Living in Mexico.

I finally headed into Mexico Jan. 31, 2006 on a sunny warm day. I entered at Naco, Arizona/Mexico. I had to go get the US customs agent to unlock the gate for RVs. The regular opening guy was suppose to be there at nine but still wasn’t there at 9:30. The car route was way to small for my rig.

After crossing the boarder, I stopped at the first official looking building…perhaps 25 feet inside the gate, and a young female guard asked me (nicely) if she could come into the rig and inspect. Not a problem. Anyway, she looked around quickly but I noticed that she didn’t bother to open the door to the back bedroom! I could have had 10 people in there. The door was held closed with a bungee cord so it wouldn’t bang around while driving but not hard to open.

After that quick inspection, she tells me to go to a building across the street but I should park first. I ask her if it’s OK to back up the rig and park in some spots behind me and she indicates yes. So I start the rig and promptly back the rig into a sign that wasn’t high enough for my rig. A guard walks out and tells me that I should go park across and up the street a couple hundred feet. Doesn’t mention the damage to the sign and neither do I. So I drive over and park. Grab all my credentials and wander back to the boarder.

I go into the office, hand the guy my passport and he says, “We can’t let you enter the country with this”. My chin drops. Then he flashes a smile and says, “Until you sign it senor!”. Whew. So I sign it and he tells me to go outside, up the street and get a stamp on the entrance documents after paying $21. So I go out and search for the ‘banco’ to do that. Passed a street kid asking for money. Didn’t give him any. Turned into an alcove and found what looked like a bank…she says, ‘Nope not here, up the road farther’. I pass the kid with the can again. Don’t give him anything. Get to a bus stop with three girls waiting. Ask them. They think they know and call the kid with the can to guide me. He takes me back to the place I’d already been to, wrong place. She tells the kid in Spanish where to take me. He guides me back around the girls, chattering to them in Spanish, and into the correct place. Inside they finish my paperwork, stamp it and collect my money. I wander back (you’re suppose to go back) and give the kid a couple bucks as I pass him. He seems happy. I return to the boarder station, the agent checks it over and says, ‘Welcome to Mexico’.

So I start out going south from Naco, Mexico generally heading to the west coast. I haven’t any special destination in mind but from my reading the west coast will be the safest and quickest way to get familiar with Mexico and it’s people.

My first picture in Mexico, heading due south:

So I passed though a small town in the desert mountains, Cananea, with the regular old Mexican building style and spot a couple clean cut young men a couple hundred yards up the road. I can see them talking and flashing smiles as they happily threw out their thumbs for a ride from me. Probably joking, and probably very surprised that I stopped to pick them up. I don’t speak a word of Spanish and they don’t speak a word of English. But we had a great time playing at trying to understand each other. They turned out to be nice young men on the way to Magdelena. They had hard hats and indicated that they were miners. I handed them an English to Spanish translation sheet and the best they came up with was asking me if I had a ‘wiff’. No, I say, I don’t have a ‘wife’ but did have two bambinos. (Italian I know). They got a 100 mile free ride and I got some company.

After Magdalena I start hitting toll roads. They’re everywhere down here. The feds contract out to road building companies and then don’t pay them. The contractors set up toll roads to pay for it all. Lots of left over corruption from the PRI days. And they’re still around. Or so I was told by a local. One thing, there is always a toll road bypass maintained by the government. Usually an old two lane road. So far, when I’ve been able to find the bypass, they have been fine, just require a little more effort to stay on the road and try to remember to slow down for the topes.

The first day I made it to Guaymas, and the recommended park was full. So I head to the coast and found another place. It was also full. So I stayed in a little crummy campground that was asking $22 USD per night. Not worth it. Owners really needs a good spanking for ripping people off. It was right next door the full place that was cleaner, had cable TV with US channels, free WiFi, better in all respects for $20 USD per night.

Got this shot as I was leaving a place nearby along the coast…it was also full:

Here’s a shot of the beach near where I stayed looking West:

A shot looking west toward the RV park, under that yellow sign:

The next morning, I headed south on Mexico 15 (M15) towards Los Mochis and arrived there around 3:30pm, stopping at a WalMart. Found a cash machine there and got my pesos (dollars are OK in Sonora county) and found beer on sale. I spent the night in a campground nearby M15. This whole day was uneventful so I didn’t take any pictures.

The 3rd morning in Mexico I left the park early and headed to Mazatlan using the M15 Free route. It was a little dicey in places, I almost ran the rig off a 12″ high road edge for instance, but I recovered and made good time. I passed through several small villages with the traditional Mexican open air business along side the road but it never worked out that I was hungry when I found an interesting place to stop. I did see the stereotypical Mexican wearing a sombero sitting on a two wheeled cart pulled by a donkey once.

I arrived slightly north of Mazatlan City around 4:30pm and found the RV park I was told about the night before. It is newer then most here, pleasant, has WiFi and nice flat spaces, and is near the beach. After checking in and trying to set up my satellite dish, unsuccessfully, I go to bed with cool ocean breezes drifting through the RV. B-t-w, this park only takes pesos, no cards, and I only had around $300p. So I give the guy $200p. Next morning I head for the beach north looking for a bar that will be open for the Superbowl. No luck at the 3 places I stopped at, they didn’t even have TVs. But I got some beach pictures and spent an hour soaking up sun and wading in the water (kinda cool for swimming).

Here’s my first shot of the beach at Mazatlan, this is right next to several small business and this turn around is the furthest north, no road after here:

There’s an island way out there:

A view of ‘Hotel Row’ in Mazatlan. I’m on the northern edge of Mazatlan’s beach here:

By now, you’re asking yourself, “Were there any people on the beach in that 75F weather?”, here’s the shot that tells you:

Not on the beach.

Oh, wait, looks like people over there on the rocks…

Yep, there they are. There were more people later.