Merico: Travel Traumas -- And How!

Due to a dearth of pics on this trip,
I will share a few of my favorite
spring flower pics with you.

Jacaranda tree in Mexico spring.

 After leaving you hanging as to whether we were ever leaving Valles de Juarez, I will continue my story. (I tried shortening it, but it just didn’t make any sense.) 

When told the pickup was finally done, we arrived at noon to pick it up.  Six hours that day, we waited. . . .  insurance wouldn’t release it, pending. . . What!?  That we needed to verify we were carrying U.S. insurance coverage at the same time?!?!?! We retreated home in despair.

The campground’s owner’s son is a lawyer, and the next morning his lovely secretary, Laura, called the insurance spokesman for us.  Turned out, the company was only waiting to learn we had insurance before entering Mexico. Whew!

Back to Sayhuo once more for the fourth day in a row.  After two more hours waiting, we finally left the repair shop with the pickup. Two miles away, Mike pulls over.  “Drive the pickup,” he told me, “it seems to have a shudder and noise.”  Indeed!  Back to the repair shop.  Four hours later, another part, and we headed home.  It was getting dark.

Fifteen miles later, the pickup began a horrible screeching noise. Brakes locked up?  We parked it in a man’s yard in this small town, and headed home in the Tracker.  The next morning, Mike and Sal went back, then on to Sayuhayo, for another part.  Local mechanic put it on.  Started out again.  They got 15 more miles.  Mechanic at a third shop worked on it for several hours with several test drives. Late that afternoon, after leaving early in that morning, they finally drove in to the campground.  Fixed?  We can only hope. . . 

We did an additional test drive that night, then loaded the camper for an early morning start. But, the next morning, we were forced to stop after only 10 minutes — right in front of the last mechanic’s shop. Another part, and three hours later, we were finally on our way. Six weeks in this small town!

The original repair work was alright.  But, what had happened was a bearing went bad in the middle of the drive shaft, possibly when it was removed to do the original repair work.  The only replacement bearing available was for a F450 Ford; not a GMC.  It was close, but it required several “fittings” to get it right.  Then, once we added the weight of the camper, the noise and problems began again.

Two days later were in Cd. Valles, about half way across Mexico — without incident. Very good friends agreed to keep Mollie—and give her twice daily insulin shots.

Two days later, we flew to Cancun to meet six friends for a week in Akumal.  We were met at the airport by other friends with whom we stayed for two very pleasant days in their RV.  Unfortunately, on the morning we were leaving, our hostess became very sick with a reoccurrence of a very nasty virus, the one criss-crossing the U.S. all winter. We quickly left. 

In Playa del Carmen that day, we met four of our U.S. friends and spent a lovely day being tourists, before the last two friends flew in the following day.  At four AM the following morning, Mike woke me.  He was coming down with the virus — and with his asthma, always a very serious problem.

To avoid giving it to our six friends, I hustled Mike back to the airport in Cancun and Cd. Valles for the week. We both remembered how sick our friend was the previous morning, and how, a few years ago, a serious cold had gone through our group in Belize.

Mike’s trip back did not go smoothly.  His plane was delayed and he missed his connection.  He spent the night in a Holiday Inn in Mexico City.  He finally made it back to the camper late the next afternoon. His next week was very miserable and lonely. 

Our house in Akumal for the week was fabulous!  Stunning!  The remaining seven of us truly had an enjoyable week.  We went snorkeling 3 different places and days, visited two different Mayan ruins, ate in seven different restaurants and thoroughly enjoyed visiting at “Happy Hour” around the pool with beer and gin and 

tonics.

The final night we had dinner served
by our cute little Mexican maid.

L to R:  Annette & Joe, Marnie & Tom,
and Jackie and T.J.

They all flew back on Saturday.  And I spent $40 on a ten minute taxi ride to my hotel for the day/night!  I was to fly out early Sunday morning.  

However, the next day everything went wrong.  I had the taxi drop me at the wrong terminal — took another taxi to the right one!  Then I was informed I had missed my flight!  I had read the flight arrival as the departure time on my paper (Spanish) wrong.

I had no phone. No free wifi — I paid for it two different ways, but it simply wouldn’t work on my Mac.  I finally prevailed on the kindness of a young man at a kiosk and used his phone to contact my friends in Tampico who had driven two hours, one way, to pick me up at the airport and take me back to Cd. Valles.  I felt six kinds of awful and very stupid.  

It was a horribly long day with two flights and a bus ride, but I finally got in to Cd. Valles at 11:30 PM, glad to have Mike pick me up.

Mike was still quite sick with this horrid chest congestion.  He spent his time coughing and coughing, great hacking sounds.  Couldn't sleep — exhausted.  Of course the camper was a hotbed of germs, so I got it too.  Fortunately not as badly, nor so serious for me.

