Chaos Leaves Town

After I left Uxmal, I traveled south just a few kilometers to what’s known as the Puuc Route, there are several ruins all along the same road and all within a few kilometers of each other. And 11 KM from the last ruin is a large cave; I believe it’s a partial cenote, a cave in causing a large circular depression in the ground that over time fills with water. Many of the Mayan sites in this area are built right next to a cenote. Chichen Itza is situated between two very large cenotes. Many of the ruins were abandoned those times when the rains around here slacked, as the cenotes and wells dried up, then when the rains returned, the centers were repopulated, repairs made and new buildings begun. Finally, when the Spanish arrived and sacked the cities, most were abandoned and not re-inhabited.

Anyway, I wanted to visit the place so I drove Puuc Route to where it was suppose to be, my map showed it very near the road, when I get to where it should be, nothing. There’s a sign pointing to the left but it’s shown differently, showing ‘Lol Tun’ whereas the maps say ‘Loltun’, so it could be the town of similar name, if one exists. I turn left anyway, and watch for signs. Around 3 KM later, I do pass though a small town, then 5 KM later, I give up finding the caves, and look for a spot to turn the RV around without falling off a cliff. The road is barely wide enough for one vehicle and I would have to pull off the road to let opposing traffic pass.

When I get close to the sign that sent me that way, I’m very careful to examine every sign I see…nothing about a cenote, or the Loltun caves or any other Spanish words that might indicate a cave. When I get back to the ‘T’, I turn left and go another 6 KM to a town named Oxkutzcab. Still no Loltun cave or any signs. For what seems to be such a popular attraction you would think they would have lots of signs for tourists. No such luck.

I head back, check for signs all along the route, still no luck, and the road was mostly a farm country road so light traffic and nobody to ask where the caves were, and finally I end up back at Labna’ ruins. I visited for a while, didn’t get any pictures. The caves are supposed to be the best in the Yucatan…maybe I’ll see them next trip, sorry I missed them.

Since it was still early in the day, I headed on to Campeche. A few hours later and I reached the old city. Built in 1542, the streets are very crowded and narrow. I always follow bus signs whenever I get into a large city but it didn’t take long and I was lost, or at least I couldn’t find the campground I was looking for. I found a tight place to turn my bus around and headed back to the bypass that most Mexican cities have circling their cities. After that, it was easy to get my bearings and make it to a nice campground on the outskirts. I stayed there for 5 days and got my shopping and laundry done. I also took the time to figure out that there are many streaming video setups on the major networks so I could watch my favorite TV shows (mostly). It was fun catching up on my favorite comedies and missing the 95F heat of the city. The only blogging I did was to write more stories about my navy days.

When I left Campeche, I headed southwesterly, toward the Palenque Ruins, one of the top five ruins in Mexico. I knew from my guide book where I wanted to stay for the evening, and when I passed the place I stopped in the circle driveway in front of the restaurant at a hotel. One of the waiters came out and I asked if I could spend the night. He says NO, no RV parking there. Well, as you know, I don’t speak Spanish so I drive on up to the Palenque museum parking lot and park there while I scout around and have something to drink. I can’t make out from the signs where the ruins are. They certainly aren’t near by the museum or the little store they had there, so I jump in the RV and head up the hill, expecting to find them just around the next corner. The road gets steeper and steeper and windy as it heads up the mountainside. I keep going, and after a couple miles I get to the site. I get up to the parking lot, but it’s full and I’m waved back. So I back up a few feet with seemingly no where to park except on a steep incline about 100 yards from the gate off to the side of the road. I park there, and scout around for a turn around place. Nothing. Well, I think, I’ll go tour the ruins and worry about it later.

Here’s a shot of the museum parking lot at the bottom of the hill:
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Museum parking lot and my RV sitting over there.

Then after buying a ticket, you climb up a few rock stairs, walk a 50 yard path and arrive at a flat plateau that the Maya made by hand here on the mountainside. The site is very large, with many buildings and was once the major crossroads of the Mayan empire. This place sits in the middle of the kingdom of the Maya. Very impressive. And this was one of the few places where a tomb was found…all those artifacts from the tomb are in Mexico City, but the museum here near the ruins has a few pieces.
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Sorry, I have been distracted for a couple days here at the campground where I’m staying. I’ve been helping the owner upgrade the electrical. That meant that I could, after I rewired my electrical connection with the proper sized wire and breaker, run my air conditioning. It’s much more comfortable here because the humidity is much lower then in the Yucatan, then when you add AC, even better.

