We Are Learning Some Mexican Ways

Being the last day before the weekend, we took off for exploring a part of the area. Key was doing it early and before the heat of the day would settle in.

On the map I found a possible place for dumping waste water - a campground in connection with the Hotel Playa De Cortes. 

After entering Hwy 124 we took the first turn-off to the right - which was a good, but narrow road. It led along a nature preserve and we saw the "Delphinario" complex. 

View across the nature preserve with Cerro Tetakawi in the background

Then we got through some pretty upscale neighbourhood some of the part of a gated community - clearly folks with a fat bank account.

The Hotel Playa De Cortez is located at the end of a bigger main road with a huge wall forcing you to stop. Half of the Spanish-style opening was closed off with a gate, but the left side was open. An empty chair placed on the side signaled that a guard should be sitting there, but at this time there was nobody. We drove into the yard and saw something what looked like an RV-Park, but entirely empty and overgrown with weeds. In the background on top of a mountain a building resembling a castle, made of concrete. From a video I have seen, I know that this monstrous building was the former headquarter of a local cartel boss. I briefly checked out a faucet but there was no water. A single very old 5th-wheel, grown in with weeds was parked in one of the sites. And not a single human soul around. I got a eerie feeling and we got out of there. 

Googling the hotel, I found out that it is still open for business, except for the campground. It was built in 1935/36 and was famous for its features and elegance. Booking.com offers overnight stay for $77/night.

Ok, it wasn't the place we had hoped for so we went into Guyamas and to Walmart. The Walmart is absolutely comparable to any Walmart in the US. We got ourselves some swim shoes which hopefully would protect us a bit against the stings of the baby stingrays, we had been warned about.

While I went into Walmart first, Bea and Dixie stayed in the car, AC on full blast. Then we switched. Now, I certainly made a mistake by going into the self-checkout. My Spanish needs a lot of upgrades if I want to understand the messages this machine shows. Trying and failing I needed the help of a Walmart associate several times. Next time, I will seek out a human cashier for sure.

Next Bea wanted to find a coin laundromat. There are only a few, if any, in Mexico. Laundromats in Mexico are full service where one drops off the laundry, then comes back (after shopping for hours) to pick up your stuff. Some of these facilities are clean others are filthy. We found a real clean one close to downtown San Carlos with an English speaking lady behind the counter.

Getting back to camp, it was the usual heat, and I went for cool-off into the ocean.

Not Much Cooler Yet

While we were traveling south we froze. Except for the last 4 days when reaching New Mexico,we had been longing for warm weather. Now our glances on the weather forecast are hopeful for some cooler weather. Today's 34C ((93.2F) are still not giving us much relief.

As a precautionary measure Dixie got an old T-shirt of mine which was doused in water. 

Then she found her "hole" where she lay the entire morning. Bea even set up a sun umbrella for her to get some shade.

In the afternoon we got more shade on the other side and we hung out there the rest of the time.

Late afternoon our camper neighbour came over letting us know that a group of volunteers were releasing sea turtle babies into the sea. So we went over to observe.

And wasn't that quite the event happening here? The little ones, about 150, were let go in the surf zone and while most of them went straight for the water, others needed some help to waddle into the right direction. Spectators like us had arrived to follow the release. 

Providing some directional help

A Sizzling Hot Day

 We were prepared for day temps in the 80s, but what we got today was 96F, and the first indication (besides of the forecast) was that we woke up to almost 72F (22C) at 6:30am. I had planned to make a quick run to San Carlos for drinking water and a few more groceries. So I wanted to go as early as possible but had to wait until 8am for the businesses to open. By that time, the heat had become a tad uncomfortable, especially when having to run errands.

In order to find the places I wanted to go to, I used Google maps. But because the Tetakawi BLVD consists of a main center run with two lanes each way and a business spur on either side of the middle the Google advice was at times confusing. This will all be part of the initial learning curve and thus not any further issue in the future.

Returning to camp, it was time to creep up in the shade, but first I hopped into the ocean for a swim. Now it fits here to talk about a certain "danger" lurking in the water. Nope, not sharks, but baby stingrays. They are hiding under the soft sand and prefer, just as us, the warm water. It is advisable not to step on these creatures as they can hurt you with their poisonous barbed tail. (looks alot like a scorpion) If hit by a stingray one needs to get the foot into hot water to avert most of the pain and the poison to travel up the leg. Pain meds are helping! a bloody wound would occur needing treatment. Luckily, the big grownup Mom and Pop stingrays live farther out in the ocean, but they can actually kill a human.

Walking into the water one should shuffle the feet across the sand, which will scare those creatures away. It also helps to wear shoes made of special stingray-resistant material. We will be looking for them in town.

