OH CANADA

I will try not to smirk. I will try not to feel substantially smug. But it's hard.

Barbara

http://nanaimonewsnow.com/article/563552/unexpected-snow-creates-nasty-conditions-nanaimo-roads

Hotel Playa de Cortes

It is a perfect day on the Sea of Cortes at the Hotel Playa de Cortes with 23C and a low last night of 16C and blue blue azure skies. All is exceitement here yesterday and today, as the hotel prepares for a large wedding we believe will take place probably tomorrow. The bridal party came yesterday for shooting their photos and the crew left behind a lot of equipment and today much more arrived, even a baby grand piano!!  Apparently the wedding party will be outside, as that is where they are busy setting up the arangements, the flowers, the chairs, a stage etc etc. It is all very festive and exciting. The only down side for me is that they have all sorts of Mexican style confusion going on at the front entrance which means a very messy photo for me. It also means a high probabiliy of a sleepless night as I am familiar with the way that Mexicans party. Many different ways, but all of them loud. 

In any case, I thought that your all might like to see what this hotel looks like. It is built on a famliar Spanish model (Roman actually) with wings and an enclosed courtyard.

The first photo was taken from inside looking out at the main entrance.

The internal coutyard.

One wing of the coutyard

The other wing.

The ball room.

The lobby

Inside the lobby

Lobby furnishings

ditto

Outside view from the back looking out over the Sea of Cortes with Mount Tetakawi 

in between the palms.

view out to the Sea of Cortes

Same as above with beach view

The front of the hotel is well presented with beauful landscaping. Here a purple

Bougainvilea is wrapped around a yellow shrub (unknown).

This is the front of the hotel. Our campsite is directly behind me.

MEXICO SOUTH

OLE!!   We're off!

It was a cold cold morning in Tucson and we were off early, to get through the Mexican border (which like all things Mexican is bogged down in bureaucratic red tape). We stopped on the freeway near Nogales Arizona and gassed up and tried to find propane but nobody was selling it. Off we went.

The Mexican border bisects the twin towns of Nogales. One side is Nogales Arizona, and the other side isNogales Sonora Mexico. And with only a 12 foot metal fence to separate them! (sigh). Actually, we were anxious to get to the Mexican side, to leave the American side. And fortunately for us, all we had to brave were the Mexican border guards.

We went through a maze of convoluted laneways bordered with fences to make sure we stayed put, which ultimately landed us right at the feet of the Mexican border guards. All they cared about was making sure we weren't harbouring someone inside the camper. The irony of this did not pass by me lightly. A quick check and they waved us on. The guard asked us where we were going and we said "Huatabampito" and he looked puzzled. We switched to "San Carlos" and the simile widened. "Ah"

he said in English "Vacation??" and we nodded and and he smiled and we smiled and on we went.

At kilometre 21 we had to stop again and proceed through formal Immigration. I don't need to do anything because I am a permanent resident of Mexico, but Rick who isn't, had to process himself, the vehicle and camper, and Flossie. He had his sheaf of papers and documents ready and off he went while Flossie and I waited patiently in the camper. We had only gone 21 kilometers but the temperature had already risen quickly from 37F in Tucson and Nogales, to 57F at the Mexican Immigration and it was steadily gaining strength. I rolled down the windows. A young starving male dog came scrounging through the parking lot. I found Flossie's bag of treats and went outside where I tossed them over to him. In the end I gave him the entire package. He moved on other cars, and disappeared from view. Starving dogs are something you have to get used to in Mexico. It is hard.

Rick finally emerged with all the bureaucratic aspects finished successfully. It is always stressful to get through this aspect of the trip and now that it is behind us, we relax and enjoy the warmth growing steadily around us.

Northern Mexico just over the border from Arizona is beautiful. I do not know the name of the trees

still glowing with golden autumnal spendour. They grew all along the river valley as we slowly descended towards Santa Ana and beyond.

I know I made a big deal out of the Arizona fettsh of grey and tan earth tones. I did it on purpose. Here, colour is practiced with gay abandon. What would look tawdry and cheap in the US and Canada, looks absolutely warm and totally in place in Mexico. And so does the rambling network of noise and people and the tumble of industry and machines and flowers and children and schools and tiny homes and all things Mexican.

