San Carlos

Sunday, March 25, 2012

We were skeptical when the Churches' guidebook warned of the possibility of fog north of Los Mochis, but there it was.  It brought only the tiniest twinge of homesickness.

This was another day of 5-6 hours on the road.  Our preference is NOT to strain ourselves or our rig by punching in 10 or 12 hour days.  Many people would drive from the Tepic area to the border in 2 days but we were in no rush.  This was our first visit to the northwest coast and we may want to return, so it's good to get a sense of the place.

Our last stop on the coast was Totonaka RV Park in San Carlos.  It was the largest park we have visited, with 130 sites.  For some campers this is the first and only stop in Mexico.  There is a community of RVers that spends the entire winter here, just a day's drive from the U.S.

We had dinner at an upstairs restaurant as the sun set over the bay, our last view of the ocean for this year.

I'll take the low road.

March 22, 2012

So we had this short and easy drive from Lake Chapala to Etzatlan (yeah -- see previous post) and the other part of the charm was that we were now just a few kilometers from the cuota, the toll highway, to the west coast.  And so we were.  We had just missed the tiny snippet of information that there is no interchange between the local roads and the cuota for another 72 km.  Aha.

Now -- I cut my driving teeth on narrow, winding roads. I recall taking fiendish pleasure in scaring townies as I sped along the Conception Bay Highway as it was in the late '60s between Holyrood and Brigus.  Just last year we drove thousands of kilometers of unpaved roads through northern Quebec and Labrador.  I had the misfortune two years ago of taking the wheel of the RV just before we started an hour of impossibly steep highway, complete with switchbacks, overhangs, spindly bridges and zero pull-offs as we approached Puebla from the east.

That said, Highway 15 from Magdalena to Ixtlán del Río set a new benchmark for sharp curves and moments of sheer terror as we seemed suspended in the air over a straight drop of staggering depth.  We dropped almost 2000 feet in the 90 minutes it took to accomplish the 70 km.  (Excuse the mixed measurements.)  Jim drove.  I took a single picture and after that held tightly to both armrests the entire time.  

Our ordeal was ending as we entered the town of Ixtlán del Río and we agreed Jim deserved a break.  Just at this moment we saw a sign indicating 'RUINAS' ahead.  Past experience told us this would be worth a stop.  Mexico has more archeological sites than we can fathom, some of which are not well know even within the country.  This was another unheralded gem.  


To begin, we visited a small interpretation centre that housed excavated sculptures dating over a period encompassing about 1000 years from 300 BC onward.  The sculptures were retrieved from shaft tombs, vertical wells where diverse sculptures were placed as offerings for the deceased.  Some of the smaller pieces were displayed in a cave-like setting so visitors could appreciate their original placement.

Doesn't this man look Asian?

We were delighted with our museum visit and ready to return to the RV when one of the employees pointed us in the direction of a laneway and sent us off to the main site. 

Which way to Etzatlan?

March 21, 2012
Our aversion to driving in or around Guadalajara began the day in 2010 when we were trying to skirt around the city as we drove north to south. Our GPS guided us into the heart of the metropolis, spouted a few nonsense instructions, and then blithely announced, "No data is available for your current location."

This year we poked our nose into Guadalajara to buy building supplies at Home Depot. The navigator (me) missed a crucial turn and we spent the next 45 minutes trying to find our way back to the key junction.  Round and round we went.  The GPS would count down the kilometres and we'd be really close, possibly even in sight of that huge Home Depot sign.  Then, Jim would chicken out on a right-side merge down a steep sloop into a 3-lane lateral, and the km would start to ratchet up again.  Or the GPS did not account for an exit that had been closed off since the last map update.  At one exciting moment, we were driving along with four lanes of traffic in each direction, when the GPS instructed us to get into the left lane and announced, "left turn in 800 metres".  Oh sure.  But it was quite right -- there was a special overpass to allow hapless drivers to double back to where they should have been.  Exciting times.

[That day I did something I never did before in my entire life.  When we finally got to the store, I poured a shot of tequila and tossed it back before I could face shopping.  Don't tell Mother.]

My point is that we are utterly phobic about Guadalajara and would do anything to avoid a route that included the city's periferico or ring road.  How then to drive west toward the coast?  When we heard of a park in a rural Etzatlan that could be reached by travelling south of the city we decided it was for us.  It also made for a short run on our first day out of the Lake Chapala area.  Alas, less than an hour from our destination, Tomi (nickname for the female voice who torments us through our TomTom unit) took us on a creative shortcut.  The low point was when we found ourselves on an actual, literal cowpath.  We persevered (NEVER go back is my attitude) and got to a tiny crossroads.  An elderly woman and a young boy were quite unable to offer assistance.  I don't believe they understood us when we said 'Etzatlan', but in any case, people who don't drive cars are often unable to help with road directions.

Should have followed the sugar-cane truck.

I can say with some confidence that we were the first RV to navigate through several of the narrow lanes we traversed during the afternoon.  The total time we were off-road was not long, but it was a bit worrying.  Would we reach a place we could not get through and have to retrace our path?  Eventually we found ourselves in a village where some of the approaching traffic was bigger than Vagrant Van.  A little while later we connected with a wider road.  Saved again.

Delia's RV Park was a welcome sight.  It is run by a woman called Bonnie, so it had to be good.  It is a park in every sense -- trees, a grassy field and lots of animals.  Several of the resident dogs came to visit during the evening, once word got around that Jim was distributing treats.

Hard to spot, but there are two iguanas in this picture.

The horses were curious, but spurned my withered carrots.