Three weeks ago my computer died. Since I was heading north from the California coast 100 miles above LA, I thought I would hold off buying a new computer at retail and get a new mother board from Fry’s outside of Portland and save some money. A new mother board and CPU would give me higher speed and less flakiness as well. My old mthrbd and CPU zipped along at 1.1GHz but I was looking forward to 3GHz – 3 times faster!

I stopped at Fry’s and as expected they were having a sale on an MSI mthrbd so I had my new parts for under $100. Off I went to Corbett Oregon and a nice campground north of Troutdale. After a couple hours the new board & CPU were installed but the older power supply wouldn’t run it. Next day I head off to find an appropriate power supply for $28. With the new power supply installed, it fired up and ran, but, since I have XP Pro, it wouldn’t run because XP detects your hardware and if there is a change it decides you are trying to steal a copy of XP and shuts down. Since I had no internet connection without a running OS, I couldn’t get online and read up on a solution to my kind of situation. Turned out there isn’t one. Nothing I’ve read online since has a method of reinstalling the OS that wouldn’t ruin my files.

Finally, I just reinstalled my copy of XP on one of my two harddrives, both have copies of all my files and pictures. With that done, I was able to get online and soon had a virus! Damn! But before I discovered that, I had downloaded all the 218 pictures I’d taken from the coast up to Corbett.

But the virus was now interfering with normal activities so without thinking of all those pictures, I reinstalled XP, reformatting the harddrive in the process. This time, I did everything right, like installing SP3 right off the bat followed by AVG antivirus and Zonealarm. With those protections installed, I’m not worried about viruses taking over again, at least not for a long while.

So, all those pictures are gone. I guess I’ll just just restart this blog from the day I left Troutdale to head east to Walla Walla. I’ll be here for a week visiting family and then on to Alaska. I’ve planned out the trip and it looks like it will take at least 7 days, more if I find a nice park I like and decide to stay a few days.

Sorry to keep you guys waiting for new stuff for so long.

I love this town! Mazatlan has everything I like about a town and it’s all stuff right near my RV park. It is a surprise to me since I hate big cities. But Mazatlan is something special. I’m really comfortable here. And I really like all the places I can ride my bike. Especially like the lack of insects, and the cool breeze that seems to always be available to cool me off after a nice long bike ride. Then there are my favorite restaurants, and my favorite bars in Mexico are here. The first full day I was here, I rode my bike around visiting all my favorite places making sure they were still in business (they were) and also spent some time trying to find a shop that might have some nick-nacks for friends. Didn’t find any of that kind of stuff this trip, and allot of the stuff was way over priced this time, with so few tourists, most shops raised their prices. A couple years ago, the sidewalks would be crowded with tourists, this trip, not so much. Which made it more comfortable for me. So I’m not complaining.

Late in the day, the mechanic I had asked the office gal to arrange for showed up. He and I discussed my problem with the starting system in the rig and decided to take the starting motor in for a preventative maintenance inspection. At the Cummins shop in town. The motor has 147,000+ miles on it and yet, they said it was fine. Didn’t even need new brushes. That cost me $650 pesos, or $50 US. I was hoping they would find something wrong, so it would be fixed and I wouldn’t have to worry about it. No such luck. Well, maybe jogging it around or removing then reinstalling the wiring did something to make it right. I don’t know, but it’s worked fine since then.

After that repair guy left, my neighbor proceeded to tell me that hardly anyone in the park used him, because he overcharged and sometimes tried to bluff his way through a repair…like he really was not all that well versed in mechanics. But he didn’t always do the work either. It seemed to me that he was a contractor who got the jobs around RV parks mainly because he speaks English, then he farmed it out to someone who knew what they were doing and collected both for the real mechanic and himself. I had no complaints about how the job on my rig was done but I did suspect that I paid more then ordinary in Mexico. An older mechanic did the actual work and was there working while I was off bike riding. I just saw him finish up.

Anyway, after that was finished I met with the more favorable mechanic and told him I wanted my front bearings repacked. Since he’d had his car, with all his tools in the trunk, stolen, it took him awhile to borrow the appropriate tools to get the lug nuts and then the wheels off the rig. I have a nice leveling system in the rig so getting the tires off the ground was no trouble. After the wheel was off, we took a look at the brake pads…oh, oh, time to replace them. We ran all over town before finding the right ones.

After the bearings were packed and the brake pads replaced, he also did some body work for me, I was free to wander around in Mazatlan. The job only cost around $160 including parts. What a bargain.

It was 75°F but a little cloudy.

Some of the islands off of Mazatlan's shore.

One of many public works of art.

Old town off in the distance.

Where are all the tourists? Looking back to northern Maz.

Nice just to sit and watch.

More shoreline. This portion is well beyond where I usually hang out...

An incredible statue.

Brass dolphins.

Way away from my hang out area now...

One of the islands is white, the other one dark.

Naked people.

That white thing there, left of middle, is a staircase. Just to give you an ocean view from the top of that pinnacle.

I walked over to that staircase and climbed up while thinking, “I wonder why there aren’t any hand rails?” Going up wasn’t too bad, but damn, coming back down a steep, narrow staircase, damp from dew, without a handrail, was a sweat inducer. I couldn’t just hop and skip down the thing. Had to sit down and crab crawl back down. All 50 feet. I dropped my glasses case while crawling and it tumbled toward the edge causing me some anxiety, but it stopped so I could grab it before it jumped off the side and into the ocean.

The view from atop the staircase.