I was pleased to have been here when those famous authors the Church’s stopped by for the night. They wrote the preeminent guidebook to Mexico named ‘Traveler’s Guide to Mexican Camping by Mike and Terri Church’. You hardly see any North American down here without a copy. They are good people and we had a few laughs discussing the Mexican travel adventure. I got my copy of the book signed. Pretty cool. They’re heading for Panama in a Class C.

Here are the Church’s enjoying the balmy night at the only RV park in Las Penas…the name of the park escapes me.

Author's of 'Mexican Camping'.

Now back to regular photos of ruins…

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This is the tunnel where they found a genuine casket with a royal body and all the original gifts sent with him to the underworld:

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Outside showing the entrance to the tomb:

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Off in the distance, another pyramid:

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and another:

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This shot is of the original track up to a shrine and temple up those stairs, it’s a burial shrine right along the creek, pretty impressive:

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And here’s the actual shrine or temple or whatever it is. Even the archeologists don’t really know why it’s up the hill from the main city.

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This creek was actually covered at one time, the Maya built a long tunnel out of rock pieces to cover it so as to open the courtyard:

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This building is interesting in that they built it using the contours of the hill to create a semi-natural pyramid with an alter to a diety on the top. This would have been pretty close to what it looked like when it was finished. There are some very interesting and beautiful frescos inside the building:

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Overlooking the city, and the sea of jungle:

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Some of the best preserved fresco’s I’ve ever seen:

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This was the oldest pyramid at the site, predating all the other buildings by a couple hundred years. Note how crude and large the steps are:

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And out in the back yard, another pyramid, these people just never stopped:

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More soon!

The time came to leave Chichen Itza, I’d seen all I wanted to see there, got sick (with a cold and cough) then got well, and it was time to move on to Merida. There is only one RV park there so that’s where I stayed. After a 10 day stay in Piste’, nice but a very small town just a mile from Chichen Itza, I was looking for a large grocery store to restock and perhaps sample some nightlife in town. I don’t mean to diss Piste’ but the fruit and veggies were pretty bad most stores I’d gone to. Though in Piste’ I was able to find a bike repair shop through a store owner who spoke a little English and got my bike adjusted and lubed. The salty sea air I’d gone through had done a number on the metal parts and there was rust all over the chain, and an accident had bent the front wheel rim. They straightened my front wheel and lubed the chain, took around 2 hours, all for $6.04 US.

When I arrived at Merida, the RV park was asking $23 per night and it seemed expensive after the places I’d stayed with the same facilities for much, much, less. Like at Piste’ it was only $7.68 US per night, with all the same services PLUS sewer, and this place only had a dump station, that I couldn’t find. You kind of get use to lower prices and when someone slaps on a huge profit margin like this, it kind of bothers you. But, I needed to shop, they probably had higher taxes to pay, and there was a big store nearby, so I stayed. Rode my bike over to the store and did my shopping, struggled back with two bags hanging from my handlebars. Not the night for bar hopping, to tired after all that shopping.

This is where I parked in Merida, they have around 80 spaces for RVs and I was the only one there…

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Next day, I left for the Uxmal (Oosh-mahl) ruins, #2 in the big 4 of ruins. Chichen Itza is #1. I arrived around 2:30 in the afternoon and parked right on the site grounds, that’s my RV off in the distance. It was a boondocking place, no electric or whatever, but one of the RVs there had WiFi that I accessed for a couple hours when the genset was running…
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There are two large interesting and comfortable hotels here (I toured them), with restaurants and all, one of them is a Club Med, and I have to say, if you’re looking for a long quiet week in Mexico visiting ruins while staying in some first class hotels, this place is really worth a visit…fly into Cancun, take a bus over to Merida, rent a car then travel down here, it’s a short drive from Merida. Stay at one of the hotels, go visit Uxmal Ruins (the entrance is just a few feet from the hotels) then go on the ‘Puuc ancient ruins route’ that’s very near here. And there is a very large cave to tour as well. Probably 2 days at least visiting Uxmal then 2-3 days doing the Puuc Route at a slow pace so a rental car would be best travel method. Very much worth the effort…
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They had all these flowering plant and bushes all over the place, my ancient camera doesn’t do them justice:

But I enjoyed them:

