Home Sweet Home...

We have had 2 days to get settled in, and it's not enough. But we are making progress. We had official visa business to get done today so it meant a trip across the north shore of the lake to the city of Chapala. When we came back we made an effort to capture some photos of our entrance. Our property is about half a mile down a dirt track just off the main highway that we drove all the way from Nogales, Arizona to here.

But first, this is what it was like upstairs on the bedroom terrace at dawn. The first photo is facing east where the sun rises out of the lake. 

This second photo is facing north-northwest across the valley and Jocotepec to the south
shore mountains. You can see the fog rolling through the pass to the left. It burned off rapidly.

On the way home, this is Independencia Avenue (it's true, not just a joke) that leads us to the
driveway....Look at the lower hill, and find the tree at the top of the hill. Our property goes
downhill from that tree to the bottom by the road. The house is halfway up the hill but not
visible from this angle.

 Here's a closeup.

And this is the entrance into the ejido de San Martin

 Our neighbourhood is called the ejido of San Martin (San Martin is the pueblo out near the highway). Ejidos are communal Mexican property given to peasants after the revolution. Lately, some of them have privatized their land so they can sell their parcels. We have one of those parcels (7 acres).

Well folks, this is our new driveway. Before this, it was a steep rocky deeply rutted track up the mountain that washed out every rainy season. We tried all sorts of things, but the 500 foot long driveway prevented us from most of the options as being too expensive. This past year, our neighbour and caretaker Don, a retired contractor from Arizona, figured out a reasonable way to pave it and told us he would supervise the whole process accepting no payment. In the end, it saved us a huge amount of money. Even better, despite extremely torrential downpours in September, the paving stayed put. The middle section between the concrete treads, was filled with rock and then topped up with a concrete slurry. In the rains, grass managed to grow right up through it, which was a God send, because it knit the whole thing together and prevented any erosion or washing out of the treads. It has been a huge success. Thanks Don!!!

 The lake is at 5,000 feet elevation. Independencia Avenue is 5225 feet, our house is 5328 feet and the top of the property is 5400 feet. You can see from that just how steep the driveway is. The photos do not adequately convey the reality.

Up at the top, the driveway takes a sharp dogleg to the left and up onto the terraced platform where the house was built. The house is actually quite small. The edge of the covered terrace on the back of the house is only 13 feet from the exposed rock face of the mountain. You will see that in a moment. But first for the newbies, I need to tell them how this house was built. It will look large, but do trust me when I say it is NOT. It just has large covered terraces on three sides which give it the illusion of much greater size. It is only 700 square feet, plus another 1,000 square feet of exterior terraces. The little casita next door is another 200 square feet. It serves as a guest residence, main level bathroom and laundry. When we aren't here, we use it as a secure storage shed where we lock up all the valuable equipment.

When we started building in 2005, there was no power into the ejido. The closest transformer was about half a mile away or more. The ejido had just drilled a community well at the entrance, but there was not way to access it without power. Considering the awful access we had up onto the building site, and the fact that we had no facilities at all, you can appreciate the total hand labour that went into building this house. Our Mexican neighbour supervised three other very talented local albanils (masons), who were brothers and worked very well together. They managed to build it totally by hand with no power tools. The description of how they did this would be a book in itself, so you will have to imagine it yourself. They took 20 months to do it.

This is the back terrace I told you about. It is both a sun trap and sheltered from the breezes coming
off the lake, so we spend a lot of time here as the winter deepens and the temperatures start to fall. The climate here is a moderate one because of the elevation but frost free. It is moderated by the influence of the lake. In summer the high temperatures are around 85F and in winter around 70-75F. The lows in the winter will drop into the low 50s. We rely on the strength of the sun to heat up the masonry mass during the day, and it holds it overnight.
Please note the twisted igneous rock face on the mountain. I just love the exposed surface. The oldest of the albanil brothers, Jose Luis, built all the rock walls around the garden after the house was built.

The back terrace off the kitchen. The main floor has only 2 rooms, a living room across the
front and a kitchen-diner across the back. The upstairs has only the main bedroom and bathroom. You see? Really, a 3 room house!!

There is a lake view from this back garden area, which you can see best from the little patio area open to the sun. 

I hope you all enjoy the photos of the outside of El Nido. Once I get the inside tidy I will show you that too..

Hasta la vista,
Barbara and Rick

Trip summary

For those of you that like maps and such like I thought I would post a little trip summary. Below is a map of the final route. In total we drove 4560 miles or 7350 KM en route. Our stopovers were:

A - Left home
B - Keremeos, BC
C - Cranbrook, BC
D - Eastend, SK  (3 nights)
E - Minot, ND
F - Watertown, SD
G - St. Joseph, MO (5 nights)
H - Kinsley, KS
I  - Las Vegas, NM
J  - Truth or Consequences, NM
K - Tucson, AZ (4 nights)
L - Guaymas, Mexico (3 nights)
M - Los Mochis, Mexico
N - Mazatlan, Mexico
O - Jocotepec, Mexico (Home in Mexico)

Our shortest days drive was 222 miles on the first day as we spent 5 hours on the 2 ferries from Gabriola to Vancouver and the longest day was 423 miles from Cranbrook, BC to Eastend. SK. We planned the trip to average between 300-350 miles a day but we have found that 250-300 is a better distance for us. We also found that the condition of the highways made a big difference in the ease of the days drive. I never realized how difficult it is for highway crews to make a smooth transition from the pavement of the highway onto and off a bridge or overpass. Each bump causes the trailer to bounce the back of the truck up and down jolting the passengers in the truck.

