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Published: February 24th 2008
Cemetery entrance
on the way to Santa Maria, MXChapter 8: Villa Corona to Alamos
Please check out our photos at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ches.Alli/Chapter8 Ahh, Villa Corona, Parque Acuatica Chimulco RV Trailer Park.
http://chimulcotrailerpark.com/English/Location.html We talked about it in our last chapter. Warm water in large swimming pools that are emptied and cleaned every night and filled early the next morning. Allison's first impression - UGH! It's like Disneylandia with the water slides and hoards of people. And look at all the super sized RVs! Then we met the nicest people who showed us the way into town past the panaderia, a bakery housed behind a home in a small room using a horno type oven afterwards we crossed the street down a back alley and and into the small town where the main mode of transportation was bicycling! Moms with toddlers balanced on the rail in front of them or standing on the crossbar, men biking to work, and hardly any automobiles. The Mercado was a bit expensive by Patzcuaro standards, but the gem was across the street - a grocery store with bulk items - peanuts, Ches' new favorite lunch, cereals, granola, beans, cat food, nuts, all in huge bags with an attendant ready to help you sort it all out. Everyone in town was welcoming and appreciated our attempts to speak Spanish and they in turn either spoke or tried English. We were told that many people here go to Utah to work and come back in November for the town's festivities. They may stay until February presumably when the work in Utah picks up again. After the venture into town and testing the warm pools - including the “Tornado” water slide back at the campground, Allison changed her mind about Chimulco and Villa Corona.
We ended up staying 2 weeks at Chimulco Park filling our days with getting in the water first thing in the morning before the people came in, then shopping in town for necessities or going to the Tuesday street market, then going for bicycle rides out on the dirt roads around town and getting back for the late afternoon bean bag game that the RV'ers play. Many of the RVer's, most of whom are from Canada, have been coming to this park for many years and spend the whole winter right there. It was our first time hanging out with people in the big rigs, and they couldn't be nicer. Somehow, the life we disdained only a few years ago looks more and more comfortable. We met one couple who had been RVing full time for 17 years! Hearing that makes looking at the big rigs with all the luxuries of a house more understandable. These people are not camping moving from place to place each week on an adventure. They are spending their lives in their vehicles stopping for several months at a time. We had a great time living the good life - mainly because the weather permitted us to spread out and set up our kitchen and dining area on the pad beside our van. It's hard to imagine how large families live in small homes. We both need our space.
On Thursday, February 7, we finally set off again, this time headed for Laguna Santa Maria just west of Tepic in the state of Nayarit. We were slowly heading towards the Pacific coast and then turning north. The laguna is a lake in an old volcanic crater surrounded by small farms, big homes, restaurants, a resort and a campground. As it turns out, and unbeknown to us, it is a birders paradise. We saw some of the most beautifully colored birds ever. Glistening blue, yellow, orange and red. Even black with long elaborate tails. Sorry, we can't tell you what we saw - next trip we'll need to bring a birding book along. They were incredible. And everywhere.
Because of the birds we quickly became aware that the kitty had to stay in the van during daylight hours. Ever since Patzcuaro we have been letting her out mostly whenever she wanted, which is naturally at night. We got to a point where we felt there was no choice but to let her live her life as she chooses as she was getting very sneaky trying to escape - hiding in the wheel well, jumping over our heads, or rushing out from a hiding place - and mostly this arrangement has worked quite well. We are all a lot happier. She explores for an hour or so and comes right back. Every now and then we worry about the traffic, dogs or other cats. It seems that cats seek us out and their insistent mews for attention do not amuse Rain. She is numero uno in our camp and lets any cat or dog in the vicinity know it. We've started keeping a bottle of vinegar water near the door at night to spray the wild cats that insist on trying to get in the van at Rain's food.
The campground in Laguna Santa Maria was the Koala (
http://www.geocities.com/cfrenchkoala/webenglish.htm )and is run by an Englishman who had built it up, but gossip got to us that problems with a divorce from his Mexican wife created poor management and the campground had been allowed to get run down. We had nothing to base this gossip on - only the word of those people who had spent many a winter there. The lake also seemed to be suffering from deteriorating water quality - probably because of all the development around it. Still it was a great place. The campground filled up on the weekends with tenters from Guadalajara, whole extended families on a weekend break.
We camped next to a couple from Santa Fe and had a good time comparing notes, and also met a couple that had been coming to Koala for 25 years. They had a guest book signed by people from all over the world. Four women from different parts of Canada, Betty, Joann, Angie, and Pita, each with their own camper and all probably in their late 60's or 70's that we met in Villa Corona showed up and we saw them again at our next stop. They often travel together and are seasoned travelers in Mexico. We got to be good friends and looked forward to their company. Although we could see that this was a little paradise, neither of us were very comfortable here (we really needed a birder guide!) and it was the first stop in a while that we had no problem leaving after spending a long weekend.
