Rincon to Villa Corona

We left Rincon on Sunday 21 st Feb. However i must tell you about a few happenings in the park for Tues to Sat.

On Tues evening/ Wed we got rain again for the 2 nd time in a month which is very rare in MX at this time on year. That also was the day that we took Todd and family to PV to return home. PV is one hour from Rincon. Also while we where in PV we had to visit Costco to pick up 15 dozen dinner rolls because our park was having a Cowboy Style chuck wagon supper ( on Thursday ) hosted by all Albertans but for all  other campers. The,  menu was , of course Stew, Chilli, Beans, Salad, dessert and cowboy coffee. This meal was intended to be eaten on your lap , much like a cowboy at a roundup so there was no tables, however, we are seniors so TV  tables did appear in most cases. One of the ladies is a camp cook for her son’s hunting camp so she made the cowboy coffee, which for the “City slickers” and non-hunters is simply boiling water poured over the coffee grinds in a large pot , then places on a low fire to simmer. A cup of cold water is poured in to take  ( most ) of the coffee grounds to the bottom. Some of the people  were heard to say how do you make such good coffee in such a large pot ; because it did taste great and the Aroma attracted most people.Here are a few pics:

                                                     

A piper from Sask Piping in  a Scotchman from ON

 

Ringing the dinner Bell

Carroll checking the menu

You probably never gave it much thought but we campers have usually two choice to wash and dry your clothes. The quick and easy choice is to take it to a local Launderia and a MX ladies will wash, dry and fold it for a very reasonable price. Some of us have a washer and dryer and those ladies, including Carroll,  chose to use the camp clothes lines instead of the dryer.  I, being a good helper assisted Carroll by hanging the clothes and at times retrieve them. On Sat, Carroll sent me to get the clothes as we were getting ready to pack up to leave on Sun and she was busy doing something. I thought I would recognized most of our clothes but apparently I don’t own or wear  Stanfield underwear, size 40 and Carroll doesn't own any size 12 tee shirts. Carroll ask me why i would steal these clothes since they did not fit. ha ha. Carroll returned the clothes to the clothes lines while everyone was at Happy Hour which save me the embarrassment of being accused of stealing.

We left Rincon around 9 PM on Sunday and headed for Magdalena which is on the way to Guadalajara, and is known for its’ Opal mines.  However the nearest camp site is located 22 KM south of Magdalena and of course we had to wind our way directly through the entire city which includes going thru the centre of town. Although this was  a Sunday and the downtown area was busy we managed the initial left turn without incident, but i knew there was a tight right turn coming as I have seen this “movie”  many times. But a cop seen me coming and he probably has seen us “Gringos “ with our large rigs before so he gave me the “stop sign”, cleared the oncoming traffic, made the right lane traffic stop short of the intersection and cleared me thru. What a relief. Now we had 22 Km of 2 lane road thru the farming area to reach our camp site. What could be easier. We have never seen an asphalt road with so many deep potholes. Even the MX slowed down for the potholes so you know they were deep.

We finally reached the city of Etzatlan and followed the directions to Delia’s trailer park. Our “Travel Bible “ suggested that  big Rigs pull off to the right side of the road and make sure the gate is open and size up the entrance method. Mexicans do not make wide gates. As soon as I got thru the gate I was sure we where in the wrong lane way because I could see down the lane an  the opening was about 8 ft wide and 10 ft high. I need 13 ft to get thru. We kept going hoping for a miracle, and after 300 m there it was , an opening on our right which lead to a very nice camp site that was all grass. The only  occupants where two Cdns, one from  Mitchell, ON and the other from Winnipeg. The owner, a young lady met us and said to pick any spot of the 10 left. Since the area was well treed I wanted a spot where I could set up my satellite. The guy from Wpg heard me and said to take the spot near him and connect to his Satellite as he had 2 empty terminals. We often let neighbours connect to our satellite.

Today we are off to Magdalena.

