Had some fun there in Amado Arizona, and also got some chores done the week I was there. Bought 90 days of insurance for both vehicles (nearly $500) from Lewis & Lewis online, went to Nogales, AZ and bought $2,000 pesos cash to have on hand during the trip and nearby, had an appointment to have Kwan the Kat’s rabies shot updated and got a certificate for it to show at the border if asked for (it wasn’t). Also did some last minute shopping at the local Walmart there in Nogales. And the biggie, contacting my Credit Union and getting it in writing via secure email that they understood I’d be traveling into Mexico all the way down to Mazatlan. If I go further the that, I’ll let them know. It has sometimes been a bit of a problem in the past.
In the Nogales area there are two border crossings. I’ve crossed at both in the past, the one downtown Nogales, and the Mariposa truck crossing. Both with a 36′ RV but this recent one with a car attached. The downtown one was easy, but you do have to drive in downtown type tight quarters for 2-3 miles after negotiating the difficult crossing area. But I made it without damage. Back then, (5 years ago), they had a dog sniff my RV and someone came aboard to look around. Easy.
But most RV’s cross at the Mariposa truck crossing and that’s what I did the day I headed into Mexico. It’s confusing now in year 2020 as you enter the crossing area as the US side has a big STOP sign that says, “Wait for Officer” and no officer ever shows up. You wait and wait and then all the cars behind you start beeping because they’re trying to get to work. And there was a different big sign that pointed to a ‘TRUCKS’ entrance but didn’t say a word about RVs or Buses, or any keyword I’d become use to seeing for big vehicles like mine. So I turned left without waiting for an officer. Very tight, nasty tight, crunch your RV tight first left, than a short distance from there, sharp right followed by another left. I slowly made my way through the route without damage tho. I should have turned right to the truck road, maybe it would have been wider. To late for that tho.
Eventually I made it. Negotiated around the sharp corners and tight lanes to get to a 2 lane road. Still no American official in sight. Off I went on the road and started picking up speed. And got flagged down by a Mexican who got me to stop a half mile down the road, walked up to my window, and pointed to the sign that indicated the route I should take to get to San Carlos. He was worried that I might take the wrong road into the Mexican city Nogales. He could tell from the earlier thing I did that I might need help and he wanted to make sure I kept left at the upcoming Y in the road. Very nice of him.
I followed his directions. Whew. Stupid American border crossing signage is stupid. They really don’t give a shit about RV’ers. Give them no help with signage, wider lanes, or properly courteous border guards. Treat everyone like a criminal when you do have to interact with them. I’ve found this at practically every border crossing. They always seem to be pissed about something. And found the opposite on the Mexican side. Except for narrow lanes at the crossings, the Mexican crossings are much nicer for travelers, and the officials are polite.
Well, anyway, I made it past that bottleneck and a few miles on, was stopped for an inspection. Now I expected them to check my freezer and refer and confiscate over 20 lbs of frozen and fresh food I’d foolishly bought back in Yuma forgetting about the import restrictions but the guy didn’t even open the refer or freezer. Yea! So then I headed off to the KM21 import station. This is where you get a visa if you plan on going more than 200 KMs into the country. I was heading for Mazatlan, so yea, I needed one. Note that if you forget to stop here? You can get your visa at nearly any bank in the country, and it’s not a big deal. The vehicle tags are a bit more difficult but you should be able to get them in any big town.
In addition to the visa, this was my first trip that deep into the country with this RV so I needed the 10 year RV sticker and the first time with a car so I needed to get a car sticker. What happens is that at KM21 the entrance into their parking area is a blind spot for me for some reason and I drove up to it at 40 odd miles per hour, saw it coming up a bit late and had to stomp on the brakes when I saw the sign. Came to a complete stop, then carefully backed up. I had checked behind me as I was emergency stopping and there wasn’t anyone back there, whew.