So let's move to the sizzling weather today. A breeze sprang up and made our lives a little better, but dogs have no benefit of it, as they can only get rid of body heat through their tongue and their feet. They don't feel any cooling in wind. So this afternoon Dixie started serious signs of overheating. So we put her into our car after starting engine and AC. After a while she slept on the floor. And now, after dark, she is back in the bus sleeping away - exhausted after this day.

So yes, even a paradise has its problems.

For days we have preferred to eat cold meals, not only to avoid feeling even hotter, but also to avoid heating up the bus. If any cooking is necessary, we do it in the morning.

Another hot day will come up tomorrow. Let's see......

The First Swim And A Lazy Day To Follow

As time goes by we are falling completely in love with this place, The weather, the scenery, the gorgeous white beach, it is all worth it. Now, tomorrow we are gonna have a very hot day at 36C (96.8) and we need some drinking water, so I will go to town for that and a few other errands, and I will go alone and early on as these temperatures are too high to leave Dixie in the car, even it is for 5 minutes only.

Dixie prefers to relax in her favorite home-made spot rather than go shopping

Speaking of Dixie, she is the perfect guard dog. This afternoon a car with no license plate came by with an older driver who wanted to sell shrimps and tamales. Dixie started barking forcefully We politely declined his offer, but he didn't speak any English so we tried with Google translate. When we held up the phone so he could speak into it, he turned around and left. Probably thought we would record him.

And because this was another super nice day, I finally opted to get into the water. Aaaah, what a heavenly experience for a guy who hasn't been in ocean water for decades. Yes, we live on the ocean back home, but unfortunately, the water is too cold. 28ft of tidewater exchange every day keeps the temperature way down. Here, the water temperature was around 26C or 79.5F. So I say this is a whole different ball game.

The rest of the day was passed lazily and resting.

Oh Gosh What Happened?

5am was it when I went to the bathroom. Our toilet has a foot pedal for the water and the release valve in the bottom, a big difference to residential toilets.

I pushed down on the pedal and I heard a hard sound and the pedal hit the floor.

And the valve hadn't opened. Oh BOY! This spelled disaster. Well, there was nothing I could do now so I went to bed again. But sleeping after this was pretty much out of the question.

An hour later I heard Bea stirring under her covers. That led me to get her prepared for a different morning routine.

Breakfast was done with a subdued mood, and then the fun began. Now, I have removed toilet bowls before - at home. But this was a tad different. RV plumbing is always different. And right here the difference was that the bowl was connected with a very short plex water pipe. It was almost impossible to get any tool between the bowl and the wall. So I tried by hand only and got lucky.

Well, to shorten the story, I found out that a pull wire operating the valve was broken. There is no RV supply store in town, so I asked our friend from Quebec to come along and we went to Home Depot in Guaymas, a short ride really.

What I found at Home Depot was an outspoken friendliness and service minded attitude which I had never seen in neither Canada nor the US. And of course there was no problem finding a cable the same diameter as the old one. The sleeve would stay the same old but the cable inside could be replaced.... at much lower price than any original Part from an RV store. Being already in town we went to get groceries as well. I opted for a meatless diet which we had talked about earlier as a better alternative, especially under hot weather. (Saves propane too!)

Back home I got the valve mechanism repaired, and put the bowl back into place. And yesss, the thing is working again!

Many people complain about RVing as a very costly affair as some stuff seems to happen all the time. Yes it is true, and sometimes it's really expensive but many more times the RVer can fix things himself, IF he has the set of tools at hand and a base technical understanding things can get fixed. Today I spent 84 Pesos on parts about 5 bucks.

I am in the habit of enriching my vocabulary by inventing a lot of new words when I work. LOL!

Our friends came over in the afternoon and we have been sitting in the shade catching up with each other.

Morning glow

I walked barefoot across the beach and the sand was still cold. But stepping out into the water felt like somebody had heated the water in my bathtub. INCREDIBLE!

Evening Glow

One of the pleasures with a southern exposure is certainly sitting outside - still with minimal clothing - and watch the sunset.

Mission Accomplished

 We pulled out of the rest area at 6:15am. The air outside was still fresh with coolness of the night. The highway was near empty. But before entering the border we pulled out to a LOVES Truckstop to fill up with Diesel. Fuel is much more expensive in Mexico, well....like in California.

Of course, as this was our first border crossing into Mexico we felt a bit apprehensive about the procedure and also getting into the right lanes. Well, we just followed directional signs and slipped through the truck crossing on the US-side easy peasy. The next thing was the Mexican customs stop. we approached it in a crawl and an officer waved us to a stop. I handed over passports and registration papers for the bus, the car and the trailer. The only he looked at was the bus registration. And he wanted to compare the VIN number with the sticker we have inside the bus, There were no questions about food items or anything else. After he released us we were free in Mexico......except we still needed the FMM, or "tourist card".

The necessary stop at km 21 is very badly marked as such, but we found it. As soon as a line-up of people forms you can spend some considerable time there.