We needed to get home to Colorado. I was capable of driving which was good because the first day, Mike drove for 15 minutes before I made him pull over. He just couldn't do it.  We made it to Texas in a leisurely three days.

  

Our only problems getting to the states were getting very lost in Monterrey— a city we’ve driven around at least a dozen times.  We finally had to hire a taxi driver to lead us clear across town from the south side to the north!  

Picture me, following the taxi driver and Mike through unbelievable downtown traffic with this large camper, towing a car.  If I paused a second, 3 cars dived in front of me!  Mike keeps sticking his arm out the window of the taxi and waggling all five fingers, which was good when I was way behind in traffic, as I could tell which taxi to follow.

Down streets, around corners, 4 lanes of one-way traffic, then down back streets — all the time Mike is sticking his arm out and waggling fingers about every 60 seconds even when I was directly behind him!  I finally had the thought, “Gee, maybe he’s trying to warn me he’s getting kidnapped.” Of course, then I got the giggles every time he put his hand out!

At the U.S. side of the border, some idiot immigration officer sent me — minus Mike and the Tracker — through the “cargo”, not “RV” inspection.  It was so obvious  that I shouldn’t have been there.  I was surrounded by a couple hundred (and I mean this literally) semi-trailer trucks, all waiting in line. 

Only a very few were targeted for x-ray inspections — I was one of the five “lucky” ones.  Even the other inspectors were sympathetic and counseled me how to get around it next time, if it ever happens again.  Two hours later, instead of 15 minutes, I finally met up with Mike and we got out of there. We were both livid.

Welcome back!

A desert garden in Mexico that I loved.

The tone of my writing this winter has been far less ebullient than many past years.  Baja?  Many people love it.  We didn’t (except for our visit with good friends). 

Chumulco, at the town of Villa Corona? Great with the pools and some new friends — for a couple of weeks. Then we were ready to move on — but Mike got sick, so we stayed put for a month. 

Melaque/Manzanillo on the Southwest Coast of Mexico?  Way too hot and full of French Canadians, most who wouldn’t think of speaking to Americans or other Canadians!  Not even to nod "Hello."

Six weeks in the small town of Valles de Juarez, south of Guadalajara? The people were wonderful and we learned many things about a small town in Mexico, but again, we were ready to move on — and couldn’t.

A friend quipped that we must have had our astrological signs waaaaay mis-matched this winter to have encountered all the problems we did. It truly was a comedy of errors!  Mike says it rivals the Chevy Chase movie “Vacation”!

I will finish out this winter by saying, it is, on the whole, the worst vacation we’ve ever had.  That said, we love many places in Mexico and truly the people are wonderful.  We feel safe in Mexico, except for a few states where the cartel influence is too great for us to visit there comfortably.

We like traveling around, seeing lovely new out-of-the-way places, interesting towns, and meeting and talking with people. But perhaps we’ve been there, done that. . . so what’s next? 

Maybe . . . snorkeling in Roatan, Honduras, or a river trip on the Amazon in Ecuador??  Who knows. . . . 

Mexico: Stuck for Six Weeks in Valle de Juarez, Jalisco, MX

Valle de Juarez is a small town (population 4,000) located south of Guadalajara, and Lake Chapala, and about 5 miles east of Mazamitla, a Mexican “Pueblo Magico”.  Chema owns the campground site on which sits a lovely restaurant, only five years old, a flat mowed field with hookups, and a tiny shelter for the exquisite little horse that resides here.

Our lovely little resident horse.

It is an interesting little town like no other we’ve known in Mexico.  There are many very nice homes of Mexican style — built between two high-slab (often) common walls.  It seems that many of the men commute to Chicago for the summer to work.  They all have “green cards” which can take two to five years after application to obtain. I'm told it is much the same in other small towns; one they all go to Utah, another Washington state, etc.

New home showing slab wall.  Wall built by pouring
foundation and installing re-bar uprights for columns.
 Then a brick wall is built between wires, add two boards
inside and outside, pour concrete to make columns,
 then a concrete beam a across the top. Then add next
"floor".  This becomes the common wall.

They work in the trades there (I’m sure many take their families with them) and return home in the winter. They then spend much of the winter working on their homes.  It seems that taking a loan out for your business or for building is unheard of in Mexico.  This is why one sees many unfinished buildings everywhere — the owners are waiting until their next available money.

Love this front of this house.

House of many gables.

Everyone in town seems to be related to one another.  And indeed there are virtually only three family names in town.  Our “angels,” that came to our rescue after the accident with the pickup, are part of the Contreras family.  Sal’s mother was born here, actually in the corner of a room, which is now the dining room of a restaurant owned by a cousin.