Turned in, parked, grabbed all my documents and went to the first check in. So the border official asks me some questions, than hands me a document, tells me to go get copies and to continue to the visa windows. Walk over to the copy guy, and he copies all my stuff…DL, both registrations, Passport. Pay the guy, walk over to the ‘import’ and visa station. Stand in line. Nervous that something will be screwed up and I’ll be blocked by the 30 or so people that got off a tour bus and were right behind at that first office. ANNNDDDD sure enough, I’d brought the wrong registration for the car. I had the expired one. So had to trudge back to the car, got the new one, trudged back, got a new set of copies, and HEY, all those people were gone! Yea! They just needed visitor visas not vehicle passes.
Back at the import window, and the guy takes what seems like forever for everything. But it turns out that after finishing, only 45 minutes had past. And my CC has a new $360 charge to it to guarantee that I’ll return my car and not sell it in Mexico. A bit steep as it should have been around $200 for a 2001 car. Well, whatever, they are good at refunding to your card.
Everything straightened out so off I head to San Carlos. It used to take from here to San Carlos around 6 hours, but there’s a new bypass around Hermosillo that saves an hour so I took that. Easy to find the bypass now too. Big ass sign and just a smooth left off the 15D where it used to be convoluted. So convoluted that a few years ago I missed it completely. This time, it was easy to find. The road is new, nice and smooth cement, and no blockages at all. Really saved some time. Driving through Hermosillo before wasn’t fun but not too bad. Just a lot of stop and go. Still, I’m much happier bypassing the city.
And here I’m going to show some pictures of that first day traveling in Mexico. The weather was mild most of the trip even tho those clouds looked ominous.
Didn’t seem to take long what with bypassing Hermosillo to arrive in San Carlos. I stayed at one of my least favorite RV parks in Mexico the Totonaka. I’m so sick of their excuses. The place was built so long ago the 50 amp service I got was screwed up but I don’t recall why, had to connect to a different power tower with just 30 amp and the 30 amp was usable but that’s not what I’d paid for. The freakin’ cable has NEVER worked in the almost 20 years I’ve been coming there. They drag out a small 12″ TV and hook it up right at the source behind your RV and it’s OK as expected, but you get it into the RV and it sucks. It’s always been that way when I’ve stayed there. And this year, DirecTV has been having satellite problems at this latitude so I don’t have satellite either. Gah. Well, enough of that, here’s a few pics of the drive into San Carlos on the towns long 8 mile driveway. Sometimes 5 lanes wide. Pretty fancy. And palms lining the road too. It didn’t end up being as developed on either side of the road as they expected.
So I get there to Totonaka at 3:43 instead of 5 or 6 like I have in the past before using the bypass and I head to my spot and the guy had sent me to a 25 footer space. WTH? He’s worked here for decades and still doesn’t know the park. So I head back and get 4 more choices but I take the one right next to the office so I might have an opportunity to have half way decent wifi. This pic on the left of the row of trees is back in the back of the RV park showing the rentals they have. The pic to the right is a long view of the park from the temporary parking spot for RVs outside the office. And the rest of the pics are from the facilities right across the courtyard from where my RV is parked. Followed by a few pics of the area.
It is a decent looking resort type place but really, I’ve been unhappy about the place for years because of it’s antiquated infrastructure…and there’s no where else to go in the area and this park is about as far as I want to drive the first day in Mexico. And the owner’s never around to talk to of course.
I paid for 3 nights here just to have the time to make sure my cards are working, and my insurance is active, maybe get my back up phone working and all the other reasons and sure enough, there was an email from Lewis & Lewis Insurance saying I hadn’t signed something. WTF? So researched it, found that they had screwed up, and shot them an email. And got an apology back. Dumbasses.
Went to an Oxxo and bought $100 peso of air time for my phone, only to discover it didn’t register with Telcel on my phone. At least that’s what I thought at the time. They wouldn’t give me a refund either. Another $5.40 US gone.
