Day 35 - Arriving in Ajijic

Before I begin the Mexican Chapter of the Blog, let me take a moment to thank Ron and Bev. They went beyond the call of duty looking after us in Green Valley, with food and drink and games (Mexican Train - so much fun). Ron took Greg to buy Mexican car insurance, medical insurance and get the car serviced. Their villa in Green Valley is in an adult community and they have a sweet two bedroom. The community is pristine with lots of amenities. If you know anyone who might be interested this is the URL is www. ArizonaVacation.ca

Our 3 day Mexican journey was much easier than we anticipated. Of course the fact that we only stayed in 5 star hotels certainly helped. I'm afraid we're not quite the old hippies we thought we might be. We value our comfort and mostly our safety.

The second night out we stopped in Mazatlan which I'm sure most of you have heard of as it's a vacation haven with a million time shares. When we stopped in front of what we thought was an Ocean side hotel, we found out it was indeed ne of those time shares. From the moment we checked in there were angles and schemes to save us money if only we would attend the infamous meeting in the morning. We have been down that time share road in Ontario so we declined as our experience is that they become very mean when you tell them you are not "buying."

We had a little two bedroom suite....quite ugly, with a sliver of ocean view. You'd think that if they were trying to sell you they'd give you the nicest suite in the place but I'd take a guess that our suite was not close to being the nicest. We took a beautiful walk on the beach and watched the sun set. The weather was lovely and so was the beach. We ate dinner in the dining room at the time share and it was shrimp night so we ate well and but it wasn't cheap either. This was the first place we stayed in that didn't have wifi so we bought some time in the internet cafe and that just proved aggravating. We rented ping pong balls and paddles and had a half hour of playing.....and I beat Greg 4 times.....I had to say that because there isn't much in the way of competitions that he loses to me or anyone else for that matter. After that we went back to the ugly suite, watched some t.v. and fell asleep. We were happy to leave in the morning.

Our drive yesterday was long and somewhat arduous. We went through many villages. Our only experience of the Mexicans is that they are kind, courteous, helpful, friendly, honest and generally lovely. We had some more mountain roads to traverse and we were very low on gas so we (mostly I) had some very tense moments. We drove into a small town called Magdalena and finally found gasolina.

We drove through the outskirts of Guadalajara which is the second largest city in Mexico. Greg really keeps his cool driving through these big centers especially with me pumping my imaginary brake and holding on to the door handle. After Guadalajara it was a breeze to get to Lake Chapala. We immediately came to the town of Ajijic (pronounced Ah-hee-heek.) We managed to find the hotel (Nueva Posada) that Greg had found on line and got their last room, the honeymoon suite which is gorgeous with a balcony overlooking the lake. We had dinner outdoors...under a huge old rubber tree. Greg ordered Beef Tenderloin and I had Sea Bass. Both were delicious. We each had a drink and our bill was approximately 29 U.S. dollars. Our bed was somewhat disappointing, like a sack of old laundry but we managed to sleep like babies anyhow.

We had our included breakfast this morning under the same old rubber tree. Comfort Inn, you've been put to shame. This is a three course hot breakfast including eggs benedict. We walked around the town a bit after breakfast and there are some breathtaking views, exotic birds, and although the houses look horrible from the outside when you peek into their courtyards they are just charming. We have arranged to meet with a real estate agent tomorrow to look at renting a place for a couple of months. I'm writing today as Greg had web work to do for a client.

Click here for today's pictures

Day 33 - Alive and well in Mexico

When I update this blog, I copy yesterday's new over to the Google Blog thing and then write today's whatever into my site here. I got a surprise tonight when I went to copy over yesterdays text. All the Google Blog info is in Spanish! Google must pick up that I'm coming through a Mexican IP address and switch the language over! Good thing I've been using this for a long time and can use it without looking!

Well, today was an exciting day. We crossed the border from Arizona into Mexico first thing this morning. EVERYONE warned us of how terrible it would be and more so, how dangerous. "Buy a gun." "Buy a machete". "Don't stop at anytime for anything" All great advice from all of our friends who love us, but really just scared the crap out of us. (Almost literally, but that's a story for sitting around the bar to tell!)

We got to the border at Nogales. A horrid little town that looks, well, it looks exactly like the sort of killer village that we all saw all of our lives in the movies. We were pretty sure that everyone's warnings were exactly right at that point.

Oddly, the dude at the border they asked if we had insurance and when we showed him our policy that we'd bought the day before, he told us to drive 21k down the road and check with the immigration folks.

Drive 21k? Yup - this is going to be an experience for sure. We drove to immigration, got our visas and our car sticker and were out of there after a somewhat confusing, disorganized 45 minutes.

That was the end of the weirdness for us. We drove about 600k today and are in the town of Cuidad Obregon tonight. We found a beautiful hotel where "Yes" they have a guard outside all night watching the cars.

