January 2 - 14, 2007 (14 nights - Teacapan, Nayarit MX)
Today we are off to Teacapan. First however we have to drop off Miss Bee at the Mazatlan Airport. It is not really called that but I forgot the real name. We took the long way out of town to avoid driving through downtown and kind of got lost but eventually found the road to the airport. We dropped off Bee and headed down the road. Teacapan signs are out but hard to see and when we drove through Escuinapa we came to a right/left turn choice with no sign. I just yelled out the window "Teacapan?" and some hombre waved to the right. We arrived at Villa Onac in the early afternoon. The entrance is a dirt road about .5 miles long. Room only for one big vehicle at a time so you have to check out the road before starting in. The park has free WiFi and 15 amps with water and sewer. The beach is beautiful and goes for miles in each direction. Sim loves it here for its primitive land and less commercial town. Also, there are dolphins and sunset in our backyard. She said " cannot complain for this tough life."

January 3 - Teacapan
We paid up for a week here. Thinking about San Blas as our next destination. Today we packed up the laundry and headed to town to look for the lavanderia. We needed a broom so we stopped at the local tienda, bought a broom and asked for directions to the lavandaria. We drove around for a while without finding one, stopped and asked someone else and finally found the house with no sign that is the lavandaria. 10 pesos per kilo. We pick up the next day. Stopped to see Craig and Meaw in the afternoon. I put the IOM Model together and sailed in front of Craig's campground for an hour or so. We watched two movies after dinner, Sleepers and Two Weeks Notice. Craig and Meaw have a hundred movies. We are watching them at a rate of two per night.

January 4 - Teacapan
Sim is an early bird. She gets up at 5 or 6 a.m. every day. This morning she got up and finished watching Two Weeks Notice. At night most of the time she is asleep before the movie is over. When I got up, I saw her washing all kinds of veggies. She told me we will have Fresh Spring Roll with Peanut Sauce, Carrot Salad, Chicken Bar-B-Q, and Sticky Rice for dinner. Craig and Meaw will come over. We went for a walk after Sim finished the food preparation. There were only us on miles and miles of beach. Sim came up with an idea that we should walk to the other end of the beach. I hope she was kidding me. Sim showed me red marks all over her legs, arms, and back. It itched so much that she could not stop scratching. She got bit by No-see-sums. My blood might not be as sweet as Sim, so the No-see-sums didn't bite me even once.

January 5 -14 - Teacapan
Beach parties, fires on the beach at night. Food, of course, always plays an important role for the night of camp fire hot-dogs, marshmallows, Jicama, fresh spring rolls, satay, Bar-B-Q chicken, shrimps on skews, apple, cucumber, and carrot Thai salad, fruits, and cake. There were four or five couples chatting around the fire getting to know each other more. I was the fire tender and learned that Sim had same inclination toward fire. But, Sim tended to make the fire go out. We played Bocce ball while the tide was out and the sun was setting. Got out the golf clubs and hit sand wedges to a circle in the sand tonight. I caught fish almost every day. Sim makes fish soup, fish Bar-B-Q, and Sweet and Sour fish. Yummo!

Today we planned to have a pool party. Sim and Maew made Rad Na (noodle with chicken gravy sauce) and Coconut gel with a topping of fresh fruits for dessert. The plan was to have lunch, play Monopoly, and dip in the pool. But, it was a little bit windy so no one jumped into the pool. I went broke first, and Randy ended up the richest player.

January 15-19 (5 nights - Guadalajara, Jalisco MX)
We are leaving Craig and Maew at Teacapan and headed out at around 10:00 for the drive to Guadalajara. We are traveling with Randy and Martha. We arrived at San Jose del Tajo RV park late in the day. The owner drove us around to see the available sites and we finally picked one. There was a caravan in the park so pickings were slim. Guadalajara is the 2nd largest town in Mexico and the traffic proved that to be true. Kudos to Guadalajara's Major for keeping centro part of town clean. We heard that the Major vowed when he got elected that his first project was to clean up down town. He did excellent job as promised. Randy and Mart drove into the centro part of town and we tagged along. We went to the market and had lunch at a small restaurant near the shopping center. We walked around and went inside all the open churches. Most of them are quite ornate and beautiful inside. We took a ride in a horse drawn carriage for about an hour. That was fun and informative as well. Our driver did not speak much English, so we had fun trying our Spanish on him. Back at the central mercado, we had some Pozole at a small market stand that was just delicious.

January 18
We went to Magdalena, which is famous for it's Opal mines and on the way back go through the town of Tequila which is famous for, well you know, Tequila. We have lunch at Lupita's restaurant. Man! Lupita definitely knows how to cook. The food is excellent. Sim and Randy have some kind of Pork stew, Mart has combination of Beef stew and Chichuron, and I have Chicken soup. Everywhere we go in Mexico the homes are painted with very colorful paint. They contrast each other on the street with one painted red, the next blue and the next bright yellow. Some even use multiple colors on one house.