Right now I am staying with colour. We shall see a lot more of that over the next blog posts, but here are just a few shots of the comforting sight of Mexican colour and the jumble of housing and commerce.

Roadside lunch stop. I know you can't hear the wild Mexican music being punched out from some hidden spot, but imagine it. Please.

The town of Hermosillo. Capital of the State of Sonoroa. We travel through it quickly.

And then south we go across mile after mile of nothing but flat fields and distant mountain ranges.

It's hard to notice the descent as it is very gradual. The temperature shoots up to 25C by the time we reach Guaymas and make our way to the campground in front of the Hotel Playa de Cortes. Normally the campground would be behind the hotel, but behind this hotel is the Sea of Cortes. So in we creep, and we open the windows and suck in the air. Rick says with that look of extreme pleasure "feel the moisture". Yes, it is just humid enough to make the air soft and balmy and what we have been waiting for weeks now to feel. We set up camp. There must be 50 or 60 camping slots and only 4 other campers here. This place is virtually unknown as it is off the main highway by a few miles, and tucked away in behind a mountain. It is a gem. Tomorrow you will see for yourself as I photo it just for you.

Below is the long road south, somewhere south of Hermosillo.

Hope you all a very Happy end of of 2017, a year of many challenges for some of us. To all our family and friends, we send this to you with love.

Barbara Rick and Flossie 

CROSSING THE DESERT

Well, OK. Coming from the Pacific Northwest where the main colour is GREEN, I suppose I ought to appreciate the  shades of the desert, for their subtle distinctions of pale watercolour blues/greys/tans/ and soft greens. They do add a certain desert atmosphere. and if we left it with nature it would be fine. But every single man-made domestic structure in the State of Arizona has been deliberately made to slide into this scenery seamlessly. Hence we have many many low slung, single story homes similarly dressed with a watercolour lack of distinction.

Well. A little bit of conformity is good. But a lot of it becomes boringly repetitive. Now that is not meant to offend the good people of Arizona. It is only shared with your Dear Reader because i know you understand that this is my blog and it exposes to you my own biases of taste and thinking so you will just have to put up with a bit of it. My bias, I mean. I am not your basic beige kind of person.

Moving on, parts of Arizona such as the route from Ajo to Tucson are a joy to the eye, an underused 2 lane road twisting and bouncing in a magical forest of cactus and succulents whose colour is invariably tasteful and beautiful. So let me show you a bit of that.

Below is your  typical  desert floor structure and flora as seen from the Interstate freeway.

And here is the lovely little desert Mexican-American town of Ajo.

The first shot is coming in towards the Mexicn style town square.

It has a Mexican Mission style church

More church

And other Mexican style architecture

And Mexican style  domestic architecture

And a Mexican style plaza all dressed Mexican style for Christmas. Hopefully you see what I mean. Isn't this a sweet, stylish, comfortable, heart-warming little Mexican-style town?  Now add a bit of Mexican colour and it would make the scene perfect (to my liking). 

In opposition to the desert view taken from the Interstate, the shots below were taken on route 86 from Ajo to Tucson on one of the loveliest little 2 lane routes in the southwest. We take this route to avoid the 4 lane ribbon of dreariness that is Interstate 10. And it rewards us. Everytime.

This last shot shows you the actuality of the road ( a bit rough), and the traffic (mostly

non-existent). 

After a few hours of dawdling across Arizona, we arrive at our County campground up on the desert of west Tucson. It was a lovely spot, had everything except internet which is why you are reading this after we have left the area.

Sorry Rick. But here we are setting up camp. Love the back yard.

Below is the road that connects the camp to Tucson through a mountain pass.

Over the pass, with Tucson in the far distance.

It is hard to show you the interesting Arizona housing, because they are often snugged into desert flora and almost invisible. But below is one example I managed to capture on the fly.

Below is a residential area of the city of Tucson, which shows you how well they do at hiding themselves. You'd never know this was a city.

Meanwhile back at the campground, Flossie is having one last snoop around with Rick as tomorrow early we leave Arizona behind and head south for Mexico.