This hotel has been going up for 3 years that I know of...slowly. All the for sale signs were in English so this is going to be a condo for gringos. It's a little farther along then what I remember so they must have stopped work for a while due to the bad economy. They are back at work now.

Around that corner is the old Mazatlan. Old town. The part of Mazatlan that has a 300 year history. Most of that history involved tourists.

Into old town.

Old town's central plaza.

A neat old building downtown. Apartments.

There are many of these older buildings that have been converted to apartments or they were built as apartments or hotels. This one is right on the central plaza. Lot’s of activities here in this area. Very classy restaurants, the live theater, symphony, etc. I’ve heard of some nice places going for a mere $300 per month in downtown. It might not be the most attractive area for gringos to rent or buy because it’s far from the tourist haunts…but look at that place. I would love to live there. And with taxis being so inexpensive here, you can get anywhere for just a few bucks. There were lots of small stores, restaurants and bars around the area as well. All the creature comforts within easy reach.

A government building with shops in the lower sections.

I rode my bike this whole distance and it was an adventure. I’d been downtown back in ‘07 a couple times but I had a taxi driver friend that ferried me around so ridding my bike around gave me a better sense of the place. I like it, old town that is, particularly because it was uncrowded and quiet. The streets are narrow but you can drive your car around it without trouble. I might have a bit of trouble with the RV but can’t see why I’d need to go downtown in that. After spending an hour wandering around, I headed back to my home base in the golden zone. The weather looks dicey in these pictures but it was very mild with a light breeze. Never rained. Never smelled like rain. Excellent bike riding weather because the locals think of weather like this as cold, wintery. So they stay home. The tourist tend to gather in bars or stay home too. Leaves the whole remarkable place to me. And a few thousand others.

And back near my RV park after that long ride.

More from Maz the next issue.

The morning I left Teacapan I headed North to Mazatlan but after 12 miles, stopped in Escuinapa for some bike repair. Turned out the shop was just a block off the main road I was on, and there was a nice parking spot for my RV right along the main drag! I felt lucky that I didn’t have to try to negotiate my huge RV around town any more then that.

I had him diagnose the skipping gear problem and OK’ed replacing the entire gear assembly on the rear wheel and got a new chain. Then I started to leave and realized I didn’t have a kick stand so he put one of those on for me. The whole job took just over an hour and cost $140 pesos. That’s around $12 US. Nice.

After that, it was around 11am, and I headed onto Mazatlan, two hours away. The trip was uneventful but it was soothing to be on a road in Mexico that I was so familiar with. Every bend in the road brought up a section of highway that I was familiar with. I didn’t take any pictures until I got to Maz(atlan) because I’ve posted pictures of this section of Mexico before.

I stopped for fuel and afterward parked along side a small park in order to get some pesos to pay for the RV park. I stopped at this particular place because across from the bank is a nice restaurant named Taco Loco that serves a large tray of fresh veggies along with your lunch or dinner order. I really like that. I wish they would do that in the US.

After lunch, I drove straight to the California RV Park and parked outside the fence on the shoulder. I was around a block from the building shown below. I didn’t drive into the park because it’s difficult to turn around in there and I didn’t know if they were full up or not.

After I talked to the office gal, paid my money, wandered around the park looking for an appropriate spot, got the neighbor to move his car, I went back out to the RV and tried to start it. Nothing, dead. Not even a click. So, I am sitting there aside a major road in Maz and the rig won’t start. I have visions of trying to get a tow truck operator to just tow me inside the RV park but the spaces are back in and it’s crowded in there. Then there is the problem of not being a Spanish speaker. Of course I could have imposed on the office gal but she had her own work to do. Anyway, in desperation, I slam the shift lever forward and backward hoping that the switch is just stuck or corroded. Suddenly, it starts right up! Crisis avoided again! So I creep into the park and get set up in my space, connected to electric and water, change into my shorts and T shirt and fire up the computer. After an hour or two of online silliness, I go talk to the office gal and she calls and gets me an appointment with a mechanic. All Mexican RV parks that I’m familiar with know someone that does RV work on site.

With that all arranged, I rode my bike over to the ocean…a block away, and took my first picture of Maz this season. I really like this fancy place. It’s got a cool restaurant and piano bar, then a separate big party bar and dance hall, then a hotel. I like the architecture too.

The restaurant right on the beach in Maz.

Behind me where I took the above picture is a wide, fancy, sidewalk up top of a twelve foot high seawall.  It goes for a couple three miles right along the coast and it’s exclusively for walkers, joggers, and bikers. There are several large pieces of art along the walkway, and they put up even more during the  mardi gras. Maz has the worlds 3rd largest. Behind that sidewalk there is a four lane road, and then lots of motels, hotels, and touristy businesses lined up along it. Then there is a wet land behind all that, with ponds and all. So if the ocean tops the seawall, it has somewhere to spill. There are even some fishermen toward the South end of the seawall, but I understand that 50 years ago there were hundreds here but they were chased off in favor of a more pleasant experience for tourists. Twenty stinky boats is much more acceptable then 200 stinky boats. One of the things I noticed across the street right off was a bar & dance hall that was being built back in ‘07 when I was here. It was all fancy and brightly colored and I expected it to be a big hit; multi-story building right across from the ocean, lots of parking, it couldn’t miss, I thought back then. But, unfortunately, the economy killed it…the place was already closed. I could tell that it had opened for a while, but I never had the chance to have fun there.  (Tears in eyes).