——————————————————————————————-
And since I have a car now, I decided I should practice my driving a little in San Carlos before I try to drive in Maz so off I went…
I only went a few miles west and north of where I’m staying but this is an area I’ve never visited before because I never had a car with me before and taking a tour in a taxi in this tourist town is hellishly expensive. But anyway…those pics are of the coast and the bays that have over the last 100 years or so become the homes of many Americans and Canadians. Here you’ll find the history of the best and the worst of the ‘condo’ scams. It’s kinda settled down now but there’s still reason to be extra careful about buying a condo anywhere in Mexico. I’ve heard stories, man, stories that would curl your toes.
Next day, walked across the street for a Pina Colada at the nearby restaurant and of course they over charged, charging $150 pesos most likely because I didn’t order any food. That’s just about twice what it’s worth in most of the country.
And after 3 nights, it was time to head on south. It’s an 8 hour trip and I had my sights on staying at a RV park around half way there. And when I got there, it didn’t match what I’d seen on Google Earth at all! WTF…as I slowly drove past the area, confused by the seeming non-existence of a turn off like I expected to see. Then my gps (both of them) kept telling me to turn back like I’d missed the turn but there wasn’t anywhere to turn around that a 36 foot RV towing a car could for the next couple miles. A couple miles past where I thought it was, I finally gave up and just headed on down the freeway. Over an hour later, I stopped for fuel, saw that they had over night truck parking and asked if it was OK if I stayed? Sure…so here is where I spent the night.
It’s a Pemex station in the middle of somewhere around 3 hours from Mazatlan. In the pic you can see both of my chairs were setup. That’s because I invited the truck drivers to sit as they pulled in, had their trucks washed by the locals, and then headed on to Maz. No one I talked to spoke English but they brought up that they all hate that ahole in the WH and conveyed it well even without speaking English.
I indicated to one of the drivers that I’d like to follow him into Maz though signs and grunts but that was a no go for some reason with him, probably because he’d be going past, or some odd route. He later did find someone that was leaving that they said I could follow but I was tired, had had a couple beers by then and decided, fuk, I’ll just spend the night. BTW, I offered a couple of the drivers I met a beer and they all refused because they were driving…so I stopped asking.
When night fell, most of the semis had gotten washed and moved on so I basically had the place to myself. There were a couple trucks left in the lot though so I wasn’t entirely alone there. The Pemex was closed but the Oxxo was open all night. The truck drivers came in an out all night I suppose as I heard several but I was asleep most of it so I don’t know for sure. But, did not have any problems. Had a simple but good dinner from the local open air diner (paid for by one of the drivers) around 6 pm just before they pulled out and I went to bed at 9 pm, read my book for 2 hours, and then sleepy time.
Next morning, took my time getting up, carefully backed out of my space (with a car attached it can be dangerous for your equipment), and headed on south. And here’s where it’s maddening…the tolls keep getting bigger and bigger, but the freakin’ road the tolls pay for get worse and worse! And I ran out of pesos. I should have gotten $4000 instead of the $2000. At one toll booth, I stopped short, walked up to the office (all the toll stations have an office, some have Oxxos too), and bought pesos at $17.30 exchange rate. But that still didn’t get me enough to make it all the way to Maz. What happened at the next to last and the last toll booth though is that they take debit and credit cards. So that saved the day as I used my card.
And soon enough, took the shortcut to the Las Jaibas Trailer Park in Cerritos, which is just slightly north of Maz proper…part of the suburbs. I’d checked with them via email and they had spaces. When I got there, was surprised that most of the park is empty. Huh. So I get a 30 amp space and there’s an empty space right next to my RV to park my car in. AND, it turns out with my equipment, I can stream TV on the wifi connection.
And that’s it. I’ve now been here in Maz for 2 weeks and already have some adventures under my belt. I’ll post about them next time Meanwhile, thanks for visiting…and here’s a parting shot of my RV all set up in beautiful Mazatlan:
Next time, we’ll explore some of Maz, take a catamaran cruise, and bike ride a bit.
Thanks for reading!