Guadalajara is known for it's spring weather all year round, so its' average temperature is about 10 degrees lower than Mazatlan, and Teacapan. It is nice to take a short break from a beach site and warm temperature.

January 20 - 29 (10 nights - Tenacatita, Michoacan MX)
Randy thinks it should take us five hours from Guadalajara to Tenacatita. We somehow drive through downtown Colima unintentionally and wind up at the Town Square; a place no 40' motor home should be. One local young lady sees us having difficult time trying to get through the traffic, she asks me where I am going. She says follow her car. Five minutes after we are in a light traffic and bigger lane street. Another time I have to park our rig on a narrow two-lane road to help Randy when he needs to back up his rig. I leave Sim at the coach. Sim told me that most people who drive pass our coach always smile and wave at her. However, one local guy shouts at her in perfect English "move this piece of shit out of the way." She is a bit shocked because based on this trip 99 percent of Mexicans are kind and friendly. She thinks the bad mood guy may work in the U.S for years, but didn't get treated very well, so now it is his turn to take revenge on Americans who come to his country.

We are staying in the small town of Tenacatita now. Tenacatita is nestled in a large bay along with La Manzanilla and El Tamarindo. The water is warm and the waves are small so it is a great swimming beach. The sunrises and sunsets are as spectacular as the other spots we have been. There are a couple of hotels and about 10 palapa style restaurants. The town has a small mini mart, so serious groceries are obtained about 40 kilometers away at Melaque. We are still traveling with Randy and Martha. They are staying here another 7 days and then they are off to Zihuatanejo. We haven't decided where we are going next. Days here are spent walking on the beach, riding our bikes and swimming in the ocean. I got the IOM model boat rigged up and have sailed it a couple of times as well.

The first day after arriving we ate at front beach restaurant called Cato owned by Lola. Randy and Mart are her old customers, so left up to them to order food. We had Ceviche for appetizer, and two kilograms of Bar-B-Q fish. It was very delicious dinner.

One day Sim had an idea of cooking our own food and eating at RV park owner's palapa located at the front beach. Randy and Mart were up for this idea. Randy enhanced the idea that we should eat on the beach, so we set up our dinning table on the beach. We did three more times with theme meal creations; Tropical night with Thai food, Candle night with Hungarian food, and Bar-B-Q night with local fresh fish. One local fisherman who netted some sea perch gave us two fish for free when we asked him if he would sell them to us. He told us to pick whatever fish we wanted.

January 30 (1 night - Turtle Haven (not really the name, but really don't know exactly where we were, Michoacan MX)
We decided to head down to Zihuatanejo with Randy and Martha. We left early in the AM and headed southbound. I failed to make the first left turn and had to run the coach over a curb to get going down the road. Having a bit of trouble with turns sometimes. We drove for about 6 hours and finally found the Turtle Sanctuary. Once again we did not stop for lunch, but opted for "lunch on the go" Sim style. Sim makes a delicious rice soup dish, with vegetables and pork or chicken. It is easy to heat up and eat while on the go. The Turtle Haven place is supposed to be one of the spots the big ocean turtles return to to lay their eggs. We drove out to the beach and parked on an old airstrip right next to the Mexican Military base. We checked with the soldier at the gate and he checked with his boss and we were given the OK to spend the night there. Did not spot any turtles, but the beach was nice and the sunset great as usual. They have a fenced in area, which we were told all the retrieve eggs go into. They protect them until they hatch and then set the new babies free in the ocean.

January 31 (1 night - Playa Azul, Michoacan MX)
In the morning we headed southbound once again. Today was going to be a shorter day as we were heading for Playa Azul. We can drive straight to Zihuatanejo with no problem time, but Randy wanted to have the same delicious breakfast of Chicken Enchilada that he had last year. The road was OK but there was lots of going up over the points of land, down the other side, then over the arroyo. This was repeated about 60 times. We arrived around noon and found the hotel parking lot where we were to stay for the night. Nothing out of the ordinary on the way down except for numerous donkeys wandering in the road. Arrived at Playa Azul and found room at the back of a hotel. We took the last couple of big rig spots and headed for the beach for lunch. Typical Palapa beach with plenty of choices. We choose one restaurant because a guy from there helped us into the motel parking lot. I had Ceviche, and Sim had red snapper with chipotle sauce. The guy repeated to Sim several times that the chipotle sauce is very spicy. He didn't know that from one to ten spicy level, Sim can take eleven.

I need to find an ATM. My debit card expires today, and I will not have any way to get cash. I think I will empty the first ATM I find. I found that you can withdraw as much as $2000 at one time from an ATM here. Note to self: Always check your credit/debit card expiration date before going to a foreign country.

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