 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
We left Lago de Camecuaro on Saturday morning before the weekend picnic crowds arrived to make it impossible
to get out of the parking lot. We drove 123 miles to the town of San Antonio de Tlayacapan just east of Ajijic on
Lake Chapala to a vacant lot where the other loose chickens had camped just about a month before us (N
20:17.625 W 103:14.239 Elev 5098'). It was a nice grassy area at the edge of a small village with cows grazing
around us and the farmer coming each morning to milk his cows. I even got to milk one of the cows on our last
morning there. It had been a few years, but I hadn't lost the touch for it. The farmer even went and got his wife to
come see as he was surprised that I was able to do it. I didn't tell him that years ago I milked a cow every morning
for a few months.
Ken and John, Mary and Elaine's friends, have their motorhome nearby on a lot that they have recently leased for
a couple of years having moved to there from Acapulco. Colleen and I met them when we were in Acapulco last
January and it was nice to renew our acquaintance.
On the Saturday evening of our first night there we went to the local plaza for dinner at a taco stand and met Jose
Hernandez. He is a retired music teacher who lives nearby and he stopped to eat after mass at the local church.
We really enjoyed talking to him and told him where we were camped. The next evening we again were at the
plaza at the taco stand and he brought his wife to meet us as he had stopped at the motorhome and didn't find us
so figured where we might be. Lidia was also a delight and we invited them back to the rig for more conversation.
They invited us to go to the Balneario at San Juan Cosala with them the next day.
The Balneario was very large with several warm swimming type pools, smaller hot pools, a hot Jacuzzi and a
steam room right on the edge of the lake. Lidia prepared a lunch of tuna salad and toasted tortillas and we spent
the better part of the day there. Colleen was in seventh heaven with all the hot water and I enjoyed it too. It felt
great to soak after months of inadequate showers or baths because of conserving water. It felt like a snake must
feel shedding its skin.
Jose and Lidia were delightful company and we had them over for dinner. Their son, Raul, is an opera singer and
lives in New York and another son, Sergio, lives in Denver and operates 3 Mexican restaurants. Another day we
went with them to the village of Tonala outside of Guadalajara and wandered the streets looking at crafts
work....we don't buy much so we just looked and had a nice lunch.
Colleen and I also went to the town of Chapala where they were having a festival of some sort and there were lots
of people wandering up and down the malecon on the waterfront. Another day I went to the weekly market in Ajijic
(pronounced ah-hee-heek) and bought a used DVD movie for $2 and some veggies. We both really liked the
area around Lake Chapala and can see why so many Americans and Europeans have made it their home.
We stayed in San Antonio for 5 nights and then drove 191 miles to Guanajuato, one of Mexico's really great cities
in my book. We camped at the Bugamville RV Park a few miles outside of town for $10/night (N 20:57 W 101:16
Elev 6276'). They have a sewer dump, water and electricity but nothing is very well maintained. We used the
water and the dump site, but not the power. I have been very skeptical about using power in most campgrounds
where it has been available as I am never sure of the voltage and the polarity or its constancy. Fortunately, with
our solar panels we usually have enough power when the sun shines. When it doesn't we run the generator to
make up the difference.
From that spot we were able to walk out to the highway and take a bus into town for 36 cents one way.
Coincidentally, the Festival Cervantino was taking place the entire time we were in Guanajuato and music from all
over the world was being performed in various places throughout the city. Additionally, there were street
performers at every little park and on streetcorners. Colleen and I 'attended' one performance by hanging out
near where they were performing as we wandered the gardens of the ex-Hacienda Gabriel Barrera. The tickets
were $21 each and you had to sit on a folding chair...we got to wander around looking at flowers and fountains
while listening to the music for free...pretty great.
Guanajuato is an old mining town and is built on the sides of steep hills. The houses stack themselves up the
sides of the canyons and some of the roads wind through tunnels and very narrow passes. There is even one
'street' that is not suitable for anything but foot traffic where the balconies almost touch across the sidewalk. It is
called Kissing Alley and legend has it that if you don't kiss your loved one there you will have 7 years of bad luck.
There were lots of couples posing for a kiss while their friends took pictures.
We also went to the Museo de las Momias, Mummy Museum and saw lots of...well...mummies. The mummies are
not ancient but from the last couple hundred years and it was interesting seeing some of their clothing, evidence
of a violent death by stabbing and how graceful their hands were even in death. It wasn't gruesome to me...it was
more thought provoking.
Another site we visited was at the School of Mines where there is a mineralogy museum with over 20,000
samples...that's a lot of rocks!!! They were really well displayed and labeled and it was free.
Colleen had really been looking forward to being in Guanajuato again as it is one of the few places that sells corn
on the cob smeared with cream and red chile. We indulged on a streetcorner and sat watching people while
enjoying the corn.
Leaving Guanajuato we drove 49 miles to San Miguel de Allende. We found a great vacant lot where there were a
few trucks parked and thought we might be able to stay there. When we inquired, we found out that the lot is
owned by the same person who owns the RV park and that we were not likely to get permission to park there.