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After wandering around for a couple hours, having dinner, and resting, at 6:30pm, I entered the Uxmal ruins grounds to watch the night light show. I’d heard it was interesting from some of the people staying in the parking lot, and I rented the headphones, with translation into English to improve my understanding of the ruins with what I thought would be an educational talk. Turned out that it was designed and written by art majors or something. Lots of singing and music and the same lights going off and on casting onto the same ruins. I should have stayed in the RV. Waste of time. But so inexpensive as to be worth it. Now that I’ve been to one of the light shows down here I know that it’s a waste of time and I’ll skip them from now on.
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The next day, I get my ticket and walk into the second best preserved and restored Mayan ruin in Mexico (or so the books say) for my second time. This is my forth visit to a Mayan ruin and this one is impressive. It’s not so much the size of the place as it is preserved artifacts still attached to buildings. I tried to get the best shots I could but my camera has decided to start absorbing moisture from the jungle so I’ve had to delete some of the most obvious shots where the lens is fogged. But there are nearly 100 pictures of the place so I hope you enjoy them, and the work that it took to get them…

This one is a discreet shot of the pyramid as I approached it along the road the Mayan built over 1200 years ago. It’s as impressive now as it must have been back then:

And a shot as you enter the grand plaza:

Off to the right of the grand pyramid:

I’m going to stop telling you about all these buildings because, really, no one knows what they were used for though educated guesses are made, (exceptions noted). And I don’t believe all those that say every single building had religious or governmental purpose. In this place I’d swear that some of the buildings were surrounding a used car lot, or the equivalent, another building seemed to me to be for meat storage next to an ancient disco place, there is a plaza I’d swear was a shopping mall, and other places that seem to be cloistered homes where the upper classes just chilled after a hard day of whipping the peasants.

I think that too many of these ancient buildings are called religious buildings or administrative buildings. Many buildings seemed to be public works that would be equivalent in design, space and positioning to mere shopping centers of today. In a society that had the ability, wealth, and leisure time to build sport arena’s, shopping centers are not that much of a stretch. That’s my opinion. Prove me wrong.

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This is one of those Mayan arches I’m fond of showing…since it points to the lack of a partial circle arch, used in the Med area for a thousand years previous to this…

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Here we see one of the rooms the Mayan’s built inside of their buildings. You never see much more then this, sometimes two rooms of this size would be connected by a large doorway but I never saw three rooms connected together unless it was a single wide low roofed building, like a series of shops linked together:

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Here’s one of the few ‘overhang’ walls that the Mayan’s built. Because of their building technique, this would have been a triumph of the work crew and designer. And it’s still standing 1200 years later. The dog had started to follow me around the site. I didn’t have any treats so eventually he drifted off.

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As can be seen, this quad is where one ball court could have been, except for the remnants of a building there in the middle of it. It’s named the Nunery or something similar by the Spaniards that visited the place. I think this was just a shopping mall, which would explain all the single rooms spaced around the place, that look like little business places, and the building in the courtyard perhaps came after the city had fallen into disrepair…someone built their house in the courtyard because it was neat there, but that’s just my opinion, and they don’t hand out brochures here so what do I know anyway. But it had the look & feel of a large, open air shopping mall:

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Now here’s a real ball court, too obvious to mistake it for anything else. Note those sloped areas on either side? That’s where the spectators sat during the game. They also sat on top of the structure. Then the players would score by putting the ball into a stone circle shown in a following picture. The crowd must have been pretty active during the game, having to move out of the way and such:

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One of the very large lizards that live around here:

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I’m leaving tomorrow and don’t know when I’ll be back on line…thanks for visiting.

Next time, we head South to the Puuc Route trying to find the Loltun’ caves…

From Catemaco we headed due east to Chetumal, spending the night in a Pemex station that had long lines waiting for fuel. I’d fueled up 2-300 miles earlier and could easily make it to Chetumal so I spent that evening cleaning up the grassy area in front of the station rather then waiting for fuel. It was a mess of plastic bags, cups, bottles, papers and the like people had tossed out of their windows and since it was my front lawn that night, I didn’t mind spending 45 minutes picking it up. Filled two big bags with trash then brought out my lawn chair and a beer and enjoyed the distant sun sinking into the jungle, I could swear I saw steam rising as it set.

Next day we’re on our way and pass this odd suspention bridge. Cool design.

