Lake Catemaco, Mexico

Tuesday December 2…10:00pm

We woke up to rain dropping on the roof. It rained steadily while we got ready to go, and didn’t let up until mid-morning. We were on the road by 8:30am, having waited a bit in the hope that traffic will have lightened up by the time we got to the bypass around Veracruz.

Not a nice road...

And the traffic was no problem. The bypass toll road is being worked on though, so it was a bit slow going. We have been a bit concerned about directions in getting around both Tampico and Veracruz because the guide books we have make it out to be more complicated than it is. In fact, just by following the basic maps and the road signs, we would have had no problem at all getting where we wanted to go. Not sure why the guide books make it sound so bad.

We tried to stop for lunch at the fishing town of Alvarado. The problem with many of these towns is lack of anywhere to park for a couple of RV’s. We drove down the very narrow and busy main street to find a restaurant at the port that had been recommended in the guide books as cheap and good where the fishermen themselves have lunch. But it was to difficult to park, and we found somewhere to turn around and headed out again. It was too bad because it was an interesting place and we would have liked to get out and walk around.

After Alverado, the road went through a flat marshy section, and then into a small mountain range. The road wasn’t that steep, but it was slow going because it twists through many villages and there are at least 3 or 4 sets of speed bumps (“topes”, in Spanish) in each town, plus we got stuck behind a few different trucks going VERY slow crawling up some of the hills.

Interesting rock formation where they were removing sand. It looked like the whole thing was going to collapse on them

In the town of Santiago Tuxtla, we stopped at a cigar factory situated right on the main road and we were lucky enough that there was just enough space for the two motorhomes to park out front. They have free tours, so we were shown around. It was interesting, and although I never liked cigar smoke, I found the aroma from the leaves at the factory to be quite nice. Amazing watching the workers and how fast they are. What a monotonous job rolling cigars all day long! But they seemed quite happy and smiling while we were there.

Rolling the cigars, they are very fast!

Cigar factory

They even get to smoke them...

We made it to the town of Catemaco. This is a pretty tourist town situated right on the shore of Lake Catemaco. On the opposite shore is one of Mexico’s National Park areas. We are camped at a “trailer park” on the front shore of the lake, beside La Ceiba restaurant. They want 150 pesos ($14.25 CAN, $11.50 US) with electric, or 100 pesos ($9.50 CAN, $7.60 US) without. We chose the basic service, as our solar panels are working just fine! We pick up a fairly good internet signal from here as well!

Harry and Sherman parked up beside the La Ceiba restaurant

There is a German couple here with their young son in a motorhome, and we are taking a boat cruise with them at 9am tomorrow. Chartering the boat is costing us each 50 pesos ($4.75 CAN, $3.80 US). I think we were able to negotiate such a good deal again because it is not tourist season.

Total nights sleeping in a motorhome…405

December Fuel $ 48.00 CAN

December Grocery $ 64.92 CAN

December Overnight costs $ 11.80 CAN