Rather than spending a lot of time hunting for a site, we just went to the Siesta Motel and RV park (N 20:53.948 W
100:45.055 Elev 6292'). It is right on the edge of town and on a main bus line so suited us well. The fee was
115P/night/rig for no hookups and 130P/night/rig with full hookups. We opted for the no hookups as we had just
dumped and gotten water at the last place.
We went in to town on the bus and wandered around through the Parroquia and past the house our friends
Bobbie and Cass rented a few years ago. We stopped across the street at La Conexion where lots of gringos get
their mail and met a woman our age and her mother who had just arrived to live in San Miguel from the East
Coast. They were both excited to see what this adventure will bring for them.
Larry and Joyce were going to leave us and head toward the border quickly to get some repairs done (they
haven't had a refrigerator for months) and some other business taken care of so that they can be at Death Valley
Days by the 8th of November. At noon on our last day together we met them near the public market for our last
market lunch together. We also had a celebratory dinner planned for that evening at a nice restaurant, but Larry
really wanted to eat in one of the comedores where we have enjoyed so many great meals over the last 9 1/2
months.
For those of you who haven't traveled in Mexico or Central America, the street food is really tasty and cheap. It is
fun to wander around where they are selling food in little stands or around the public market and look into the
pots and at what others are eating and choose something for a meal. We almost never even ask the price at the
comedores as it is always really reasonable. It is also very interesting to order food and then discover that what
you got was not what you thought you ordered. Fortunately, all four of us will eat most anything and so we have
lots of surprise meals.
That last evening in San Miguel we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant called L'Invito at the Instituto Allende.
Larry had been told about the restaurant and the fact that if you showed up for dinner before 7:00 the meal was
half price. We arrived at 6:30 and had a delightful meal with a variety of dishes and the price was extremely
reasonable.
A couple from England, Sue and Peter, arrived at the RV park where we were staying and talking to them about
their 18 months of adventures around North America was very interesting. On the morning of the 14th of October,
Larry and Joyce left and we sort of lazed around getting ready to also leave in a more leisurely fashion. Before
leaving we got involved with more conversation with Sue and Peter and heard about other adventures they have
had traveling in India, Thailand, and other exotic places. Colleen got all excited when they told us about a group
called the Silk Road Club that travels 10,000 miles from Paris to Beijing and 10,000 miles back in motorhomes.
We could not take our motorhome on such a rigorous trip even if we could afford to ship it to Europe, but they
mentioned a person in the club is selling a UniMog. We definitely have something new to think about. The idea of
traveling through Pakistan and some of the other countries is a little scary....we will see....don't worry Mom, we
aren't signed up for this one yet.
We left San Miguel to travel mostly north to the Balneario Gogorron...Colleen was in pursuit of another hot water
experience. The grounds were lovely and we parked on a small interior road alongside lots of well-kept grassy
areas with picnic tables. There were several pools but we found the two warmest ones and spent a few hours in
and out of them. Unfortunately, though it is really a delightful place, they neglected to make any comfortable
seating available in either the pools or around the pools so the experience was diminished by that. The night we
spent there was 'enlightened' by an electrical storm...I do not like electrical storms where you see the flash and
are deafened by the thunder at the same time...and this one was a doozy. I am sorry that I did not get the GPS
coordinates for this site. Suffice to say that you had to go about 8kms past Villa de Reyes to find it.
We left the Balneario Gogorron around noon to find our way to a small town called Cedral near the access to the
town of Real Catorce. We stayed at yet another Pemex # 2282 (N 23:48.945 W 100.42.983 Elev 5587'). From
there we were able to catch a bici-taxi into the village to check on the bus for Real Catorce. While there we
wandered around the town and were delighted with how clean and prosperous it is. Mexico has changed so much
in the last few years...you wonder how much of the change is due to Vicente Fox and how much is due to NAFTA.
The next day we walked in to town to catch the bus to Real Catorce for 29.5 pesos. The bus trip takes about an
hour to get to the bus stopping point where there are lots of vendors and parked vehicles. At that point one gets
on a horse-drawn cart that holds about 14 people for the trip 1.2 miles through a tunnel to the village. Real
Catorce used to be a mining town with upwards of 40,000 people but now is home to about 3000 people. During
the first 2 weeks of October (we got in on the tail end of it) over 100,000 people make a pilgrimage to the
Cathedral there where it is said that St Francis has performed miracles.
When you get off the horse-drawn cart there are lots of vendors selling tacky pictures and statues of St Francis,
rosary beads, candles, candy, T-shirts, and many food stalls. We wandered around the stalls for a while then
went in to the church where they were just starting a mass...it turned out that they offered mass about every 2
hours to accommodate all of the pilgrims.
We then arranged for a couple of horses to take us into the mountains to a sacred Huichol site...interesting how
there are competing religious opportunities everywhere. We rode about 1 1 /4 hours up to the mountain, spent
about 45 minutes there and then rode back. I am sure glad those horses were sure-footed as it was steep and
rocky. When we got back our legs and knees felt like jelly and we were really glad to get down off those horses.