We did see a few border patrol army type folks out on the road. We found it odd that at one of the gas stations along the way, they would not accept US cash! (I thought the entire WORLD wanted that!)

The roads were great. We drove the toll roads where it seems to be costing about $10.00 US at each of the 3 we drove today.

The countryside is nice. None of the majestic beauty of the Rocky's, or the Redwood Forest of the Red Rock mountains in Arizona. The desert seemed more sandy. Lot's of Cactus, beautiful blue sky's again. There was the odd cloud. (Yesterday was the first day we'd seen any cloud in the sky for about a week. The temperature was in the high 30's most of the day. It seems to have only dropped down to the high 20's tonight. I did just check the weather back home. :-(

I don't know if I've mentioned this in the Blog or not, but we have a bit of a change of destination at the moment, or a new layover anyway.

Lynne was searching for blog's the other night from folks who have driven all the way down here and ended up on a site about a town in Mexico called Lake Chapala. Weather is great. Cost of living - excellent. Big expat community. So . . . . now, after almost 5 weeks on the road and closing on on 9000k, we're going to be in Lake Chapala this weekend and probably staying there through the Christmas holidays.

We're both getting really tired of driving. Beautiful sights just blend together after a while. I can't wait to unpack the car and see what's in there. We need to get to a place soon so that we can book a ticket for Jordan to come visit over Christmas so, unless we get there and don't like it, it looks like we're going to stop driving and adventure around there for a while. We found a great spot online tonight to start from. If it is a good when we get there as it appears on their site, we may just stay in one of the two bedroom villas for a while.

Lake Chapala Info

Nov 3, 4, & 5 Pictures 

 

Day 32 - Green Valley Arizona

Yesterday (Tuesday) we drove south from Flagstaff to Green Valley. Green Valley is about 2 hours south of Phoenix, 4 hours south of Flagstaff. It was interesting watching the changes in the vegetation from some places that almost reminded us of northern Ontario, so dry rocky desert, to sandy desert. Some places where nothing but tumbleweed grew and other places where all sorts of different cactus grew. Around Phoenix, those tall cactus with fat arms reaching out and up grew, but I guess they need just s certain kind of soil. They seem to only grow in particular areas. We'd see a bunch of them, then 5 minutes down the road, none!

We got to our friends Ron and Bev's about 4:30. Yea, if you recognize the names, they are our friends that we stayed with in Victoria a couple of weeks ago also. The timing of our trip worked out so we saw them the weekend before they came down, and then a week after they got to their vacation home here.

Bev and I went out for a 9k run this morning while Lynne and Ron went for a hour and change walk.

We're planning on spending the day here today and heading off for Mexico tomorrow morning. We knew we'd have internet connections every night along the route so far. We're not so sure about connecting over the next couple of days. We're heading to Lake Chapala. We plan to be there by Saturday or Sunday. I'm sure we'll be able to connect and update the blog again from there then.

I guess, tomorrow the vacation ends and the adventure begins!

Day 30 - Sedona to The Grand canyon

We took a day off from blogging our daily adventures. We had a great time yesterday, but we were pretty darned tired by the time we got back to our hotel at night.

When I woke up in the morning I’d decided that I really needed to get out for a run, for two reasons. Firstly; everyone at home was running Angus Glen, the last great run of the season, or, Bern and Steve were running New York. I would have loved to have been with the gang at either event... The second reason was, if I didn’t get out and run soon, I was going to have to roll myself around the next race course.

I went out for a one hour run. I felt OK for most of it, although I could tell I was running slower than I wanted to be running. I don’t know if that’s because the first half hour was all uphill, or if it was because Sedona is about 4000 feet above sea level, or a combination of the two. (I’m sure it’s not because I hadn’t run for two weeks!). Whatever the reason, I ended up only doing 8.6k in 55 minutes. Maybe I need to start running regularly again and worry about speed later.

I got back to the hotel, grabbed a quick shower and headed out for a quick breakfast with Lynne. We wanted to spend the day exploring the vortexes around Sedona. These vortexes are supposed to be area’s of great spiritual energy.  We’d been out to one vortex the night before. I must admit I felt very energized myself, but I don’t know if that was just the excitement of the adventure or what.

We headed out after breakfast to where I had pinpointed one vortex in the GPS. We drove to where we were told it was a 30 minute walk to the top of the point. We could see where we wanted to go, and off we went. The path through the forest and up the mountain side seemed to head off course to us, but we kept going. We just figured the path would bend back to the vortex at some point. About an hour later, we decided we’d made a wrong turn somewhere, and headed back. That first trek was a bit disappointing in that is skirted an exclusive estate home development. We kept feeling like we were off in the wilderness, but then we’d run into a fence or see some houses through the forest.

