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Friday, October 22
Every morning, as I wake up it takes me a moment to figure out where I am. Oh yes, we’re in San Carlos. I remember the tremors last night just when I was getting ready to go to bed.
For some reason we seem to seek out places where earthquakes occur. A strong shake of 6.4 happened last night around 6:00 pm, when were out for a walk. Then again tremors at 9:00 pm.
We thought we were one of the first one to get up in the RV park, but a caravan of three RVs left when we were getting up. Their final destination is Mazatlan and they hope to make that in one day.
As long as we reach Culiacan we will be happy, but we prefer to wait until it is light before we start driving
Other than the numerous toll booths and Pemex Gas stations there is little variation in scenery on this route. I keep dozing off. We contemplate taking the Free road around Navojoa, but stay on the toll road, which later turns out to be the wrong decision. The city is under major construction and we are being lead through various detours on bumpy dirt roads.
As we enter the state of Sinaloa we have to set our clock one hour ahead again, bringing us back to Alberta time. The scenery becomes a lot more interesting with lots of agriculture.
As we stop at a Pemex to make some lunch, our neighbours from the RV park in San Carlos stop there as well. They are from Ontario on their way to Mazatlan. We chat for a while and discuss our route and a possible camping spot for the night.
We pretty well used up all our camping budget on toll fees and decide to park at the Pemex Truck stop south of Culiacan. There is 24 hour security carrying big machine guns.
Every morning, as I wake up it takes me a moment to figure out where I am. Oh yes, we’re in San Carlos. I remember the tremors last night just when I was getting ready to go to bed.
For some reason we seem to seek out places where earthquakes occur. A strong shake of 6.4 happened last night around 6:00 pm, when were out for a walk. Then again tremors at 9:00 pm.
We thought we were one of the first one to get up in the RV park, but a caravan of three RVs left when we were getting up. Their final destination is Mazatlan and they hope to make that in one day.
As long as we reach Culiacan we will be happy, but we prefer to wait until it is light before we start driving
Other than the numerous toll booths and Pemex Gas stations there is little variation in scenery on this route. I keep dozing off. We contemplate taking the Free road around Navojoa, but stay on the toll road, which later turns out to be the wrong decision. The city is under major construction and we are being lead through various detours on bumpy dirt roads.
As we enter the state of Sinaloa we have to set our clock one hour ahead again, bringing us back to Alberta time. The scenery becomes a lot more interesting with lots of agriculture.
As we stop at a Pemex to make some lunch, our neighbours from the RV park in San Carlos stop there as well. They are from Ontario on their way to Mazatlan. We chat for a while and discuss our route and a possible camping spot for the night.
We pretty well used up all our camping budget on toll fees and decide to park at the Pemex Truck stop south of Culiacan. There is 24 hour security carrying big machine guns.
Ramiro makes friends with Juan and we are assured a safe night. Safe yes, but quiet? All night long trucks come and go.
Saturday, October 23
As we get up in the morning we are totally blocked in. Ramiro looks for Juan, who is still on his shift. He hands him some money and sure enough by the time we are ready to leave a path through the many trucks has been cleared for us and our friends from Ontario to continue our track south.
I think it is going to be a very hot day, at 7 am it is already 20C.
We follow the coast line for a long stretch. Along the road are stands offering dried shrimp. To bad it is so tricky to make a simple stop, I would have liked to take some with us.
There is no need to worry about safety on these highways, the Federales and army is everywhere, they only seem to stop citizens and seldom bother us RVers. It does give us a feeling of safety.
As we are starting to turn inland the scenery changes dramatically. Lush greens mountains, mango groves, agave plantation and fields of orange wildflowers. I love this part of Mexico, there is a certain mystery about the mountains. As we meander through the mountains and admire the scenery, we realize, that there are no services for at least 100 km and no place to pull over for lunch until before Tepic, near another toll booth.
We plan the remainder of our route for today. There is no camping anywhere so we wil take a chance and aim for Villa Corona, where we camped before.
We find a way to avoid having to go through Guadalajara, by turning south west for appr. 20 km, find a cut off south and back east again to the RV park. We enter a park just at sunset and are lucky to settle in just as it is getting dark. Today we have put 700 km on the odometer, which is 100 km more than average.
