Is that you?

I'm sitting at the computer in the front of the MH at 8:05AM. Bev is in the bathroom. The MH starts shaking around.

I ask "Is that you?"

Bev replies "I thought it was you".

The shaking goes on for about 30 seconds and dies away.

5.8 earthquake near Manzanillo!

Touring Guanajuato Jan 16th to 19th

From Tequila we drove across the new bypass south of Guadalajara on our way to Guanajuato.  It saved us a lot of time.  We arrived early in the afternoon which gave us plenty of time to check into our rooms and then head out for a walk.

We stayed at the Hotel Posada Santa Fe, taking advantage of their special of 3 nights for the price of 2 which included a hot breakfast each morning.  The suites were lovely as pictured below.

beautiful stained glass in our shower

We walked over to the university and walked up the 82 steps to the original entrance.

our walk down

a small chapel we spotted from the top of the university steps

checking out the chapel

Next we walked over to the funicular to ride up to the statue Pipila for a panoramic view of the city.

Looking down into the base station

Pete, Jolene, Mike and Pipila

El Pipila, a mine worker, was the hero of the revolution to end slavery and oppression. His heroic actions allowed the rebels to storm the Grainery, the bastion occupied by the Spaniards. Pipila is his nickname, meaning "little turkey", because he had a long neck and walked like a turkey.

A beautiful little city surrounded by mountains

The following day we arranged for an English guide to take us in his vehicle on a tour of Guanajuato.  We toured from 10:15 am to 5:30 pm.  We took in many sites. Among them: a drive throught the historic downtown area, Museum of the Mummies, Museo Ex-Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera, Museo Casa Diego Rivera, the church and mine in La Valencia plus a drive along the Panoramic road surrounding the city. We drove through an area of very large homes, spotting an unusual one among the many.

Rayas Mine looks like a fortress.

From the city centre, the Rayas mine looks like a castle or fortress, but is really a rock wall that provides a flat working area for the mine on top. This mine originates in 1550 and still is in operation today. The significance of Guanajuato is that it once produced about one third of the worlds output of silver.

Of course, the outstanding feature of Guanajuato is it's tunnel system. If you don't know your way around, you will get totally lost. The picture below is one of the original tunnels which was once a tunnel to divert flood water coming from the mountains. The tunnel was converted to a roadway and now the diversion is buried below the roadway. The first tunnel dates back to the early 1800s using the local mining technologies. Tunneling began in earnest in 1960 to ease traffic congestion in the narrow streets of the old city.

Tunnel Intersection...an easy way to get lost

Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, as his squire

Our lunch stop was at the Mexico Lindo y Sabroso across from the Government Palace. Bev enjoyed one of their specialty dishes Chiles en Nogada.

An example of some unique architecture

On Thursday we spent the day walking around Guanajuato on our own.  We visited the Museum of Guanajuato and saw some very interesting photo-like paintings of local people, done long before photography was available. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant off the usual tourist path. Yummy.

We also visited several artisan shops.  We picked up a beautiful fused glass bowl by Juan Vargas.  Check out his website at www.juanvargasglassart.com.

Tequila Jan 15 2018

This was our fourth visit to Tequila. We stayed at the Hotel Plaza Rubio - a hidden gem of a hotel. 3 block walk to the central plaza where all the activity occurs. The hotel had a narrow entrance off the street but once inside it opened up to a very large courtyard and car parking.

The lobby of the hotel

a part of the large courtyard at the hotel

sitting in the courtyard below our rooms

more of the courtyard

Wrought iron decorations in the courtyard

entrance to our room

seating area on our floor

It was a 3 1/2 hour drive from Lo de Marcos to Tequila.  We arrived in time to walk around the town square.

We are all in Tequila

One of the many tour buses to take around town

a statue in the plaza

Then we took a tour of the Jose Cuervo Distillery.

This was prior to the tour. You should see after!

A nice collection of cars and trucks.

agave pinas...8 tons a day are processed.

an oven where the agave pinas are steamed

after the steaming is completed and they have cooled, the pinas will be manually emptied from the ovens on to the conveyor belt

Every barrel is full of tequila....and this is the small factory.

the agave plant in the foreground is 1 yr old. The agave plants must be 8 to 10 yrs old before they can be harvested

Guanajato II

Here we are again, on a winter trip visiting Tequila and Guanajuato. Sorta repeat of our trip four years ago but instead of being shown the way, we are the ones leading the way along with our friends Mike and Mavis. Two other couples have not been here before so it is all new to them.
We are trying do everything we saw or did on our previous trip so that they could get some appreciation of the awesomeness of this prettiest and most unique city in all of Mexico.