That brings us to the end of the first half of October's journal...we are still in Cedral at the Pemex station sitting
gingerly as our ischial tuberosities remind us of our trip yesterday. We will leave here tomorrow, October 18th, to
head more north. We will be crossing back into the US within a week or so.
From Cedral we drove 116 miles to Laguna Labradores just outside of Galeana. This little lake is on the edge of a
small village and has picnic tables around one side of it with a nice grassy spot to camp between them and the
lake itself. Local people come to hang out at the picnic tables in the afternoon and then at night it is absolutely
still. The lake appeared to be very clean but not large enough to warrant taking the kayak off the roof; it would
have been a very short paddle. There were horses that hung out in the area that came to the lake to drink, but
otherwise it was very quiet. Admittedly, we were there during the week and the weekends might be another story.
We spent two nights there.
An interesting phenomenon was occurring...it was as if Colleen and I were two separate magnets and the US was
another large magnet. My personal magnet was oriented to be attracted by the pull of the US magnet and
Colleen's was oriented to be repelled by it. The closer we got to the US the stronger the draw was for me to cross
the border. Colleen, on the other hand, was thinking of everything possible to prolong our trip and not cross the
border. I was excited about being back in the US and she was depressed by the thought of being there, If you
check our tracks on our route north you will easily see her heel marks.
We have been mostly insulated from much news on the trip as we rarely saw television and only occasionally read
a newspaper. I would glance through the online version of the Santa Fe New Mexican fairly frequently, but would
only read the local news of Santa Fe and avoid the national and world news. Colleen would sometimes listen to or
read Amy Goodman's Democracy Now and would get upset at the newest brouhaha brewing. In email from friends
we would be told that we were lucky to not be bombarded daily by the political advertising leading up to this
election day. We felt strongly that we should vote, so our absentee ballots were waiting for us to cross the border.
Returning to worries about the war in Iraq and the machinations of government was not at all appealing.
From Laguna Labradores we drove 265 miles to Nuevo Laredo. This turned out to be the largest number of miles
driven south of the border on this trip...the 240 miles already reported in The Best and the Worst was surpassed.
If there had been anything even remotely interesting to see between those two spots we probably would have
stopped for another night or two to delay crossing back into the US.
We arrived in Nuevo Laredo at about 6pm and needed to find a place to park for the night. We were headed to
International Bridge #2 and along the way we saw a large construction site. Workers were still on the job and
there was a huge parking lot back in the back....a perfect boondock spot. We thought.
We neglected to find the foreman of the job site and get permission to stay there for the night. After a couple of
hours a police officer showed up to tell us that we were on private property and could not stay there, unless we
coughed up some money for him. We had managed to make it all the way to Panama and back again without
paying any bribes and I refused to pay him. He wanted to come inside the rig and I would only talk to him through
the window and he wasn't too happy with me. Another hour or so later he showed back up with reinforcements.
This time there were three of them...one of the three was from the Transit Police and wore a different uniform.
There was another discussion through the window where I revealed that the first officer had demanded money to
allow us to stay there...he flat out lied and said that wasn't true. The Transit police officer was much more
professional and was eventually allowed inside to make sure that all was as it seemed (that we didn't have a drug
lab or 37 illegal aliens hidden inside). He told us that there wouldn't be any security at the site after 11pm. We
assured him that we were not concerned about security except,, because of my imprudence of revealing the
extortion attempt, we were now concerned that our only problem would be the other police officer. We were
assured that trouble would not come from that quarter and they all went on their way. Other than about a dozen or
so souped up cars cruising the lot for about 20 minutes, it was a peaceful night.
The next morning we got our usual 'early' start at about 9:30 and drove the 3 miles to the border crossing, We
had to give up our potatoes and some apples and they x-rayed the entire rig and then we were on our way. We
were asked if we were US citizens and did not have to show any papers. That was all there was to it....very
anticlimactic and way less complicated than the other 13 border crossings we did over the last 10 months. We
were home....whatever that means when you live in an RV!!!
Once across the border we drove the 171 miles to San Antonio to meet Lee and Ken Jacobs at an RV park
(Travel something or other at N 29:22.395 W 98:28.983 Elev 482') to catch up with them. We last saw them in
Mazatlan in January just as we started the trip and now had completed the journey and met with them again as
they were headed down to Mazatlan for the winter. I really enjoyed chatting with them about the trip and hearing
about their travels since we saw them...I was also very flattered to have them ask about things I had written about,
perhaps months ago, to find out how something ended up...an example is how we ever solved the problem of the
engine not shutting down. In case you are curious too, it turned out to be solved by changing the air
filter...apparently there was a heat sensitive diode near the engine air intake that was being affected by the dirty
air cleaner. We just changed the air filter as a normal part of maintenance to discover subsequently that the
engine now turned off when it should....since then we have kept the air filter clean to avoid having the problem.
After one night at the RV park, Lee and Ken left for the border and we moved over to WalMart...$30 a night for
camping was certainly a shock. We parked way out in the farthest corner of the WalMart lot and got permission to
stay. It only cost us $397 to stay there, but we got more for our money than just a parking place (like a new
vacuum cleaner and $160 in fuel to mention two items).