The day after arriving in Teacapan, I moved North six or so miles to the only RV park in the area with WiFi. Gotta have the internet! There are like 6 RV parks along the ocean accessed by the one road that leads into Teacapan. The 2nd park along that route has WiFi. The 6th park is the one just outside of town and where I spent last night. You can see the block & brick fence that borders the town from the park. I hated to leave that park since it was the nicest one from my point of view, but I wanted my WiFi.

As I was heading north, ran into this cattle drive on the roadway:

A cattle drive along the only road into Teacapan.

The park was nice, if a little dull. No trees, but with really nice, flat, cement  parking space for my RV. Gave me the opportunity to wash the rig and get out my creeper and check out the RV ’s undercarriage. Installed a new slobber tube bottle, checked for snagged wires and what not. Most everything looked good so back I went to reading. Sitting on the patio in the shade, in shorts, light T shirt, while a nice ocean breeze chased the blues away. Reading book after book. Putting a book down and walking into the sunshine to roast a little once in a while. Then twice or thrice a day a nice bike ride on the mostly deserted beach.

Without a good internet connection I spent allot of time reading, getting a suntan, and napping. Ahhhh. Nice. And the nights were so much more comfortable then at Guadalajara. Didn’t need to use my electric blanket at all. Wore shorts and short sleeve shirts the entire time I was here, even at night. The stars are amazing. No town or city lights to speak of to wash them out, so I got to gaze into the sky many a dark night.

The beach next to the RV park.

Looking south. Teacapan is six miles that way.

There's my RV, way over there, the track in the sand is from my bike tires.

Got a little bored reading all those books so on the ninth day of my stay here, after I’d gotten all those little RV chores finished, so I decided to ride my bike the six miles into Teacapan. Since it was that far from Teacapan, and 12 miles from the other nearby town, Escuinapa de Hidalgo, I only rode my bike into town once. Twelve miles round trip, doesn’t sound like that much fun along a busy road does it? There aren’t any shoulders to speak of along most Mexican roadways, and tradition has bikes riding on the same side of the road way as the direction of traffic so it’s a little dicey for us that were taught to travel against traffic so you can see oncoming. The drivers will lay on the horn if you’re on the opposite side of the road from where they think you should be. But I made it to the towns ‘centro’ safely enough. Took around 45-50 minutes so made good time. Nice work out. The town didn’t really have much going for it. It’s a 2-300 year old fishing village and quite small. Maybe 2,000 people. A few small stores and restaurants is all. The roads were pretty narrow. I did see several gringos so I’m guessing some have houses here in town. I didn’t find a farmers market though. Like most Mexican villages, they have the market one day a week and I missed it. After an hour cooling off from my bike ride, I headed on back to the RV park. I was really tired & strained by the time I got back to camp. Took a nap even.

The entrance to Teacapan...

Looking toward the ocean from the highway. Way over there is the RV park I stayed at the first night near Teacapan.

Looking back on the route I'd ridden my bike. Those trees are mostly coconut palms.

Downtown Teacapan.

My camera battery died about here so I didn’t get any more pictures of the central plaza in Teacapan. Oh, well. Maybe next trip.

One thing I noticed on my way back to the RV park. There were cattle all over the place. Even a couple hundred yards from the RV park. But I didn’t notice any smell at all. Why? Because these are free range cattle. They are penned in, true, but the pens are so large that there aren’t any big pools of feces or urine to stink up the range. I was real happy about that. There were a couple hundred cattle within a couple miles of my RV and if they were in a factory farm it would have driven me out of Teacapan.

That giant earthquake in Chile happened when I was there at the park. Must have been a couple days after my bike ride into town. Since we were only around 6 feet above sea level, we (and I mean other RV’ers there at the park) were quite concerned about a Tsunami since the underwater topography in this area was conducive to lifting any big waves and causing a wash over of our location. Plus we were getting warnings via satellite TV. Nothing from the Mexican government though. Warnings that reached us were from US based news organization. They were hysterical and were warning all the way to Hawaii.  Several RV’ers took off for higher ground soon after we heard about the approaching waves. Looked like a flock of birds getting out of the park.  I stayed put because I don’t buy the hysteria most news organizations want you to feel. And, nothing happened. The tsunami wave died out before getting to us so we didn’t see much of a rise into the sand berms protecting the park except one morning where you could see it had splashed over the sand berms a few feet .  It was one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history but didn’t come close to pushing that wave up to us in Mexico. Or to Hawaii. Whee. Dodged another mis-adventure. Since the countryside around that area was so flat, I’m not sure how far I’d have had to go to avoid a big wave anyway.

Well, I got bored with Guadalajara, and decided to move on to the west coast. My plan was to stay a week or two in Teacapan for the beach and the weather, then onto my favorite Mexican city…Mazatlan, and get some serious bike riding in.

On the road out of Guadalajara...

This was one nice road. Much better then most Mexican roads.

Passing the actual town of Tequila, where it's said the spirit was invented. Surrounded by Agave plantations.

Six hours later, on the beach at Teacapan.

What a place. The RV park is just behind me. This is a look at the boats and the restaurant on the grounds.

Looking towards the town. There's a bunch of pelicans there on the rocks.

It's a fishing village.

Here's where I parked that first night. Coconut palms all over the place.

Fishermen park their boats right here at the RV park.

Here's my dinner that first night. Fresh prawns! Damn were they good.

Time for a shot of sunset over the Pacific, from Teacapan, Mexico.