All in all it was a very long trip and a lot of miles and we enjoyed camping in the trailer a lot. But the driving became tiresome. Now it is time to start planning the return trip which will be much shorter up the West Coast (but still long enough). And we will make sure the travel days are shorter.

Rick

The Last Stretch...

Sunday morning in Mazatlan dawned hot and humid and sticky. Behind us, our neighbour in the campground was out jogging and then puttering on his "Home Sweet Home". This type of abode is very common in Mexico. It may be only a winter abode or it may be a permanent one. The owner seemed retired, ordinary middle class...not at all like a gypsy (from what I imagine gypsies to look like since we don't have any on this continent that I know of)...I thought his choice of colour was perfect...

Shortly after dawn we saddled up and slowly worked our way past the big hotels out to the cuota and and our early start on the trek up the central plateau to El Nido (our Mexican home on Lake Chapala, just outside Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico). As you can see, the day was overcast and murky. Tropical storm Sonia was lurking just offshore, threatening the area with torrential rainfall. As with so many other environmental disasters on this trip (blizzards, tornados, dust storms) we missed it by a hair.

Now I have to offer everyone a caveat. Some of you were with us last year on our trek down and this section for you will be a sort of duplicate. So just be prepared if you see some of the same things. However, because we have several new family and friends reading the blog this year, I feel obliged to explain this part of the trip.

Here is what to expect. We leave Mazatlan and angle inland about 40 kms to Villa Union where we get the last gas available for a long distance. We gas up next at Tepic which is a little over halfway to Guadalajara. After Villa Union we cross the coastal plain which here is much different from the one we just came down as you will see, and not uniformly flat. After about 100 kms we will start to climb in an irregular manner up 3,000 feet (sorry about the mixed measurements but I cannot deal with metres in heights, although I am fine with kms for distance) at Tepic. From there we continue climbing up to about 5,000 feet which is the elevation of both Guadalajara and Lake Chapala, our ultimate destination. The lake is about 20 miles south of Guadalajara but we turn off and take a short cut before reaching the city to avoid the mass chaotic traffic. I should tell you that we really lucked out on this trip because this weekend was the Day of the Dead in Mexico and the traffic is exceptionally light.

That is the outline of the trip. I think those of you who are new to this will be surprised at how this trip lays to rest the image of a dirty, dusty Mexico, The extraordinary amount of rainfall late in the season also helps. Contrary to the seasonal pattern of rainfall on the west coast of Canada and the US, Mexico normally has its main rainfall during the summer months June to September which is also hurricane season. The rest of the year it can be virtually rainless and very dry and brown.

So here we go...

Well I warned you. It isn't always flat. Those are the Sierra Madre Mountains ahead of us, and up over them is the central plateau.

 

And then it is... Most of the crops on the coastal plans are tomatoes and avocado.

And then all of a sudden it's wet. This is salt water...covering huge portions of the inland plain.

And then it's not...

And then just before Tepic, it turns all jungley and tropical. We are now at 3,000 feet.

And it then looks like this.

And we spy our first Spathodea tree (African tulip tree) on this route. They are particularly early and lush this year.

 

So as we climb upward to the 5,000 foot level, what is this? Are we in California? Looks like

pine trees to me.....yup.

And it even LOOKS like California...

And now we have oaks and pines together...

And then we go back down again, and find sugar cane!!!

Next come the lava fields...

 And then this gorgeous panorama. That Road Trek Class B Van ahead is from Ontario Canada by the way...please notice the very cute cinder cone to the right of centre. This whole landscape is fundamentally volcanic.

At last we see a town. This is Ixtlan del Rio.

Soon after, we see the marker that notifies us that we are entering the state of Jalisco and
changing a time zone (now central). Somehow it feels weird to be sharing a time zone with Winnipeg.

And then we see our first real corn field. Corn is major on the central plateau.

 And the other main crop is the blue agave (Tequila!)...we pass the town of Tequila just an hour west of Guadalajara. All the official distilleries are there and open to the public. All the tequila in Mexico is made in Jalisco, under official designation and the growing of blue agave is also officially controlled.

And then we see this charming view...

Soon after, we take the shortcut around Guadalajara and find ourselves on the final stretch of highway 15, just minutes from home. This is the small ejido village of El Molino.

