Zihuatenejo, the first couple of weeks

The winter storms were able to rebuild the sand bar in front of the Estuary we were happy to see. There are several more feet of water in the estuary this year, much like it was before the small tsunamis from the Japanese Earthquake scoured mouth the estuary.

We took a while to set everything up, for now just the ground cover, water jug table and a couple of chairs. The rest would wait until after the motorhome gets its wash and wax.

First on the list was grocery shopping and not far behind was the laundry—besides everything we had been wearing the last couple of week or so we had the cool weather gear that we wouldn't be needing for the next three or four months and could be stored under the bed until then.

And of course the dogs' bedding—and we have a lot—probably as much as our own: Two blankets, two thin fleece pads, two newer thicker fleece pads and two doggy beds! We did the blankets and beds this time, leaving the fleeces for now.

Art has worked out a routine for washing pet bedding at the laundromat with the agreement and appreciation of the owner: dog stuff goes in and when done he wipes the washer out and puts in a load of our own clothes to make sure there is no dog hair left behind. Nor do we put the dog bedding in the dryer—that really finds any remaining hair! It will hang in the sun for a few hours to dry.

En route to the Commercial Mexicana for a few groceries Art stopped at our favourite Auto Lavado (Car Wash) to get the Jeep done. Washed inside and out, vacuumed, mats cleaned—not a single dog hair left behind; 50 pesos, a little less than $4.00. He also arranged for the crew to come to the park on Monday to wash and paste wax the motorhome.

Monday; car wash crew was a no show—until late in the day. They quoted a price--tried to add three hundred pesos to last years price and we weren't going with that—already paying over the going rate—no argument, be back Tuesday to start at 8:00.

They arrived at 8:30 and were done by 2:00 They loved Art's new random orbital buffer—much easier and faster than by hand!

We let the ground dry out then moved the mats etc back later in the day.

Now the BBQ could be set up,--a WeberBaby Q. That and the microwave are our main cooking devices, we try to avoid using the stove in the heat. Then the large table came out as did the recliners, life is good

We also began searching for an Air Conditioner tech and found one through a friend.

Long story short (for once) it seem the heat pump has a faulty compressor. Eventually we found a source in Sacramento and as luck would have it the tech is flying to Sacramento in a couple of weeks and bringing back a load of ice machines and has offered to bring the parts back. We may get our AC back sometime in January.

Monday morning while going for a stroll through the restaurant to the beach Art spotted a young crock, a little over 2 meters in length. First one he had seen this year. Then a fisherman who had been filleting his catch, a fairly large Yellow Tail, and through the remains over the fence into the esturary.

The fisherman are pretty good with a knife; one slice from tail to head takes off the entire filet, flip the fish over and do the other side. Head, skeleton, guts and tail stay together. A nice meal for the crock.

The croc heard the splash and went to investigate. He walked to the middle of the bridge to see the croc just below the surface swiming towards him, the fish crossways in it's mouth, bloody water streaming from each side. The croc passed under the bridge directly below Art then dove a little deeper and disappeared from sight. And Art of course had neglected to bring the camera this time!

 

Art returned to the rig and a few minutes later Julia, our friend and neighbour came up from the restaurant telling Art to get the camera, the croc was back.

It was fascinating to watch the croc trying to shift the remains of the fish so he could swallow it. Julia and Art watched for quite a while and managed to get a few good photos. The croc shook his head so fast and in so many directions at once it was difficult to get a good focus.

And Tia's UTI reappeared. A quick visit to the vet who prescribed another round of antibiotics,a different type than what she had been on. The vet explained that UTIs are common in geriatric female dogs, he looked at the lab report that we had from San Antonio and said there were no signs of cancer or tumor.

We've been to a couple of nice restaurants and have just been taking it easy. The hardest part for Gillian is getting up early enough to walk the dogs in the morning before the heat of the day climbs too high!

Zihuatanejo!

Wednesday Nov 28th


Anxious to get to Zihuatanejo but not desperate for an early start we had a decent breakfast, walked the dogs and said goodbye to the neighbours and still managed to roll out the gate by 9:45 for the roughly 4 hour drive.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that the highway north was in decent shape. No construction delays, no pot holes, and not even too many topes!

The best part of the road was of course the toll bypass around Tecpan (mandatory for heavy vehicles) All of three kilometers long. We actually managed to get the rig up to the 100Km/H speed limit!