Thanks to our early start there weren't too many people waiting.

And then we were on our way again.

Now a couple of words about the road conditions. The first part right after the passing of US customs facilities was about the worst I ever drove. The pavement was in a state of total destruction. After the km21 I noticed some slight improvement but still worse than the famous I-70 in the US.

Continuing south there were stretches with new pavement which suddenly ended in disaster-like conditions. Calling this federal highway which takes in thousands of millions of pesos in a month the best road in Mexico scares the hell out of me. Cause what state are the lesser roads in?

As we had stopped for lunch at a PEMEX station a whole caravan of Canadian RVers pulled in. As I heard from them they were underway to Porto Vallarta or a little north of there.

We left the area before them but later got into a position right among them on the highway.

Hermosillo, the only bigger city in the area has modern style bypass so we never saw anything of the city.

From Hermosillo it was only a tad more than an hour of driving to San Carlos. We had stayed in continuous  contact with our friends who had been waiting for us in San Carlos. So when we arrived, they were there to welcome us.

After scouting out a site we found a place very close to the beach. But what did I do? I got the motorhome stuck in the sand. Yes I did! Embarrassing and stupid. But with the help of my trailer ramps and some sand mats from a fellow camper we got it out of the sand and back to solid ground.

Phew!!

The place is just steps from the beautiful beach where the waves of the Sea of Cortez holding 26C or about 79.5F are tempting for a swim.

Even though the drive today was only about 500km we were exhausted. It had been too hot most of the day and temps were at 33C (91.4F)

And I think Dixie was suffering the most. Only after hours in the shade of the rig she recovered.

Tomorrow we've got to do some serious grocery shopping.

Mt. Cerro Tetakawi

Getting Real Close

This was not a big driving day. From Elephant Butte Lake we started back on the I-25 but moved off it again at the little town Hatch from where Highway 26 leads up to Deming, NM where we entered I-10 due west. 

Supposedly the Rio Grande... (Beatrix Kohlhaas)

Dust clouds along the I-10 (Beatrix Kohlhaas)

3 weeks ago there was a rain storm (Beatrix Kohlhaas)

We know this part of the way very well and also the rest areas along the highway. San Simon rest area is a great place for overnight stay, and we came to a stop at the very spot where we have been 2 years ago with our trailer. This is about 120 miles east of Tucson. Tomorrow morning we will try to get pesos for dollars in Tucson, then turn south on the I-19. Border crossing is planned for Sunday morning now.

(Beatrix Kohlhaas)

What Man Once Made - Nature Took Back

 As a follow-up to yesterday's posting, Dixie and I went on a hike to the boat launch, or at least what was the boat launch many years ago. And as is the case with all man-made but abandoned facilities I got the same sorry feeling, that says "I wish this hadn't happened".

The entire lake, once the biggest man-made lake in the US, had disappeared to the tiny fraction of 4.3% of its former size. 

The concrete boat launch, now ending on dry ground, must have seen considerable act ivity once, the huge paved parking lot being a witness of it. The asphalt, was now broken up, though one can still see faint lines for the parking spots, and I found two signs grown in, one of them reminding boat owners to clean mud and debris from the boat before and after launch.

Today, this is looking much worse

This part of New Mexico had a lot of rain weeks ago which actually made the lake water rise with 0.3%. That rain caused disastrous flooding in some parts of the State which tells us how much rain would really be needed to refill the lake. It will never happen.

The Water Is Gone!

 After a calm start from Santa Rosa Lake, we got ourselves back on the trusty I-40. It didn't take long and we saw something that seemed unbelievable the longer we looked at it.

Antelopes beside the Highway

Due to a construction site where one of the lanes was shut down a huge 29mile long line of eastbound vehicles, most of them trucks, had piled up literally bumper to bumper.

It must have been taken hours to get through that construction zone.

Albuquerque

The I-40 is partly in terrible shape with other parts redone not long ago. Seeing that amount of truck traffic one understands how the pavement is exposed to damage.

From Albuquerque we went onto the much better I-25.

I-25 south

Took a rest stop for lunch then reached exit 89 towards the Elephant Butte Lake State Park and the South Monticello sites. 

This part of the park seemed to be the one with most of the pull-thrus. 

Our great site in the park

And we ended up in the biggest of them all. In fact it is big enough for 2 rigs our size. Booked 2 nights again and settled in. I took Dixie for a walk towards the "Lake" where I was awestruck about the total absence of water. 

Brown flats instead of water

There is absolutely no water in this northern part of the lake. In fact, I could see small shrubs growing on what once was the bottom of the lake. Instead of blue water I looked at extensive brown flats. This is illustrating the extend of the drought lasting for years.

Nevertheless, we have just started enjoying our beautiful site which is located directly alongside the service building. 

Service Building

This will be a great place to spend 2 nights at.