Barb, on the other hand, is American.  They met over 40 years ago and he spent his career with the Chicago Transit Authority for over 25 years.  Now in their retirement, they have built a lovely American-style home here.  They owned and ran a successful near-by campground for 8 years, before selling out.  It is now, sadly, vacant — heard many stories about what great campground hosts they were.

"Valle” has many small tiendas about town, and we have been able to get almost everything we need.  On Friday and Saturdays, Chema fires up his big kettle of pork for carnitas in front of his other restaurant that is in town.  He serves the carnitas on the street to passers-by and in the restaurant, if you wish to sit down.

Contreras original family home

Chema stirring a kettle of carnitas
in front of his restaurant.

Another restaurant, La Cosinita has an interesting array of main dish entrees on their blackboard for breakfast and lunch.  Most seem to be meat-laden soups and stews, always served with hot fresh hand-made tortillas.  

However, one may order a more normal breakfast plate, consisting of eggs, bacon, refried beans, and chiliquiles, accompanied by a chunk of queso fresca, the fresh hand-made tortillas, and of course, a piquante salsa.  In addition you can get fresh squeezed orange juice and a cup of “cafe olla” — a strong hot coffee sweetened with poloncilla (a cone of brown sugar) and cinnamon sticks.  All for a price of $8 US.

The bakery here is like the one in Villa Corona — a large horno, round-top oven with a fire off to one side.  A very long handled “peel” (8 feet) is used to slide well-floured rolls over the bottom of  the oven.  A sort of shaking motion is used to get the rolls off, and back and again on to the peel when baked. When the last rolls are put in, the first are ready to come out! Chemitas, a local favorite — an ever-so-slightly-sweet roll  are a speciality of this area.

Making fresh tortillas at La Cosinita

Dough on the end of the "peel" to be
slid into the horno

The 8-ft "peel" used in putting in
and removing buns from the oven

This is a large dairy area; hundreds of holstein cows dot the pastures which are all surrounded by stacked rock (no mortar) walls.  Corn fields abound, and now in the winter, they are covered with hundreds of corn shocks (teepees of cut, dried cornstalks).  A man with a tractor and portable grinder, moves from field to field with a crew that hand feeds the corn and stalks into the grinder.  This is bagged and either used either to feed
ones own dairy cows, or sold to

the granary in town.  

One of the most charming activities is the morning milking of one man at a near-by roadside.  He brings out one to two cows at a time.  Ties them, gives them their ground feed, ties their back legs to keep them from “kicking
the bucket”, (pun intended) and
proceeds to milk them.  

Then people begin arriving to get their fresh milk to take home.  In addition, on his tailgate, he has plastic cups, instant coffee, cocoa powder and get this:  grain alcohol!  Any or all can be stirred into your cup of milk, straight from the cow. 

We stopped to take pictures and had a delightful conversation with one extremely handsome young man who spoke shy English.  He said on the weekend, as many as 30 to 50 may stop by to get milk. Of course, during the week, the extra milk is sold to the local milk plant.

Mike reaching for his first-ever
cup of fresh milk!

Look!  I can still milk a cow!

Gorgeous, huh!

With the abundance of milk in the area, it is no wonder the area is well known for its cheese (primarily queso fresca and panela) and rompope production. Rompope is bottled drink that is custard based (like egg-nog) with added grain alcohol and flavorings. Our favorites are amaretto and pecan.  They are wonderful served ice cold as a “shot”, or over a dessert of pudding or pound cake. 

The nearby town of Mazamitla is one of about 100 small towns in Mexico designated as particularly scenic and historical.  Of course, they become tourist sites, in this case for those from Guadalajara seeking respite from the heat on day trips, — or for the summer.  ATV’s can be rented to tour the El Tigre mountains to the south side of this valley. We drove this road with the Tracker and it is quite wild and pretty, with elevations there going up to 8,000 feet.  The elevations of the valley?  Mazamitla is about 7,000 feet, Cd. Juarez; around 6,400 feet. Temperatures in the winter here are wonderful.  Very cool mornings and exquisite days. 

For some reason, the blog won’t allow me to add captions to the above three pictures.  Top, the bride has an immensely long train and I love her practical tennis shoes.  Middle, a man and his donkey with firewood, and bottom -- the name of the used car dealer:  “semi-new” cars.

Obviously, our time here has not been without it’s trials — waiting, waiting, waiting.  And everyone knows I’m so good at that!  

The pickup had to be towed off and repaired, the refrigerator quit and we now buy bags of ice for it every day, I lost my iPhone, Mike had some ear problems and now I have a tooth bothering. . . .  The truck parts finally came in after two weeks, then they found they needed something additional. And even the Tracker needed a bit of work when it lost power. It's now been nearly six weeks.  And we’re still waiting . . .waiting. . .  . 

Marking Time in Mexico: Muchas great photos.