For a whole kilometer, then back to the 80 Km/H limit of the libre. For much of it, the straight flat parts we were able to maintain that, even a bit over, so made good time.









When ever we got close to the coast our spirits rose even higher--we were getting there! The dogs must have sensed our contentment as they remained up on their bed on the dinette quite relaxed.








Three hours and forty and minutes after leaving Acapulco Trailer Park we stopped for 10 minutes at the Pemex near the airport to fuel up and just before 2:00 PM we rounded the last corner to find a great excavation in the middle of the road and a couple of men and heavy equipment working.

We managed to squeeze by without falling in on the one side not scraping the trees on the other only to find a truck parked on the left not against the curb in the foreground, left, but along side the tree. Opposite was Noe's car parked in front of his rental suites, Villas El Arca. There was no room to pass between. Gillian went in to find Noe who came out smiling and welcoming us back and drove his car forward and turned around in the cul-de-sac. As passed us he pointed to El Manlar's gate laughing--the gate was shut! It being Wednesday the restaurant is closed.

Art replied that first was the hole in the road, then the vehicles blocking the road, now the gate was closed! Maybe someone was trying to tell us something?

We have known Noe for quite a few years since he first began building. Did anyone spot the joke in the name of his Villas? Painted on the wall of the property is a cartoon of an Arc full of animals. Noe first called his place El Arca de Noe but changed it recently to what it is now due confusion of  names with his mother's place a few kilometers away, Posada El Arco de Noe, which she named after her son many years ago.

There is also a pun here because at the entrance to this area there is a large concrete arch (arca) over the one way lane in. Which by the way is too low for large rigs, they have to come in the wrong way via the wide exit road and go around the arch! More than one motorhome has had their roof top air conditioner removed there!

When we finally opened the gate and entered the park we found Mundi, the owner, cutting the grass in our site. He pointed to his watch and said that we were early and should go around the block! Not!

We were soon parked and level, we had arrived, Mundi welcomed us and once all the grass was trimmed he left to enjoy what was left of his one day off a week!.














And the dogs are happy.







Since the restaurant here was closed today we headed for the beach and lunch at Rossy's.

Puerto Escondido to Pie de la Cuesta (Acapulco)

Expecting a long drive today we left early Tuesday morning without breakfast, though Art had made Gillian a mug full of coffee. (Still chipping at the Brownie Point debt.)  We stopped on the road just outside the gate to hook up and were driving through Puerto Escondido at 7:20 AM. A couple of hours later we stopped for fuel for the motorhome and breakfast for us.

 After breakfast, continuing north we got the camera out to shoot a few photos. The highway surface was good though the road was often narrow and of course mostly sinuous.

The countryside was lush and green and the rivers flowing, the rainy season having recently ended. 

The hills gradually gave way to flatter terrain; at least we could spot the usual hazards of topes and animals a little more easily.

 

 Eventually we were approaching Acapulco, a little before 4:00 PM. However our destination for today was an area known as Pie de la Cuesta to the north of the city. We were not about to drive the rig through Acapulco, we had done that with the Commander 10 years ago and determined not to do it again. It meant that the Acapulco Trailer Park was still an hour away via a detour which meant first taking the toll road towards Mexico City. We'd be fine as long as we didn't miss our exit!

The toll was 87 pesos each for the motorhome and the car, about  $14.00 Canadian for the 20 kilometers of toll road. Leaving the cuota  the traffic wasn't bad, nor the roads. We were pleased to see that the portion of the 200 that we followed from Bajos del Ejido south to Pie de la Cuesta through a couple of villages was also in excellent condition. Waved through the military check point, we arrived at the trailer park at 5:00 PM.


There were very few rigs in the park. All Canadians, although to be fair, of a young couple tenting their way to Central America, she was from Quebec, he was from France. We also met a couple from Ontario who we had run into twice last year in the interior and the Yucatan.


After settling in, while Gillian walked the dogs Art dumped the waste water, topped up the  fresh water then put the hoses away. He left the electric connected overnight--it just takes a moment to put away and he felt that the batteries would probably appreciate a proper charge for once.

After walking and feeding the dogs we wandered down the street to a beach front restaurant we had visited a few years ago, only to find it closed! It had been open when we drove past a few hours ago! One of the staff who was cleaning up told us that they closed at 7:00 PM. The same thing happened last year! We walked back north towards the RV park remembering a Beach Club were we had dined last year.

