. They use Hermit Crabs with numbers painted on their shells. No visible harm to the crabs unless they are sensitive to crazy humans, yelling at you to get going. The idea was for them to crawl over the big rope circle. Predetermined numbers were the winners. It was held at the beach by the restaurant and was lots of fun. My two crabs were not winners, but at a $1 per bet, I wasn’t too worried. I looked for crab stew on the next day’s menu but no luck.

Our next overnighter, on the road from Paa Mul to Palenque was on the grounds of a restaurant near El Centario. It was much better than it sounds! Free dry camping if you have dinner there. No big decision here, as camping was on grass, on the edge of a nice lake. Dinner was brought to us at a table at the water’s edge, and was good basic Mexican food along with a beer or two of course. There were loads of birds and chickens and turkeys pecking around our wheels. Loved it.

The next day we headed to the ruins at Palenque. They were well worth seeing, with nice grounds. I was a little disappointed that the temples no longer had any of the carvings and ornate decorations, I have seen elsewhere, but it was still one of the better sites. We camped a short distance away along with a bunch of leftover (and wannabe) hippies. It was an ok overnight stop. The guitar and bongo drum music stopped early and the marijuana on the breeze faded.

We backtracked a little to get onto the Toll Roads, looking for smoother driving. The Toll Road (180D) that crosses from the Gulf coast to the Pacific is “new”, very expensive but the pavement was in very poor condition. We drove quite short days so my back was ok.
With all the poor roads, excessive speed bumps in every town (the record was 15 in a town) and some very narrow roads, Herb was making sounds of “lets go north and get out of this country”. It didn’t help that we lost our awning…it got scooped off it’s track, by a tree, after being forced over to the very edge of a narrow road by a Semi, then Suzi ran over it. Herb improvised with a tarp and we have shade again.
We arrived at on the Pacific side, at Arriaga, were we had a little trouble finding our camping spot as it was in the yard of a hotel, which was in the process of being painted, so their name didn’t show!. Nagging Nancy (the GPS), said we were there!!!, so we turned into the right hotel.
Herb’s Laptop, has Microsoft’s “Streets & Trips 2007” with “Voice”, The programs, Mexico Maps, need updating, as sometimes you are on the right road, but the computer’s GPS coordinates do not agree. It keeps telling you, you are OFF ROUTE, so it nags at you.

The next day, we headed for Huatulco, it is a miniature Ixtapa, we stayed overnight again and had a look around. Our campsite had no hookups, but backed onto fenced off jungle so I had a good time watching the birds. Nice beach, but has a high surf, not good for people with bad backs. There were quite a few closed businesses and some that only opened at Christmas and Easter, so it doesn’t look to successful yet.

Out next destination was Puerto Escondido, not far from Huatulco, where we hoped to find a nice spot to spend a week or two, and look around the town…it has a population of 45,000. The RV Park we had hoped to stay at, had closed for renovations, and the only other RV Park was not an option, no security, right in the heart of town, and had some tough looking characters hanging around. The Church and Church guide did not recommend staying there, and said that there was a Park about 20 miles outside of town. We took Suzie and checked it out, good spot! Not perfect as to hook-ups, we only had electrical, but it is on a lake and the restaurant is right there and they serve our meals at the campsite. We stayed three days and enjoyed the rest.

Now this is more like it!!

We are in Zihuatanejo at an RV park that is in the backyard of a large private residence. There are just 6 spots and we were lucky enough to get the last empty one. They also have some nice apartments for rent in a 4 story building on the same grounds.
It is well run, with full hook-ups and two bonuses, there is WiFi (sometimes pretty weak but, it is there) and the people in the next space had there Star Choice Dish all set up and invited us to hook to up, saving Herb having to set up his. Now we have hockey games, news, hockey games (other stuff as well of course, but, you know how it is.
We are about 100 yards from Playa La Ropa, the best beach in Z, the water is warm and mostly calm. This is the beach I came to regularly in the old days when I travelled solo. We called into the place where I used to stay and visited with people from Quebec that we knew when I stayed here. The town has grown and prospered with lots more restaurants and classy hotels on the bay. It is great to have Suzi to buzz around in.
Another little bonus is that a truck comes around and collects your laundry and returns it, all folded the next day. It is truly warm here, (into the high 80’s every day) but a lovely breeze and it cools well at night. Though we must admit those temperatures do sap your energy. I have a wet bathing suit on a lot.