So, I’m now on the Pacific coast again. And here at Teacapan, just like in Mazatlan, there doesn’t seem to be to bad of an insect problem. No sand fleas for instance. Then there is that wonderful breeze that comes off the ocean sometimes all day, but usually starts in the early afternoon.

I’d visited this RV park 2 & 3/4 years before and asked the owners then when they would be getting WiFi and they told me that it would be within two or three weeks. But, they never did. I liked the place for several reasons; they were right next to town so it was an easy bike ride, they had a pool, they had a great restaurant and bar right there, that was cool since I love a pina colada or three with dinner. They made a mistake not installing the WiFi. Would have made me, and others I’m sure, plunk down many pesos for a weeks stay. Or longer. Since they were so close to town, it wouldn’t have cost them that much to get DSL either.

So, although it’s my favorite RV park along this stretch of the Pacific, I only stayed one night…because of lack of WiFi.

So I spent my birthday in Guadalajara and as it turned out, my tour guide’s bday was just two days previous. So, since I liked her company so much, I invited her out for a combination Happy BDay evening. She accepted and we had a great dinner in a beautiful place that has professional artist created murals. Huge murals covering thousands of square feet of the place. For the two of us, dinner and a bottle of wine, just $62. Would have cost $125 in the US in that nice of a place. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera along so I didn’t get any pictures. I do have some pictures today though. A couple days after our BDay dinner was Super Bowl Sunday. Although I had plans to go to a nice bar nearby, Myrna whipped up a Super Bowl party real quick and invited several people from the RV park. I got enthused about the idea and ended up buying a bunch of booze and food for everyone. It was at Myrna’s home, which turned out to be just a stones throw from the RV park in a gated community. I’ll post pictures of the house late. Several people came and we had the game on only Myrna couldn’t find out how to turn on the English so we watched it in Spanish on her big 48″ TV. A minor difficulty.

Myrna and Isson in her back yard.

I’m not sure of the spelling of her son’s name but she always pronounced it Iss-Son with emphases on the “I”. She is still married to an English guy who’s job has him running to different countries all the time. He met her while here in Guadalajara around 3 years ago. After a whirlwind courtship, they married and immediately started having problems with each other while she was pregnant. Then, about a year ago, at the time he was living in the spare upstairs room of their big beautiful house, he was assigned to another country. So, he’s not seen Isson or Myrna for over a year, whenever he and Myrna talk they end up fighting, but she’s still holding out hope that he’ll be back from China to stay, where he’s assigned at this time.

I tried to convince her that it’s unlikely he’ll be back after she told me extensively about the fights that they’d had before he left but she’s not willing to believe that yet. He still sends her $10,000 pesos (around $775 US) on occasion, but it’s not happening as regularly as it use to. Lucky for her the house is paid off, so she’s making enough as a tour guide to scrape by during those times when he doesn’t send the child support. He’s starting to complain it’s too much and she’s complaining it’s not enough. She is considering opening a liquor store to make ends meet in the event he stops payments.

But what I wanted to say was that Isson is just a great kid. He took an instant liking to me and I was happy to have him around. I taught him that it’s OK to be thrown in the air, to swing from his mom’s and my hand when we’re walking around, to splash in puddles. Stuff his mom never even considered doing with him. He even came to call me Papa and wanted to be with me whenever I was around. As you can imagine, an intelligent and active 2 & 1/2 year old is draining, but I adapted. I really liked that little kid and hated to go when it was time.

Back to the Super Bowl party…After we had a traditional Mexican pre-football dinner we were all sitting around talking and Myrna wanders into the house. Around 20 minutes later she came out looking like this:

Myrna all dressed up in her Mariachi outfit.

She use to sing in a Mariachi band and still has the get-ups to boot. And her voice is spectacular.

Clowning with that good looking German gurl.

Can’t remember her name but the pretty German gurl was the daughter of some friends of a couple of German people that came over from the campground. She lives here permanently and has opened her own business, as a Realtor I believe, or something to do with German tourists anyway. Like most Europeans, she speaks several languages. And she was delightfully charming and fun and funny.

Isson wears mom's hat.

A week later was Valentines Day so I invited Myrna out for dinner. She was really a knockout in the dress she wore. We went to a Japanese Sushi restaurant and spent the night talking. Seems she doesn’t really get to do that with most of her clients as they are more interested in themselves and in Guadalajara then in her. We talked about going out to dance after but she had to work early the next day so we deferred that to some other time.

Myrna and I go out for Valentines Day dinner.

Couple of days later Myrna happened to wander into the RV park and while visiting she invited me along with her and Issom for shoe shopping. Not my favorite pastime but seeing a new part of town did interest me so off we went!

Off to town for some shoe shopping! Exciting!

A look at one small portion of Guadalajara.

Guadalajara is a huge city of 6 & some odd million people. If you can’t find something to interest you here, you’re not looking.

The weather while I was here was a little dicey.  Some days were nice and warm, getting up to 80°F during the afternoon but pretty chilly at night. I actually used my electric blanket every night I was there. And some days we had to contend with either all day overcast or some pretty heavy rain. But the warm air during the day made it easier to deal with.

More later.

My visits to downtown were special, so to speak. It’s always fun to visit an ancient city, but, this one really wasn’t that special to me. After visiting ruins that are two thousand years old, seeing buildings that are only a couple hundred kind of leaves me cold. Or at the most, lukewarm. I’ll let you decide for yourself by plunking down some pictures here:

Now here's something...Myrna, my tour guide.

One of the spectacular murals inside of government buildings.

The Senate. Not used now, because it was too small for modern Mexico.

