Category: 2012-2013 Trip

The weather here has been a little cool with off & on drizzle. Gene says he will fill the pool when things get warmer. On Sunday the couple from Michigan that was camped in their minivan next to us decided to move on to Chiapas where it was drier and warmer, They plan to go into Central America, maybe as far south as Costa Rica.

Things dried up after they left so we took a walk along the malecon listening to the cries of La Lancha from the local boatman looking for customers. They built a nice new fishing pier but I forgot my camera, so maybe tomorrow I’ll get some pictures of all the new stuff in town.

I stopped in a two little Telcel stands but my Spanish was so bad and their English lacking that I could not get them to understand what I needed to get my Banda Ancha working again. Not a problem yet since we have Wi-Fi here at camp that works quite well.

When we got back to camp a new couple arrived in their little German truck camper. They are Swiss and had the truck and camper shipped to Halifax, NS early this year. They toured Canada, Alaska and the west coast of USA before dropping down into Mexico. They must have gone down the West coast and all the way around the Yucatan and were now travelling up the Gulf coast back to the USA. Their plans are to continue around the Gulf coast and down into Florida . After that they will drive up to Baltimore where they will ship their rig back home.

We finally got a chance to wash all the road grime from our RV and compared to the little Swiss rig our little RV actually looks big.

We woke to a light shower again on Monday morning but the weather quickly cleared and there was plenty of sunshine. I decided to take a bus over to San Andreas Tuxtla which is a much bigger town of 150,000 people compared to the tourist town of Catemaco’s 20,000 people. The round trip bus ride on a local bus cost a little over a dollar for the 18 mi ride.

The center of town is about 1/2 mi. From the main road. If you get off at the Bodega Aurrera (mini Wal-Mart) there is a nice walkway that follows a canal into near the city center. Somehow I spotted a small Telcel store right off the town square. I explained my problem in my best Spanish which was good enough for them to understand. They did a few things, got on a computer, did some more and showed me that the account was magically valid again. They suggested I go a few doors down to a Coppel store and recarga the phone number associated with the card. I have no idea why the Telcel store couldn’t do it. I added 400 pesos to the account with no problem other than the long lines of people buying other things. I walked back to the Telcel store showed them my receipts and they said all is well, no charge.

When I got back to camp I found out that yes indeed my account was operational with 400 pesos credit awaiting me to sign up for 30 days service. I’ll do that tomorrow so that the card will work until we fly back home from Cancun in December. That way when we return in January I can add more and pay for 30 days from that point.

No rain today so we took a nice walk into town and then stopped at the new Soriana Grocery store about 1/2 mi from our campground.

Here is the new town pier and some of the launches that they use for tourists. <A href=”https://bcpoa.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/CatemacoTownfromPiers_thumb-25255B2-25255D.jpg”>

Here is a nice view from the new pier looking toward town.

Very colorful tree along the Malecon.

Things have still been cloudy and cool (75^oF – 64^o), hopefully each day will get better.

We stop here each year and enjoy an American Thanksgiving dinner prepared by our American campground owner, Gene and his Mexican wife, Gaby. After we explained last week that the holiday came on 11/22 they moved their plans forward one week.

We stayed here a full week but it was the coolest, wettest  week since we have been coming down here. I didn’t take my bike down off the rack since I felt I would either get soaking wet or muddy if I took a long ride. We always expect some rain here since the area is a rain forest and the vegetation is lush & green.

There are only three people staying in the Casitas that Gene rents out in the winter and only one other camper. So I’m not sure what kind of pot luck supper we will have today. Gene prepares the turkey and Gaby does the dressing & trimmings. Of course Peggy cooked her famous brownies for desert.

Our plans changed after I got an e-mail from Gerry who flew into Xpu-Ha earlier this week. He said they are saving our campsite but things are starting to fill up, so he suggested that we get here as soon as we can. We feel we could make it there in 2 long days if the roads are OK. We will try to stay at a Pemex about half way there on Friday night.