Around noon, we stopped along side of the hiway for lunch:

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On of the many types of flowers right around here in the jungle:

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When we arrived at Chetumal, we had time to stop and do some shopping in a giant mall, then tripped out to the property of one of the travelers. This land was inhabited by the Maya for a thousand years and on this property, there is both a platform for a house, tons of broken pottery on the ground, and a small pyramid. Wow. It’s not everyone who can say that their property is an archelogical find.

Where I parked:

The ancient mound where there use to be a house, the current property owner is allowed to build over it or around it but not dig into it:

Another view of the mount behind the modern palapa with it’s hammocks:

Next day, I rode my bike up the road maybe 2 miles from where we were staying, to a Mayan ruin site…I don’t recall the name and a quick check of my guide books turns up nothing, but it is an improved site, with a parking lot with restrooms, and a charge of $50 pesos to visit. It took me from 7:30 am to around 10:30 at a leisurely pace, without having to dodge any other tourists, to circumnavigate the entire site. This is one of the estimated 12,000 ancient ruin sites all over Mexico. This one I would call…cozy. It was a working town until the Spaniards arrived, murdered a bunch of people, forced many into slavery, then built a giant church on the grounds to show how powerful their god was to the natives. The church is interesting in that it has a couple of huge arches incorporated into the building. The Maya seemed to never figure out the arch, they built what’s actually an inverted V, like this ^ only steeper, and it could not carry much weight, or they just preferred to ignore the superior load bearing abilities of the classical arch for their own reasons. Whatever the case, they didn’t use the arch. Or wheels:

This was the first pyramid I was able to climb in Mexico…:

An example of how the jungle can cover huge buildings, there is another large pyramid just up this trail but it’s totally invisible until you’re nearly on top of it:

The top of another pyramid, this one has (had) what appears to be a home on top, the sign said that it was a female gods home or something like that:

A thousand years ago, this plaza would have been devoid of trees, but filled with merchants and shoppers:

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This is what the sign said is one of the rulers dwellings. There are several bedrooms, and a large kitchen nearby. These rooms are on top of a large but not very high pyramid overlooking a plaza, with a religious pyramid on the other side of it and administrative pyramids on either side. There does not seem to be what we would call a living room in the dwellings I’ve seen. But the weather here is so fair, I’d imagine people, including the rulers, would hang around outside until time for sleep:

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That was just one of the thousands of towns and cities that the Olmec, Toltec, and Maya built over here in the Yucatan.

A day or two later I moved over to a nearby RV park intending to stay a month or so…but the place wanted $32 per night and the weekly rates were not much better. They never told me what the monthly rate would be. Anyway, I didn’t see much in the area that would be all that interesting anyway, so I headed on up to Cancun and Chichen Itza. But here’s a few pictures of the RV park anyway. The ocean was pretty nice:

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The several Mexican cemeteries we have passed in our 3-4 weeks here have been interesting to see at 40 MPH but I wanted a closer look, so when we stopped for a break right across the street from an old cemetery in the suburbs outside of a big town, I wandered over there with the camera to get a few shots.

Their cemeteries are colorful, cramped, with many heartfelt expressions of love chiseled into the granite markers. We visited a few days past the day of the dead so there were many flowers still there, adorning the graves…

The small buildings are really shrines to the departed, and the more money you have, the bigger and better the shrine is. There were above ground crypts as well, some going back to the 1800’s.

Many of the cap stones and shrines showed their age by style and weathering, but mostly the care and tending of these rest spots implied that the Mexican people visit their departed loved ones often, and bring gifts along with the flowers. One thing I did notice is that the tiles used in the construction of most of the shrines were nicer then most of the types of tile I’d seen in stores and homes I had visited in Mexico.

While I don’t know the burial traditions of this place, I think anyone would get a sense of how nice the people really are by seeing how they care for these family members. I wonder how far back their traditions go…

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Back on the road, and a couple hours later, we stopped at a Pemex for lunch. I found this guy living in a diesel air filter. I wanted the filter so I dropped it out and watched it scamper under my rig…too quickly for me to get another shot.

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Then the weather started to close in again and we drove through a couple of drenching squalls:

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This is one of the rain swollen streams we crossed, one thing they don’t lack here is rain:

After we left Xalapa, we first headed east then south to Catemaco. It is a picturesque town on the shore of a lake of the same name. When we arrived, there were no other RV’s in the park that we could see, but the lake was inviting and we settled in for the night despite the lack of sewers or running water at out spaces. They were also asking too much and we negotiated a better price for several days. Meanwhile, we arranged for a special boat ride the next day for $350 pesos for six people. Happily, a German couple arrived late in an older Class A, Horst and Anna, and they joined our little group the next day for a lake tour.