 

Villa Corona to Puerto Vallarta/ Bucerias/ Ricon

We left Villa Corona on 4 Feb after 4 days of rain,just as the Sun began to shine on MX again. We where glad to see the Sun because we had to manoeuvre our way thru and around Guadalajara as it is the best way to get to Puerto Vallarta albeit mostly by toll roads. Toll roads are expensive ,especially when pulling a 32 ft trailer as it cost us about 50.00 Cdn to go 325 KM. There are Free roads “Libre “  but they are 2 lanes , no shoulder and usually slow so if you are in a hurry you must " pay the piper ". As you may remember , we were heading to Bucerias to camp as that was the closes camp site to the location of the Kid’s Condos ( 7 km\).

The Jonk family rented a 3 bedroom condo which could sleep 10 pers. We had a great time with the Kids and with several members of Yvonne’s family . The beach was excellent and there  was two great swimming pools and 5 hot tubs.

 

 

 

 

 

Todd and Rhett on the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

Todd and Rhett in one of the pools.

Emily between the 2 pools.

Grandma and Rhett when he seen G/Ma at the PV airport.

A pic of the kitchen in the condo. It has a Beer fridge, a wine cooler and a freezer/fridge. There is another fridge on the patio along with a complete kitchen with a gas Bar-B-Q 

We stayed in a camp site in Bucerias ( 7 km from the condo ) . The lane to the camp site was hard to enter from a busy 4 lane hwy and  extremely difficult to get into it as they never seem to make the gate openings large enough for our RVs. Getting into the site area was no walk in the park either. Two of the campers gave us a hand to back into a site and as usual the DAM palm trees where another hazard. One of the campers had a machette and  so he  removed 6 limps that where in my way and after 20 mins I managed to get into the site. I could see that it was going to be much more difficult to get out but that was a week away so I would cross that bridge later.

The day of Reckoning arr on Friday 12 Feb when we had to move to Rincon and believe me there was not much wiggle room to get out of the park but with the help of the same two guys we managed to get out the Gate. Once I got out of the park I had to climb a 15 % grade, all cobblestone in Bull Low in 4 wheel drive and then make a right turn onto a 4 lane hwy and I could not see the un-coming traffic. Therefore  Carroll had to signal when there was an opening in the traffic because Mexican drivers do NOT give way. However, after driving in MX for 5 years, it is just another day in Paradise.

We moved to Rincon Guayabitos  on Friday where we will stay for a week or so. On Saturday we returned to the Condo to pick up Todd’s family and Yvonne’s brother Henry and his wife Cheryl since they where not leaving until the 17 th.  Todd , Yvonne and her brother and wife took  our truck and traveled to Guadalajara ( 325 KM ) and the surrounding area for 3 days.  As a point of interest only a Blood relative ( because we are foreigners ) can drive your vehicle in MX and you must have a letter in the vehicle with permission to drive it. We had Emily and Rhett for 3 days and since we are only a few hundred feet from the beach so they thoroughly enjoyed the water. Also another family from Edm had there kids who had a 2 year old boy so he and Rhett played together  much of the time.

On sunday  we intend to complete our trip to Patzcuro, which we started to do about 3 weeks ago. As usual, our plans are never cast in concrete,and the only date that is “ Firm “ is 13 April, which is when we will be home. Cheers T and C

Eslers Mexico Travelogue

We arrived in Villa Corona around 4 PM on the 19 th Jan . We attempted two different sites before we could find one large enough for us. Once we got parked and where setting up a neighbour came over to invite us to Happy Hour which we accepted.  Although they are from Calgary they where born and raised  in Springfield, Ont. Their names are Carl and Jeanne Bearss. He was a Banker, a realtor and owned a grocery store before moving to Calgary. Hence we became friends for the next two weeks and probably longer. This is also a good conduit to swap travel info.

Villa Corona is a town of 5000 plus pop. but it has everything an RVer needs. They have several small stores which we would describe as a 7/11 type. Every Tuesday is market day with the very best of fruit and veggies, fish and prawns, CDs and DVDs, in English of course. Villa Corona also has two large PEMEX service stations and they are much like our truck stops with a well stocked much like our store like Max Milk but they also stock Beer which our stores don’t. This town is also a busy route for Truckers going to Guadalajara and for the large farm trucks the move sugar cane from the field to the processing plant in the area. Most of the sugar cane is cut by hand and load by a front end loader, however I have seen a few trucks that had sugar cane that was combined and loaded directly on the trucks.