Our Trip Plans for Friday

We are early risers so we left Tepetapan at 6:15 AM on Friday as the sun was rising. We had a long day ahead of us since we wanted to get to our winter beach home at Xpu-Ha, QR on Saturday. Our plan was to overnight in a Pemex along MX186 near MX221 road to Candelaria.

We found the roads much better and with the early start we were in Acayucan 30 min ahead of schedule. Last year when we hit the MX145D cuota it was in terrible shape. This year it was way better and we gained more time and we got to Villahermosa at 11 AM. Then we took MX186 heading east, that road was in great shape also so we found ourselves near the Palenque turn at 1 PM. We gassed up and figured we could make it beyond Escarcega for the night. After a quick check of Church’s great campground guide we found what would turn out to be a great choice.

At milepost 53 km is a place called Campestre Restaurante Bar-Familiar Maya. It is set back off the noisy highway on Laguna Silvituc. It has a nice large grassy area where very large RV’s can park and a great restaurant. We had both fresh fish filets, with salad, refried beans, tortillas and a beer. Our total bill with the tip was only $17 US and the camping was free. A word of warning, when the sun sets there are many mosquitos so put on your repellant before going to the restaurant.

Saturday we again left with sunrise, stopped twice for fuel, once to fill our Propane tank and went grocery shopping at the big Chedraui in Tulum. We arrived at Xpu-Ha at 2 PM. We were able to squeeze into the same spot as last year.

There were already 10 campers here but room for at least 4 more. We had a nice day after we setup and a cool night’s sleep. Temp’s 58^oF.

Sunday morning we took our beach walk to see if anything had changed since last year.

The beach was much wider everywhere and super clean. No new hotels but they are adding a couple of new rooms to Al Cielo. The small place where they filmed the Corona Beer commercial last year.

Of course we saw a bride on the beach being photographed and laying in the surf. I assume she was married yesterday since she was trashing the wedding dress on Sunday.

It’s been a pretty relaxing week. The weather has been near perfect. High for the day in the Low 80’s and partly cloudy, night time lows in the mid 60’s. We had one day where it rained in the late afternoon and into the night. But other than that it’s been very nice.

Each morning we take our 3 mi beach walk on the white sand beach and rest under the little palapa at the end of the beach.

Of course, as always, we use the pieces of coral to write our names in the sand and see how long it goes undisturbed from dogs & tourists.

I brought my Remix 69 river kayak down this year since I was going to do some river paddling in the mountains. But it is also is a great surfer. On Wednesday there were some nice small waves to surf.

Today I decided to get a a little more exercise and paddle over to Puerto Adventures. It’s about 3 mi one way and takes about an hour.

The Remix is a little slow for Ocean paddling but I’m out for exercise not racing. I spent about 1-1/2 hours there watching the tourists play with the dolphins. You can bike or drive over there also and walk all around and watch the free shows.

Two weeks almost gone, two weeks until we fly out for the Christmas Holidays. We have had pleasant weather here all week, not too hot, not too cool and a few rain drops here and there. We miss our 4 kids their spouses and our 12 grandkids, hopefully we will see them all at our big Christmas party back home near Cleveland, Ohio.

Last Friday we made our first visit to Pizza Leo’s. Our RV friends Robb & Percilla from Manitoba were kind enough to drive us there. Of course we got the Extra Grande Leo, so I have pizza for lunch all week.

We decided to go to Playa del Carmen for the day on Wednesday. Maybe we could find something for daughter Joan’s Feliz Navidad party We jumped on a Collectivo, a big van that runs from Playa to Tulum and back about every 10 minutes for about 30 pesos per person.

The street that runs closest to the beach in Playa is called 5th avenue. It’s a walking street and it goes on for at least 30 blocks. The stores seem to repeat over & over again as you walk to the North from the Ferry dock; jewelry, cigars, restaurant, Mexican crafts (of course some made in China). bar, ice cream shop, t-shirt shop, silver, massage parlors, clothing and bathing suits. We found a few things to bring to the party.

Here is Peggy with a few of her thin friends.

Of course my friend looked just like me.

When we took our beach walk this morning the water was as calm as I’ve seen it and there was hardly a cloud in the sky.