That’s all from downtown Guadalajara for now. More later.

After spending two weeks in Villa Corona, I was ready to move on back to Guadalajara. I wanted to visit the historic downtown that the guide books talk about being one of the most authentic in the country and also wanted to visit some art venues. On the road, I stopped at a Pemex and fueled up. While there I wandered over to the ATM and stuffed my card in the machine. Got my cash and my receipt and turned around and walked off, completely forgetting my card. I am so use to swipe the card and put it back in your wallet, that I didn’t think about it. So it got sucked back into the ATM after a few minutes. Or at least I think it did, since that’s the way most of those machines work if you forget and wander off.

I got to the San Jose Trailer park early in the day and settled in quickly. Found a Canadian nearby who had satellite WiFi for rent and connected right up, for $5 per week. He introduced me to a lovely young lady who does tours of Guad for just $300 pesos plus gas and lunch.

All settled in at the San Jose RV Park

After being here in the park for a couple hours, I realized I didn’t have my debit card! Great, no getting cash when I needed. I figured out where I’d lost it and imposed on one of the people at the park to drive me back to the ATM. After checking around the machine and at the store and the Pemex office, I figured it was sucked into the machine and since I had no idea how to get it back out here in Mexico, I just left it for the fates to worry about. After all, I still had my credit card so I could get cash that way, si? With that in mind, I called up my lost card service and canceled the card. Funny thing, I was able to use my T-Mobile phone to make two 800 number calls, then it just stopped working with an ‘out of service area’ error. I was trying to call the same numbers so that wasn’t it, I was in the same place and I had a good signal so that wasn’t it. Eventually, I had to borrow a phone, Verizon, to be able to make another call to the same number! Stupid T-Mobile.

Well, using my credit card for cash wasn’t to be that easy. I had the card all right, and I was able to use it to buy groceries the next day, but when I tried it at an ATM for cash it came back with the dreaded, ‘Wrong PIN’ error. Tried it at 3 ATMs (Mexican grocery big box stores always have 2 to 5 of the ATMs from different banks). Wary of the damn things sucking in my card and keeping it, I only tried 3 PIN guesses before moving to the next machine. After that, back home, I spent over an hour going through all my papers trying to find the sheet that had my PIN on it. No luck. I’d never used the card for cash so the PIN was not in my memory. Finally, I called my bank and ordered a copy of my PIN. My bank has no expedited service for lost cards, or stolen cards, or if you have forgotten a PIN. Ten to fourteen days, I was told. No way to hurry it up. And they could only snail mail it to my address on record. No expedited service what-so-ever for a traveler using their cards and having a problem. Damn!

So, I ordered the PIN, then emailed my brother, who’s address I use for banking, letting him know the cards PIN would be there in 10-14 days and to watch for it. Meanwhile, I imposed on friends at the park to allow me to buy their groceries and pay me back in pesos so I’d have cash.   Eventually, I got the PIN and all was right with the world again but while without it was very annoying not to have cash or to have to mess around getting cash. Lots of places here in Mexico don’t have swipe machines to begin with so you really need cash if you’re going to be buying things. Even the RV Park swipe machine wasn’t always working.

My immediate need of cash was solved by friends so I could go wandering off into Guad if I wanted but I still didn’t have a bike, which meant I had to walk nearly everywhere. But there was always the bus, or taxi. Either one would work for whatever I needed but I missed my bike. Or any bike. So, while my tour guide, Myrna, and I were wandering around Guadalajara, I explained my wish for a used bike and asked her to stop at bike shops as we drove around the city. We did finally find a not-too-bad bike for $400 pesos.  Since the store only took cash, I left it there with a sold tag on it until I could get the cash.

A look around.

It’s a nicely treed park, which was helpful during mid-day when it swiftly got up to 80°F. It’s around 0.6 miles from the highway with all that noise so it’s nice and quiet. But the place is owned by an 88 year old woman who’s told her 3 sons that as long as she is alive, it will stay an RV park. What’s left of it. A huge part of the park was sold to a developer that turned it into ‘exclusivo’ housing. I talked to the manager of the restaurant/bar owned by one of the sons and he said that the family had been offered $45 million US for the huge piece of property they owned. It’s near many big box stores, a couple huge and new factories and many other expensive properties. But it’s secluded in it’s own way. So, as you can imagine, the brother that ran the RV park part of the property hadn’t done much to maintain it for a while. Saw all sorts of things that needed attention in the electrical service, the bathrooms, the pool.  But, I liked my space, and I was able to get my electrical service connected up and working without to much trouble. The circuit breaker was just hanging there next to the power tower by a wire when I parked. Since Guad is high up in the mountains, it got really cold there sometimes. Especially when one of the storms would roll in. At night, I’d use the electric blanket to stay comfortable. During the morning, I would use my electric heater to take the chill off but by noon the temps would be soaring into the 80’s. And then the rest of the afternoon would be balmy, unless it was overcast. It did rain several times while I was there but overall, it was pretty nice.

More tomorrow…

Sunday morning, I made my way back north towards Guadalajara 5 kilometers and found the ATM the cop told me about. With a full wallet I headed back to Villa Corona. I’d spent some time the night before reading the guide book and now knew where the place was, and what sign to expect to see. In the daylight it was easy to spot the RV’s parked behind the fence as well.

All parked in my new spot.