The next morning we took the bus in to the center of town and wandered around on the River Walk...what a
disappointment that was....I had a lot different idea of what the River Walk would be...expectations lead to
disappointments. If you haven't been there, it is a bunch of shops and restaurants along a narrow, not so clean
channel of water. The pathways were nice and the accomplishment of designing it and winding the water in and
out of the structures was imaginative, but somehow we have been spoiled by our walks through jungles and
villages south of here. I have never liked large cities and San Antonio is a big city.
Two nights at the WalMart and we were on our way to spend the night with Harriet and John Halkyard in Houston.
In 2003 they made the trip to Panama and back in 99 days with their dog, Brindle, and are writing a book about
their travels. We had some of the advance copy with possible camping sites that we had been using on the trip.
As we traveled along and sent our trip notes they incorporated the new sites that our group found in their book.
We had been corresponding with them for the last 10 months and now we were going to get to meet them.
We arrived at their home and parked our rig in their driveway for the night. They prepared a wonderful dinner of
rare roast beef with fresh asparagus, home made bread and oven baked herb potatoes....what a treat...as much
as we like the food in Mexico etc. there is just nothing like good roast beef and asparagus and you would never
find it where we had been eating for the last 10 months. After dinner we chatted for hours about traveling to
Panama and shared notes about where they went and stayed and memories of our favorite spots to compare.
Their book, called 99 Days to Panama, is almost ready to go to the printers and it is very well done with lots of
great pictures. Anyone contemplating a trip to Mexico or Central America would be delighted to read it. You can
contact them at their website http://brindlepress.com to order a copy. It contains delightful anecdotes of their trip
as well as very specific information about where they boondocked. I am looking forward to reading it.
After discussing our individual Panama trips we started talking about the Silk Route. After my last travelogue they
had already found the website for the Silk Route Club and were dreaming about possibilities. This is getting to be
a nearer possibility and maybe Sue and Peter that first told us about it will also develop some momentum toward
the trip. I have been to the website the club maintains and it is an amazing trip...check it out at
http://www.xor.org.uk/silkroute/index.html
We were sorry to only have one evening to spend with Harriet and John, but we had an appointment in Oklahoma
City for some repair work and needed a few days to clean the rig. We left Houston for Livingston and Rainbow's
End, the Escapees park where the national office of the organization was located. On the way we stopped in
Conroe to meet another couple, Kim and Jon, with whom we had been corresponding about the trip. They were
headed down into Mexico at least and possibly further. They had lots of questions about our trip. They also
turned out to be delightful company and we wished that we might have had more than just a couple of hours to
spend with them. They treated us to a great lunch and then we had to say goodbye; we hope to also meet up with
them in the future.
We arrived at Rainbow's End and were assigned to site 31 amongst lots of tall pines. This is an extremely well-run
RV park and the site fees are quite reasonable at around $10/night plus electricity. There are great laundry
facilities, a swimming pool, book exchange, video borrowing library, activity centers and many warm and
welcoming volunteers and staff.
My days there were marred by the task of cleaning the rig. Colleen is like a woman on a mission when she
decides to clean. She is from the get-down-on-your-knees-with-a-toothbrush school of cleaning and I am more
along the lines of if-you-can't-see-the-dirt-it-doesn't-exist school of cleaning. We managed to get through 5 days
of cleaning the rig from top to bottom and we are still speaking to one another.
On our last full day at Rainbow's End a silver airstream trailer pulled in next to us. A couple of hours later Jolene,
one of the people in the trailer, asked if we had just gotten back from Central America. We said that we had and
she said, "I thought you looked like Loose Chickens, but I was going to go look at a picture I have of the group to
make sure." Jolene and Ed are friends of Mary & Elaine and Larry & Joyce and had been getting trip updates for
months. Unfortunately, we were leaving the next morning and weren't going to be able to get to know them.
The following morning as we were just about to leave Livingston I was walking back from the clubhouse where I
had dropped off a load of books that we had finished. I heard a man say "Are you Colleen or Kathe?". I 'fessed up
and he told me that he had been following our trip on the website and recognized me from a picture on the site. I
knew of him too as I had recently seen a link to his website and their travels to Central America. You can read
about all of their trips on http://nextmillionmiles.com It was fun to talk to Frank and Annie Cartwright and, again, we
were sorry that we were on our way out of the campground.
We were on our way north to Oklahoma City for the long-awaited repairs that needed to be made to the rig.
Nothing major went wrong with KC on the trip, but there are some nuisance items to get fixed. We were so glad
that we had purchased a Newmar product. The place we had chosen to have the repairs made was Lee's RV just
north of Oklahoma City. In the past our experiences with dealerships and getting warranty repairs made had not
been very positive. Lee Litchfield, the owner of Lee's RV, is a regular contributor to the online Newmar Owner's
Forum and is always very generous with his responses to the questions posed there. From months of reading the
forum we decided to take KC to his dealership.