How we all parked in this little space:

The restaurant where we had great food at a great price, 1/2 the cost of in the US but high by Mexico standards of pricing:

The boats the tourists take to tour the lake, ours was arranged for the next day:

Up the street:

Dusk over the lake. It’s just across the street from where I’m parked:

Next day our boat waiting for us:

And we’re off:

The greyhound surveys, seemed he was a natural sailor:

Lazy birds:

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This area has been inhabited for thousands of years. It was in ancient times, a resort area. Although there are few ruins, there is some reason to believe that at one spring at the north end of the lake, bubbling warm fresh water through mud, has drawn people for centuries for soothing mud baths. There were constructions that have been rebuilt and reproductions of ancient statuary akin to the works that would have been here a thousand years ago and have been reset at ancient positions, though the actual statues are long missing. We toured the area, it’s called an ‘eco preserve’ area by locals, and some of the profits from our tickets are put back into preserving the flora and fauna. The pictures you see here are of the rebuilt buildings and reproductions of typical statuary, mostly historically accurate in that they are appropriate gods and goddesses of the indigenous peoples of the area. These first few pictures are as we motored the lake near the western shore for views of the egrets and a few nice estates.

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Their are 3 kinds of birds in this shot…we were told that the two smaller species, one mostly black, and the other mostly white with yellow feet, sometimes get drunk and walk on the wild side, producing the larger and heavier 3rd type of egret that was nearest the top of this tree. It’s dark with yellow feet, and they always seem larger then their parents. Or so the guide told us. You can see that it appears twice as large as it’s neighbors near it as well as larger then those perched below.

The weather was a little spooky, what with the clouds rolling over and sometimes threatening to rain, but it was mostly mild with a temp around 74F and no rain all day…

We approach the sanctuary:

Pay our $35 pesos and cross the suspension bridge with our guide:

A restored walkway:

One of the ceremonial circles:

A little local color:

This goddess takes on the sins of the petitioner or something, that’s the meaning of the black around her mouth. At first I just thought she needed a shave.

This was the sweat lodge. Water would be poured onto hot rocks for steam:

One of the interesting buildings that I forget the meaning of:

This use to be the area where they got the mud, now I’m not sure:

Some kids enjoying a swing:

There’s a gator out there somewhere. They were almost hunted to extinction by the locals but these are protected:

These lizards are rescued from the wild as eggs, grow up here, then are released at age 3 or 4. They handle that treatment well and after release are hunting on their own quickly. The locals eat to many of them which is why they need to be protected here:

On our way back from the ‘Eco Preserve’, we passed Monkey Island that some idiot thought would be a good place to release a few imported Indonesian Short Tailed Macaques. They’ve been overfed ever since but have never made it from this island to the mainland. The 2-3 year old animals are captured and sold to zoos all over the world., which maintains the tribe population at around 20 individuals. One alpha male, female adults, and then the kids. Tourists have been overfeeding them since they got here. As you can see, they are fat, but not as unhealthy (I’m told) as they use to be because of a change in the treats the tourists are now allowed to give them. Before there were too many treats, now it’s protein instead. As you can imagine, the dog went nuts when he saw these little hairy people…but the monkeys could have cared less:

That tour only took 3 hours so the rest of the day we wandered around downtown Catemaco while I looked for some stuff called Microdyn. It’s based on iodine I believe and it’s used for purifying water and veggies. Took quite a while to find it, had to go to 4 stores. This town is a quintessentially Mexican village. I’ve been through many villages down here now and this one really gets my vote as one of the more interesting and attractive. But for you Gucci wearing types, it is very rustic as well. But there are some 3-4 star motels here. I’m glad I made it up here.

