Seventeen flights in two years

I found a neat website the other day. It keeps track of how many times you've been on an airplane, and gives you a map and various statistics.

I listed all of our flights in the last two years. 17 different flights and 20 different airports!

Getting things sorted.

Well, we've got six days to visit with everyone we want to, and get things sorted out for our drive west and the next five months in Saskatchewan. First thing I'm trying to get done is to get the car out of storage, but so far I'm not getting any answer from the people who need to let me in there!

And of course I have to get it insured, but that's all done online. Then, the license sticker is expired and I need to get the (rip off!) Ontario emissions test done in order to get the new sticker.

We made it, but it wasn't a smooth trip!

We left Rancho Altarose at about 11:40am, only ten minutes later than planned. Kenny, the full time RV resident there, had agreed to drive us and our bags the couple of minutes to town.

We got there just as the bus did! Great timing. However, it was the last time that day that our timing would be great...

Busy travel day ahead of us!

Well, today is the day we leave Mexico. We'll spend the morning getting Sherman all prepared to be left behind. Then a neighbor will drive us the short distance to the nearby town of Valle de Banderas where we'll hop on the local bus to get to Puerto Vallarta airport.

And then, we'll be in three other airports!

Back at the ranch

We puttered around yesterday morning, and just had some coffee and tea and enjoyed the great views of Puerto Vallarta from the apartment. It was probably about 11:00am by the time we went for breakfast.

We didn't need any lunch, that's for sure!

A great day in Puerto Vallarta!

Yesterday morning, we had an offer of a ride in to Puerto Vallarta, so we took advantage of that. We probably wouldn't have gone at all this time around just to visit the city, but we wanted to visit a friend who we haven't seen for a while.

So we left the RV Park just before 8:30am yesterday morning.

I guess I should have clarified...

Quite the response to our post yesterday.

Besides the few people who commented on the post itself, there were ten or so emails with questions related to the idea of RVing in Mexico. I probably should have put more clarification in that blog post, but I didn't think the idea would have attracted that much attention.

Want to RV in Mexico...?

Back in 2007 when we first entertained the idea of driving our motorhome into Mexico, we were definitely nervous. We spoke zero Spanish, and the whole idea just seemed so..well.. foreign!

But we had some help, and we traveled for a while the first two winters with another couple who showed us the ropes. We're thinking now that we might like to show some people "the ropes"!

What a great afternoon!

The day was going along lazily, as most days seem to do here at Altarose Rancho RV Park. But we had mentioned to owner Garry that if he wanted to go for a hike at some point that we'd be wanting to go with him.

But this wasn't just a hike!

What's the rush...?

I read the other day that an RV'er drove from Puerto Vallarta to Vancouver in four days. That's about 4,400 kms (2,700 miles). How can that possibly be enjoyable? And why would you do it? I can't think of a good reason, but that's just us. I guess for some people it's all about the destination.

Having said that, in a couple of weeks we'll be doing our own marathon drive!

Hard to believe

We went for a hike yesterday in the Sierra de Vallejo mountains behind the RV park. We took the dogs with us. They love coming for a walk with us. And we like having them with us!

The area we went to is privately owned land, but it's protected under an umbrella of agencies. One of them is the "Alianza Jaguar" a group that exists for the protection of the jaguar in Mexico.

It's hard to believe that there are wild jaguars living in this tropical forest only 30 kms (18 miles) from Puerto Vallarta!

Market Day!

The weekly local market in the nearby town of Valle de Banderas takes place on a Monday, so that's where we headed yesterday to do our weekly fruit and veggie shopping. I brought our bigger backpack because it's about a 1.6 km (1 mile) walk each way.

That's a long way to have to carry a watermelon!

Visit to Bucerias

Just for something to do, we decided to take the local bus in to the town of Bucerias. We had never been there before, even though it's only about 14 kms (8.5 miles) away.

We figured there would be a bus from the local town here, and there is. But instead of going the direct and easy route there, it goes through all of the local communities and then you have to change to another bus on the main highway.

A walk around the block

It gets pretty warm here, so if you want to go for a walk or do anything at all strenuous, you're better off doing it as early in the morning as possible.

So yesterday morning, after coffee and breakfast, we set off on a walk around the block!

March Expenses

Once again, we had a month where our expenses were over $2,000. This has been a costly winter for us, despite having won the trip to Namibia! But, we considered that we may not have the chance to do that trip again so we didn’t scrimp on the expenses, within reason.

And as for March, if we remember that we started the month in Cape Town, South Africa, spent time in New York City and Cancun, Mexico, and ended up in our motorhome…we actually did really well in the expense department!

Total expenses for March 2014 came to $2,113.87.