We are now traveling across a plain that was once the lake bottom of Lake Chapala many hundreds of years ago. The lake was once massive, but has been slowly drying up. Eventually it will become a dry salt lake like many others in this area of Mexico. But for now, Chapala is the biggest lake in Mexico, about 8 miles wide and 40 miles long.
The dried former lake bed, grows excellent crops, mostly corn and the new member of the crop family here, raspberries. These are grown all around the west end of the lake where we live, and they are shipped by Driscolls to every city in North America. The next time you have a Driscolls raspberry punet, you are having a little taste of my part of Mexico. Trust me, even the ones that say grown in California, aren't. They are grown here. The big season is November to February.
They grow the raspberries under plastic greenhouses to prevent sunscald. We look down on these from El Nido. Every year the fields are rotated and the plastic greenhouses go with them. They aren't the most beautiful thing to overlook, but they are better than high rises or factories or subdivisions...and, unlike dogs, church bells, roosters and Mexican rockets, they make no sound whatsoever.

But right here, 5 miles from the lake, the main crop is corn, corn and more corn.

As we approach Jocotepec ("Ho-ko-tuh-pek".....our nearest town) we come up behind a truck with a load of Jocotepec raspberries, headed maybe to your stores?

Here we are right at Jocotepec turn off, with Mount Garcia in the background. Our house is to the right of that mountain, on a different mountain side, not visible in this photo.

 Well, here we are. if you look up from the highway you will see an orange house on the
mountainside, overlooking the raspberry fields. That is El Nido. By the way, for you non-Spanish
speakers, El Nido means "The Aerie".

 Instead of going right up to the house, we are on the way to drop the camper off at the Roca
Azul RV Resort on the lake just below the house. It will stay in storage there until we return home. This is the road in...

And this is the entrance to Roca Azul.The resort is at the end of this road. And it is here that the camping part of our trip ends as we unhook, unload, and take the truck up our new driveway to El Nido.

Next I will give all of us a little tour of the orange house on the hill and its new driveway. Tomorrow folks!!

Short message...

WE ARE HERE!!!

This will be the shortest blog on record. Just want to let all of our friends and family know everything is fine. We got in yesterday afternoon a bit early, so we decided to park the fifth wheel at Roca Azul RV Resort just down the mountain from us, and come straight up to El Nido. Rick thought ahead and sent Ron an email and payment so the internet would be turned on for us, and it is. It is even working a lot better than last year. So we fed ourselves and just went to bed and slept soundly. Today it was banking, shopping, our caretaker-neighbour dropped by, and we are starting to get settled in...tomorrow I will give you the whole low-down, but for now, just want to thank each and everyone of you for staying along with us on this momentous tour of North America, and caring enough to send messages and well wishes. We love you all!!

Barbara and Rick

Mazatlan at last....

It seems like forever. But we finally dodged all the potholes we could, straddled the middle line, traveled the fast lane when empty and still managed to jolt the propane hose loose, toss half the small items around in the camper, and worry about the damage it was doing to my already problematic back.

But (she says sweetly) we are HERE.  HERE is Mazatlan, our last stop before HOME. It is hot and humid...31C  (88F) at 3:30 PM, and we have the air conditioner blasting out full. We are pretty tired, and don't really care for dining out or seeing the sights. We are eating the last of the available food in the refrigerator tonight. It might be an interesting combination....eggs, toast, beans, lots of salsa and guacamole, cheese. It sounds good to me though.  Last night we had no internet at our overnight stop in Los Mochis, so no blog entry. But the entire length of this highway has been flat as a pancake since we left Guaymas and not so interesting as what came before. The major change was from Sonoran desert with cactus and the odd few cattle grazing, to a greener more lush and productive agricultural vista. The farms are huge and commercial in grade. The coastal plain is 30 plus miles across in places, and I saw huge huge fields of tomatoes, and rice paddies (empty). The plains are crossed through with many irrigation canals, and a complicated system of smaller canals irrigating the fields themselves. The rows are contour ploughed, and formed into ridges and furrows. The plants are on the ridges and the furrows hold the irrigation hoses. Everything by the time we got halfway to Mazatlan was extremely green...thanks no doubt to hurricane Raymond who just blew through last week or so. I can't be more exact, as I have completely lost track of time, day, month. All I know is that we are tired of jolting ourselves down the endless highway and we just want to get HOME.

I did manage to get some photos snapped before the battery went dead today...sigh...haven't you noticed how all these glitches attack once you start feeling a bit under it all?? So here is a small sample to keep you entertained and up to date...

Before we leave Guaymas and Hotel Playa de Cortes, I thought a few more photos would be nice:

Here are more interiors of the lobby and the entrance courtyard:

After leaving Guaymas, the first major city is Ciudad Obregon which is the centre of a huge fertilizer industry. This serves most likely the entire agricultural plain between Guaymas and Mazatlan (about 500 miles). It certainly provides a total contrast to the loveliness of Guaymas:

Fortunately, Ciudad Obregon was soon behind us and the rest of the 500 miles just looked like this:

Well, this just about brings us up to date. Hopefully tomorrow will be an uneventful trip up the 5,000 foot ascent to the central plateau of Mexico where we find Lake Chapala and our home overlooking it. I did forget to mention that the regulator on the propane tanks seems to have been cracked by the jolting it received today, which means that we might have a wee problem with cooking dinner and keeping the fridge cold. Not to worry. We can always eat out and buy a cooler for the food. We consider ourselves lucky to have traveled 4500 miles in all sorts of conditions and made it this far before something broke!!!