I’d initially stayed free at Kiki’s for 12 days, than I paid for 3 additional days, meanwhile, I had asked around the camp to see if anyone had a suggestion for a park with better Wifi. And sure enough, I got a lead on a camp just south of the malecon. I went and visited and it’s just right for me. And they had a space big enough for my RV with the slides out, along with 50 amp service. It’s being remodeled so most everything is new. Wifi checked out too. So I reserved a spot and moved in the next day. And now, I have been here 8 days at Campo San Felipe, enjoying my stay, especially the fast WiFi that allowed using Netflix, when the situation changed. I had figured on only staying a week to 10 days here and then head on over to Ensanada. But that’s not what happened…
What happened was that the Mexican government sold their Pemex stations to private operators. This was to satisfy provisions of NAFTA. Thing is, the government had been artificially keeping the fuel prices low, below Mexico’s costs of production and distribution. And it had been that way for years. Plus they often have to buy gas from the US to keep up with demand and had been subsidizing that too. The citizens of Mexico strongly objected to the coming increases in fuel prices and started protesting. Soon there were shortages all over Mexico from hoarding, and thousands of stations ran out of fuel. Others were blocked by protesters, many were vandalized causing closures.
And that’s why I went ahead and paid for a full month here. With good WiFi, 50 amp service, and a beautiful RV park and surroundings, I didn’t really give up anything other than my wanderlust. Even then, I can wait for the fuel crisis to blow over and leave later. End of January when my monthly rent terminates would be a fine time.
Here in San Felipe, I’m told there was a small march through town protesting the higher fuel prices, and once I saw a truck load of marines hanging out at a Pemex, but that’s all that happened. Of course, all the stations in town ended up without any fuel but that lasted just a few days. I’m told by ex-pats living here that they will have fuel again today, and there’s not going to be any lines the day after. So, my plan to wait it out, worked. I still have 1/2 tank of gas in my car. And 3/4 tank in my RV. I could make it up to the border in the RV easy enough on that amount if the shortage drags on too long or returns.
And here’s a few more shots of the Campo San Felipe campground…the weather has been a bit chilly this year but the sun does come out from under the clouds on a regular basis.
Looking towards town. The malecon starts right at the building with the red roof on the left in the distance.
Looking north towards the lighthouse…I took many pictures of it from Kiki’s campground. That campground is about a mile further on around that spit of land. The beach is back from the sea enough that you can walk from the RV park I’m in now, all the way to Kiki’s without worrying about the tide too much. But as you can see, a bit of the travel would be over rocks rather than sand. But people do it all the time…you can sit on the malecon and watch them pick their way around that spit jumping from rock to rock. One time I saw some seals sunbathing on them.
And a couple shots looking south. Although there appears to be quite the buildup, actually, many of those developments stopped construction before completion because of the boom & bust nature of the economy here in San Felipe, being so close to the US. There’s many multi-million peso buildings here that were just abandoned before they were finished. They’re the ‘condos’ and ‘time shares’ people are getting suckered by all the time. The one off in the distance in this photo is one of those that was never finished. 
Right now my plan is to stay here in San Felipe until Jan. 28th when my rent is up, and then head over to the Pacific coast, work my way down to Cabo, over to La Paz, pausing as I find fun places to stay. And then in April, reverse the trip and head back to the US as Mexico gets too hot starting in May or June.
One thing that happened here at Campo SF is that I’d wake up in the mornings and a couple times I see from the clock in the MW that the power had gone off during the night. Not a big deal really, but then it started happening during the day. Shutting down my computer while I was using it!
Found from the Progressive EMS display that the fault was the voltage would creep up to 133 Vac, which would cause a shutdown. OK, talked to management. Showed them the fault on the display. Showed them that I had no power because of it. They went around and found the high voltage all over the park so they couldn’t just move me somewhere else. So after having my power drop out multiple times per day as the overvoltage grew more common, the owner eventually hired a high voltage electrical contractor to change the tap on the power transformer to lower the voltage. Took several days of me gently cajoling the owner and telling him how many times my power had gone out during the previous 24 hours. Note that most RVers wouldn’t know this overvoltage was happening until they had a CB pop. It’s not good for electrical and electronic devices to have an overvoltage or undervoltage situation. They’re not designed for it.
And here they are at work. I’m use to the electrical power guys looking a bit more professional but that’s what you see in the US, not here.
The truck and cherry picker looked like they’d seen better days.
Kind of a mess up there. They had the city turn off the high voltage so they could work up there.
Wild, huh?
Over there is the AT&T cell phone tower. Use to be Telcel but AT&T is buying them up.
So after the work was done on the power, which took much of the day, they powered up, and the voltage was reading 130 Vac. A bit on the high side, but very close to the 8% overage (129.6 Vac) allowed by most electrical equipment. The Progressive EMS allows it to creep up to 133 Vac before shutting down, but I was happy with the lower voltage of 130.
After power was restored and things were getting back to normal, noticed that the WiFi was whacko. The power guys did something and it shut off, maybe caused an arc or something that blasted the modem. When it was back up after they restored power, it was repeatedly dropping out, running too slow, sending error messages. That took nearly 2 days to get back running correctly. The internet company had to come out and do something to it.
And the day after the AC voltage had been lowered, I’m sitting at my computer and power goes off. GAH! Not again!
So I run out and check the Progressive display and this time, it’s seeing LOW voltage. Down to 108 Vac. Minimum would be 113. Damnit! Here’s the deal though…if I complain and have management move the tap back up, I’d likely have more drops than if I left it alone. But since it’s going to keep getting warmer, eventually becoming AC running season, it’s possible it may become a whole different issue. Brown outs of that magnitude can and do destroy ACs. The many ACs being used around the area might drop it too low on average and who wants to be without power when you need to be running the AC? I’ll have to keep this all in mind and be ready to move on to a different area if the power issue keeps reoccurring. The last 7 days I haven’t had any dropouts though so it may have resolved itself. And the Wifi is great again.
The next morning, Carlos of Carlos Wash And Wax [686-152-0481] showed up with his son and tackled the wash and wax job I’d asked for my roof. I’d seen pictures by another owner of the same Journey model with the fiberglass roof, and he’d waxed it. It really looked nice, all shiny, and the wax does act as a protectant. So I had asked him several days ago when I was still over at Kiki’s RV park if he’d be interested in the job. He’d never done one before so took a few days to come up with a quote of $35. I was very happy with that. He and his son do very good work. And here he is applying a nice wax coating. After 40 minutes of letting it dry he goes up and hand buffs it.
The RV is backed up right into the palapa preventing the attachment of my ladder extension so Carlos had to use his own. It prevented my being able to climb up there and inspect after they finished and left with it but they always do good work and I’m not worried.
As the son finished the roof, Carlos watered and wiped down my car for me. It was getting a bit dusty since he’d washed and waxed it a couple weeks previous. So with the roof, the car, and my appreciation, I paid them $60 USD. The roof alone would have been $200 in the US in many areas of the country. 
That’s all from San Felipe for now. Next post in just a couple days though…so stay tuned!
And thanks for reading.