Departed Mazatlan around 7:30. Heading down to La Penita RV park – about an hour and fifteen north of Puerto Vallarta. We were heading here to check out all the RV parks in the area, to see what we liked, what was available, and where we can get a big rig in for when we returned to the area for a month in Mid-March.
The travel day was fairly uneventful in the grand scheme of things…for Mexico highways. Here is a video of some things that happen while highway driving: https://rumble.com/v67nn4s-highway-driving.html The drive was just under 500 km, and it took us almost 8 hours to get to our destination. For the most part, the highway was fine…its all the time it takes to stop at the toll booths, pay in cash and wait for the change and receipt. This time around, we paid more attention to the rates and had them somewhat pre-determined so we knew what we were paying this time. Also we learned the word “axle” in Spanish, so we could tell them what we were. Todd was convinced that we needed to be charged as a 5-axle vehicle instead of a bus and car. He was so convinced of this at the first toll booth, but they didn’t agree with him. He tried fighting for it, he even turned the bus off saying he was willing to wait it out until the police came. Eventually he gave up, they charged us for a bus and car – it was a whole $2.21 difference in toll between what we paid and what Todd thought we should pay! At the rest of the 6 toll booths, it was actually cheaper to pay for a bus and car than a 5-axle vehicle, so it worked out in our favour. The total amount of tolls for this 500 km journey was $236.61. Anyway…we arrived at 3 pm and we asked which sites were available for a weeks stay; Karen, the park Manager, gave us a choice of 3 different locations. The first location was basically on the beach….Todd says, this is the one! Here is a short video of its greatness: https://rumble.com/v69g5ka-site-25-tour.html Twenty minutes later we were parked in our new home for the week…..or so we thought. While watching the sunset, we chatted about our plan of staying for a week then moving down to the Manzanillo area, to a park that we had paid a deposit on already. We hummed and hawed and weighed our options…
Cons to leaving after a week:
- Its an 8 hour drive down to Manzanillo and another 8 on the return trip with tolls – estimated to be $500 each way
- Not to mention the amount of diesel its going to take to get down there and back
- The planned pitstop half way, in Villa Corona – has a “welcome to villa corona” sign that is 12’6” high and Ruby (with her extra Japanese teahouse on top) is 13’ 6” high. So we can’t pitstop on our way to Manzanillo or stay there for a month for the Guadalajara jaunt.
- Lose the deposit money we paid at the RV park in the Manzanillo area
- Not being able to catch up with our Mazatlan friends in Feb
Pros to stay where we are for longer than a week:
- If this beach spot is available for longer than a week, we have to stay
- It’s a good location, the people seem good, the park is friendly
- All the amenities are close by
- We will NEVER get a beach spot like this at any other RV park (probably in our lifetime!)
- We don’t have to drive the bus another 8 hours each way
- We don’t have to pay tolls down and back or buy diesel
- There is enough things to do and explore in this area
- We could do a couple of (Airbnb) overnight trips to Guadalajara and Tequila or put the bus in storage mode end of March and go to Guadalajara for 10 days.
It seemed like the pro’s outweighed the cons and the next morning we booked 2 months and cancelled our prebooked spot down by Manzanillo. In the first 24 hours here, I think we met at least 20 people. Everyone want’s us to join in on all the activities like pool volleyball, aquasize class, bike riding group etc! there is a monthly calendar of events with activities happening daily. We noticed that when you are a Junior Senior….the Senior Seniors want to tell you what to do and how to do it…for example:
- You can’t drive your car in Guadalajara (not sure why we can’t do this?)
- Don’t go to Puerto Vallarta…its too touristy (ok…)
- You have to join the walking groups at 6:45 (mans) and 7 am (women’s) (um no, I’m sleeping still at both of those times)
- Its taco Tuesday at the pool – you have to come…the tacos are so authentic
- Lock all your things up if you are camping on the beach, it will all get stolen – we have all had things stolen
Geez guys…we aren’t 12 were 55 and have managed life before retiring! But here we are… junior seniors hanging in this senior world trying to make a go of it in our own way.
The first couple days we stayed close by doing walks and bike rides getting to know our new area. It’s a unique location for sure! The beach in front of us goes on for miles… At the top of the RV park is a trail down to a gate and within 5 minutes we are in town centro for shopping, groceries, restaurants and the next beach. A short bike ride through town and across the swinging bridge brings us to Guayabitos a major gringo retirement and vacation spot; biking the gringo highway takes us to more beaches, restaurants, shops and bars. https://rumble.com/v69ggc7-bike-riding.html So we are close enough to major activity but far enough for a bit of RNR.
We attempted to take a road trip to the next accessible beach north of us to Playa Las Cuevas. It was a fairly quick drive (See video: https://rumble.com/v69fzbp-driving-to-playa-las-cuevas.html) and when we got to the beach…..it was blocked off from the public and was a gated private property! Back to the highway and we ended up 10 minutes north to a very cute Mexican vacation town called Chacala! It was a cloudy/overcast day, and we hadn’t planned really hanging out at the beach as we were just in checking it out mode…but we will be back to this location for a full day of beaching for sure!
It took 3 nights to get a sunset worth watching….La Nina is bringing in colder weather to these parts and cloudy skies. But the first real sunset did not disappoint. We also pulled out our projector screen and had movie night outside… it was awesome!
Outdoor movie night
One of the ladies at the park volunteers at the turtle sanctuary down the beach. Turtle egg laying and hatching season is late fall (Nov/Dec). Some interesting information on turtles we learned after chatting with her. When female turtles want to mate, they basically slut themselves to a handful of male turtles and then store the sperm inside of themselves until they are ready to use it. When eggs are laid on the beach, it takes about 60 days for them to hatch. During the laying season, every morning the sanctuary people ride up and down the beach looking for new nests. They will dig them up and move the eggs to the sanctuary…otherwise they will get dug up by animals, birds, people. So they had one last clutch of eggs ready to release into the ocean. The clutch wasn’t big…maybe 20-25 turtles – usually its around 100. The turtles have to be released to the ocean the day they are born. So the sanctuary brought the clutch of turtles down to our beach area in a Styrofoam cooler and we watched them “scurry” into the ocean. Todd and I have seen A LOT of turtles in our lifetime (snorkeling, swimming and laying eggs in Trinidad and I saw them in Barbados as well). As much as we’ve seen them, we have never seen a release. This was cool! Have a look: https://rumble.com/v69gdlv-turtle-release.html
The following Monday we headed head to Puerto Vallarta to check out the Malecon, see the changes since our last time there (8 years ago), and of course Costco! Both of us woke up that morning not feeling the greatest…took a couple of advils and decided we were good enough to drive. The day was a long one….highway 200 is slow going and navigates through the jungle. Arrived to the PV Malecon around noon and took a walk, we stopped in for lunch at a taqueria then off to Costco and Mega Soriana. By the time we headed home we were both exhausted; Todd took a nap at 4:30 for almost 2 hours…I stayed up until 8:30 and went to bed. The next morning, we both felt like death! We think Todd has long covid, maybe mixed with an additional virus ….not sure. I probably have the flu…As shitty as sickness is in a tropical beach destination, at least we can go outside and sleep on the lawn chair. Two sick people in a bus isn’t alot of room as you can imagine. It was 4 days later that we opened the bus door and emerged out…this sickness kicked us both in the ass! Here’s some evidence of our time so far: https://rumble.com/v6aq4by-la-penita.html
Just in time for the park’s Margarita party on Saturday.