We stay here until the 26th then head for our old favourite, Los Ayala. Marg and Erwin have reserved a spot in an RV park there, so we are set. The plan is to follow the coast road north to near Lazaro Cardenas and catch the Toll Roads to Uruapan, Guadalajara and then down Hwy 200 to Los Ayala from Compostela.

Paa Mul

Paa Mul

We hit our first rain on the way to Cancun & Paa Mul, just showers but enough to really do a number on the vehicles. As the Yucatan is mainly soft lime stone, the spray from the road was just like spraying cement on your vehicles. Up to this point, the vehicles had remained relatively clean, as the only road spray we had, was snow melt in Oregon.

We stopped in Cancun at Soriano’s to stock up depleted supplies as we had not shopped since we left the US. We then left for Paa Mul, and when we got there, the rains came down. By the time we looked at sites, and got parked, we were soaked. Lil had to dry everything in her purse, and by the time I had hooked up to Electrical & Water, I was very wet. Yes we had a small umbrella, or we would have been wetter. With the way the trip is going, it certainly makes you wonder why you left home. (Lil: I know why we left home! That rain was warm and the TV, shows what’s happening at home, weather-wise)

The Paa Mul RV Park is located about 15kms south of Playa Del Carmen, and, it is owned by a Mayan Indian family, The Mayans owned most of the coastal land as it was once considered worthless before the tourist invasion started. Now there are buyers with suitcases full of money putting heavy pressure on the families too sell.
The RV Park has about 100 Sites, of which, about 75% are rented on an annual basis ($6000.00 per Year). And being Mexico, you can bargain the cost, less for the further you want to pay in advance.
Most of the permanent sites have elaborate two story Palapa’s built over their RV’s, and the owner have added a permanent structure next to their RV, generally containing an area for Storage, Washer & Dryer, and larger Bathroom facilities. Others have had their old RV’s removed and have put in permanent living areas.
There are a number of these Palapa’s for sale, in the US$200,000 range for beach front, down to $50,000 (they usually come with an old Mexican Registered Vehicle, and are located about 75 to 100 meters from the ocean, this is very inexpensive for an accommodation unit right on the Caribbean.
There is quite an elaborate home being built on a double lot at the present. The owner figures that paying rent on the lots, is far cheaper, than buying land, which is unbelievably high. I did not hear what kind of a lease he has on the lots, but he is spending a lot of money on the home.

There is a nice Swimming Pool & Restaurant Complex on the waters edge, with lots of lounge chairs on the sand in front. There is also a Dive Shop, Massage Parlor, and Bar.
The Public Washroom and Shower facilities are less than perfect (we don’t use them). This is quite a surprise to find in an otherwise pretty nice place.

The beach sand is beautiful Caribbean White, and there are some rocky area’s which extend out into the sea, making a snorkel area. The Coral Reef, starts about 100 meters off shore, and is said to be quite extensive, with a lot of Brain Coral. We have not done any snorkeling yet, but plan to do as much as we can over the Christmas Week, as other tourist sites will be crowded, so we will stay put.

In the area were we are parked, surprisingly has about 50% of the vehicle license plates are from BC, plus a few from AB, and ON. These are mainly 5th Wheel Trailers and are parked in the open RV spaces. Until yesterday, we were the only Truck & Camper on site, then a SK Truck & Camper showed up.

We are parked between a couple from ON, on our left, and on our right and behind us, are two Ex Reform/Conservative MP’s from BC.
Bill Gilmore from Parksville/Qualicum, and Ted White from North Vancouver, both of whom lost their seats in the last election, I believe they both served two terms. There are 5 couples, that came down from BC and ON and I believe they all were involved in politics. They are all in their 50s and early 60’s.
And certainly; based on their New Trucks and 5th Wheel trailer’s they are really enjoying their “Gold Plated Pensions”.
Also they are not a very friendly bunch, but then, they no longer need our votes.

