A new furry friend, and a little birthday celebration...

When we arrived here at the marina, we noticed that our host Chago had a new puppy. 

The puppy's name is Solitario (Lonely), and we think that he sometimes lives up to that name. He's only about four months old. Chago isn't here all the time, and it's especially quiet here during he week. And when Chago is off running errands, Solitario gets tied up under a nearby truck. 

Excited to arrive at one of our favorite places in Mexico!

We woke up Tuesday morning in anticipation of arriving at the destination that will be our home base for the next month or so.

We spent the better part of 13 winters in Mexico between 2007 and 2020. And we haven't been back since the spring of 2020, so almost five years. And we made a lot of friends in Mexico during those years.

Tlalpujahua, the Christmas town

Up at 6:00am to say goodbye to Adrian and Roman. Adrian drives Roman to school at 6:45am, and then he heads to work. Brenda is currently a homemaker because she has a bad wrist and is awaiting surgery.

But she made us a delicious breakfast, and then we had showers and did some laundry. Always nice to set out fresh again! Thanks for looking after us!

Into the city of Queretaro, and the El Cerrito Pyramid

It was chilly Saturday night up in Mineral de Pozos. We woke up in the morning and it was 2C (35F) outside, and only 7C (45F) inside Igor. Nice and comfy under the covers, but a little cold getting out of bed!

We decided to drive for half an hour and use the engine heat to warm us up. By the time we parked up for breakfast, the sun was shining and the temperature headed up into the 20's (70's).

The ghost town of Mineral de Pozos

We actually had a pretty good sleep in the hotel parking lot. There is a lot of heavy truck traffic in that area on the outskirts of the city of San Luis Potosi, and we had been hearing a fair bit of it prior to going to bed. But then in the morning, we each mentioned that we had woken up at some point during the night and it had been perfectly quiet.

We got up and hit the road right away to try and beat some of the traffic, but I'm thinking that the north - south highway 57 never really quiets down.

Not every day goes according to plan!

When we travel by motorhome, we think it's best to have a plan to arrive at your destination by 2:00pm. That way, there is lots of daylight hours left in case your plan doesn't go according to plan! And if everything does go well, you've got a few afternoon hours to just relax and enjoy yourself.

Well yesterday was one of those days that didn't go according to plan.

The caravan showed up!

We had a nice morning just puttering around. Ruth was going to do some laundry, and we both remember that there had been an old washing machine in the RV Park area, but maybe we were thinking of somewhere else. Anyhow, there is no washing machine here now!

The hotel wanted typical rip off prices to do any laundry, but I don't really blame them. They aren't in the business of doing laundry, so if you want it done, you have to pay.

It's a good thing Igor broke down!

Wow, lots to talk about today! And so, a long blog post with lots of photos. And lots of good news!

The mechanics didn't begin work on Igor until about 10:00am, which was okay with us. We left them to do the installation of the fuel pump and re-install the gas tank, and we decided to do a 10 km (6.2 mile) walk to a nearby lake.

Progress!

Man, we've had a lot of bad luck lately. First my laptop breaks, then my Amazon account gets closed, then Igor breaks down. It helps that we are pretty good at rolling with the punches!

By the same token, we've got a lot of great things on the go as well. Number one is that we're in Mexico!

Stuck on the side of the road...

We headed out from Chris and Juan's at about 9:45am... about 15 minutes later than planned. We always try to have a plan that sees us arriving at our destination by 2:00pm or so. That always gives you lots of daylight hours in case you have problems.

Well.. we had problems.

Time to head further south

Yesterday morning we said goodbye to Bjorn and Freya. Chris and Juan drove them to the bus station in central Monterrey and they took the bus from there to Nuevo Laredo at the border.

They then walked across the border and into Laredo, Texas. They said it was the easiest border crossing ever.

Very frustrating...

First off, let me tell you part two of our laptop story.

Because the card machine wasn't working properly at the store, I had a look at Amazon Mexico and found an identical laptop that suited my purposes, and I ordered it to have it delivered to the hotel campground at our next planned stop in Matehuala.

Bjorn's birthday, laptop shopping, and tour around Santiago

It was fun to be able to help Bjorn celebrate his birthday yesterday!

We all went out in the morning to do some laptop shopping. Here in Mexico, they do a thing similar to Black Friday that starts the weekend before Dia de la Revolucion (Revolution Day), so there are a lot of sales on.

A great day in Mexico

I'm thinking that there will be a few blog posts with that title this winter!

We hung out at the house for the morning, and then early afternoon we set off to the Cola de Caballo waterfalls. But we had a stop to make along the way. 

Reunited with Igor... and into Mexico!

We were up at 6:00am Wednesday morning, and down for our included hotel breakfast at 6:30am. It was actually better than expected, with lots of eggs, cheese, fruits, cereals, and yogurts.

Then we had to figure out how we were getting from the hotel to the border crossing. Uber apparently works in Reynosa, but the system showed that any available drivers were quite far away.