Los Mochis and a celebration

Saturday, March 24, 2012

The Celestino Beach RV park was in a beautiful location, had a friendly caretaker, friendlier cats, etc., etc., but brought one huge disappointment:  WiFi was no longer available.  All three parks on the beach had dropped the service due to their hard economic situation.  Ordinarily a day without WiFi would not constitute a major catastrophe but this was not an ordinary day.  This was the day the next NDP leader was to be chosen at the Toronto convention and I wanted to watch.  My plan had been to take a layday, keep the computer charged up and check on ballots in between beach walks.  It was not to be and there was no point staying put and fuming in frustration.  

Our Saskatchewan friends filled us in on the results of the first ballot, which they were able to pick up via satellite.  But their priority for the day was watching championship curling, so we couldn't cosy up to their TV.  At Happy Hour the previous night we had noted the conservative views of the other Canadians in the park who had satellite, so no hope there.  Might as well move on.  We knew the next park had no WiFi but we might as well make progress toward our ultimate destination.

The coastal highway made for good driving, with a relatively flat autopista flanked by inland mountains.  Jim drove most of the way, with me doing my best to cherry-pick the easy stretches.  We were to spend the night at Los Mochis, where there is a down-on-its-heels RV park close to the interchange.  Unfortunately we did not exit at THAT interchange.  Our mistake in exiting a few hundred meters too soon was compounded by an error in our guidebook.

Now, it is impossible to RV in Mexico without constant reference to A Traveler's Guide to Mexican Camping  by Terri and Mike Church.  It's a wonderful book which describes all the RV parks, how to get to them, what to do and see in each area -- absolutely all the essentials.  The Churches are real genuine people, quite down-to-earth.  They research their books extensively, travelling in their truck camper.  This was the first of our four winters in Mexico that we did not encounter them.  Their advice has rarely led us astray.


But here we are on the wrong approach into Los Mochis.  We begin to suspect we may not be on the right road, but I have entered the Churches' lat/long coordinates for the park into our GPS and we think this will rescue us.  Oddly though, the GPS wants us to take a route right through the town for 6 km.  So we do.  Once again we drive our fat contraption through streets not designed for our girth. And when we reach the waypoint, where are we?  No, not at the RV park.  They have sent us to a bloody Walmart!  Now what does that tell us about the homing instincts of our *American* RV gurus? 


Okay.  After a few more adventures we acquired a pollo asada from a street stand.  Four workers assembled all the accompaniments for our chicken -- plastic bags of fresh warm tortillas, salsa, rice, lettuce in water (new one on us) -- while simultaneously arguing over the best directions to get us to the RV park.

Finally, finally we are at the park.  Most of the big Class-A RVs are from Quebec and are sitting empty.  Their owners were clever enough to figure out how to catch the train to the magnificent Copper Canyon.  We'll have to see it another time.  I snapped a picture of all the Quebec rigs sporting maple leaf flag license plates.  Let's hear no more talk of our Quebecois friends denying their Canadian citizenship.

A bright young man came to check us in, so we completed the little form and handed over our tarif.  Then he said the magic words, "Would you like the WiFi code?"  Well!! I did my happy dance, we broke out the vino and the cervesas and cranked up the computer.  We were able to follow the last ballot and, for the one and only occasion this winter, we were able to stream live video, so got to watch Tom Mulcair's acceptance speech and toast our new leader.

Note the orange shirt -- we both wore them for the occasion.

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.

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.