Friday the 13th! Puerto Vallarta to Mazatlan

March of course also has a Friday the 13th!

Click on the pictures to enlarge for detail

We left the Puerto Vallarta Trailer Park at 8:50, about an hour later than planned--Does that sound familiar? We slowly bumped our way along several blocks of cobblestone street to the highway. After a couple of light sequences we were finally at the front of the line of traffic waiting for the light. It is legal to turn right on a red light in Mexico but there was a lot of traffic and a bus stop to our left blocked our view so Art decided to wait for the light.

The turn was a very hard right from a narrow road onto the lateral. (like a service road paralleling the main through highway)--In PV, as in many Mexican cities, heavy traffic (us) must use the laterals, are not permitted to use the centre lanes. Art had to go straight into the intersection before starting his turn but still somehow was edging right a bit. As we proceeded we both heard a scraping noise and a lot of yelling from a bystander. We had sideswiped a pickup truck parked at the intersection! Art edged left a little and pulled further into the intersection as the bystander ran in front of us waving his arms and yelling, to try to make us stop. We weren't about to stop in the middle of a busy intersection so Art completed his turn and stopped in the right lane of the lateral while still leaving enough room for traffic. By this time of course the light had changed again and traffic was not happy that we were still in the intersection!

Art walked back to inspect the damage to the truck, visions of 500 peso notes changing hands, wondering how many it was going to take. Fortunately there were no policemen in site! Also fortunately, the truck driver was grinning and laughing, pointing to all the old scrapes and scratches on the side of his truck saying that there were no new ones! The steel bumper had taken the hit and there was no sign of damage there either. The owner was happy and asked how our "camper" was. We hadn't looked yet so went back for a peek.

Not good, but not really too bad. There is a long scrape along the storage bins and a chunk out of the wheel well. Fortuitously we had already called our favourite Mexican body man in Mazatlan, Juan Salizar Jr to arrange to have some work done when we got to Mazatlan. There had been some dents and scratches to the rig when we bought it and we know Juan from work he had done for us on the old rig and the car in previous years.


We were soon out of town and even out of state and as we entered Nayarit we set the clocks back an hour to Mountain Standard Time. We were now on the same time as in BC since Mexico won't go to Daylight Saving Time until April 1st. We won't be on Daylight time until we leave Arizona in a couple of weeks. The log book shows that we stopped for fuel in Nueva Vallarta half an hour before we left PV! Diesel by the way, 7.68 pesos per litre, about 67 cents Canadian.

On our way again we were 242 litres heavier. Our next planned stop was to be the village of Manatchen to buy banana bread.

We quickly left the wide 4 lane highway behind and were winding through the hills. We noticed that traffic appeared light, the on coming traffic consisting of the occasional single vehicle then a long line behind a truck then a long empty road, then repeating again. We ourselves were soon behind a slow vehicle--and RV. But what an RV. This was an old, battered and dirty Class A motorhome towing an even more battered, old and dirtier trailer. The trailer had no rear windows, the door frequently swinging open a bit and did the door on the motorhome. Top speed was 15 Km/H! Eventually one of the long gaps in oncoming traffic coincided with a straight piece of road and we went by.

Not long after we came to a halt and discovered what had caused the strange traffic pattern. A single Federal Policeman was directing single lane traffic around an accident scene up to moments before we arrived. Now there was a tow truck across the road attempting to pull up a car that had gone down the embankment. At least half an hour later the mangled wreck was on the back of the truck and single lane traffic began again--but only south bound. Another 5 or 10 minutes and we too were on the move.

Tepic or Not Tepic?


The usual published route between Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan is to go inland to the city of Tepic and take the Cuota (Toll Road) all the way to Mazatlan. This route (which we have yet to take) may be a bit quicker but it involves a lot of hills and a lot of expensive tolls.


We like the coast road through San Blas and Villa Hidalgo. The roads for the most part through flat farming country with little traffic though very narrow in spots. We have frequently seen combine harvesters taking up almost the whole road, but they were always happy to pull off to let us by. So again we turned off at Las Varas and followed the "yellow" road for a while.











Another advantage of this route is that it takes us through the tiny village of Manatchen where there are many roadside stalls selling banana bread, some plain, others flavoured with other fruit such as pineapple, coconut, elote and yaka.










Just north of the village the road runs along side a large area of marshes, lagunas and estuaries where the sigh suggests that if you drink enough Tecate, you might get brave enough to go looking for crocodiles.








Although this year we met no combine harvesters there were a few interesting vehicles on the road. The small moto-trike has a load of sticks for firewood. These slow vehicle are everywhere. The large tractor is in downtown Villa Hidalgo.





12 Km after Villa Hidalgo we were back on the highway, this time the Mex 15 libre, to Mazatlan. Last year we had turned off a few kilometers later to join the 15D (the Cuota) but soon realised the access road (and bridge) was not built for heavy traffic, though we had been following a couple of cement trucks! This year a sign had been added at the turnoff: Max 2 Tons! So we stayed with the libre and in another 25 Km or so joined the toll road again at Rosamorada. There is still a small section where the toll road has not been completed, 3 or four large overpasses still have no roads attached! Here we were back on the "libre" and its attendant slow and busy truck traffic foryet another 20 Kilometers
The rest of the trip was uneventfull except that at one of the toll booths we were undercharged--the posted toll was 76 pesos for the car and 130 for the motorhome. Art had 206 pesos ready, but the attendant took the 200 peso note only and gave back 4 pesos change. We carried on pleasantly surprised and as we drove Gillian scrutinised the tickets and yes, the printed amounts were 76 and 130. The poor attendant was going to be out 10 pesos at the end of his day. There was no placed to turn around so we carried on. We'll give the ten pesos to the next Red Cross collection point.

By 5PM we were at Las Jaibas RV Park in Mazatlan. This park is right next door the the park (now closed) where we stayed on our first motorhome trips to Mexico. We were greeted by our good friends Jacqui and Derek who rent an apartment here, they were visiting mutual friends here at the park. Just like old times.