Welcome to our Mexploration 2010

 
We intended to start this blog on January 1st, 2010, when we left our home in Posada Concepcion, in Baja California Sur, to begin our second annual exploration of the Mexico mainland, this time for three months. On a giant ferry, we crossed from La Paz, further south on the Baja peninsula, to Mazatlan, a resort city in Sinaloa state on the Pacific coast.


Like last year, our plan was to cruise around in a small motorhome. Last summer, however, we sold our former 23-foot RV and downsized to a 1989 19-foot Mallard Sprint, which we acquired at an auction for $4K. This one-owner gem had 26K miles on it and had been well cared for. We upgraded to high-end tires, ambulance-quality shock absorbers, and other things to improve its safety and ride, and we freshened the interior with new curtains and one of Gary's small, beautiful Tibetan rugs. It has a nice-sized bed, a bathroom/shower, a frig, a microwave, a 2-burner stove, and a sink. Sufficiente!


Today it is one month into the trip and one-third into our allotted time. The delay in blogging about our travels stems from some unexpected events:


Terri's 95-year-old mother, Agnes (see photo), suffered a sudden illness and died on January 10. Terri flew to Cleveland, her hometown, in time to sit a day's vigil with her sister Jeanne before Agnes passed away, and to stay while other family members arrived for a private funeral service. It was good for her to be in the comfort of their company.


While Terri was in Ohio, we received news from our friend and Baja housesitter, Susan Nelson, that our dog, Buddy (see photo), had become suddenly sick. Susan and retired vet Fred Fredericks, who performs a great service to people and their pets in our Baja community, determined that Buddy's illness was ultimately terminal, and they delivered him to a gentle ending.


These losses took the wind out of our sails. After Terri returned from Ohio, we spent a few quiet days at our sweet condominium in Zihuatanejo, on the southern Pacific coast, before heading north in the RV on Mex Hwy 200. This two-lane, curvy road follows all the ins and outs of the mountainous shoreline, which is something like a tropical version of the Big Sur area of the central California coast in the U.S., only in places you can look down from the highway and see terrific expanses of unspoiled beach.

For perhaps hundreds of miles on Hwy 200 through several states (Guerrero, Michoacan, Jalisco and Nayarit), there are no stoplights because the Mexicans have developed a far more effective means of regulating traffic speed through pueblos (small towns) or near school zones: topes. Topes (TOW-pays) are giant speed bumps, and they occur frequently enough that, between them and the curves, we averaged about 25 mph all the way to Puerto Vallarta.


En route we checked out several dirt roads leading from the highway to the ocean in search of good places to camp for a night. (We also remembered places we'd discovered last winter, and we had recommendations from friends who'd traveled this way before.) As a result, we landed on some beautiful beaches, many complete with small, open-air restaurants called enramadas, where we enjoyed pina coladas and fresh grilled fish. Deliciosa!


In Puerto Vallarta, a city of 1.5 million people and a stark contrast to the little towns along Hwy 200, we met Gary's brother Rick and his wife, Marcy, for a week at an oceanfront resort. We took a day trip to Sayulita, an old '70s hippie surfer town now cleaned up and touristy but still fun.


Last Saturday we left Puerto Vallarta and headed inland over the Sierra de Mascota mountains, climbing more than a mile in elevation in a few hours of more 25 mph driving. The scenery was fantastic -- range after range revealing themselves, covered with different vegetation, tiny pueblitos dotting the hillsides. Eventually we neared Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city with a population of more than 1.5 million, and the 2-lane gave way to a 6-lane highway that ringed the city. We circled to the north and left the city, taking the cuota (tollway) a while before stopping for the night. The next morning we hopped back on the cuota for another day of driving -- around Leon, a major industrial city north of Guadalajara, and from a flat agricultural area into the high desert of Guanajuato state. 

We hadn't seen another gringo (American/Canadian) after leaving PV until yesterday, when we arrived in San Miguel de Allende, a well-known expatriat town dating from the mid-1500s and the Jesuit mission-building era in Mexico. In 2008, SMA was designated a Unesco World Heritage Site, which means, among other things, that its architecture, culture, and charm is tightly controlled and thus preserved.


SMA, which is also known for its terrific weather -- clear and cool in winter, clear and warm in summer -- is at the moment wet wet wet, with a few more days of rain forecast. The bright side is that it's a good time to be enrolled in Spanish class, and Terri begins one tomorrow. The down side is that we're staying at a small RV park we found in the center of SMA, and one of the big lures of the place -- 3 clay tennis courts -- are big mud puddles and unusable for at least a week. Gary was hoping to get some coaching and play time in while Terri was in Spanish class, but instead he'll be diving into a new novel on his Kindle.


We plan to be here for about 2 weeks, so stay tuned for pix and more from SMA.