They were still open and we were welcomed in by the security guards at the entrance and directed to the restaurant to the rear by the beach. Food was excellent though just a little pricy but not outrageous.

Back in the motorhome we read for a while (Parked under coconut trees--no satellite.) then went to bed.

Zihuatanejo and El Manglar tomorrow. Then we could stop moving for three months.

Huatulco, Puerto Escondido

A short and easy run today, just over three hours.

Lots of road construction. They are working on taking out a lot of the very tight curves and widening the highway. Eventually there will be a toll road from Oaxaca to join the north-south Mx 200 just south of Puerto Escondido. It will certainly make the trip between Oaxaca city and the interior of the state to the Oaxaca coast much shorter and easier. (See previous post.)

We had first seen the construction last year as we drove north and noted this year that nothing had been done since--there were two meter tall bushes and trees growing in the newly cut road allowance! We thought they had perhaps run out of money but the eventually we came across active construction and were a little happier.







Except when we were right in the middle of it. They had cut quite deeply in places, right up to the edge of the traveled part; often a vertical cut in sandy soil sometimes meters deep. We half expected to have it collapse under us!











The construction carried on almost all the way to Puerto Escondido. Dual lane asphalt was being laid on and off starting about 50 kilometers south of Puerto Escondido but wasn't in use until much closer. At one point we drove past many kilometers of unused new road, wondering why we were stuck here on the narrow old road, then realised that the bridge at the end was just being built!







Further on when we were driving north on a beautiful new surface, the arrows painted on the road showing two lanes north. But the old road alongside had a couple of bridges out so south bound traffic was coming towards us in the left lane! No signs, no barriers, no warning at all except on coming traffic! Judging by the state of the missing bridges in the old road this had been the norm for some time!




However we arrived safely, Art parked in the right lane while Gillian went to find someone to open the gate.

This park is nothing great, though the restaurant in the hotel wasn't too bad last year. The electric power was again unusable (no ground) and there was only one word for the bathrooms: disgusting. Same as last year.

Since it was so hot (92 inside the rig) and there was no one else in the park Art decided to start the generator and turn the air conditioner on. Everything started normally then suddenly the generator rpm increased dramatically for a second or two then dropped down to normal. This happened several times then Art noticed that the current draw was shooting up to 57 amps--more than double the normal 23 Amp draw of the compressor starting up. Seems like the heat pump had died! Art shut things down and then turned the extractor fans to high.

Gillian got the chairs out and we sat out in the shade of the trees and enjoyed the breeze. . . until the bugs bugs began to eat our legs. Even Art, who is seldom bothered by biting bugs had red bites from ankles to knees. We soon retreated inside. At least we had the satellite TV working.

The town of Puerto Escondido is delightful. However this RV park needs a little more work, but it is hard to justify the expense when there are so few RVers traveling in Mexico in recent years. There is another park here but access is impossible except for small RVs so we haven't seen it except in passing.

It's a long drive to Acapulco tomorrow, and we hope get to the other side to Pie de la Cuesta so an early start will be in order. We heard that the road north is good. We'll see soon enough.

Oaxaca to the Huatulco on the Pacific Coast

Oaxaca to the coast, November 25 2012


Up and at 'em as mum used to say, bright and early for us. We had fed ourselves and the dogs, walked the dogs and parked the rig on the street just outside the Trailer Park--as we had suspected, there were no parked cars this Sunday morning and no traffic. The Jeep was quickly connected and we were rolling by 8:30! The Guia Roji says 6 hours by car. We wouldn't be taking the hills and corners at quite that speed and were planning on 8 to 10 hours to Huatulco.

I've posted a few photos here which may or may not correspond exactly to the nearby text. Just enjoy the photos.



We were soon out of town on our way towards Mitla, though there was a confusing road sign that had us a bit concerned. There is an new piece of road that we thought we should have taken but it seemed to join back into the road we were on near Mitla so it didn't matter much. The terrain was fairly flat at first, a few small fields here and there.

Half an hour after leaving the Trailer Park, near Mitla we came across an easy access Pemex so we took 5 minutes to fuel and half an hour after that, 39 kilometers from the park,  we were southbound on the highway to Tehuantapec. The further we got from Oaxaca the narrower the shoulders became until there was barely room for the white line at the edge!