It took some help from staff to help guide me so I could squeeze into the RV spot what with the trees and the patio in the way but I made it without damage with his help and settled in quickly. Then I grabbed the camera and headed out to explore the park. The grounds where very large, and the RV portion was just a part of them. The park was probably 30 years old or more, the tight spaces for RV’s was reminiscent of an earlier age in RV’ing. I just fit in my space, the roads were tight, and whenever anyone pulled close to me in a large RV I checked to see if there was a way out for my rig, if I decided to leave on the spur of the moment. But it was comfortable there and I ended up staying two weeks. And the following weekend, many of the French Canadians all left at the same time, like they were all traveling together, leaving a lot of open park space. They did have a really big party in the meeting hall that Friday night, dancing, boozing, singing, lots of noisy fun for them it seemed, but they didn’t invite any of the rest of us. That’s OK, many of the rest of us just hung out in the heated pool. I’m told, and I’ve read that French Canadians are not very friendly as a group but they seemed OK to me while they were here.

Oh, did I mention that this RV park is also a big fancy water park? With pools of heated water and water slides and a very large wading pool for kids? There are hot springs that supply this area and this place uses thousands of gallons a day. They empty one or two of their pools every night and refill them before the next morning. And it’s the second park using hot springs water. There is a public park up the road just a hundred yards that does too. I looked around for a volcano or similar but never found anything nearby that might be the source of the heated water. When it gets here to the park its only around 104°F so it must travel quite a ways underground first. Loosing some heat along the way.

A look south toward the lake. The water park dumps it's pool water into it every night.

Another shot of the RV park portion of the property.

The park also rents rooms. These are about half of those available.

And some more rooms for rent.

And the first set of swimming pools, all with heated water.

One of the large pools.

The water slide area. Also supplied with warm water. It's the off season right now so it's not open.

Even the heated kiddies wading pool portion is huge.

A giant, kid swallowing, whale.

And another pool for kids.

On the other side of the small hill, the other portion of the water slide section.

While walking to town to market, I couldn't help but notice this giant catus growing next to a tree. Huge!

And a random shot towards the lake...the lake that was a nursury for billions of Deet resistance blood sucking bugs. Damn that lake!

The mosquitos from this lake are really nasty. First, Deet doesn’t seem to faze them, then their bite is very painful when you notice it. The welt is larger then most, with a big lump, a red swelling surrounded by a ring of white, then another ring of red around that, and it itches enough so that you scratch which causes oozing. You need to have an anti-biotic salve to spread on it several times over the next couple days to keep it from itching to much. And you’ll have many more bites then are comfortable. I would have stayed even longer at this resort if it hadn’t been for the mosquito. They mostly come at dusk, right when you’ve wandered over to the patio for the WiFi. So if you’re not wearing long pants and long sleeve shirt (in balmy Mexico), you get eaten alive. But they come all during the day and into the night. Bahh. But I adjusted and learned to live with them for the two weeks I stayed at Chimulco Trailer Park. They did chase me inside early a few times, the little bastards.

I did enjoy the area and walked into town several times. Villa Corona is a typical Mexican village. Not a single American fast food or big box business to be found. Small, family run stores, a Wednesday street market, and a large town square bordered by a very old and ornate church. I came here often to enjoy the shade of what must be a several hundred year old tree. And then the vendors all over the place where you can get luncherio, dinner, a vegetable snack, fresh squeezed juice drink, or a bag of cut fruit any time.

The streets of town are not very wide and without street signs, except for an occasional small metal or painted street sign up on the side of a building at a street crossing. But not at every corner. On some corners not a single sign. I had a map, but if I forgot to count the streets I crossed, I could miss my destination.  Still, charming, and typically Mexican. I went to several shops and stores and enjoyed the time doing so. But Mexico is not backward. You can find, eventually, anything you need there, just like back home. If a local here needs something special they can just drive into Guadalajara and find it there.

Heading into town...Villa Corona.

There are some very nice properties here in Corona.

At the village market.

This style market goes on for many blocks where you can find nearly everything you need. Not always though, I could have used some ‘C’ sized batteries but no one had any Alkaline type.

I did find 1 kilo bags (2.2lbs) of cut vegetables for under $2 US. Fill the bag with water when I get home, drop in 8 drops of Microdyn anti-bacterial drops, and viola’, fresh vegis for a salad. Yummm.

The water parks Splash Factory.

I arrived on a Sunday afternoon, got use to the place and settled into a routine of early morning WiFi on the office patio, wandering around, sometimes into town, back onto my patio at the RV for reading, then back to the office patio in the evening for more WiFi, followed by a soak in the heated pool before bed.

The following Saturday morning, I hear this occasional horn. I thought it was from a cruise vessel out on the lake. Then when I wander over to the patio with my computer, I see that it’s coming from this giant water ‘Splash Factory’. And soon the pool to the right of this large assembly was filling up with kids. See those buckets above? They are filling with water. Then the horn blows just before they’re dumped. The kids jump out of the pool and get into the splash zone of the dumped buckets. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of water sprays going off. Sprays, streams, twirlers, showers.

The bucket dumps...and this is the small bucket.

Just about time for the big bucket to dump. The horn has sounded.

Big bucket dumps.

These shots were taken early in the day, and as the day wore on, more and more families showed up from the surrounding village and joined in the fun. There were around 100 kids there later that evening. The heated pools just to the right and just to the left of the Splash factory were crowded while kids waited for the buckets to dump. This is winter for the locals so they are use to much hotter weather, and even though it was 75°F, they like to hang out in the heated pools.

The Centro tree. Looks hundreds of years old.

The town square is a typical village meeting place. Every Mexican village has one. There is always a church associated with the centro…unless the village is too small.