Almost the end of January, and it’s now long overdue for another blog.  The problem is:  Very Little Has Happened!  At least photo or adventure-wise.

Oceans shots in Mexico and Belize

However, I have accomplished a project though:  I have gone through and edited my 

12,500 pictures, and compiled them into groups according to themes.  From these groups I have designed slide shows, calendars and greeting cards.  I will attempt to share a few of these with you.  

We spent nearly a month at Chimulco, (too long really) a well-known campground/hot springs SW of Guadalajara. The daytime temperatures are fantastic, mid-to high 70’s, with cool nights. Large warm water pools (about 90 degrees) make swimming laps every morning a pleasure. The large pools are emptied each night.  This, ecologically, has always bothered me: I can only hope the water goes back into the ground to feed the aquifer.

Many years ago, this campground was always packed to overflowing.  These days, only a smattering of the former motorhomes and fifth wheel RVer’s are coming to Mexico because of fear of the drug cartels. Other RVer’s  are getting too old to travel, and no new crop of RVer’s is following.  It is so sad for Mexico to lose all their tourist dollars because of the drug cartels and fears.

We spent most of our time in Chimulco with one US couple and 2-3  other couples from British Columbia. One couple, Mike and Barbara, spend six months of the year here, and the other six months in Canada.  They have a large covered patio of cocktail table, outdoor kitchen, dining for six, and new horno (Mexican oven).Their fifth wheel stays here year around.

We, and other campers, and Mike and Barb’s Mexican friends had many parties on that patio.  We were served ham, turkey, pizza, bread and birria from the new oven.  Quite fun.  Birria (beer-ee-ah, accent on the beer) is a marvellously spicy, not hot, beef or goat stew. Look up the recipe on the internet. I will try it when I get home to Colorado!

The small native town of Villa corona has a Tuesday mercado (open market), a decent grocery, and a wonderful panaderia (bakery).  A real shopping trip means traveling an hour plus to the Costco in SW Guadalajara.

One pool at Chimulco

Mike and Barb with the new "horno" in the background.

For years we had heard about an area on the Mexican coast; Melaque, Boca Beach and Tenacatita.  Mike and I took a few days to go down to visit.  It certainly was not a favourite of ours. This was because of the oppressive heat, no good snorkelling, or even swimming. 

In addition, when in a group, the French Canadians from Quebec are quite unfriendly and clique-ish. Even Canadians from the other provinces feel this way about them. 

On the third day, it began to rain — for two solid days. All reasons combined, it was time to retreat to Chimulco until after Christmas.

Cabanas at Melaque

Leaving after two days of rain.

Lovely couple at a party on New Year's Eve.
He is co-owner of the campground.

Leaving Chimulco

After waiting nearly a week longer than we intended because of a problem Mike was having with his ears, we finally left on Jan 8. Only a couple of hours on the road, we were turning left into our campground (intended for one night) south of Guadalajara and Lake Chapala.  Mike has just turned his signal on, but neglected to look in his mirror.  We were struck on the front wheel, driver’s side. by a guy passing, very fast.  The impact was such a jolt, our front wheel was knocked completely off, out of the ball joint, and broke the front left upright. 

The guy passing, hit and knocked off 3 concrete posts which took out the front of his car, in addition to his right front tire, which blew.  No one was hurt at all. We are all thankful for this.

An angel couple, now retired, came to our rescue: a Mexican-born who had worked in Chicago for 30 years and his American wife.  Sal did all the talking to the police, the insurance adjuster and to the other guy involved who lives in this town too. He pointed out his house that was only a short distance away! A tow truck came and towed us a couple hundred feet to a campsite.  Quite lucky, location-wise.

A day later, we realized our refrigerator had quit after being parked on the driveway incline for four hours following the wreck.  Irretrievably.  In the meantime, I lost my cell phone only two days after I reactivated it. And through it all, we waited, and waited on a tow truck to show up!

To explain a long week; short, we finally made our own arrangements for towing to a closer repair shop than Guadalajara (two hours away). They now have had it for a  week and hope to have it ready in one more week . . . .

Campground is nice, people nice, town close and we have the Tracker to go exploring.  Mike’s ears are STILL bothering; we are both reading a lot.  No wifi for me and trips to town for it are a nuisance, but tolerable.  We have kindly been included in all gringo outings here, and yeah, happy hours are great!

OH! And here are two easy recipes I've learned.  1. Fast supper. Flat tostada shell, topped with refried black or pinto beans with crumbled chorizo, then add a fried egg topped with queso fresca crumbled on top.

2.  Poblano Spagetti.  In food processor, mix roasted poblano peppers, garlic, tomatillos and sour cream thinned with cream. Swirl onto cooked spaghetti.  Salt to taste.

You won't find these in an American-Mexican restaurant!

Sunsets I've enjoyed.