I decided to take a picture showing the other side of our campsite next to the huge Impatiens planted by Sigrid our German neighbor. She stays here year round and doesn’t mind the summer heat. I changed the header picture to show the palms on the right side of our new motorhome.

The beaches at Puerto Adventuras are not near as nice as the beautiful white sand beaches of Xpu-Ha. You can walk on our white sand beach and the sand feels cool even in the heat of the day.

It’s about a 3 mi paddle one way and it’s a fun place to visit. They must have hundreds on Condos, time-shares and 5 hotels, so it is a big place. They run fishing, sailing & snorkel trips.

They let tourists swim with their Sea Lions, Manatees, Nurse Sharks and Dolphins. It seems well run and they are not abusing the animals.

Feeding the big Manatees lettuce.

I thought I would try the video on my camera to see how it works. This is the first video post that I tried to post. The video is a little short I guess.

 

We have been coming to Mexico for many years but during the winter months we have never really had a severe thunder & lighting storm. Last night was an exception.

 

The weather took a turn yesterday morning and really got hot & humid. Many of the campers were running their A/C. We just used our fans as we normally get a good breeze off the water. We got a few sprinkles during the day and wouldn’t you know it, it rained during our Happy Hour. So we all huddled under our new big awning.

I didn’t take any happy hour pictures yet, so I thought I would post a picture of Claude & Mags from last year. They didn’t come to Mexico this year and we miss them both.

It stayed very humid and at midnight it started to rain. I could see lightening flashes in the distance but no thunder. Then out of the southwest the storm approached with very loud thunder and a really heavy rain storm. Our new awning worked OK, dumping the water off as it filled and since it wasn’t really windy I left it down to keep our patio mat and chairs dry. We had to close up everything tight but it cooled enough that we slept soundly until morning.

I expected to see washouts in the sand and stuff strewn about but everything looked about normal. I guess the sand can really soak up the rain and with no heavy wind no palm fronds came off the trees.
It was still humid in the morning. Most of the women campers are heading off to Playa on a shopping trip.  From Brenda’s photo that I stole from her Blog it’s looks like it was more Happy Hour and less shopping.

Peggy & I are riding with Dierck to take some clothes to the laundry and do some food shopping. It seemed like we stopped at every grocery store in Playa. It was sort of looking like rain all day but all we got was a few brief showers.

I heard from Elaine & Reed. They left today from San Miguel de Allende on Wednesday morning and plan to arrive here on Saturday. This should work out good since Stefan & Nicole move off of their camp site and move their big 5th wheel to a storage area until next March when they expect to return from Austria.

Another two German campers arrived today, I heard they were travelling from Alaska to Patagonia. The one is a large unusual rig. Their friends have a small SUV type camper.

They are only staying a few days.

I can’t believe it’s already Wednesday. We fly out of Cancun tomorrow at noon, we go through customs in Chicago, one of the world’s busiest airports. We hope to be home by 9 PM. Our return flight back to MX is direct from Cleveland to Cancun on the 30th, it should be much easier. Our German friend Dierck will take us to Playa del Carmen Thursday morning to catch the airport bus which takes about an hour and cost only $10/person. It’s much easier than driving. It’s a first class bus and a pleasant drive. They leave every 45 minutes, so we never make reservations. If we miss one, we leave plenty of time to catch the next bus.

We had about 5 minutes of rain yesterday and it has been very hot. Several of the campers are now running their A/C. We just run our fans.

 

We will miss our walk on the beach where we watch the Pelicans dive for fish every morning.
The wide view below is looking toward where we sit each morning under the Palapas at the abandoned resort on the South end of the Xpu-Ha beach.
We won’t miss the big crowds of Mexican tent campers that arrive on this weekend for their Christmas holiday. Semana Santa lasts for about 10 days, so there may still be some campers here when we return.

I took my last kayak paddle for the year. I don’t think I’ll be heading off to WV to paddle in the next 10 days. I’m too used very warm weather and water temperatures.

I just noticed this 7 day forecast based on the Mayan calendar.

Looks bad for this Friday