Backyard behind camper…

Just one last note. During our entire stay in Arizona we froze. There was a cold front that had moved over the area and kept the day temperatures in the low 60s F and the night temperatures down close to freezing. Also, in Tucson we were above 3,000 feet in elevation which also made the nights crisp. So far, the night temperatures are not really higher than what we could expect at home. No doubt that fact has made my comments somewhat testy, as Dear Reader, I admit to being extremely fond of

warm weather, particularly in winter. We have high hopes for tomorrow as we start south and also downwards to sea level at San Carlos, Sonora Mexico.

SOUTHWESTERN STYLE

When you first enter Arizona (at Yuma) from California, the prices drop. Gas is a dollar cheaper. Housing costs leap downwards. A basket of goodies from the supermarket is noticably less than the California counterpart. I can see why seniors cluster here for their winter months.

Yuma itself is not large. And to be honest, on all our travels south to Mexico, we have only stayed here overnight once and that was when we were driving the van. So we made the resolution this time to stop for 2 nights and really have a "look-see".  

It is quite amazing. Stretching out for miles on the eastern end of town are acres and acres of RV Resorts. These have a very different look about them from the usual camp grounds we are used to. These are catering to the long term northern retired cohort. Some residents are permanent. Some are just stopovers like us. These resorts are pretty much duplicates of each other, offering rows upon rows of park models with small shaded areas for sitting out and keeping a pooch. The middle section is usually gravelled and divided into pull through sites for the short term visitor. And in the back is the huge community centre, swimming pool,  bocce court etc. And they all are much the same in layout and size. They do vary in attractiveness, and in the ratio of full to part-time residence.

Out further along highway 8 appear private RV lots, much larger than the spaces allowed in RV Resorts. These are privately owned, not rented, and they generally have a short brick wall around them, and hookups for RVs and maybe a palm tree or two. Some people build casitas on them and sometimes full sized homes. These lots appear to have been developed 20 or more years ago and the landscaping is somewhat haphazard.

I would say that most of these above facilities are well used by the northern escapee from the cold and wet. Again, most of the license plates were from the western states and provinces. I would estimate that western Canadians are at least equal to if not outnumbering the Americans in Yuma.

As we were out taking our cruise through Yuma, we wandered into a new development called El Rancho Encantado laid out to take in the glorious views of the Gila Mountains. These lots are individually owned and pay no fees. The zoning is very generous here towards part-time residents and RV residents. Many of the lots are set up with connections for two RVs and a casita is allowed. On other lots, only one RV connection is provided and a single house is allowed. There is no requirement for building anything and some of the lots had one or two large motor homes on them. What stands out is the southwestern theme for all the housing and landscaping. Very strict control is maintained for this southwestern look. I was strongly attracted to the landscape design as well as the southwestern architecture. Surprisingly, the lots here were only fractonally more expensive than the less attractive ones in older

neighbourhoods.

Below is a bare lot, ready for development. It has services suited for 2 RVs. This makes

it attractive for 2 couples to share. Also, some people rent out the other half of the

lot.

This lot has a small SW style casita, two RVs  and appropriate landscaping.

Outside the development, but with a view of the Gila Mountains.

SW style house and landscaping. The upright plant in the middle is an Ocotillo which

is a favourite of mine.

Another lot with interesting landscape features.

Even though we really enjoyed Palm Springs and Yuma, there are some negative

aspects to spending a winter here for me. My main objection is the weather. The

average high for December and January for both places hovers around 70F and the

desert lows are brisk at 40-45F. This does not provide enough heat for me! Add to that

the damage the extreme dryness does to my skin, I feel like a lizzard after just a few days in

the desert. I don't appear to be a desert person, I acknowledge my heart is set on the warm humidity

of the ocean beaches.

My other objection is cultural. I do not get the same punch from the SW vibe as I do

as soon as I cross the border into Mexico which beckons me with its riotous

colours, wild music, wonderful food, and hospitality. 

So we did a review, and we gave this area positive marks, but not enough to temp us away

from our Huatabampito destination.

Today we are off to our campsite just outside Tucson. We are getting anxious to leave all 

this for Mexico. So who knows how much longer we will be staying in southern Arizona??

Stay tuned!!