We got back to the car and decided we needed water and some food would be good too! We drove back to the hotel, grabbed some lunch, filled my Nathan water belt with water and E-Load and headed back out in quest of the vortex again.  We picked the other trail this time. It didn’t feel right either, but we didn’t see any other choice.

Another hour later, after a great walk along this trail, we decided that God just doesn’t want us to find this vortex and we’d head back and forget about this one. By now it was 3 in the afternoon; the sun was beating down on us. We were tired, hungry and getting very low on water.  A short distance from the car, some guy stopped and asked us if we’d been up to the vortex. We told him our story and he said. “It’s only 10 minutes from here, come with me and I’ll show you the way”

We followed old George along the trail and turned at the elusive path that we hadn’t seen. We was great, telling us about different trees and cactus types.  He showed us plants that could be boiled and drank as tea and explained different rock formations to us as he led us up to the vortex. He left us shortly after we reached the summit. I don’t know that I felt any sort of supernatural energy, but I sure felt relief that we’d finally reached the summit and, even more important, we could sit down in the shade and relax for a bit! The scenery all day was amazing. It doesn’t matter how many beautiful vistas there are, we just don’t get tired of them.

We headed back to the hotel and rested a bit before heading back out to the Vortex we’d visited the night before. We wanted to be there early enough to get a good spot to watch the sun go down and get some good pictures. About 200 – 300 other people had the same idea. I’d set up the tripod, but every time I got a good shot lined up, some bonehead would stand between my camera and whatever I was trying to get a picture of. It was cool watching the sun go down from high up on this peak though. We headed out for pizza after that and went to bed early.

This morning, while we were packing up the car, the people in the car parked in front of ours said hello and commented on the Ontario license plates. It ended up that they were from Huntsville. It’s amazing how many people from near home that we’ve run into.
We drove out to Flagstaff and then on to the Grand canyon from there. The canyon is very cool. There certainly are some spots that are scary as hell to look down from. It’s amazing to look at all the layers in the canyon sides and read about them at the museum. We walked along the paved path thinking that, this sure isn’t the rugged hiking we’d done the day before.

All of a sudden, a mountain goat came up over from climbing up one of the cliffs. There it was, 15 feet in front of us, just standing and looking at us. We took pictures fast and furiously. Then another came over. Then another and another. In short order there were six or seven of these animals all together, almost close enough to reach out and touch. They walked across the path and into the trees on the other side of the path. We took moiré pictures. More folks walked along the path and we pointed out the animals to them. All of a sudden, the Ram appeared. His horns were much bigger than the other. He looked about, and ran off immediately. The others followed as quickly, taking up on his lead. I found that encounter even more thrilling than the view of the canyon itself.

We drove back to Flagstaff for the night. We’re off to spend a couple of days with Ron and Bev in Green Valley before we head off into Mexico. Our Mexico destination is Lake Chapala. Lynne found the place on-line a couple of weeks ago. We’re going to stop there and spend some time. If it turns out to be anything like we hear it is, we’ll probably stay there through Christmas so that we have a place for Jordan to come visit over the holidays.

So far, we’ve traveled just a bit over 8700k in the 30 days that we’ve been on the road.  As we get ready to head into Mexico, I feel a bit like the traveling vacation is over, and the unknown adventure is about to start. I think it’s going to be a bit more work from the border on!

Day 28 - Halloween In Sedona

This town and the surrounding nature are pure magic.

Greg had web work to do this morning and I got up very early and setout on my own. The temperature was cool and the air was fresh. I walked the two miles or so until I found what they call "uptown." There is no downtown. It's a very charming little area with shops on street level and below street level and above. I arrived at the trolley depot and bought tickets for two tours, one to the more commercial areas and one out closer to the big rocks.

I came back to our hotel and Greg and I went for a nice swim and hot tub as by now it was about 20 degrees. We exercised our fat little bodies in the water by swimming a few lengths and then came up to get ready for our tour. It lasted about two hours and we got an overview of the history and also of all the sites we wanted to do in more depth.

Many famous cowboy movies were shot here even though this town only came to be in 1902 so of course there were no cowboys here in the 1800's but the rock and surrounding flat ground make it a perfect movie set for those old John Wayne and Glenn Ford movies. We even went to the movie museum to see some still shots of those movies with the now familiar rocks in the backdrop.

There are all kinds of ordinances about the colour people must paint their homes and businesses, all colours have to blend with the natural environment. Even lamp posts, bridges and light standards are all rust coloured instead of the usual silver in most towns. When MacDonalds wanted to open here they were not allowed their golden arches and could only open if they made their arches teal. An earth coloured, adobe MacDonalds with tiny teal arches on the side of the building, it is one of only 4 in total in the world that don't have golden arches.