Now we were into the mountains and guessed we had about 4 hours of this ahead of us. The weather was cooperating, a bit of cloud here and there, just a comfortable temperature for driving and enjoying the scenery. We knew that there would likely be no good place to stop for lunch but had apples and oranges to sustain us until then.











In the photo to the left at the 66 KM marker, you can see a narrow open trench. This carried on for many many kilometers. We eventually saw plastic pipe or conduit laid in the trench. Not sure if they were for water, electric lines or both.

Here is the obligatory Military Check Point, where we were waved on. If the soldier in the distance, in the center of the picture, looks a bit odd it's because he is just a painted cutout silhouette! The real ones were around the corner.








Somewhere along the winding roads we came upon a car facing the other direction, as far off the road as possible (which wasn't very far at all) and the engine hood up. There was no traffic behind us so we stopped to see if he needed anything. We thought perhaps he had overheated and might need water of which we had quite a lot. He said the car just stopped, and he needed a mechanic. Art said we would find one and tell him where he was.


Some 20 kilometers later we came to a small village with a small Pemex. Art squeezed in between a truck and a painted rock wall (exchanging bits of paint for specimens of  rock!) and Gillian went in to see if there was a mechanic available. They weren't much help and didn't seem too concerned so we carried on, looking for a "Mechanico" sign. Just before we left the village we saw a sign "Mechanico con Grua" (tow truck) with a  phone number and an arrow pointing up a very narrow lane. Art stopped in the road and called the number, spoke with the mechanic who said "OK, yo cheko!" and so we continued our trip.


We had to laugh at the "cheko". Check has become a Mexican verb, "chekar" in much the same way that the English to chat has become "chatear". Many English words, phrases and expressions are finding their way into every day spoken Spanish. The other day in a small town Art overheard two middle aged Mexican ladies chattering away in rapid colloquial Spanish and as they parted one was heard to say to her friend ". . . OK, see you later, bye bye"!




These two photos were taken one minute apart. To give you an idea of the terrain, The GPS is on the 200 meter scale as can be seen in the lower corner. The turn indicated is 12 km is into the town of Tehuantepec. We will turn a few kilometers before that on to the toll road around it, heading for the west coast. We'll be happy to get out of the mountains!


We turned onto the 185 D, the toll highway to the coast. It would end at the 200 in about 20 kilometers. Very soon we came upon a wide flat space at the side of the road and stopped an hour for lunch and a rest.

A  couple of  minutes after getting back on the road we arrived at the casseta and paid our tolls, 55 pesos for the motorhome and 30 for the Jeep. About $7.00 Canadian (or USD for that matter!)






At 2:40 we  joined the Mx 200 which was in surprisingly good shape, again, except for a few rough spots. We were happy to finally see the Pacific Ocean again and by 5:00 PM we had arrived at the campground at Huatulco.


This "RV Park" is essentially one section of a parking lot for access to the Tangolunda beach. There are really no services, though if you can park near the bathrooms I believe there is one 15 amp outlet. There is also a water hose and a place to dump the waste tanks. Cost is 50 pesos per person.


The park is maintained by, and fees collected by, Fonatur, the Federal authority that built the resorts areas such as Ixtapa, Cancun, Cabo San Lucas, Huatulco etc. etc. The crew were just beginning to cut the grass, the season not starting officially until December 1st but they had cut the long straight and level part along one side allowing us to park without needing to disconnect the Jeep. However Art wasn't paying too much attention to orientation or the overhead trees, just concentrating on finding a nice flat spot.



Once the jacks were down and the slides out he realised that he had parked under the heaviest foliage and the StarChoice satellite was directly behind us, masked by the trees. Oh well, no big deal! We were glad the day was over, getting closer to our winter home. Three more day's travel will see us there, only one being a long one.







Somewhere today we hit one of the "invisible" topes fairly hard. Harder than we thought by the condition of the bedroom closet. Fortunately Art had added a center support to the closet rod which kept the whole thing from falling when the right hand bracket pulled the screws out. Mind you they are only into 1/8th inch press board with no backing block!

Oaxaca and area

We had paid for 4 nights when we arrived, planning to do some serious relaxing and a little sight seeing. Oh. And a load of laundry.
 

Thursday morning we just pottered around a bit in the morning, filling the fresh water tank and draining the holding tanks.

Art also admired the folding solar panel spread out on the car next door. Graham and Janet are on their way to Uruguay in it! They have put in a lot of thought and planning, the pop top little car nicely set up. There is room for both of them and the dog to sleep inside!