Well it is only 3 days to Christmas, and we will be thinking about you and missing you all very much.

We will be having Christmas dinner with a couple from Calgary. We are going to share the preparation of the dinner. It should be fun as they are very nice people. Their travel-mates Elliot & Phyllis, from Ft Steele will be attending their granddaughters Wedding at a resort nearby in the afternoon.

Lil
We are now settled into Paa Mul RV park on the beach (we are one row back, so only a short walk) and my back is feeling better already. It is a beautiful bay with white sand and that blue-green sea. The pictures will tell all.

We took a drive up to Cancun to have a look at the famous Hotel Zone. I did expect there to be more interesting architecture, after all, the area should inspire a little exotica. We are glad to have seen it but there is no visible Mexican influence. Of course we just drove through. Some of the gated resorts south of Cancun present far more interesting fronts. Very elaborate and artistic. You can go for the day (not night) for $95 per person…to use the facilities and meals included. It is not on our agenda.

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY, HEALTHY, AND PROSPOROUS NEW YEAR TO ALL

Herb & Lil

Old Rocks

Old Rocks (Mayan Ruins)

We only stayed on the Emerald Coast, for a one day stop, needed the rest, especially Lil. Her back is really giver her problems, she is in great pain by noon, and can hardly move by evening. I am really worried, hopefully a three week layover at Paa Mul, south of Playa Del Carmen, will help.
Looking back, we should have never under taken such a long trip in an RV. The roads are way to rough, even though the truck rides really well, (as “Dodge’s do) it is the uneven road surface’s that cause truck to sway sideways, this and the potholes and “Topes”, causes her a lot of pain.

We left the Emerald Coast and headed for the “Xumal Mayan Ruins” (Old Rocks). We stopped in Villahermosa for the night, parked on a site at a Swimming Club, which had water & electricity for $10.

On this leg of our journey, we finally got on to some very expensive “Toll Roads”, were we thought we would have wider and better roads. They were wider, but not much better, the running surface on the right lanes were worn out and poorly patched, so to get a better ride you have to travel in the left lanes, moving over when traffic caught up to you. I don’t know why they are worn out, because from the volume of traffic they shouldn’t be.

From having traveled on the “Libre” the free roads, and the “Cuota” the toll roads, I would estimate the toll roads only carry about 5% of the traffic. The reason being, the toll roads are privately owned, and set their own tolls. Mexican thinking goes like this, “ If you are not making money, raise the price”, and if, even less people use your facilities, raise the price even more.
I believe that the private road owners in this part of Mexico, cannot afford to maintain their roads. A neighbor in the park we are in right now, said it cost him over $500 in tolls from the El Paso, TX to Cancun. He has a Dually Truck & 36’ 5th Wheel 2 axle Trailer.
A dually truck is considered a 2 axle working truck, not a pickup, so if you are pulling with a single tires on the rear, you pay the automobile/pickup rate and the rate for the number axles you have on your trailer.
Our setup with the dually truck & camper is costing us about 2/3rds more than an automobile/pickup rate.

Going through Villahermosa, Tabasco, were some of the worst flooding, we went through an area that they were still sandbagging. They had truck traffic stopped, but waved us through. In one spot an eighteen wheeler, had his trailer with a red container on it leaning out into our lane. I could only get over till the dually’s were rubbing on the curb on the drivers side, and the right rear view just missed the corner of the trailer. I considered the lean of the container out into our lane, but not the right amount of lean. I now have a red paint streak on the awning cover, and it still works.

We got to Xumal, about 3:30PM, and parked in the RV Parking Lot overnight. $10.
The site closed at 5PM, but there was a “Sound & Light Show” slated for 7PM. This gave us time to have showers, and have supper at the hotel.
The supper was excellent, but we were disappointed in the show. The show consisted of a narrator telling a story of what they “guess” happened at Xumal and the Mayan civilization, and some lights playing on the ruins. Even though we had English Earphone Translators, we both dozed off a few times, thankfully it only lasted an hour.