After our tours were finished we were hungry and had a delicious lunch at a restaurant and sat under umbrellas on the sidewalk where we were disappointed to find out they are not allowed to serve alcohol. We made do with coke because the street was starting to come alive with trick or treaters. You see here in Sedona they do all of their trick or treating on the main street and it is the shop owners who give out the treats. This becomes a street party from 5 until 8 but I'll get back to that. We took the "free trolley" back to our hotel and were ready to pack it in when I remembered that my cousin Shelly had told me to go the the small airport here to watch the sunset.

Greg had also looked up the location of the four vortexes around the town and one of them was out by the airport. We missed the sunset but climbed up the rock to the airport vortex and on the way up caught the most magnificent views with the moon hanging in the sky between the rocks. We took a million pictures and kept asking each other how we felt. I have been feeling very calm and peaceful all day and Greg said he was energized. Now, both of those feelings could be due to the fact that we took a day off from driving today and we've stopped in a very pretty and low key locale. But just maybe it is the vortex energy! As it got darker the scenery changed and Greg even got his tripod out of the car to take some more photos.

Well, we were driving back to the hotel and Greg said "Let's check out the party uptown." So uptown we went and what a festive, upbeat,wholesome event. Every one was in costume, not just the kids. We even noticed old people in dress-up mode. Volunteers were making sure street traffic moved safely. There were drummers, and dancers and singers and kids dancing in the street. And everywhere treat were being given out. I have never seen Hallowe'en celebrated in this way. Here it is an entire town event. There were thousands in the street and the joy was palpable. Our day was sensational. We were thinking of possibly leaving tomorrow but we have changed our minds and we have booked the hotel for another night.

We will visit another of the vortexes tomorrow and possibly drive to Flagstaff and then we have promised each other that we will watch that famed sunset at the airport. Tomorrow should be a full moon too. Oh, and they do not do daylights savings time here so no time change.I know it sounds like a cliche but this town is very special and we both feel so enchanted by it.

Click here to see today's pictures.

Day 27 - Palm Beach to Sedona

My chauffeur is having another night of exhaustion and so the navigator is writing again. Actually with the advent of the GPS I kind of lost the title of navigator although I've given it up reluctantly. I find myself arguing much to Greg's aggravation with the lady inside the GPS. We are using the Australian Lady the American one was too bossy.

We awoke very early in Palm Springs this morning and caught the rising sun light on the hills behind our hotel. The hills were lit up in an almost neon pink. It started our day off on a good note. Palm Springs looks lovely although we just slept there and did a quick tour through the downtown this morning. There seems to be a lot of empty stores and it has probably seen more prosperous days.

We entered the desert and began to see some of the huge cactus, the ones that seem to be giving you the finger. Big hills of brown dirt that looked like larger versions of the ones you see at a construction site. A bit of a downer after the majesty of the rugged Pacific Coast. Slowly the big cactus were replaced by a different type, smaller ones in clumps with flat leaves and closer to the ground. Then the cactus were gone and we started seeing small pine trees.

Early in the afternoon we started noticing red (rusty) streaks in the hills. Just before we approached Sedona we rounded a corner and saw the most amazing site - big red mountains in the most interesting shapes rose before us like monoliths rising out of the earth looking like something from a Science Fiction movie. It was a very exciting scene. Our first view of Bell Rock, Cathedral Rock and Coffee Pot Rock. We found our Comfort Inn, checked in and immediately (before email) went out to explore. We found many galleries filled with the work of local talent and went into the Tlaquepaque area....a collection of restaurants and galleries made from stone and adobe and filled with Arizona Sycamores. It was lovely. We passed many businesses of psychics, aura readers, angel guides and all the other new age businesses you can imagine. Can't wait to explore closer to nature tomorrow.

Click here to see today's pictures.

Day 26 - L. A. to Palm Beach

Today was just a plane old travel day. We got up earlier than usual and were on the road by 8:00. We stuck to the main highways and quietly drove past any and all of the things there were to see along the way.

It felt weird to be back in traffic, particularly through the north end of L. A.

The scenery changed from the huge ocean and big cliffs to regular highway and then desert highway.

About 20k out of Palm Springs we drove past field after field of wind turbines. There were thousands of them. The same kind as we have back home by the CNE or Darlington. It was amazing to see row after row and them look off into the distance and see every hill top covered as well.

We got to Palm Springs about 2:00 and went our own ways for the afternoon. I think we need a break soon from driving and a bit of a break from each other too. Tough being this close together for this long. We're both pretty independent folks who like a fair amount of solitude, more than 5 minutes in the washroom which is about all we get these days!

Our next planned stop is Sedona. Lynne has wanted to go there for years now. Sedona is about 600k from where we are now. Phoenix is 400k from here along the way. My guess is that we'll do the 600 and take then next few days off and lay low there over the weekend before heading down to Green Valley to see Ron and Bev at their Arizona home.

Click here to see today's pictures.