We are there now and we are very pleased with the professionalism and friendliness of the employees and Mike,
our service technician, is moving through the list of items that need attention. Once we are done here we are
headed to Santa Fe and Albuquerque. For those of you who would care to actually talk to us, our cellphone is
now working again.
to get out of the parking lot. We drove 123 miles to the town of San Antonio de Tlayacapan just east of Ajijic on
Lake Chapala to a vacant lot where the other loose chickens had camped just about a month before us (N
20:17.625 W 103:14.239 Elev 5098'). It was a nice grassy area at the edge of a small village with cows grazing
around us and the farmer coming each morning to milk his cows. I even got to milk one of the cows on our last
morning there. It had been a few years, but I hadn't lost the touch for it. The farmer even went and got his wife to
come see as he was surprised that I was able to do it. I didn't tell him that years ago I milked a cow every morning
for a few months.
Ken and John, Mary and Elaine's friends, have their motorhome nearby on a lot that they have recently leased for
a couple of years having moved to there from Acapulco. Colleen and I met them when we were in Acapulco last
January and it was nice to renew our acquaintance.
On the Saturday evening of our first night there we went to the local plaza for dinner at a taco stand and met Jose
Hernandez. He is a retired music teacher who lives nearby and he stopped to eat after mass at the local church.
We really enjoyed talking to him and told him where we were camped. The next evening we again were at the
plaza at the taco stand and he brought his wife to meet us as he had stopped at the motorhome and didn't find us
so figured where we might be. Lidia was also a delight and we invited them back to the rig for more conversation.
They invited us to go to the Balneario at San Juan Cosala with them the next day.
The Balneario was very large with several warm swimming type pools, smaller hot pools, a hot Jacuzzi and a
steam room right on the edge of the lake. Lidia prepared a lunch of tuna salad and toasted tortillas and we spent
the better part of the day there. Colleen was in seventh heaven with all the hot water and I enjoyed it too. It felt
great to soak after months of inadequate showers or baths because of conserving water. It felt like a snake must
feel shedding its skin.
Jose and Lidia were delightful company and we had them over for dinner. Their son, Raul, is an opera singer and
lives in New York and another son, Sergio, lives in Denver and operates 3 Mexican restaurants. Another day we
went with them to the village of Tonala outside of Guadalajara and wandered the streets looking at crafts
work....we don't buy much so we just looked and had a nice lunch.
Colleen and I also went to the town of Chapala where they were having a festival of some sort and there were lots
of people wandering up and down the malecon on the waterfront. Another day I went to the weekly market in Ajijic
(pronounced ah-hee-heek) and bought a used DVD movie for $2 and some veggies. We both really liked the
area around Lake Chapala and can see why so many Americans and Europeans have made it their home.
We stayed in San Antonio for 5 nights and then drove 191 miles to Guanajuato, one of Mexico's really great cities
in my book. We camped at the Bugamville RV Park a few miles outside of town for $10/night (N 20:57 W 101:16
Elev 6276'). They have a sewer dump, water and electricity but nothing is very well maintained. We used the
water and the dump site, but not the power. I have been very skeptical about using power in most campgrounds
where it has been available as I am never sure of the voltage and the polarity or its constancy. Fortunately, with
our solar panels we usually have enough power when the sun shines. When it doesn't we run the generator to
make up the difference.
From that spot we were able to walk out to the highway and take a bus into town for 36 cents one way.
Coincidentally, the Festival Cervantino was taking place the entire time we were in Guanajuato and music from all
over the world was being performed in various places throughout the city. Additionally, there were street
performers at every little park and on streetcorners. Colleen and I 'attended' one performance by hanging out
near where they were performing as we wandered the gardens of the ex-Hacienda Gabriel Barrera. The tickets
were $21 each and you had to sit on a folding chair...we got to wander around looking at flowers and fountains
while listening to the music for free...pretty great.
Guanajuato is an old mining town and is built on the sides of steep hills. The houses stack themselves up the
sides of the canyons and some of the roads wind through tunnels and very narrow passes. There is even one
'street' that is not suitable for anything but foot traffic where the balconies almost touch across the sidewalk. It is
called Kissing Alley and legend has it that if you don't kiss your loved one there you will have 7 years of bad luck.
There were lots of couples posing for a kiss while their friends took pictures.
We also went to the Museo de las Momias, Mummy Museum and saw lots of...well...mummies. The mummies are
not ancient but from the last couple hundred years and it was interesting seeing some of their clothing, evidence
of a violent death by stabbing and how graceful their hands were even in death. It wasn't gruesome to me...it was
more thought provoking.
Another site we visited was at the School of Mines where there is a mineralogy museum with over 20,000
samples...that's a lot of rocks!!! They were really well displayed and labeled and it was free.
Colleen had really been looking forward to being in Guanajuato again as it is one of the few places that sells corn
on the cob smeared with cream and red chile. We indulged on a streetcorner and sat watching people while
enjoying the corn.
Leaving Guanajuato we drove 49 miles to San Miguel de Allende. We found a great vacant lot where there were a
few trucks parked and thought we might be able to stay there. When we inquired, we found out that the lot is
owned by the same person who owns the RV park and that we were not likely to get permission to park there.