On Monday the 11th, we set out to finally get to the coast heading for the tiny fishing village of Miramar and the adjacent Paraiso Miramar Hotel and RV-Trailer Park located about 20 miles south of San Blas, still in the state of Nayarit. The drive only took a couple of hours and took us from the mountain highlands surrounding Santa Maria through the city of Tepic and then down the winding narrow road Mexico 200 lined with miles of mango groves (unfortunately no fruit) till at last we saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time since we had been in Oregon last July. Most people go to Mexico only to be on the beaches but we had found a whole different country in our time inland as we have spent the majority of our trip away from the ocean. We traded in the cool, dry, mountain air for salt, sand, and bugs.
Several people had recommended the Paraiso Miramar to us and it was as nice as they said. The campground portion only had about 10 or 12 RV's and vans and they were pretty spread out. The hotel portion was not large either and the grounds were well cared for with a couple of small blue swimming or rather soaking pools. The water was a bit chilly. It overlooked a rocky beach on a broad bay and a short walk led us to the village with its small fleet of fishing boats as you can see in our photos at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ches.Alli/Chapter8. Not long after we got there, Betty and her friends showed up after leaving Laguna Santa Maria just after us. We stayed for two nights spending our time walking the beach, checking out the village, sitting by the pool overlooking the ocean, and doing laundry. It is a tough life and after two days we were ready to move on, getting tired of the heavy dew every morning and feeling like we were getting moldy even if it was a salty mold.
We headed on to Mazatlan and the Mar Rosa RV Park (
http://www.pacificpearl.com/marrosa/index.htm ). Ches visited Mazatlan 35 years ago and stayed at the Mar Rosa and so was eager to see what changes had occurred in Mazatlan. For such a large RV park right on the ocean, Mar Rosa was reasonably priced. It has clean, hot showers and the beach is right there. The staff were very friendly and many of the RV'ers were also. But others were a tad bit snooty about how many years they had been coming to this park. As we started heading up the coast we started running into more American RV'ers and the attitudes seemed to change also. Mar Rosa had several resident cats. Among them are Pancho and Pancha, both pear-shaped and muy gordo. They and other strays visited our site each night. It seems that all Mexican cats have the same song. Mee-owhh, mee-owhh, mee-owhh. Hello, hello, hello. Feed me! Feed me! ( Even the incredibly fat cats want more) How long this park will last as high risers spring up around it is fairly predictable. We guess it will go as the other sites have after the matriarch's death. The same family has owned the Mar Rosa for 75 years. Allison felt lucky to have the opportunity to see it before another building blocks the ocean view.
Venders walk the beach with sarongs, hats, toy parachutes with plastic batman dolls attached, assorted tacky gifts or fresh coconut, mango, pineapple or other fruit chopped ready to devour out of plastic cups. It is a world class beach, long and wide with a relatively gentle surf. The Dorado or “Gold Zone” is close by for clubbing or eating out. The odd thing was that on the beach instead of being with travelers as we were accustomed we were surrounded by vacationers who were down for the inexpensive week long vacation. Downtown is filled with tourists shops. The historic area has prettily painted buildings with iron worked window guards over tall wooden shutters and reminded Allison a bit of New Orleans. The downtown historic area is a marked contrast to the Gold Zone. It is a real city in its own right and they are working hard to revive this area to the years past when there was no Gold Zone and this area was the tourist destination. There's a large mercado where you can buy your vegetables and fruit and have a complete meal for $3. We spent a special day marching through town, along the beach and up to the lighthouse for a spectacular view of the city and surrounding land. There we met a man from the states who after retiring, picked up his dream of 45 years, the harmonica. He started playing a year and ½ ago and already was performing in night clubs with blues and jazz bands. Everywhere we go we meet inspiring people.
We were ready to move on by Monday morning, February 18. Eight hours later we pulled into El Mirador in Huatabampita (
http://www.elmiradorrvpark.com/index-en.htm ) in the very southern part of the state of Sonora and now we were on the Sea of Cortez, no longer the Pacific Ocean. A hurricane destroyed much of the beach front in September and the owners of the park looked very tired from the struggle to get the grounds and their restaurant back in shape. All the sites are in sand. No pads, just sand. Trudging thru sand to a motel room to use the toilet and cooking on a gas stove in the blowing sand is no fun, but the beach was so beautiful it made up for the misery of the evening. Allison's early morning walk turned up several desirable complete seashell specimens. Other campers had major conch shells, sand dollars and spiny clam shells. If you have a contained unit or like camping in blowing sand in a tent or van, this is a great place to visit.
