Category: 2009-2010 Trip

2009 – 2010 Mexico Trip Blog in Chronological Order

El Día de La Virgen de Guadalupe

The people in Mexico seem to like to celebrate a lot. From our first week in La Pesca where they had a big Independence Day parade to the past week driving through the Yucatan where we came across parade after parade. We saw bicyclists on the Cuota (turnpike) with large pictures of the virgin on their backs.

We went out to dinner on Friday, December 11th and drove past at least 5 different parades going down Ave Bonampak. On Saturday morning a small parade came right past our campground to the little church up the road which has ocean front property. This was all to celebrate their big holiday, Dec 12th in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe feast day.

Here is a video showing some of the scenes that we have seen in the past week filmed by the website Yucatan Living, Virgin Video the site includes some explanation of the holiday and how they filmed it. The video is at the bottom of their page.

Our free dinner was at a pre-opening of Chili’s new restaurant at the big mall, Plaza Las Americas. The campground owner knew someone who gave him the coupons for free dinners. John & Elsie have a pickup truck, so we went out to dinner with them. The dinner was free so that they could practice with their new staff, a day before their grand opening. We got to select from 4 different menus and it was all free. They gave us a bill so we could see what it would have cost and so we could leave an appropriate tip for our young waiter, who was really trying to learn better English. Of course his English was already ten times better than my Spanish.

I didn’t have high expectations since I had eaten at a Chili’s in the states and it was so bad I couldn’t eat it. All of our meals were great. I had Salmon, Peggy a big hamburger, Elsie had a huge chicken salad and John had a huge appetizer .

We did a 16 mi round trip bike ride on Friday out along Isla Blanca to a little tent campground with small cabins and a restaurant called Captain Morgan’s. They have a great beach where you could walk for miles and never see another person. Peggy was very tired from the heat and her first long bike ride. On Sunday we did half the ride and she sprinted though with no problems. It is cool in the morning but by the time you get back it gets pretty hot. If fact, when we got back we turned on our A/C since at 9AM it was already 90oF.

We took an afternoon beach walk. I’ll try to take some more pictures tomorrow.

Invaded by Mexican College Students

Late afternoon on Sunday two big tour buses rolled in with 100 college students from Mexico City on some kind of one week class. It was good for MecoLoco but bad for us three campers. They began to set up their dozens of tents everywhere, including within a few feet of our campers. They seemed fairly quiet until the ones behind our camper started drinking.

By about 11 pm we got pretty tired of listening to the loud laughter, Peggy went out and seemed to quiet them down for the night, although at 2 AM, I could still hear them. I said, I’ll bet they don’t get up at 6 AM when the sun rises and we get up. Wrong, somebody got them up for their group breakfast which wasn’t even served until 9 AM. They went to Chichen-Itza for the day and one of their buses broke down so they didn’t return until 1:30 AM.

We left, while they were still in camp, to walk around the city of Cancun. When we were here 24 years ago, the city had a few stores and some residential streets where the people that worked in the new hotels that were being built in the hotel zone lived. That year there were 1500 hotel rooms, 18,000 inhabitants and 100,000 tourists. Now, there are 24,000 hotel rooms and 500,000 residents and millions of tourist visits. They now have several large malls, hospitals and thousands of small stores. It is a big metropolis. After our long walk we caught a bus and then a collectivo (mini-van) back to camp.

When we got back to our RV we found that someone had sat on our little aluminum end table and totally destroyed it. The next day we asked the students camped near us if they did it, all of a sudden they couldn’t understand English. We found their instructor who promised to pay for it, but I checked and couldn’t find any company that sells this nice light weight aluminum table any longer. Now I’ll wait to see if he actually pays for it. Cost me about $25, two years ago.

The one good thing is that their instructor made them move their tents far away from our RV. Of course they were even louder and stayed up to 4 AM but we could barely hear them.

We will print up our boarding passes today and get our small backpacks ready to fly out on Thursday at noon. We have no winter clothes with us so will will freeze when we get to the 30oF weather in Cleveland. We will have to catch a collectivo to the bus station and then an airport bus. We will leave our RV here until we return on January 3rd. Hopefully, like last year, everything will be OK.

Family Christmas in Ohio

Peg_Daughters

Pam, Meg, Peggy and Joan celebrating Christmas at Joan’s home.

