Sonora

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San Carlos to Guamúchil

I left San Carlos earlier than planned this morning because I had to go back to the TelCel office and had no idea how long that would take. I actually have no idea what time it was when I pulled out of Guaymas, fuming at TelCel, but excited about the day ahead.

I got clear of the city and pulled into a Pemex with an Oxxo attached. I got 500 pesos of fuel (I love saying 500 in Spanish — quinientos, not cinco cientos!) and then went in to get my second coffee of the day, feeling like I was embarking on a proper road trip!

When I got back out, there was five guys doing a really nice job polishing all the windows of my truck! One thing I’ve decided is that I hate fueling and I am going to tip the guy who does my fill even if he doesn’t do anything else. I also like having shiny windows and have decided that that’s worth a few pesos. So I gave each of the guys one peso for their hard work and enjoyed my spotless windshield for five minutes until a GIANT bug splattered across it. No problem, a called a window washer over at the next populated area. Am I getting the hang of this or what?! 😀

The first milestone of the day was leaving the ‘free zone’, where I now needed my temporary import permit! Real Mexico at last!

Early in the day, I got to a mess of construction and a worker stopped me and said something very fast. All I understood was a word that sounded like the French contre-sens, which told me that I would have to drive against the traffic. I was going to ask him to repeat himself and then thought, ‘No. Tell him what you understand and try to get a si or no answer.’ So I said “If I understand correctly, you want me to go left and then drive against the traffic?’ Yes! It was a long detour with no cones or markers and the people in the other direction didn’t really care that I was going the opposite way and were quite content to nearly mow me down. That was the start of my ‘OMG, so glad I’m not doing this in an RV!’ attitude. 🙂

After that, the drive was very steady compared to that in San Carlos and I got into a driving groove. It was hot, which kills my appetite, so I wound up not stopping at any one of the myriad of taco stands I passed.

All the bridges in Mexico, even little insignificant ones, have name, so when I passed the ‘puente sin nombre’, I got ‘I drove through Mexico on a bridge with no name’ stuck in my head for the rest of the day. 😀

The first city I crossed was Ciudad Obregon and I was really glad I wasn’t doing that in an RV! But then things got really interesting in Navojoa where I followed the Los Mochis sign to the libre, which was like an average road in Quebec, one pothole after another. I realised very quickly that I was off main MX 15 and turned back around to take the road through Navojoa, which was smooth going.

I really liked the look of Navojoa; it was exceptionally clean, with well maintained buildings. I thought of stopping at the Soriana at the south end of town for snacks, but was well stocked with coffee and granola bars and really didn’t need anything else.

The next big milestone was crossing into the state of Sinaloa!

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I have now been to four of the 31 (plus MX City) Mexican states! Baja California, Tamaulipas, Sonora, and Sinaloa!

The roads in Sinaloa are MUCH better than in Sonora, comparable to the drive from Quebec into Ontario on highway 417.

My destination was a Pemex station in Los Mochis, where I arrived around 3:00, WAY too early to stop and truck camp! The bed of the truck is full and it was hot and sticky anyway, so a motel was in order. I decided to keep going and check out each motel I’d pass, giving myself a deadline of 4:30 to find something decent, regardless of the price.

Shortly thereafter, I saw the first sign for Mazatlan! Home stretch!

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I stopped at one point to get more fuel and my bladder decided that it had had enough holding all the coffee, thank you very much, and if there’s no baño here, you can go behind a bush! Thankfully, there WAS a baño and it was impeccably clean. There was no toilet paper or soap, but no problem, I had wet wipes in my purse. Ladies, carry wet wipes!

After four 65-peso fares and one at 20 pesos, I was DONE with cuotas (toll roads) and when 4:00 came along with no suitable motels behind me, it was time to get onto a libre (free) road, where I was more likely to find services (I’d done my research!). I stopped at two cheap but terrifyingly dingy motels and arrived around 4:30 at a motel in Guamúchil that looked decent.

They wanted 600 pesos, 200 pesos more than I was hoping to pay tonight, but it gets dark VERY early here and it was time to stop. Not negotiable! I asked if 600 pesos was their best price and the guy looked at me, quirked a smile, and said that he could do 550 pesos since I asked so nicely in Spanish. Done!

The room is okay, not as nice as what I have gotten for less in the US, but decent and I LOVE the balcony over the pool, where I am writing this post.

Sorry, should have taken this one in daylight!

Sorry, should have taken this one in daylight!

I sat with the AC on for five minutes and that revved up my hunger, so I went down to the restaurant. I got out of there for 100 pesos, including a good tip, and had a cold lemonade and a huge plate of enchiladas with rice and beans, plus chips and salsa! THAT cheered me up immensely!

The rice and beans were soooo yummy it was all I could do not to lick the plate! The enchiladas were filled with chicken and had a spicy red sauce, the first truly spicy food I’ve encountered since arriving. It was just at my limit of tolerance and very tasty. I just cooled my tongue off with a bit of rice or beans when I couldn’t stand the heat any more.

