Reaching the beach

March 22, 2012

At last we were on the autopista, the toll road, and heading west, down the mountains toward the Pacific Coast.  For much of the way we had a divided highway, with two lanes in each direction, but quality can drop without warning and tolls are not cut just because you hit a 2-lane section or have to drive through a big city. Every hour or two we handed over our cuota (toll) of 87 pesos or 112 pesos or some other seemingly random number.  Between tolls and regular gas purchases the currency stack was shrinking steadily.  (Gas, by the way, was up to 10 pesos a liter this year, about $0.80 Cdn.)  

The first year we came to Mexico we attempted to use our Visa card in various types of businesses but it was never accepted.  The simple solution was to give ourselves a weekly cash allowance from an ATM.  Credit card use is spreading in Mexico and we understand many Pemex gas bars now take them, as well as upscale restaurants and retailers.  We decided it's not a bad idea to have three months per year in a purely cash economy so we continue to rest our plastic while in Mexico. 

                        

We hit Tepic just at lunch time and stopped at a small restaurant to have gigantic juicy pork tortas and our favourite apple-flavoured pop.  There were police and military checkpoints at both ends of the city.  We were asked for our destination and then waved on through. Later in the day we came to the checkpoint we truly feared -- the agricultural inspection.  Some Mexican states restrict the movement of fresh foods from other parts of the country.  We are deeply suspicious that these regulations have more to do with protecting local farmers than preventing the spread of disease.  It would be such a shame to lose the rest of our lovely berries.  Anyway, we got lucky.  We owned up to the limes that were in full view and invited the inspector to check our fridge, but he just smiled and wished us a good trip.

And here we are, dressed for an evening out in Mazatlan.  At the end of our long day's journey we drove (inadvertently) through some of the busiest streets of this resort city, marvelling at the big buildings and crowds of tourists.

We had a great dinner of coconut camarones (shrimp) in the company of a friendly couple from Michigan who had spent last summer visiting Newfoundland in their 5th wheel.

We wondered how many of the people around us would top our costs for 12 weeks in Mexico in their one or two week vacation.