How we spent a week in Mazatlan

Friday the 13th, Afternoon

We arrived at Las Jaibas (The Crabs) in time for happy hour and had a good visit with friends from years past.

Besides visiting friends here our purpose for spending several days in Mazatlan was one Juan Salazar Jr, a first class body and paint man. Since our departure from Puerto Vallarta we had even more work for Juan!

We spied a couple of his workers putting the finishing touches on a rig in the back of the campground and let them know that we had arrived and what space we were in. Juan had said on the phone that he would see us on Saturday to asses the job and give us a price.

Seems the guys didn't finish the job on Friday night and they were back to do so on Saturday. Imagine our surprise when Juan and his crew drove out of the park, waving as he passed! Monday was a holiday, so no luck there, but we phoned anyway. Juan assured us he would see us Tuesday at 9.

Then Bill and Margaret arrived and phoned Juan, who told them he would see them Tuesday.

Tuesday at 10:15 Art phoned Juan again. "One Hour." At 11:45 Art phoned again, voice mail. Art left a bilingual message!. Since lunch time was approaching we joined Bill and Margaret at "Holy Frijole", the restaurant at the front of the RV park, for lunch.

At about 2:30 Juan and his main hand arrived. After careful inspection he asked " How long are you staying?" We told him we had planned to leave tomorrow, but we would leave the day after he was finished, as long as he could start right away. After a bit of head scratching he said that he could start Thursday, and would be finished Saturday. The quoted price was 4000 pesos (about $350 Canadian dollars) We agreed and Juan went off to talk to Bill and Margaret.

Wednesday, March 18

As we were finishing our leisurely breakfast, who should appear but Juan and his men! Ready to work! Soon hammers (borrowed from Art!) were hammering, grinders were grinding--things were happening!. It turned out that the damaged wheel well was plastic, and rather that pieces being missing, the bottom piece had broken off, twisted and dropped down a bit. They began to "plastic weld" the pieces together but the soldering iron they were using quit working. As any good ham radio enthusiast, Art had a large soldering gun in his box of "stuff" and it soon had the job done. Also borrowed from Art were assorted screw drivers and pliers. While the "bondo" dried, Juan and co. went over to Bill and Margaret's rig to start removing decals and general cleaning up and get ready to repair and paint. A bit later the boys were back and the primer paint went on.

That evening we had been invited over to have dinner with our Victoria friends Jacqui and Derek who were renting a condo. As we got out of the motorhome and said good bye to the dogs Trekker bolted. He leapt from the rig past Gillian, hitting the ground about 10 feet away and was away like a shot down toward the back of the RV park. He turned at the fence and continued his full out dash along the side fence. While Gillian went after him on foot Art got in the car and headed for the gate. Too late, he was gone and out of sight. We found him shortly thereafter across the street ( divided road, 2 lanes each way!) in a hotel construction site that was fortunately fenced from the beach. When he heard the car he came running up, as if to say "are we going to the beach?" In previous years this was essentially vacant property and was the route for his daily beach walk, though this year Gillian had been taking him to the beach a different way. We has no traffic sense. We ( and he!) were very lucky. He was brought back to the motorhome and put inside and we left for dinner, arriving a half hour late.


Next morning Bill was out early stripping decals and shortly afterwards Juan and the boys returned to do our colour coat and the clear coat and by 5:00 PM they were done. Between coats they worked on Bill and Margaret's class C which looked great with all the decals gone and the old paint sanded. There was some bondo used but several areas needed fibreglass repairs which were well under way. They had a couple more days work to do. They were just going to get a basic white paint job and get Juan to do some decorative work when they return in the fall. Juan doesn't "do" decals--but he does an amazing jog with paint.

That night we met Jacqui and Derek again and went into the old town for an Italian dinner, where we were met by another long time Victoria friend Paul and his girlfriend Antonia. We had a great time as always with this group--we miss them a lot when we are traveling.

Taxi back to Jacqui and Dereks where we had left our car, and back to Las Jaibas to take the dogs out for a few minutes before we all went to bed.

Friday morning, after a week in Maz, we were once again Northbound