Monday, February 25, 2008

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.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

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.