The park is called Chimuclo and is an RV park with 56 sites with full hookups and a large soccer field as overflow. It is also a water park  complete with waterslides, and has 5 or 6  large naturally fed Hot pools which we are allowed to use and comes with the price of the campsite which is 231 P per day or approxi 21.00 cdn. We the campers migrated to the pools every morning to soak and to pass valuable information on what to do and where to visit in the area. Also the new folks like us need find out where to get veggies, meat, beer, wine and of course good resturaunts. All the pools are empty every evening and refilled in the early morning, however, us Gringos need a hot pool in the evening so the soak before going to bed so the fill one small pool ( 20’ X 40’ ) just for us. Talk about being treated like “Royalty”.

On our second day in Villa Corona we where convinced that we had to stay at least a week as there was too much to see. The next day we decide to visit Guadalajara so we foolishly thought we would drive which  was a bad idea. When we reached the outskirts of the city it was chaos so we decide to take the next Returno  which is a legal U-turn in MX and to use the MX Bus service to visit the city some other day.  So as not to waste a day , we drove south about 30 KM to Lake Chappla which is another tourist town that was on our list of “Must Visit “. This a small town/city that many Cdns and Americans spend the winter months as the temperature is not too hot like the coast areas and not too cool, although the temperature could drop to 10 or 12 C at night.

 

Villa Corona is on the bus route to Guadalajara and for the price of 30 P it will deliver you right to the Centro Bus station. From there it is another 30 P taxi ride to the city Centre which is always a “ Beehive of Activity “. It is also the place where you would catch the Double-Decker Bus to tour the city. Now,  this two tour will cost you 60 P ( 5.25 cdn ) . You can also take two more tours with the same ticket but we could only handle two tours in one day.

Since we did not see all we wanted to see in Guadalajara we decided to return another day but we needed at least a days rest so the next was just a lazy day. now I have been bragging about the gorgerous weather in MX and rightly so because it is normal great. But  “Elneano” has kicked us in the teeth just like everywhere else in the world. Therefore we rec 4 days of continous rain but the up side is that we had NO wind much like the folks along the west coast. Well, the sun is shinning again so all is forgotten.

On 4 Feb we moved to Bucersia ( 7 KM from Puerto Vallarta because Yvonne , Emily and Rhett where arriving at 8 PM and we where there to pick them up and deliver them to their rented condo. They are staying with Yvonne’s Mother , one sister and teenage son, 3 brothers and a sister in law , all in the same condo. I must tell you that this condo is a Penthouse and is 3000 sq ft approxi of living space, and 1200 sq ft of outdoor patio complete with a Bar B Q kitchen on the patio and a hot tub. The hallways and foyers are not part of the living space. This Condo is located right on the beach and has a huge heated pool with a swim up bar, which i do not use since i would have to pay for my own drinks. ha ha. This Condo is owned by a friend of the Jonk family so the rent was reasonable but it would normally rent for 800.00 per day. And i know you all want to know the cost to purchase the Condo so here goes. The owner paid 5 million dollars for this condo and it is not his only condo. I believe the staff think I own the place because every time I drive in ( it is gated ) they just open the gate and the Bell Hop parks my truck and retrieves it when i leave. Unfortunately we have to return to our 32 ft triple slide trailer at night.

We also visited with another friend ( Roy Olsen ) from Medicine Hat who has  a beautiful 3 bedroom condo in downtown Puerto Vallarta and again we went for supper and stayed for breakfast. It seems to be a trend of ours. ha ha. This condo has a self parking area so now when i go to downtown PV I just drive to Roy’s condo and drop his name and condo # and  they let me in to park. It is very difficult to find a parking spot in PV. It sure is great to have friends.

Todd is flying in on tues for a week, so we will pick him up and deliver him to “ The condo “. After Todd and family go home we will proceed to Patzucaro , Morelia and hopefully to see the Monarch Butterflies.  This the end of my first Blog so i hope it works. The next Blog should include some Pics, once I learn how. All replies are greatly accepted. Bye T and C