Rather than spending a lot of time hunting for a site, we just went to the Siesta Motel and RV park (N 20:53.948 W
100:45.055 Elev 6292'). It is right on the edge of town and on a main bus line so suited us well. The fee was
115P/night/rig for no hookups and 130P/night/rig with full hookups. We opted for the no hookups as we had just
dumped and gotten water at the last place.
We went in to town on the bus and wandered around through the Parroquia and past the house our friends
Bobbie and Cass rented a few years ago. We stopped across the street at La Conexion where lots of gringos get
their mail and met a woman our age and her mother who had just arrived to live in San Miguel from the East
Coast. They were both excited to see what this adventure will bring for them.
Larry and Joyce were going to leave us and head toward the border quickly to get some repairs done (they
haven't had a refrigerator for months) and some other business taken care of so that they can be at Death Valley
Days by the 8th of November. At noon on our last day together we met them near the public market for our last
market lunch together. We also had a celebratory dinner planned for that evening at a nice restaurant, but Larry
really wanted to eat in one of the comedores where we have enjoyed so many great meals over the last 9 1/2
months.
For those of you who haven't traveled in Mexico or Central America, the street food is really tasty and cheap. It is
fun to wander around where they are selling food in little stands or around the public market and look into the
pots and at what others are eating and choose something for a meal. We almost never even ask the price at the
comedores as it is always really reasonable. It is also very interesting to order food and then discover that what
you got was not what you thought you ordered. Fortunately, all four of us will eat most anything and so we have
lots of surprise meals.
That last evening in San Miguel we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant called L'Invito at the Instituto Allende.
Larry had been told about the restaurant and the fact that if you showed up for dinner before 7:00 the meal was
half price. We arrived at 6:30 and had a delightful meal with a variety of dishes and the price was extremely
reasonable.
A couple from England, Sue and Peter, arrived at the RV park where we were staying and talking to them about
their 18 months of adventures around North America was very interesting. On the morning of the 14th of October,
Larry and Joyce left and we sort of lazed around getting ready to also leave in a more leisurely fashion. Before
leaving we got involved with more conversation with Sue and Peter and heard about other adventures they have
had traveling in India, Thailand, and other exotic places. Colleen got all excited when they told us about a group
called the Silk Road Club that travels 10,000 miles from Paris to Beijing and 10,000 miles back in motorhomes.
We could not take our motorhome on such a rigorous trip even if we could afford to ship it to Europe, but they
mentioned a person in the club is selling a UniMog. We definitely have something new to think about. The idea of
traveling through Pakistan and some of the other countries is a little scary....we will see....don't worry Mom, we
aren't signed up for this one yet.
We left San Miguel to travel mostly north to the Balneario Gogorron...Colleen was in pursuit of another hot water
experience. The grounds were lovely and we parked on a small interior road alongside lots of well-kept grassy
areas with picnic tables. There were several pools but we found the two warmest ones and spent a few hours in
and out of them. Unfortunately, though it is really a delightful place, they neglected to make any comfortable
seating available in either the pools or around the pools so the experience was diminished by that. The night we
spent there was 'enlightened' by an electrical storm...I do not like electrical storms where you see the flash and
are deafened by the thunder at the same time...and this one was a doozy. I am sorry that I did not get the GPS
coordinates for this site. Suffice to say that you had to go about 8kms past Villa de Reyes to find it.
We left the Balneario Gogorron around noon to find our way to a small town called Cedral near the access to the
town of Real Catorce. We stayed at yet another Pemex # 2282 (N 23:48.945 W 100.42.983 Elev 5587'). From
there we were able to catch a bici-taxi into the village to check on the bus for Real Catorce. While there we
wandered around the town and were delighted with how clean and prosperous it is. Mexico has changed so much
in the last few years...you wonder how much of the change is due to Vicente Fox and how much is due to NAFTA.
The next day we walked in to town to catch the bus to Real Catorce for 29.5 pesos. The bus trip takes about an
hour to get to the bus stopping point where there are lots of vendors and parked vehicles. At that point one gets
on a horse-drawn cart that holds about 14 people for the trip 1.2 miles through a tunnel to the village. Real
Catorce used to be a mining town with upwards of 40,000 people but now is home to about 3000 people. During
the first 2 weeks of October (we got in on the tail end of it) over 100,000 people make a pilgrimage to the
Cathedral there where it is said that St Francis has performed miracles.
When you get off the horse-drawn cart there are lots of vendors selling tacky pictures and statues of St Francis,
rosary beads, candles, candy, T-shirts, and many food stalls. We wandered around the stalls for a while then
went in to the church where they were just starting a mass...it turned out that they offered mass about every 2
hours to accommodate all of the pilgrims.
We then arranged for a couple of horses to take us into the mountains to a sacred Huichol site...interesting how
there are competing religious opportunities everywhere. We rode about 1 1 /4 hours up to the mountain, spent
about 45 minutes there and then rode back. I am sure glad those horses were sure-footed as it was steep and
rocky. When we got back our legs and knees felt like jelly and we were really glad to get down off those horses.
That brings us to the end of the first half of October's journal...we are still in Cedral at the Pemex station sitting
gingerly as our ischial tuberosities remind us of our trip yesterday. We will leave here tomorrow, October 18th, to
head more north. We will be crossing back into the US within a week or so.
