Good news, and bad news!

We needed to get some exercise, so we started out by walking on the beach. And we had to pass by the resort our friends are staying at, so when we got there we decided to walk right in. Worse case scenario, they would just kick us out. Everybody had wrist bands of some kind, but nobody seemed to notice that we didn't.

Sure enough, we found them enjoying themselves by the pool.

They sold our Starlink!

On Sunday, we did the 102 km (64 mile) drive from Tomatlan to the big tourist city of Puerto Vallarta.

You would think that would take an hour and a half or so, but it took us two and a half hours!

We met Igor's cousin!

We went for a walk around Tenacatita before heading further north. There was supposedly another camping area up around the bend on the other side, so we walked over that way.

Still early, so the beach vendors were only just getting set up for the day.

January Expenses

Well, January was finally back to our sort of normal expenses. Traveling in a motorhome is our cheapest way to live, and this is the first month in a long time where we didn't have much in the way of extraordinary expenses. 

But there were some.

Free camping at Tenacatita Beach

Tenacatita is a beautiful bay with a tumultuous history.

Back in 2010, the entire beach was shut down and many buildings were demolished due to a property dispute. Land owners (some American and Canadian) were evicted from properties they thought they owned outright.

Views above Melaque

During Covid, one of the projects for the town of Melaque was to improve the west shoreline, so they built a nice malecon along that section. 

During our two past visits here, we spent most of our time at the eastern part because that's where the big RV park is located. But now that we've spent some time in the western part, we like it much better.

Arrived in Melaque, Mexico

We took our time getting ready to go Wednesday morning. We knew it was less than a two hour drive, so we didn't leave Cuyutlan until about 10:00am.

Our route took us up and around the big port city of Manzanillo. It's a huge shipping port, and the busiest container port in Mexico.

Heading north up the coast towards Puerto Vallarta

Good news! Our new Starlink Mini Satellite Internet hardware has arrived in Puerto Vallarta and is ready to be picked up. That was fast!

And it has to be picked up within 7 days or they send it back, so we need to be there by Monday just to be on the safe side. That's about when we wanted to be there anyhow.

Day trip to some different beaches... and some great Starlink news!

Yesterday morning, we hopped in Barb and Mark's pickup truck with Barb and their son Shawn. Mark stayed behind because they were having some work done on their property.

We weren't going far... just a half an hour or so down the coast to check out some different beaches.

Beach time

Rancho B RV Park is located on a 10 km (6 mile) long stretch of virtually empty beach. There is a nearby town called La Placita, and occasionally you'll see some locals at the far end of the beach, but otherwise you can have it totally to yourself.

Yesterday morning, we tried to get out before it got too hot, but it was 10am before we got down there. We will do better today!

Down to the coast of Michoacan, Mexico

We tried to get going by 9:00am, but it was almost twenty after by the time we pulled out from Sue and Roy's place at Valle de Juarez. We had a great week with them while Igor was getting his top painted. Thanks for putting up with us!

We headed into Mazamitla to fill Igor's fuel tank at 24.70 pesos ($1.75 CAD) per liter. That's about $4.61 USD per gallon. 

Igor is finished, and we are off to the coast today!

For anybody just checking in, Igor spent Monday to Friday parked at a body and paint shop here in Valle de Juarez, Jalisco, Mexico. 

We wanted to get the fiberglass cap painted. They removed the striping and molding, smoothed out the seam under the molding, removed the awning brackets and filled the holes, and filled the kitchen exhaust vent hole on the other side. 

Igor will be painted today!

No, Igor was not ready yesterday, however they will be painting this morning and we should be able to pick him up this afternoon. We'll drive back over to Sue and Roy's, then tomorrow morning we'll head down to the coast.

Yesterday afternoon, Ruth and I took a walk over to "the castle".

A looong walk in the hills! And of course an update on Igor's paintwork...

We set off at 9:20am heading up into the hills behind Valle de Juarez towards the village of El Tigre, 12 kms (7.5 miles) away, and almost 2,500' higher up in altitude.

We've done this route before, the last time was with some of our RV Caravan group on New Year's Day 2020.

Igor update #2

Not much to report, really. They didn't start work until about 9:30am. We walked back over to Sue and Roy's at around 10:00am, spent the day there, then walked back to Igor around 6:30pm. 

It was dusk, and they were just finishing up.