Two years ago when we entered this park there was no space for us and we had to park at the overflow. Today we are the only campers. It’s a shame that so many North American let the media influence their decisions to travel into Mexico. There has been nothing but bad news, scaring people away from traveling. We choose not to pay too much attention to it and let our intuition guide us. We’ve have had no single incident. We have felt safe all along this 10 day journey, including at the border crossing of Nogales and wished that others would feel more comfortable as well.
We have a very relaxing evening, knowing we won’t have to get up at the crack of dawn; We are less than 50 km away from our final destination. What a great feeling, we’re almost home.
Sunday, October 24
The church bells in the village of Villa Corona wake us up. It’s so quiet in the RV park. The only people we see are those who maintain the property. cutting grass, watering the lawn and cleaning up dead branches.
We take our time and move direction Lake Chapala to our favorite RV Park, Roca Azul.
It’s not very busy here either. We see all the familiar places as we enter through the gate, the narrow cobblestone road, the small houses, of which many are owned by North Americans, the trees loaded with bright red flowers, the club house and then finally after the third gate the RV park. We park in a spot where internet reception is at its best and bargain with the owner on a better price, since we won’t be spending much time here.
We are both inspired to do some major cleaning, I on the inside and Ramiro outside. We have a few loads of laundry to do and of course many e-mails to deal with. Now the slide outs can be fully extended we have even more room.
The pool looks very appealing and after the work is done we take a dip.
We drove 4,925 kilometers in 10 days, with just one day of rest.
We’re happy that we won’t have to move around any more for a while the RV will be our home for now.
We’ll take a few days off before we go to Cofradia, where Project Amigo is located.
Saturday, October 23
As we get up in the morning we are totally blocked in. Ramiro looks for Juan, who is still on his shift. He hands him some money and sure enough by the time we are ready to leave a path through the many trucks has been cleared for us and our friends from Ontario to continue our track south.
I think it is going to be a very hot day, at 7 am it is already 20C.
We follow the coast line for a long stretch. Along the road are stands offering dried shrimp. To bad it is so tricky to make a simple stop, I would have liked to take some with us.
There is no need to worry about safety on these highways, the Federales and army is everywhere, they only seem to stop citizens and seldom bother us RVers. It does give us a feeling of safety.
As we are starting to turn inland the scenery changes dramatically. Lush greens mountains, mango groves, agave plantation and fields of orange wildflowers. I love this part of Mexico, there is a certain mystery about the mountains. As we meander through the mountains and admire the scenery, we realize, that there are no services for at least 100 km and no place to pull over for lunch until before Tepic, near another toll booth. We plan the remainder of our route for today. There is no camping anywhere so we wil take a chance and aim for Villa Corona, where we camped before.
We find a way to avoid having to go through Guadalajara, by turning south west for appr. 20 km, find a cut off south and back east again to the RV park. We enter a park just at sunset and are lucky to settle in just as it is getting dark. Today we have put 700 km on the odometer, which is 100 km more than average.
Two years ago when we entered this park there was no space for us and we had to park at the overflow. Today we are the only campers. It’s a shame that so many North American let the media influence their decisions to travel into Mexico. There has been nothing but bad news, scaring people away from traveling. We choose not to pay too much attention to it and let our intuition guide us. We’ve have had no single incident. We have felt safe all along this 10 day journey, including at the border crossing of Nogales and wished that others would feel more comfortable as well.
We have a very relaxing evening, knowing we won’t have to get up at the crack of dawn; We are less than 50 km away from our final destination. What a great feeling, we’re almost home.
Sunday, October 24
The church bells in the village of Villa Corona wake us up. It’s so quiet in the RV park. The only people we see are those who maintain the property. cutting grass, watering the lawn and cleaning up dead branches.We take our time and move direction Lake Chapala to our favorite RV Park, Roca Azul.
It’s not very busy here either. We see all the familiar places as we enter through the gate, the narrow cobblestone road, the small houses, of which many are owned by North Americans, the trees loaded with bright red flowers, the club house and then finally after the third gate the RV park. We park in a spot where internet reception is at its best and bargain with the owner on a better price, since we won’t be spending much time here.
We are both inspired to do some major cleaning, I on the inside and Ramiro outside. We have a few loads of laundry to do and of course many e-mails to deal with. Now the slide outs can be fully extended we have even more room. The pool looks very appealing and after the work is done we take a dip.
We drove 4,925 kilometers in 10 days, with just one day of rest.
We’re happy that we won’t have to move around any more for a while the RV will be our home for now.
We’ll take a few days off before we go to Cofradia, where Project Amigo is located.
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