From Cedral we drove 116 miles to Laguna Labradores just outside of Galeana. This little lake is on the edge of a
small village and has picnic tables around one side of it with a nice grassy spot to camp between them and the
lake itself. Local people come to hang out at the picnic tables in the afternoon and then at night it is absolutely
still. The lake appeared to be very clean but not large enough to warrant taking the kayak off the roof; it would
have been a very short paddle. There were horses that hung out in the area that came to the lake to drink, but
otherwise it was very quiet. Admittedly, we were there during the week and the weekends might be another story.
We spent two nights there.
An interesting phenomenon was occurring...it was as if Colleen and I were two separate magnets and the US was
another large magnet. My personal magnet was oriented to be attracted by the pull of the US magnet and
Colleen's was oriented to be repelled by it. The closer we got to the US the stronger the draw was for me to cross
the border. Colleen, on the other hand, was thinking of everything possible to prolong our trip and not cross the
border. I was excited about being back in the US and she was depressed by the thought of being there, If you
check our tracks on our route north you will easily see her heel marks.
We have been mostly insulated from much news on the trip as we rarely saw television and only occasionally read
a newspaper. I would glance through the online version of the Santa Fe New Mexican fairly frequently, but would
only read the local news of Santa Fe and avoid the national and world news. Colleen would sometimes listen to or
read Amy Goodman's Democracy Now and would get upset at the newest brouhaha brewing. In email from friends
we would be told that we were lucky to not be bombarded daily by the political advertising leading up to this
election day. We felt strongly that we should vote, so our absentee ballots were waiting for us to cross the border.
Returning to worries about the war in Iraq and the machinations of government was not at all appealing.
From Laguna Labradores we drove 265 miles to Nuevo Laredo. This turned out to be the largest number of miles
driven south of the border on this trip...the 240 miles already reported in The Best and the Worst was surpassed.
If there had been anything even remotely interesting to see between those two spots we probably would have
stopped for another night or two to delay crossing back into the US.
We arrived in Nuevo Laredo at about 6pm and needed to find a place to park for the night. We were headed to
International Bridge #2 and along the way we saw a large construction site. Workers were still on the job and
there was a huge parking lot back in the back....a perfect boondock spot. We thought.
We neglected to find the foreman of the job site and get permission to stay there for the night. After a couple of
hours a police officer showed up to tell us that we were on private property and could not stay there, unless we
coughed up some money for him. We had managed to make it all the way to Panama and back again without
paying any bribes and I refused to pay him. He wanted to come inside the rig and I would only talk to him through
the window and he wasn't too happy with me. Another hour or so later he showed back up with reinforcements.
This time there were three of them...one of the three was from the Transit Police and wore a different uniform.
There was another discussion through the window where I revealed that the first officer had demanded money to
allow us to stay there...he flat out lied and said that wasn't true. The Transit police officer was much more
professional and was eventually allowed inside to make sure that all was as it seemed (that we didn't have a drug
lab or 37 illegal aliens hidden inside). He told us that there wouldn't be any security at the site after 11pm. We
assured him that we were not concerned about security except,, because of my imprudence of revealing the
extortion attempt, we were now concerned that our only problem would be the other police officer. We were
assured that trouble would not come from that quarter and they all went on their way. Other than about a dozen or
so souped up cars cruising the lot for about 20 minutes, it was a peaceful night.
The next morning we got our usual 'early' start at about 9:30 and drove the 3 miles to the border crossing, We
had to give up our potatoes and some apples and they x-rayed the entire rig and then we were on our way. We
were asked if we were US citizens and did not have to show any papers. That was all there was to it....very
anticlimactic and way less complicated than the other 13 border crossings we did over the last 10 months. We
were home....whatever that means when you live in an RV!!!
Once across the border we drove the 171 miles to San Antonio to meet Lee and Ken Jacobs at an RV park
(Travel something or other at N 29:22.395 W 98:28.983 Elev 482') to catch up with them. We last saw them in
Mazatlan in January just as we started the trip and now had completed the journey and met with them again as
they were headed down to Mazatlan for the winter. I really enjoyed chatting with them about the trip and hearing
about their travels since we saw them...I was also very flattered to have them ask about things I had written about,
perhaps months ago, to find out how something ended up...an example is how we ever solved the problem of the
engine not shutting down. In case you are curious too, it turned out to be solved by changing the air
filter...apparently there was a heat sensitive diode near the engine air intake that was being affected by the dirty
air cleaner. We just changed the air filter as a normal part of maintenance to discover subsequently that the
engine now turned off when it should....since then we have kept the air filter clean to avoid having the problem.
After one night at the RV park, Lee and Ken left for the border and we moved over to WalMart...$30 a night for
camping was certainly a shock. We parked way out in the farthest corner of the WalMart lot and got permission to
stay. It only cost us $397 to stay there, but we got more for our money than just a parking place (like a new
vacuum cleaner and $160 in fuel to mention two items).
