Blowhole at the waterfront of Xcaret Park near Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Toluca on December 24th!

Monday, January 24, 2011

Playa Zipolite (day 4)

We don’t talk much about the downsides to RV’ing in Mexico because we feel the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. But there are some minor issues that you have to deal with if you want to RV inexpensively in Mexico.

For example, we are parked a 30 second walk from a beautiful beach. The weather is truly fantastic, in fact you couldn’t ask for better. The sky is blue each and every day, and the temperature is around 30C (86F) during the day, and 20C (68F) at night. It is like this each and every day, and it doesn’t rain at our current location between November and March. Pretty good, huh?

We don’t have any hookups where we are right now. So we only use our onboard bathroom when we have to go at night. Otherwise, it’s out to the community bathroom. There is no toilet seat, as is the case in most Mexican public toilets. There is also no water hookup to the toilet, so you need to bring in a bucket of water with you to flush the toilet. Then, you dispose of your used toilet paper in a small covered waste basket beside the toilet. Oh, and don’t forget to bring your own toilet paper with you in the first place! On the bright side, our host here does keep the two bathrooms reasonably clean. Oh, and the doors don’t have locks, nor do they close properly.


The showers are cold water only, but that is refreshing after a day on the beach. Still, they are cold.

We had ants at the last place. Some of them hitched a ride to here because we’re still killing several every day. We also have noseeums and mosquitoes, although the mosquitoes aren’t bad. Ruth had a lot of bites on her legs though.

Because we don’t have hookups, we can’t use our air conditioner. And we need the sun for the solar panels, so parking in the shade wouldn’t do either. So it does get hot inside Sherman. Every afternoon it gets to about 35C (95F) inside the motorhome. And that’s with windows open, and the electric roof vent fan on occasionaly. So we couldn’t possible go somewhere without taking Whiskey with us. Even right now, at 9:00pm, the temperature in the motorhome is 28.1C (83F). It’s around 23C (73F) in here when we wake up in the morning.

We could be parked at an expensive RV park with all the amenities, but we wouldn’t be happy. We also couldn’t afford it! Besides, we’re much happier dealing with all the little problems mentioned above.

9 comments:

  1. Just when I was thinking about those beautiful beaches, blue skies, no rain for months, hot weather - then, you post this blog about toilets with no water, cold showers and ants!

    I'm going to have to think some more about this Mexico thing now!

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  2. That's part of the culture, the Mexican people we met, have very few cares or worries, a missing latch or broken or sagging hinge would be way down the list of life's priorities, making enough to eat and have a place for your family are number one as they should be.They are in most cases a clean people who pick up after themselves , all our accommodations have been squeaky clean.Be safe out there. Sam & Donna

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  4. Rick and Paulette...We wouldn't give it up for anything! It's part of the adventure.

    Sam and Donna...You're right they don't have many worries. They work hard enough for the things they want and then relax and enjoy life with their families. Unfortunately they don't pick up after themselves. They may keep their own property clean but then have garbage strewn everywhere else around them. That is one concept that the government is trying to work hard on but I think it will take several generations more before we see a diffence.

    Kevin and Ruth

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  5. You are at our favorite spot in all of Mexico although we did camp at Fernando's! We had to run the generator a few hours per day as it was too hot for the dogs! Great memories. Could you post a photo of your RV as it is parked now?

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  6. Thank goodness for the large holding tanks on our rig.. I would use my own bathroom, thank you, and find ways to dump and refill more often as needed. Right now we can do about a week frugally on the fresh and grey, and even longer on the black with RidX in the tank.

    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
    Karen and Steve
    (Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
    http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/

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  7. Contessa...Kevin;s been out with the camera so we should have a picture on on tonight's blog. It is really nice here and very relaxing.

    Karen and Steve...Our holding tanks are fairly big, we can go more than two weeks with the black tank and the grey tank isn't even an issue. We use their bathroom as often as we can just because it isn't always easy finding somewhere to dump in Mexico and you never know when you might find a spot that you want to stay a long time at. If the bathroom wasn't clean enough for me I would use our on board one as well, but as kevin said they are quite clean. The water in the shower actually feels very refreshing after being in the sun and sea salt all day so I don't have a problem using the showers here. Two years ago when we were here we used our own facilities and then moved on to Puerto Escondido knowing we could dump at the RV park there, but found a place before that that we loved and had to move on sooner than we had wanted to because our tanks were full. Don't want that to happen again.

    Plus this is part of the experience.

    Kevin, Ruth and Whiskey

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  8. I don't know, I think I could handle ants, open toilets, cold showers and noseeums for the nice hot weather you are getting.
    I think Wandering Willy had a good "mix" for pouring around the motorhome that would get rid of ants.
    Maybe check his archives on that one. It's bleach and something else if I remember correctly.

    Cheers!

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  9. WBY...For us it's a no-brainer.

    We will have to look that "mix" up. We need something to help the situation, I think the ants are getting worse.

    Kevin, Ruth and Whiskey

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