The next morning we partially toured the site, as Lil was really hurting. It was interesting, and if you are ever in the area, it is worth seeing.
We spent a little over an hour walking around, then headed for Chechen Itza (more old rocks). We got there in the mid afternoon, parked at the Stardust RV Park $15, (you need Stardust in your eyes to call this an RV Park).
We have been very disappointed in the Mexican RV parks, they are very expensive for what you get, all that we have stayed at have terrible washrooms & showers, no seats on the toilets, and the showers are filthy. All we use is the electricity, and water.

They also offered a Sound & Light Show, but in talking to a couple from Colorado, it was worse than Xumal. This couple, was only the second couple we have met in the RV Parks we have stayed at, also we have not seen any RV’s on the road. The park owners say it is very slow this year.
We toured Chechen Itza, the next morning for a couple of hours, this site is much larger than Xumal, and the main Pyramid is twice the size, with more larger out buildings. However the Stonework & Architecture, are not near a interesting as Xumal. Lil say’s neither one compares favorably with other sites she has seen, particularly Tical.

We then headed for Cancun & Paa Mul on the most expensive Toll Road so far, $60 for 150 miles.

La Pesca & The Emerald Coast

Mexico La Pesca & Emerald Coast

Left “Gentle Breeze’s RV Park” about 8:30AM, and going through the Pharr Crossing was a breeze, if you will pardon the pun. Having pre-registered both vehicles on the internet, in the Banjercito Web Site, it took about about 10 minutes, with no lineups.

We got onto Hwy 2W, about 2Kms after the border, in about 7kms we looked for Hwy 97S. What “Church & Church” in their book “Mexican Camping” (here after will be referred to as the “Book”) don’t say, is there is no intersection at this point, you have to go about 200 Meters past, get in the left lane so you can take a “Retorno”, then get in the right lane on the frontage road in heavy traffic, so you can make the turn south at the point where the intersection for a major highway, should have been. “Only in Mexico”. We did all the right things, and got on 97S.

97S connects with 101/180 south after about 100kms, then 180 branches off , we will take this Hwy all the way to Cancun. Just after we made the turn we ran into about 23kms of new road construction, it seemed like about 50kms, talk about rough. A lot of it was 20kms per hour, and my nice new wash job on the vehicles was ruined, by the dust & mud.

We got to La Pesca on the Gulf of Mexico, about 3:30PM, got a site at La Gaviota Campground, nice place. Took “Suzie” (our Suzuki Samari tow vehicle) and looked around, it is definitely a Mexican Tourist area, nice beach, with at least a couple of hundred “Palapa’s” for rent on the public beach. The beach has fine clean sand, with millions of sea shells.

The next day was a short day, 4 hours, as we stopped just north of Tampico, at a hotel that allow RV’s to park in their parking area, we did this because The “Book” did not show any RV Parks until you got to the Emerald Coast, about 7-8 hours away.

The next leg of our trip was a tough trip, 8 hours to go 200 miles. The roads on the east coast of Mexico are not anywhere near the caliber of the ones we have experienced on the west coast. Hwy 180, is the toughest stretch of paved road I have ever faced. The roads were never built right, not ditched or compacted properly. Resulting in a very uneven surface, at a numerous spots you had to come to a complete stop, as I am sure you could lose your camper with heaves up to 3 feet deep. Brand new pavement with pot holes a foot deep, and hundreds of speed bumps.
It a good thing we were driving a “Dodge”. I should get some comments on that statement.

I would strongly discourage anyone from taking Hwy 180 south, and we still have about 1000 miles to go. But the new “Guia Rojo” map book, shows that there are more Toll Roads ahead, this should help. The way Lil has it figured out, if we take the tool roads, we can save 2 days driving on our way to Cancun.