The next morning we took the bus in to the center of town and wandered around on the River Walk...what a
disappointment that was....I had a lot different idea of what the River Walk would be...expectations lead to
disappointments. If you haven't been there, it is a bunch of shops and restaurants along a narrow, not so clean
channel of water. The pathways were nice and the accomplishment of designing it and winding the water in and
out of the structures was imaginative, but somehow we have been spoiled by our walks through jungles and
villages south of here. I have never liked large cities and San Antonio is a big city.
Two nights at the WalMart and we were on our way to spend the night with Harriet and John Halkyard in Houston.
In 2003 they made the trip to Panama and back in 99 days with their dog, Brindle, and are writing a book about
their travels. We had some of the advance copy with possible camping sites that we had been using on the trip.
As we traveled along and sent our trip notes they incorporated the new sites that our group found in their book.
We had been corresponding with them for the last 10 months and now we were going to get to meet them.
We arrived at their home and parked our rig in their driveway for the night. They prepared a wonderful dinner of
rare roast beef with fresh asparagus, home made bread and oven baked herb potatoes....what a treat...as much
as we like the food in Mexico etc. there is just nothing like good roast beef and asparagus and you would never
find it where we had been eating for the last 10 months. After dinner we chatted for hours about traveling to
Panama and shared notes about where they went and stayed and memories of our favorite spots to compare.
Their book, called 99 Days to Panama, is almost ready to go to the printers and it is very well done with lots of
great pictures. Anyone contemplating a trip to Mexico or Central America would be delighted to read it. You can
contact them at their website http://brindlepress.com to order a copy. It contains delightful anecdotes of their trip
as well as very specific information about where they boondocked. I am looking forward to reading it.
After discussing our individual Panama trips we started talking about the Silk Route. After my last travelogue they
had already found the website for the Silk Route Club and were dreaming about possibilities. This is getting to be
a nearer possibility and maybe Sue and Peter that first told us about it will also develop some momentum toward
the trip. I have been to the website the club maintains and it is an amazing trip...check it out at
http://www.xor.org.uk/silkroute/index.html
We were sorry to only have one evening to spend with Harriet and John, but we had an appointment in Oklahoma
City for some repair work and needed a few days to clean the rig. We left Houston for Livingston and Rainbow's
End, the Escapees park where the national office of the organization was located. On the way we stopped in
Conroe to meet another couple, Kim and Jon, with whom we had been corresponding about the trip. They were
headed down into Mexico at least and possibly further. They had lots of questions about our trip. They also
turned out to be delightful company and we wished that we might have had more than just a couple of hours to
spend with them. They treated us to a great lunch and then we had to say goodbye; we hope to also meet up with
them in the future.
We arrived at Rainbow's End and were assigned to site 31 amongst lots of tall pines. This is an extremely well-run
RV park and the site fees are quite reasonable at around $10/night plus electricity. There are great laundry
facilities, a swimming pool, book exchange, video borrowing library, activity centers and many warm and
welcoming volunteers and staff.
My days there were marred by the task of cleaning the rig. Colleen is like a woman on a mission when she
decides to clean. She is from the get-down-on-your-knees-with-a-toothbrush school of cleaning and I am more
along the lines of if-you-can't-see-the-dirt-it-doesn't-exist school of cleaning. We managed to get through 5 days
of cleaning the rig from top to bottom and we are still speaking to one another.
On our last full day at Rainbow's End a silver airstream trailer pulled in next to us. A couple of hours later Jolene,
one of the people in the trailer, asked if we had just gotten back from Central America. We said that we had and
she said, "I thought you looked like Loose Chickens, but I was going to go look at a picture I have of the group to
make sure." Jolene and Ed are friends of Mary & Elaine and Larry & Joyce and had been getting trip updates for
months. Unfortunately, we were leaving the next morning and weren't going to be able to get to know them.
The following morning as we were just about to leave Livingston I was walking back from the clubhouse where I
had dropped off a load of books that we had finished. I heard a man say "Are you Colleen or Kathe?". I 'fessed up
and he told me that he had been following our trip on the website and recognized me from a picture on the site. I
knew of him too as I had recently seen a link to his website and their travels to Central America. You can read
about all of their trips on http://nextmillionmiles.com It was fun to talk to Frank and Annie Cartwright and, again, we
were sorry that we were on our way out of the campground.
We were on our way north to Oklahoma City for the long-awaited repairs that needed to be made to the rig.
Nothing major went wrong with KC on the trip, but there are some nuisance items to get fixed. We were so glad
that we had purchased a Newmar product. The place we had chosen to have the repairs made was Lee's RV just
north of Oklahoma City. In the past our experiences with dealerships and getting warranty repairs made had not
been very positive. Lee Litchfield, the owner of Lee's RV, is a regular contributor to the online Newmar Owner's
Forum and is always very generous with his responses to the questions posed there. From months of reading the
forum we decided to take KC to his dealership.
We are there now and we are very pleased with the professionalism and friendliness of the employees and Mike,
our service technician, is moving through the list of items that need attention. Once we are done here we are
headed to Santa Fe and Albuquerque. For those of you who would care to actually talk to us, our cellphone is
now working again.
Copyright - All Rights Reserved
2005
2005
October 2004
Around the World with Kathe and Colleen