Then we piled into the Jeep as set off for the town of San Bartolo Coyotopec, famous for it's shiny black pottery. We didn't really need to buy but hoped something would strike our fancy. We browsed the dozen or so stalls in the Artisan Market and picked out a few nice small pieces.

With our goodies carefully professionally wrapped in newspaper we tucked them behind the seat and continued south towards the larger town of Ocotlán in search of a nice place for lunch. It was a beautiful drive on a beautiful day.






We didn't quite get there, coming across this wonderful place along the way.







We pulled in and found a place to park in the shade of a tree. With the rear windows replaced with netting and the top partially opened, the dogs remained nicely cooled by the breeze.

A nice touch, a waiter was there to open the car door for us!


Once we were sure the dogs would be fine we entered the restaurant and chose a table on the wide shaded porch and began to peruse the menu with anticipation.


The State of Oaxaca is of course the home of the famous mole sauces. Please note that in Spanish the final e in a word is pronounced. The word is pronounced "molay". It has nothing to do with an underground dwelling animal!

Gillian was delighted to find a yellow mole on the menu. One she had not yet experienced. Nor has she yet--they were out of yellow mole!

Gillian finally settled on the Polly en mole colorado (coloured) mole, essentially red, while Art went for the Chile Relleno with fruit and nuts.  Art won. Gillian's dish while tasty was just a little plain. We had forgotten that most of these dishes are served with only the meat, a lot of sauce and rice. Art's chile relleno on the other hand was stuffed with chicken as well as vegetables and covered with a sweet white sauce and pomegranate seeds.

The restaurant was decorated with all types of bright beautifully whimsical objects, it was very colourful and very pleasant. Especially the "cat".

Sated, we returned to the dogs and the Jeep and headed for home.

 



The drive home was as pleasant as the drive out.

 (It may be difficult to see, but the motorcycle above carries two policemen, the passenger complete with automatic rifle.)

Saturday we took a taxi to the zocalo (square) in centro, leaving the dogs a couple of Kongs full of peanut butter to keep them busy for the next while. The taxista took us by a somewhat roundabout route, avoiding the worst of the traffic. Fares are set region to region not by time or actual distance driven.



We had first visited this place more than 20 years ago. We remembered listening to a Sunday concert by the Oaxaca Symphony orchestra. Today was Saturday; no Symphony, but music nevertheless.

Another memory of this place from the same trip, was getting our shoes shined after returning from a tour of the Monte Albán  ruins. The shoe shine man was quite surprised by Art's Spanish--we had just completed a three week Spanish immersion course in Cuernavaca--and was astounded to find that Gillian spoke Spanish as well! He seemed quite happy to chat with us about all kind of things.









 One big difference this time, this big tree in front of the Cathedral had been still standing! Looks like wind damage. Art was wishing he could have nicked a bit of the wood to take home to his lathe!










We spent some time wandering about seeing the sights, including this delightful electrical connection in the middle of the paved strolling paths, supplying power to the sound system of a human rights display.






Next on the list of things to do was checking out the many restaurants before settling on La Primavera (Spring) on the corner for our lunch.

There were a couple of young ladies at the next tabled. Art asked in Spanish were they were from and they responded hesitantly "um Inglatera". Art being himself, he carried on in Spanish and asked what part of Inglatera. When they told him he said in his best (not really very good) north of England accent "Well that's all all right then".

The were both startled and laughed out loud. We all chatted for just a few minutes then left them to their lunch and paid attention to ordering ours.We had a delightful meal, then once around the zocalo again, found a taxi and headed for home.



It was a little different on the way home. The traffic was horrendous; stop and go, or rather stop and crawl. We were almost overcome by diesel fumes by the time we were safely back in the park.

The dogs were delighted to see us of course. After a bit of a walk around the park we began to clean up and put things away in preparation for our departure in the morning.

Later we wandered up the street to have a drink before dinner (not that either of us would be able to eat much!)  We found what we first though to be a bar but turned out to me more of a night club. It had a nice long bar, lots of tables and blaring recorded rock music. At this time it seemed to be catering to the after work crowd although a few families came in with quite young children.

After a couple of beer, Gillian went to pick up the laundry which she had dropped off in the morning while Art went directly back to the rig.

An early night tonight, it would be a rather early start tomorrow.