The plaza.

And the nearby church.

This is the front of the church, but it doesn't face the Centro. Unusual in my expirience.

So, that’s the end of the pictures from Villa Corona and the Chimulco Trailer Park. I stayed another week and enjoyed the place immensely.  It is a little off the beaten track but that’s OK, I can shop at a bigger store when I go back to Guadalajara and try to find that RV park I missed coming into town.

The quota road south of Chihuahua is in excellent shape and I had an easy day of it. I was a little worried about my trip plans for the day because to reach the only available RV park in Lardo, I had to negotiate some difficult narrow roads and sharp turns right in the middle of that big town. Then the park was really just a hotel with some 15amp outlets where they often forgot about the RV’ers and turned off the outlets when they closed for the night. And their price seemed a little high for the facilities and the crowded, probably noisy, area. Just a parking lot really, according to the guide book. But I had committed my brain to staying there so it came as a surprise that I got to the decision-to-enter-the-city-or-not point so early in the day, shortly before 2pm, when I prefer to travel to 5pm. Well, it’s an adventure so I passed the turnoff to the hotel and crossed my fingers that I’d be able to find a RV park in Zacatecas. I figured if I couldn’t, I could always stay at another 24 hour Pemex. According to my calculations, I should be able to get there before 7pm, it was the time of year that dusk occurred at 6:30pm. I didn’t care to be driving in Mexico in the dark but I felt a Pemex would be available just before town.

But after around 60 miles I’m shocked to discover that I’d missed my turn onto Mex 49 and was heading toward Durango instead of Zacatecas! I’d stayed on Mex 40 instead of taking the Mex 49 ramp. My laptop on the dash had yelled at me, ‘Off Route’, several times but I’d ignored it’s pleas until it calculated a new route and shut up. I had no plans to go to Durango, it was not anywhere in my pre-arranged destination maps in MS Streets & Trips and I didn’t know anything about RV parks there but here I was heading for it. When I discovered my error, I was too far along to turn back so crossed my fingers and hoped there would be a place to stay for the night.

Late in the day, around 5:30, I come upon a nice 24 hour Pemex just outside Durango and just a couple miles from a turn off that I now knew would be the road I’d need to take the next morning. I filled up and got help from the attendant to get cash from my debit card, which wasn’t working at the ATM machine. This happens sometimes in Mexico since the ATM’s are not all tied into each others networks. What the attendant did was have me pay for my diesel first (the Pemex system took my card fine) then had the gal rerun it for another $400 pesos. Then he took that paper and kept it but handed me the $400. Now with cash, I could get some dinner. I already had a little but not enough to be comfortable if I needed fuel at a Pemex that only took cash.

The Pemex was so convenient I didn’t even need to go into town. Nice restroom, a store, and a restaurant. And the weather wasn’t very nice,  not the kind of day to walk around town, so I parked with the truckers. Ate a nice dinner in the little restaurant there for $70 pesos and wandered around for a bit. Came back to the RV and recalculated a new route to Guadalajara from Durango. While doing that I found that the accidental Durango excursion would add 70 miles to my trip. Couldn’t really find anything in the guidebooks about Durango that was very interesting so didn’t feel any need to visit. Turned in at 10pm and read for a couple hours. I don’t use the heat usually because of the energy used makes it a hassle but I do have two heavy blankets to keep warm. It is pretty cool in the evenings here, dipping down to 40°F at night but getting up to 75°F during the day. I am in the mountains and that’s not a surprise, though many I’ve talked to about Mexico think that the entire country is hot all  the time. Not true.

That morning was dark and cold. But little rain fell on me this portion of the trip.

I’m around 4500 feet where the above picture was taken. It’s a four lane highway with few villages along the way. It’s surprising considering how good the countryside looks, I’d have expected many villages along the way but that wasn’t the case. But the towns I passed, like Chihuahua, were huge, spreading out over vast areas. But they have lots of room, so, no worries.

Here I am parked with the truckers around 6pm.

As night fell, more and more trucks eventually boxed me in so I couldn’t have gone anywhere if I’d wanted to. But that’s OK, I wasn’t in that big of a hurry anyway, though the next day I’d be getting to Guadalajara late in the day, I felt I had it under control with a S&T map showing a new route.

Next morning, dew drips off the RV. And there is almost room for me to get out.

I was boxed in pretty well, so I had to back up 60-80 feet to get out of there but a couple Mexican drivers were behind me talking so they gave me directions during the maneuvers.

One of the small villages along the road south.

Finally, some nice weather. But I'm at 6,000 feet here. Can't last.

Ahh, there we go...snow on the ground. At this point I'm at 7700 feet.

Heading towards Guadalajara I kept getting higher and higher (the GPS sensor shows altitude), and it kept getting colder and colder. Storm clouds kept rolling in and I began to wonder if I shouldn’t have just gone down the west coast to Mazatlan and enjoyed balmy weather instead?

Eventually, I got to Guadalajara and sure enough, the poor road signs and MS S&T led me astray so I got lost and ended going close to downtown. One of the guide book warnings was to stay on the periferico around the city, what there is of it, because the Guad cops like to ticket RV’s for being in the wrong place. Guad doesn’t have a circle road all the way around like most Mexican towns do so I must have missed an exit or something. I was trying to skirt the town by following the Airport signs but that was only a minor help. Eventually, the S&T program with the GPS got me on the right road (after putting me on the wrong one to begin with) and I headed south of town trying to find the San Jose RV Park. Because of the trouble, I got there around 5:30 and there was a fiesta going on around the couple of small restaurants that are there on the park grounds so I got boxed in by cars and confused by the lack of signs and made a turn onto the road that went to the exit. The highway was one way, I hadn’t found the entrance to the park, but I did see signs that indicated I was in the right place, the only road that could have been the entrance was marked ‘Private’, and since I thought I knew where the next park was, I just skipped trying to loop around to find the San Jose park and headed out of town towards the Chimulco Trailer Park in Villa Corona. Now my GPS program was doing well and I followed that as it got dark.