I was surprised that such a meal is real Mexican food, not Tex-Mex, although they didn’t drown it in cheese and sour cream the way the meal would have been north of the border. Plus, it’s corn tortillas here, not wheat.

I was amused when the server brought a pole with a hook on it for my purse (bolsa)!

It was getting cool when I got out of the restaurant, so I wrestled my suitcase out of the truck to find my bathing suit and ran up to my room to change. I headed back down and swam for a half hour until it got chilly, a really nice end to the day.

I didn’t stop as much as I should have today but that was typical for me on a day with easy roads, nothing to do with a fear of stopping or anything like that.

Going off script today says a lot about how I feel about being here in Mexico — safe. I have standard driving rules (like giving myself a deadline for stopping) and obeyed them. I now have an hour less to do tomorrow, although the libre might eat up that additional time as it will be slower going than would have been the cuota. I’m going to try to be out of here by 7:00 as Contessa agrees with my expected travel time of seven hours to Isla.

Now, I’m off to try my landlady again…

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Taken By TelCel

Well, I encountered my first WATCH OUT in Mexico. Glad it cost me ‘only’ 400 pesos.

This morning, I ran out of bandwidth after using less than 1GB’s worth.  As it turns out, when you buy the 3GB internet plan, you need to send a text to activate said plan. I was paying a hefty per MB price!

When I was at the office Monday and had paid I asked if I had anything else to do and they said no. I am convinced that there was no language barrier issue. The person just couldn’t be bothered to tell the foreigner that she needed to send a text message.

I went back to the Guaymas TelCel office on the way out of town today and wasn’t able to get an English speaker. I argued my case in Spanish and was told that I was being very clear, but too bad, so sad. The woman who had served me on Monday even admitted that she didn’t tell me about the text I had to send and that if I had more questions I should have gotten back in line to speak to a general inquiries person! This is the same woman who very clearly told me I had done everything and was good to go!

I know that bureaucracy in Mexico is maddening to foreigners, but this takes the cake! I was very patient on Monday, waiting in all their lines and speaking their language and I got taken, plain and simple! I am so not impressed and frankly disgusted by my welcome to Mexico by such a large corporation.

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Fun At the Beach

I asked the desk clerk at the motel if he could recommend a beach. He said that for a first time person who doesn’t know the lay of the land, my best bet was Playa Algodones (Cotton Beach) by the Soggy Peso (lol) bar. Just follow the main road for ages until I see the signs for the Soggy Peso on my left.

Following the main road was fine until I didn’t realise that I needed to take the curve to the right and ended up in a hotel parking lot. I turned around and found myself going the wrong way down the road. No one honked. Everyone just stopped patiently while a nice man got me turned around and, I think, assured me that I’m not an idiot, everyone new to the area does this, and there needs to be better signage!

Back on the main road, I drove for a long time following the shoreline, the water getting bluer and bluer by the kilometre. I finally saw a sign that said Playa Algodones that way, down a dirt road, so I figured the Soggy Peso would be close by. I was right. I just had to go up the road a bit until I could do a U-turn.

There was a gatehouse at the entrance to the road to the bar, but the windows were shut and the gate arm was up. I drove a short distance down a very rutty dirt road, following the one or two signs indicating that the Soggy Peso was thataway and finally made my way there! I parked in front, changed into my flip flops, and went to investigate the beach.

It was beautiful, lovely sand with seashells ending in bright blue water, and almost deserted! I was hungry and went up to the Soggy Peso to ask if they were open. Yup. I ordered a piña colada, but they were out of pineapple, so I went with a margarita. I took one sip and almost fell over in my chair, it was that potent! The food menu was tiny. I wanted something more substantial than chips and salsa, so I ordered their shrimp quesadilla.

The two servers chatted with me while I was there and that was a real test of my language skills! Personal conversation is so much harder than business transactions, which can be fairly scripted in advance. I muddled through and got a few corrections, which I did not mind in the least! One of the boys said that he has Canadian friends who refuse to learn a word of Spanish, so he was surprised that I voluntarily studied the language.

The quesadilla was absolutely wonderful! It was full of cheese and plump shrimp and mild peppers, with plenty of guacamole and a very mildly hot red sauce to spread over it. I got the giggles about halfway through the meal, my sign that I was imbibing a particularly potent drink and shouldn’t plan to drive for a while! One of the boys even joked about how much tequila they put in their margaritas. *hiccup*

When I was done, I said that I would head down to the beach and use one of their chairs and umbrellas to sit for a bit, then go swim. One of the boys said something and I only caught ‘peligroso’ and ‘guerra.’ From the context, I extrapolated that he was warning me about man o’ war jelly fish. I just did some research and it looks like I was right!

The water was cool and there was a nasty wind blowing, so I didn’t play in the water long. But I definitely did enough strokes and got my head wet to say that I have finally had a proper swim in the Pacific Ocean!