We spent the whole day yesterday on a guided tour of just about all the highlights of the city. On the previous night, we took in the singing troubadour tour that all seemed to enjoy. The Kissing Alley wasn't included so we did that today as well as other places we had not seen before and, of course, the market.

Now it is late afternoon and we're all pooped out, and resting up for Happy Hour.

The weather here is typically cool during the day, in the high teens, but falling to near zero at night. Tomorrow we head for home and look forward to the warm weather and swimming in the ocean.

Our first month

Hard to believe we've been here a month.  Since this is our 9th winter here, it doesn't take us long to get back into routine.

Mornings of exercise class, walking, baseball, shopping for fresh fish or whatever.
Afternoons heading to the beach from 2 pm to 4:30 pm to enjoy the ocean breezes, socialize and enjoy the warm ocean water (currently 81F).  For a while the ocean was rough -- better for surfing -- but the past few days it's been calm so great for floating or doing some distance swimming.

view of the beach to the north

view of the beach to the south

The rosemary in our garden continues to flourish.  After 3 years it is now about 3 ft tall.  The basil is almost as tall but not bushy and woody -- we'll have to replace the basil next year. Our neighbour has thyme in her garden so we have a ready supply of herbs to share.

Prices are up this year for everything: rent, meat, fish, veggies, tacos.  But still affordable.  We don't know how long that will last as the area is becoming very popular.  It has been hard for snowbirds to find short term accommodation for visiting family and friends as most of the bungalows in town are rented for several months at a time.

There are several new restaurants in town with enough variety that there is really no need to go to Rincon de Guayabitos or La Penita for a night out anymore.  Mr Ribs and Tomatillos restaurant both have live music on Wednesday nights. Il Giardino restaurant is operated by Italians so nothing can beat their freshly made pasta. They also sell lasagna and a few other items at the Saturday market in town. We recently tried a new restaurant called Neptuno located on a side road not far from our campground.  One of the items we liked there was fish stuffed with shrimp and banana, then smothered with a cream cheese sauce.  It was served with rice, refried beans and salad -- all for $150 pesos (less than $10 Canadian).

Saturday nights is taco night in town. We enjoy pork or shrimp tacos or gringas (quesadillas with pork and pineapple). Our veggie vendor offers tamales occasionally for $10 pesos or chili rellenos for $15 pesos. (Considering the current exchange rate of $16 pesos to 1 Canadian dollar, cheap meals!)

The wildlife in the pond next door has been entertaining.  One day a flock of 23 roseate spoonbills came for a few hours to feed in the pond.

There are many kiskadees wherever we go. The picture below is of one visiting the pond next door.

Kiskadee watching over the pond

We have Orioles that regularly visit the trees beside our motorhome.

oriole feeding in our palm tree

We have 2 hummingbird feeders and currently have 2 cinnamon and 2 black chin hummingbirds visiting our feeders.

On Christmas day we enjoyed a traditional turkey dinner with 14 of us attending.  Vic and Bev did the turkey, others provided veggies, condiments and key lime pie.

New Year's Eve, the owner of our park supplied a meal of pork pozole (delicious!), condiments and lots of tequila.  We danced to oldies tunes until almost 2 am with a brief interlude for toasts at midnight and to watch the fireworks display plus chinese lanterns floating across the clear starry sky. It was a perfect evening!

Ah, this is life....daytime temperatures of around 27 or 28C and overnight now is low of 15C but way better than shoveling snow at home in Canada!

our drive from Mission TX to Lo de Marcos, Nayarit

We left Lemon Tree RV Inn on Tuesday, December 5th.  The first stop was to fill up with gas at the local Valero station as gas is more expensive in Mexico.  We paid US$2.19/gallon for gas at Valero where gas in Mexico varied from $12 pesos in Reynosa to just under $17 pesos/litre (over $1 CAD/litre) in Guadalajara.

We crossed as usual at the Anzalduas Bridge, spending time to purchase visas ($1000 pesos for 2) and the TIP (Temporary Import Permit) for our HHR ($459 USD with $400 to be returned upon departing from Mexico).  We traveled toll roads around Monterrey and Saltillo and then took the free Highway 54 south towards Zacatecas. We arrived at Pemex 6712 (about 1/2 hour south of Concepcion del Oro) late in the afternoon where we paid $100 pesos to stay overnight in the motel courtyard which has a locked gate at night.