What I didn’t know was that the program was leading me to the wrong place…as given me by the park. I’d emailed them about what were incorrect GPS coordinates in my guide book, I could tell from the map that they put me in the middle of a town but the description did not say that would happen, and they sent back what they said were GPS coordinates from Google Earth. Well, when plugged into the mapping program they did take me up a road, not to the middle of a field so I trusted them. Although it was dark, I kept on until I got where S&T sent me and found…nothing but a power relay station. No houses, no RV park, no street lights, no traffic, out in the boondocks. In the dark, in Mexico.

Well, thinking it was just a mile or two beyond, I headed up the road and could see the lights of a small village against the hills off in the distance. I knew I was not going to find the RV park there. So I looked for a turn around spot. When I found it, I turned in, started to back up across the narrow two lane road and felt the RV sink in the back end. Aware of the dangerous cliffs next to roads all over Mexico, I jump out of the RV and ran back and looked…too dark to be sure of anything, and I didn’t want to attempt backing up any further. I’d already tried to drive out and couldn’t so I just grabbed my flashlight and waved down the cars that started to arrive, guiding them around the front of the RV.  One guy stopped and told me in English that he’d come back to help. Then the traffic started to get heavy and it’s all I can do to keep it moving around the front of the RV where there was just enough room for one vehicle at a time.

Then two guys in a pickup pull up and offered to help. One of the guys spoke English and he started directing traffic while his friend wandered back to the back of my still running rig to check things out. My flashlight was growing dim so I asked the guy if he could call a tow truck, a big one, and the cops to direct traffic. He did and let me know that the tow truck would take 2 hours to get there and the cops in a half hour. About that time I started to smell something burning and worried that the engine heat was starting the tall grass near the rear of the rig on fire. That’s all I needed, to burn up my RV. While I was looking for flames the friend poking around the back came up and told us that I could back up some more, that it was flat back there…to get a run at getting the RV up the ledge along the side of the road. The other guy volunteered to try it, jumped in the drivers seat and with my directions for shifting, worried the RV up the incline and over into the turn around spot. There we parked for a few minutes while all the traffic cleared both lanes and it grew dark & quiet again. I asked him where all those people came from all of a sudden and he tells me that a big race had just finished and everyone was going home. Just my luck. I explain I’m looking for an RV park and he tells me to follow him, it’s only 5 kilometers away.

Off we go to Villa Corona and they stop at a turn and tell me to go to the ‘T’ turn right and it’s up the road. Not ‘just up the road’ but ‘up the road’. I should have asked because I thought it was 3-4 miles. They also mentioned it would probably be closed now that it was 8:30 or so. Well, I tried to find it in the darkness, but drove by the place and went beyond by 3 miles, turning in a steep driveway, the RV slowwwwwly climbing back up the driveways hill making me sweat a little. Who wants to get stuck twice in one night?

By now I’m not in a good mood, hungry, tired of driving, and flustered, and I stop in front of a darkened, gated business to get my bearings. It turned out to be the RV park when I returned the next day. It was closed, but I’d just have had to wander in and find someone to unlock the gate. But from where I was, it all looked so dark I couldn’t tell it was an RV park. And their sign did not ring any bells. I couldn’t find the right page in my guide book either. So after 10 minutes of frustration, I figured I could drive back and stay at a Pemex I’d spotted on the way in.

Backtracking to the highway, I found I was forced to turn right and soon I was at a Quota station. I tried to get though but discovered I hadn’t enough pesos. But as luck would have it, there were some cops there, one spoke English, I found from him that the ATM I needed was 5 kilometers back towards Guad, and that I could spend the night there at the quota station (toll booth).

Since I was very hungry, I decided to just spend the night there and try again in the morning. That would allow me to find the ATM (which was at a Pemex) in the daylight and then find the RV park too. And I needed the cash. After a nice dinner, I just read and turned in early.

Parked at the toll station for the night. This is the next morning after that double semi boxed me in so tight I had to wait for him to move.

As luck would have it, the next morning I was a little boxed in by all the truckers taking a break. I noticed a sign that said parking one hour but nobody had disturbed me during the night so I just expect people exceed the limit as needed. I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of eggs and bacon while I waited for the trucks to clear, but if they didn’t I did have an escape route, until a double semi drove in and parked right next to me. I’d just started eating and since it was 9:30am, I expected he was there for the banos (bathroom) and wouldn’t stay long. He didn’t leave until 11.

When he cleared out, off I went to the Pemex with it’s ATM, following the new directions S&T was showing me. And the picture signs along the way. With food in my belly and cash in my hand, I headed back to Villa Corona and back down the street I’d been on the night before, turned at the ‘T’ and a couple yards later could see the RV’s all parked inside the fence. It had been to dark the night before to see any of that. Finally, my destination, sort of. And I spent the next two weeks at Chimulco. Nice spot except for the huge welts I got from whatever kind of superbug mosquito they have here. Even the Deet didn’t phase them. More on this park later.