I wish I had know that there would be these lovely lounge chairs and umbrellas as I would have brought a book or magazine. I still managed to wile away a couple of hours lying and walking in the sun.

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Tracking Hurricane Vance

After checking weather reports and speaking to RVers headed for Mazatlan, I have decided to renew the room in San Carlos for tonight and push on to Los Mochis tomorrow, where I will likely be truck camping, arriving in Mazatlan on Thursday. That’s the plan at least unless I hear to do otherwise from people on the ground there. The biggest question mark is if the road to Isla is passable or not.

The RVers I spoke to are experienced in Mexico, know the road between here and Mazatlan, know their RVing capabilities, and have had experience reading these kinds of forecasts. They are all deciding to wait this extra day and will do the drive straight to Mazatlan tomorrow! Wow! They say it’s a 10-hour drive for them pulling, but they are allowing themselves another two hours for weather and will leave around 5AM! I will probably leave here noonish to get to Los Mochis dinnertimeish. If I do end up truck camping, I won’t want to have to spend a whole afternoon and evening at a truck stop!

The clerk at the office gave me directions to a nearby beach. Can you believe that I have never swam in the Pacific Ocean?! I need to find some sun screen and flip flops and am kicking myself for forgetting my beach hat! I’ll have to see if I can find an inexpensive one here.

I also asked the office manager about the best coffee in town and he told me to go to the Oxxo! I found that my cup today was even better than yesterday’s. It always takes a bit of time for my taste buds to adjust to a new coffee and decide if they like it or not.

On the way back from the office, a lady carrying a bucket stopped me. I looked inside the bucket and saw shrimp. I said no thank you and she was surprised and crestfallen. I explained that my room doesn’t have a kitchen and she went, ‘Ah! Okay!’ and left with no hard feelings. 🙂

I just received an email from my neighbours Caroline and Charles advising me that they just had a major windstorm that took half the shingles off another neighbour’s roof! This storm shifted the tarp I used to cover my RV, leaving my roof exposed. That must have been some storm seeing as we had super, super high winds before I left and my second attempt at tarping didn’t even budge in those winds! Being the wonderful folk that they are, C&C resecured the tarp for me and now I know it will be okay for the whole winter! I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about home. And, yes, I miss home. 🙂 I’m really looking forward to being settled in the apartment and getting back into my routine and feeling like I’m ‘home’ again. Vagabonding is tiring! 😀

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Pampered

This afternoon, I Googled ‘manicure San Carlos MX’ and found a place I could locate, being near the Froggy’s bar and right next to the post office. I walked down to that area and looked at each building until I saw one with the word estética barely visible through the cover of trees. I would have looked for the word esthétique in French, so I knew I’d found the salon!

If the post office was indeed next door, there was absolutely no sign for it. I did see a man with a shirt that said ‘correos’ (post/mail) on it come out the door, so I guess the locals know where to go to mail something!

I went into the salon and asked if they had time for a manicure. A lady thought about it and said yes, 130 pesos. OUCH! But I was there and getting pretty desperate to trim my talons so I took a seat to wait.

When I worked for the government and was still a nail biter, I got gel sets done as often as I could afford to so that my hands would look nice. But since hitting the road, the only manicure I’ve treated myself to was in Nuevo Progreso in February of last year, and it was just a basic one, no fake nails. I’m hoping to regularly get such manicures regularly this winter since I won’t be doing any manual labour.

It was eventually my turn and I sat at the manicure table, gratified to see the lady sanitize all the equipment. The building was full of local ladies getting worked on, which told me this wasn’t a gringo priced place and that I probably couldn’t have done much better price-wise in the area.

The lady had a look at my nails and asked if I wanted them cut. Yes, please! She took off a bit and I asked for more. The second time was the perfect length. She then filed and buffed them, cleaned up the cuticles, and, my favourite part, gave me a forearm and hand massage. I didn’t want any colour on the nails so that the manicure will last longer, but I did accept clear polish.

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I’ve always had ugly sausagy hands and it was even worse when the nails were a mess. I’m happy with how my digits look now that the ends aren’t all gnawed to hell!

From the salon, I went further into town to the Ley, a grocery store, to get something to munch on tonight, picking up cheese (I have crackers), yoghurt, and pistachios, plus a banana for tomorrow morning. I was grateful for the translation app on my phone as it helped me navigate the yoghurt offerings. Arándanos are blueberries! They didn’t have raspberry (frambuesa, which I didn’t know but would have recognized as it’s so close to the French framboise), so I went with strawberry (fresa, which I definitely knew).

I don’t know yet if I’ll be traveling tomorrow. I’m waiting for my landlady to call me back and give me an idea of what the weather is like on the ground. Contessa is concerned that the road to Stone Island might be impassable after the heavy rain. I would prefer to hang out here than to proceed to Los Mochis and be stuck waiting there, simply because San Carlos is now familiar and feels safe. I’m not feeling super adventurous right now. 🙂