February Expenses

Well, it was a pretty cheap month...but you have to put it into context. Our expenses were a little skewed to the downside for the month because we were with the RV caravan group from February 5th on.

We spent a total of $904 CAD for the month. (Our American readers can subtract about 25% from these numbers for U.S. dollar equivalent).

Who joins an RV caravan to Mexico?

Yesterday was a day off for the group and we had no organized activities planned. At least none that we knew about!

So in the morning, we visited our friend John who has been living here at Roca Azul RV Park for the past year and a half or so. We first met John when he was living in Acapulco, and we saw him again there a couple of years later, along with his sister Dianna.

No sun, but a great sunset!

Around 10:00am yesterday morning we did a long walk into the town of Jocotepec with eight others from the RV caravan group. It was an overcast day...in fact I don't think we saw the sun all day and it was abnormally cool for this area.

But, it was a good day for a walk.

How many is too many...?

Everybody was ready to go yesterday for our 10:00am departure time. We crawled our way out to the main highway in Villa Corona and made it through three sets of lights without getting separated too much. It's not bad with a caravan group of ten rigs, but I can't imagine doing it with more and trying to keep the group together.

In fact, I don't think we would do it with more. I think it would reduce the enjoyment of leading a caravan. And from talking to some of our group, they also enjoy it much more with a smaller group.

Travel day today!

I like travel days.

Our regular readers know that we don't like sitting in one place for too long. Even if it's a place that we like! We'd rather have a change of scenery.

So today, we take the RV caravan group on to it's next destination.

Some info about the RV Park here

We're enjoying our time here at Villa Corona's Chimulco RV and Water Park. This is the third time we've stayed here over the years.

But, we're into our last full day here and we head out tomorrow morning with the RV caravan group. So I thought I'd tell you a little about the place before we leave!

Massages and pedicures

We're sat in one place for a while, with nothing official planned. So Ruth and I have been organizing other group activities which people can participate in if they want to...or not.

Yesterday, Ruth walked with everyone who wanted to go into town. Villa Corona is a nice town. And yesterday was their weekly market day.

Looking forward to the 29th...

Everything is coming together for our visit to Hacienda Contreras and the town of Valle de Juarez. We're looking forward to showing the area to the RV caravan group, and we've made arrangements with our three favorite restaurant in the area for meals out.

As well, we're doing the trip up to the mescal distillery in the mountains, and a 4 wheel drive unimog tour. It's going to be a busy two day/three night stay!

Change of plans...

Our original schedule with the RV caravan group had us leading them down to the coast at Melaque on March 3rd from Valle de Juarez. That would have been our last official day with them, and the other group leader, Paul would be meeting us there. We probably would have hung around for a day or two just to relax at the beach prior to heading north.

We want to be in southern California by March 25th or so.

Day trip to the big city of Guadalajara

The last time we were right in downtown Guadalajara (pop 8 million) was in December 2009. We weren't overly impressed at the time...just another big city with a lot of graffiti. And although I think we warmed up to it a little bit more during yesterday's visit, it's still not on our list of favorite places in Mexico.

The bus arrived just before 8:00am again. Not great to have two tour days in a row, and many people weren't impressed with having to get up that early again.

Tequila and ruins

Yesterday was a busy tour day. A big first class bus arrived with our guide Jorge, just before 8:00am to take our RV caravan group near the town of Tequila to tour the big Herradura tequila factory. Yes, this is a distillery. But I call it a factory because it's such a huge operation.

The Herradura distillery produces 22 million liters of tequila per year!

Thursday was a day off...

But it seemed to fly by. In the morning, Ruth and I went for a walk, but only a short one down to the nearby marsh to see some of the birds.

We had done this walk the last time we were here in November of 2011, and we remembered a lot of snakes that we could see from walking along the side of the road. Strangely, this time we didn't see any!

Escorted by angels!

350 kms (217 miles) doesn't sound like a really long day, but when you're on some secondary roads in Mexico and you're leading a group of nine other RV's...it becomes a really long day.

And so we got an early start, scheduled for 8:00am. But you really have to be on your toes with this group...they were ready to pull out at 7:50am, and so we did!

A fun "day off"...

There is an island in the middle of Lake Patzcuaro that is a popular tourist spot on weekends. In fact, it's so busy on weekends that we're glad we waited until Tuesday to visit!

Out of our RV caravan group of nineteen people, twelve of us made the decision to take the boat trip over to the island. Despite a couple of glitches, we think that everybody had a good time.

Volcano and waterfall

Yesterday was a free day with our Mexico RV Caravan group. I had volunteered to take some of the group to the Paricutin Volcano, while Ruth took others into the town of Patzcuaro to see some of the things that we hadn't seen when we were there the other day.

So we split up and at 9:00am five of us left in Larry's truck, headed towards Uruapan. Ruth and I had been there before, four years ago.