One of the aggravating things about RV’ing in Mexico is the lack of consistency. For the money we would have been paying for our spaces here, compared to the US, or even a better Mexican RV park, we would have gotten 30 amp, water, and sewer, or at least a working dump station. Maybe even cable. Here, we got 20 amps, no water unless you wanted to drag a bucket over to the restaurant, and a dump station you had to back up too, and that was higher then where you could park a rig like mine to use it…and sewage doesn’t flow uphill. They tried to charge us way too much, but we were able to negotiate a pretty good price since it’s the off-season and the place was empty when we got there. The campground ended up having my Class A, another Class A, two Class C rigs, a couple class B camper vans, a truck camper, and even backpackers, who used a tent. They mostly all arrived later in the day and the next day so we considered ourselves lucky to get the discount when we arrived and the place was empty. Plus we ended up staying 5 days for a look around so that made them happy. Like I said, I stayed indoors most of that time watching and listening to games and working on the blog, while it rained buckets, but I got a good sense of this place when I did go out. It was great staying here.

After we left the Emerald Coast, we headed on up to Xalapa. This is a city with all the amenities including one of the largest collections of Olmec giant stone heads at their museum. It was off our track but the ladies wanted to visit with one of their friends that has a place down in Coatepec, which is just south of Xalapa.

So we arrive there late afternoon, settle in at the parking lot of a Sam’s store and spend the night. Next day the women head off to their friends place and I take a taxi half way across town to the museum. I got there at 10am and wandered around for 4 & 1/2 hours. Could have been longer but I was suppose to meet the women at 3pm and follow them to Coatepec to camp. Well, the road was so bad and the boondocking site so small in Coatepec that we decided to bag that excursion and stayed on the Sam’s parking lot for another night there in Xalapa.

The city itself is just your typical semi-modern Mexican city so I didn’t take any pictures of it, and we were having some rainstorms though the area so it was sort of gloomy.

When you first walk into the museum, this Olmec head is right there. They didn’t have any brochures to hand out so I’ll have to go by memory for this part, I think this head is considered the 7th best out of all they have:

This one is even better, it spoke to me while I was standing there, almost made me wet my pants, stupid ghostly Olmec head voice:

These guys were pissed at something:

These things weighed tons so they are not worried about a visitor walking off with them:

So you know, we are getting progessively older as these pictures take us for a walk through the museum. Starting over 800 years ago and going back to 4,700 years BPE. I won’t say much about these pieces since their descriptions were in Spanish so I don’t know much about them, occasionally there were brochures available in English so I can describe some pieces. This is a picture of the other wing of the museum, I’m still in the first part of this main wing when I took this shot out of a side door, just to give you an idea of the size of the place. They have some of the heads in their own alcoves with other pieces, they look like little courtyards in the tropics:

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This is a panther, stylized as you can see. The mouth is like a pathway to the other side:

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Here’s one of the altars:

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Can’t remember for sure…father holding dead son?

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One of the more interesting figures

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This is a clay figure of someone after they have had their skin flailed, no explanation of why you would want such a statue, maybe as a warning?:

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These following clay figures are all over 1,000 years old and are an excellent example of the type of creative art they had going on back then, wouldn’t I love to have one of these:

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Here’s a couple shots of El Tajin, where a lot of the pieces here in the museum came from, and that I visited a few days before:

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This piece is the most macabre in the museum, this is a clay representation of a torture victim. They would be tied up like the clay figure, with those big ropes, with arms placed in those cones (they’re hard to see, there are like horns near the ear and they are behind the head) so you would have your arms up behind your head and tied, with all the weight of the rock, the whole thing is made out of rock, except the rope then ?, shiver:

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These skulls and artifacts were presented here like they were found in a group grave; it may have been raided, not known:

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This guy with the huge woody is wearing the skin of a victim, seems happy about it:

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Anyway, hope you enjoyed the visit to the museum. Sadly, the Spanish did an excellent job of stealing all the gold so there are none of those types of artifacts here. There are some pieces at Chichen Itza and I’m planning on going there next, don’t know for sure where that museum is yet but I’ll try to find it soon.

After spending the morning touring the El Tajin ruins, one day is probably enough, half a day not enough, we went on without Woody (he headed on down to Panama), to the Emerald Coast. This area is well worth the visit. We got here just between the seasons so where we stayed they had few guests. We stayed two nights to recharge our personal batteries and to get on-line (it takes some effort to get the satellite set up and running and all, so if we’re not going to be in one place for at least two days, we usually bag it and don’t set up at all).

Anyway, here’s where we stayed. Note that there are several RV camping spots all up and down the coast here, all bordering the ocean. Many choices, good facilities, good nearby services and food, etc. It’s a place where you could settle for several months if you wished:

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As you can see, not to popular with the tourists at this time of year:

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The Caribbean shore, where in days of yore, Spaniards came to exploit, er, explore.

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