The next day we headed towards Zacatecas. We spotted one of the most unusual signs we have ever seen. The sign said the the speed limit was reduced to 60 kph in the presence of Monarch butterflies. Wow.

Continuing on, we peaked out at over 8000 feet at Zacatecas and traveled on to Aguascalientes.  The truck bypass at Aguascalientes is in very rough condition but they are working on it so hopefully it will be better in a few years.  It is the worst road we travel on during our journey south!

On November 15th this year, the Macrolibramiento de Guadalajara toll road opened to bypass Guadalajara.  We decided to give it a try.  Wow, it was great -- a 4 lane highway 110 km long with no speed bumps (topes) or stop lights.  The bypass starts east of Guadalajara at the intersection of Hwys 80D and 90D and travels south almost to Lake Chapala, ending west of Guadalajara near Tequila.  It cost us $627 pesos for a Class A motorhome towing a car, about 200 pesos more than going thru Guadalajara. Well worth the price as it saved us a lot of time and stress by not having to go near Guadalajara.

We stopped for the night at our usual spot at the Pemex in Magdalena.

On Thursday we drove the new toll road from Jala to Compostela.  It didn't save us any time but it does bypass the winding road of 68D coming south from 15D and better yet, the topes and small towns you encounter if you drive the 15 Libre.

Note: Libre roads are free. D roads are toll.

We safely arrived at our destination in Lo de Marcos shortly after 11 am.  Now to set up our site for the winter.

891 miles from Mission and 2947 miles from home.

our month in Mission Texas

Nov 9th to Dec 5th:

We always enjoy our time at Lemon Tree RV Inn in Mission.  Fun times with friendly people.  This was our third November at Lemon Tree. When we first arrived there were 88 people in the park for our Remembrance Day dinner.  There were over 129 people with more to arrive in the coming week when we departed.

We are lucky to celebrate Thanksgiving twice each year.  Canadian Thanksgiving with our family and American Thanksgiving with the winter Texans of Lemon Tree.  It was a superb dinner with management providing 8 turkeys. Our contribution was Vic's turnip with brown sugar and butter. 😏

The oranges are ripening on the trees within the park and we were asked to pick some.  If they don't get picked, they fall to the ground and end up in the garbage. So the two of us picked enough oranges to make 2 litres of orange juice. We also had a large bag of sweet red grapefruit to eat -- what we hadn't consumed before we left for Mexico, we turned into juice in order to take it across the border.

The oranges on the tree on our site weren't ripe by the time we left

There are lots of activities at Lemon Tree.  We don't shoot pool, play poker, golf or play bingo or horse racing but we do play shuffleboard, 500, and euchre.  Plus Bev watched the game Pitch before we left so she can try it when we return to Lemon Tree in March.  There is a community trailer with an exercise room, puzzle room, library and craft room.  Lots to keep one busy.  There were the morning exercise classes and afternoons spent in the heated swimming pool and the hot tub. The evenings were clear skies, no smoke from burning garbage (which we suffer from in Mexico) so we were able to take  evening walks around the park to get in our 1 1/2 miles per day. Plus we were able to sleep with our windows open! Margarita Mondays at the restaurant next door is a popular event! And why not when they are 2 for $4.

Every Wednesday there is the weekly Community breakfast meeting, Thursday evenings is a pancake supper and Sunday is hamburger/hot dog night.

We enjoyed watching the wildlife too.  Besides the wild bunnies and the black chicken wandering around the campground, there were 2 gila woodpeckers in one of the trees beside our motorhome.  You can hear them chattering off and on through the day.  A couple of flocks of small green parrots fly over twice a day -- noisy --you can hear them coming from a distance!  There was a Swainson hawk that hunts the bunnies and sometimes sat on the transformer near our motorhome. Every evening before the sun goes down, flocks of black birds by the thousands come from west to flock on the wires and in the trees a few miles east.

The first week after we arrived in Mission there were lots of monarch butterflies on their way south. But we didn't see them after that. There are a few other types of pretty butterflies that stay the winter.

Typical of our month stay, Vic gets work done on the motorhome.  He fixed our electric steps so they come completely in when traveling, installed new gas pistons in our electric awning, started scraping the clear bra off the front of the motorhome, installed new external speakers for both TV sets (guess they don't last long with the rough roads in Mexico) and had the front wheels balanced on the motorhome (see previous blog).

Vic steaming and scraping to remove the clear bra

We had mixed feelings leaving Lemon Tree on the morning of Tuesday, December 5th but it was time to move on to Mexico.

a beautiful rainbow brightened our day!