The road was especially hard on Lil, as she has arthritis in her back, and the side to side swaying really aggravates this condition, and it was a tough day for me too. So we are taking a one day break at the Emerald Coast, this is a really nice area, and the Quinta Alicia RV Park is great.
If we could have stuck to our original schedule, we would have stayed here a few days. It was 83F when we got here, but it rained a little last night, cloudy this morning, with a temp of 72F.

Hopefully I can Post this and some Photos today, at an Italian Coffee House down the road.

Herb & Lil

Heading for Mexico

Hello to All

We are still in the Brownsville TX area, 3 days later than we wanted to be, but we ran across a problem at the Mexican Border. They are tightening up the procedure on their Tourist Visa’s.
In 2006 we had tried to turn in our Tourist Visa’s, at Nogales, at the same time we turned in our Vehicle Permit. This department would not take the Visa’s as they were only concerned with Vehicle Importation.

We had run into this in years gone by, but it had never been a problem, we just threw them away. Now according to the Mexican Customs Clerk, they are now keeping track of them in their computers, and they must be turned in when returning from Mexico.
The penalty is you have to wait 3 days before you can apply for a new Tourist Visa.
“Warning” if anyone has an old “Mexican Tourist Visa,” do not leave it in your Passport.
As they say in Church & Church’s Mexican Camping” book, things never stay the same at the Mexican Border, rules can change day to day, and crossing to crossing!!

So we have to turn around, go through American Custom, who were very good about it, I guess it is happening more & more. The US computers really work, they knew when and where we had entered the US. We had crossed at “Frontier”, south of Rossland, on Dec 19th.

Our stay in this area, has been enjoyable, we stayed 4 nights at the Rio RV Park in Brownsville, and are now in the Morningside RV Park in Alamo TX for 3 nights. The weather has been good Temps up to 82F, cools down at night to as low as 40F for a couple of nights. Had 3 days of windy & cloudy weather. We like the Alamo, McAllen area much better than Brownsville area.
Did some maintenance on the truck, oil & filter, and signal lights on Suzi, setup the Star Choice Satellite Dish.

We have done some touring, went to South Padre Island, was very windy with lots of sand blowing around. The beach is nice, but we were not really impressed, lots of hotels and condo’s. There were 2 new 25 story towers being built right at the end of the causeway to the island. No wonder that at Christmas & Spring Break it can take you up to 4 hours to get on and off the island.

Hopefully we get into Mexico tomorrow, our destination will be La Pesca, about a 6 hour dive, then we will head for the Emerald Coast south of Tampico about a 7 hour drive, staying there for a few days if we like it.

At the Rio RV Park, we had Wi-Fi, but it was very poor, and we could not post any photo,s, and here in Alamo we do not have any, so we are heading for Burger King today to post this in our blog. No photos yet.

Herb & Lil

Plans Have Changed

We left Castlegar, on the 19th, had an uneventful trip to Spokane WA, stayed at Wal-Mart, had internet access, so checked the Weather & Road Reports. They were not good I-90 was expecting up to a foot of snow, from a storm front that had moved in overnight from the Pacific. Chains were manditory for vehicles that were towing. Stayed in Spokane till 10AM, decided to head down to Pendelton OR on 395. Got there at 3:00PM, checked the Road Report, some snow but roads were clear. Decided to stay put, next morning the I-84 was also bad, chains manditory. Looked at 395 south, the passes were snow bound.
Looked at US97 it was clear, so that was the route we took to Kalamath Falls, then to Reno.


It was below freezing most of the way, at Redmond it was -17C, so had the furnace in the camper going from Pendleton to Susanville CA
At Fallon just east of Reno we stayed at a motel, as the batteries in the camper were failing, decided to go to Quartzite AZ to replace them.

We have spent 3 days at Quartzite, weather has been fairly good up 72F, the first day it was really windy. Most service places were closed for the Thanksgiving weekend so made an appointment for Monday the have the batteries replaced and rewired, as the wiring that "Backroads RV" in Kamloops had put in place was undersized, if you have an RV never take your unit to them, as the dont know what they are doing!

It is Monday morning and our appointment is at 10:00AM, so I thought I would post this.
Photos to follow