One night was enough for us and we headed towards Alamos the next morning stopping in the small nearby town of Huatabampo to pick up some fruits and vegetables in the mercado. This whole area is flat with endless irrigated fields of what appeared to be wheat and farm tractors slowly roll down the road to the next plot of land. The Sierra Madre Mountains rise up to the east and Alamos lies at about 1350' in the foothills of the Sierra Madre. It was a short drive for us and by midday we were in the small, very old colonial town built on silver mining which had long ago died out. The town went into a long period of decline until an American landed there in the '50s and started a revival restoring the buildings. Or so the story goes. Today there our about 10,000 Mexicans and 400 Americans here and it is a lovely old town, a joy to walk or bike around, the drawback is that, being so far north and with so many Americans here, the price of fruits and vegetables and eating out at taco stands or restaurants is becoming more expensive. For example, we had espresso that cost about $1.50 as opposed to $1 in the interior. The cafe also sold tempting muffins for $3.50 and cookies for $2 each. Houses also are priced USD and getting expensive.
On our explorations of town we came across the Hotel Maria Felix and Museum (
http://www.casademariafelix.com/ ). As we passed by, the owner came out and invited us in and then proceeded to give us a personal tour of the property where Maria Felix, a well known Mexican actress now long deceased, was raised. Along with the story of Maria, Lynda showed us the results of her work building the hotel and museum. When she started there was only one original adobe wall and in a short 6 years she had created a home, hotel and garden that looked as if it could be centuries old.
On another occasion Ches was bicycling back to the campground when he passed a man and his two children in front of their house and a greeting led to being invited in for tea. The father was former fisherman from Maine and now a writer with two books on commercial fishing and another in the works with the help of a Guggenheim grant (
http://www.doryman.com ). Then we ate fish tacos at a stand on the main plaza and met an interesting couple who invited us to try the flavorful fruit popsicles across the street. They have a cave house in Bisbee AZ that is for sale and you can take a virtual tour of it at
http://www.thecavehouse.com/ .
Our campground is the Rancho Acosta B&B and Campground. It appears to be an old ranch and has a beautiful tranquil hacienda feel to it. It is shady here which is nice for the warm afternoons and the campground is small. Right now there are only about 8 campers, and as it is difficult for the big rigs to get in here, there our more campers like ourselves in vans and pickups. People have come and gone at this campground and many of them have blogs. We've checked them out and they are all interesting and entertaining. Our neighbors are beginning their travels around Mexico and their site is
http://tomexicowithmohita.blogspot.com/ . A young couple whose plan is to travel North and South America, then go to Asia and backpack across China, Vietnam and India before settling down to have children have a blog site at
http://www.chanatrek.com/ .
As in every campground, people have brought their pets that mingle with the area strays. Rain likes it here despite the campground dogs. Our neighbors' old dog, Angel loves to chase cats and sneaks around our van to see if Rain is ready to play. There is also a resident cat here. He's a pale orange tom named Runyon. Runyon arrives every night talking to Rain and asking for food. He is one of the few cats that she has tolerated. Last night, after we were in bed and expecting her to come in and eat as usual, we heard the familiar thunk of a jump into the van and the crunch of her dry food. We looked down and thought Rain looked dusty, so Allison got up to brush her off. Suddenly, she realized she was not brushing Rain! Runyon had come in to have a snack. Rain was just outside the door ready to come in after we dismissed Runyon. What a treat for him, dinner and a massage. We were thinking it would be a good idea to get Runyon neutered and the next morning, to our delight, we learned that neighbors who had adopted him for the winter took him in to get fixed.
We are enjoying the drier climate here and with internet access have been able to spend time writing. After the first day here we decided to stay a week. Perhaps we will stay longer so we can explore more and delay our return to the cold states and getting back with "the program". From here we will go to San Carlos near Guaymas and then before crossing the border we hope to check out a hot springs northeast of Hermosillo we have heard about.
We hope all is well with each of you. As always let us now how you like this site and have happy trails. Photos are at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ches.Alli/Chapter8 Allison and Ches
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Gail Long
non-member comment
thanks
Hi Allison and Ches, Thanks for the update and the wonderful photos. We have been busy, too. We had a party for Sam's big BD (70) Sheri and Les were able to come as well as Courtney and family. The party was a success (held at Piccadilly Brew Pub) Old and new friends-wish you could have been here. Your travels sound so wonderful and we're greatful for allowing us to share in your experience. Love, Gail