All eleven Grandkids ready for Santa Claus.
GrandKidsXmas Sierra, Erika, Devan, Jeffrey, Eve, Jett, Elena, Leah, John, Mandy & Jake

Erika_Jeff

Erika and Jeff

Elana_Eve_Dolls

Elena and Eve with their dolls.

Mandy_Pam_Leah

Mandy, Pam and Leah

 

Snow finally came on December 27th, only a week and we will be back in Mexico where it’s warm.

Back in Mexico – Boy do I hate dogs

We had a nice on-time direct flight back to Cancun. We were back to our RV by 1 PM. The weather had cooled off but compared to the snow and cold temperatures in Cleveland it was great. Highs are around 75oF and lows around 65oF.

In the morning Peggy & I took a bike ride to do a little grocery shopping at the Bodega Aurrera (Mexican Wal-Mart) which is only 3 mi from our campground. The weather had cleared so Peggy suggested we take a walk on the beach. Beach access is not really easy since most of the homes have blocked it off but a little private park up the street allowed us to walk through their property to get to the beach.

The last time we walked the beach in this direction some dogs barked at us  from a large private residence. Today, the dogs were running loose on the beach and when they saw us, went into attack mode. Peggy stood still and they growled but did not attack her. They then came toward me and I figured if I splashed some ocean water on them they would go away. Boy was I wrong, they not only didn’t go away but they attacked. Two of them were big Pit Bulls and I ran into the water and fell on my back but one bit my leg. Peggy yelled for help and some workers an a maid came out and called their dogs back, but my leg was bleeding.

Peggy told them they needed to get me medical care so they called someone who was in charge of caring for the home while the owners were away. She could speak English and  said one of the men would take me to a hospital to get it taken care of. They picked her up along the way and stopped at a little Urgi-care type place. They cleaned the wound and said OK I’m all better. Peggy insisted that we see a doctor since she felt I should have a Tetanus shot.

So off to the big American Hospital. A nurse re-cleaned the wound and put on a big dressing. The doctor give me a Tetanus shot and a Rx for an antibiotic. This care cost the owner of the house over $400 usd. I guess medical care in a resort area is not that cheap. He said the one puncture wound was not that deep and we should clean it each day and hopefully no infection will occur.

I hate dogs.

Xpu-Ha Beautiful Beach

See Map9

Xpu-Ha Beach Kite Flying

We got to Xpu-Ha La Playa campground Wednesday morning. There was one campsite available it was next to where we camped last year, we snagged it. La Playa Campground caters to long term residents, the short termers go next door to Bonanza Campground. It’s on the same beautiful beach but does not have full hookups.

The weather has been cool at night, about 60oF, but warms well into the 80’s in the afternoon.

Peggy and I took a walk past the beautiful beach to see the coral beach.

There is an abandoned hotel on the left end of the beach. If it were open I’m sure 500 people would be on this beach.

It sure got cold in Mexico

Right after we got to Xpu-Ha (spoo-ha) the weather turned. First the winds, then the an all day rain, then the cooler weather. Highs Sunday in the high 60’s with the low this morning  only 51oF.

I took a bike ride yesterday to the town of Puerto Adventuras, it’s across the road from the resort. They have lots of little groceries and bakeries. It’s a nice little town. Bought some fruit & vegetables.

The highway is high speed four lane divided and it was about 3 mi away. However there is a very wide concrete shoulder to ride  your bike on, so it felt safe with the collectivos and buses flying by.

We were told we can ride our bikes into the resort, so today we may head back there and take some pictures of the area as soon as it warms up a little.

Here is a picture of our little campground. The beach is right behind all the RV’s.

 

Visit to Puerto Aventuras

Weather was sunny and pleasantly cool so on Monday we decided to ride our bikes up to the upscale resort community of Puerto Aventuras. It is about 3 mi down the busy 4-lane divided hi-way with a nice bike lane, but Peggy still was wary of the high speed traffic whizzing by.

They have a Dolphin encounter, swim with manatees and sea lions. We didn’t try on the cool day but enjoyed watching the others enjoy the adventure.

 

We finished up the afternoon with a big Grouper sandwich at Gringo Dave’s, best bargain lunch at $6, which include grilled onions, french fries and shrimp on top of the Grouper.