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.

Dance of the little old men

Yesterday was our day trip tour in and around the city of Patzcuaro (pop 80,000) in the state of Michoacan, Mexico.

It started with a visit south of the city to the copper town of Santa Clara del Cobre. This town is famous world wide for producing items made from copper. Pot and pans, cauldrons, sinks, vases, and jewelry make up the more popular items.

Two down, four to go!

Our second travel day with the RV caravan group was yesterday. Four more to go!

Everything went smoothly, but boy, things happen slowly when you're moving with nine other RV's. We only had to do 90 kms (56 miles) but it took three hours from start to finish!

What a day! (part 2)

This is the second post of the day. You can read part one here...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2016/02/what-day.html

We had such a busy day and did so much stuff, and had so much fun yesterday that we figured it was better to break it into two blog posts.

So when we left you earlier, we had been looking for a barber for John.

What a day!

Far too much to tell you in one single blog post, so I'll do another one this afternoon. But suffice to say that the entire caravan group had a really fun day. Us included! Actually, we have to say....we're enjoying our time with this group, and it really doesn't feel like work.

Okay. So, yesterday was actually a "day off", but there is so much to see and do in the area that we made a series of choices for people...and they could either participate, or not at their own expense.

Have they ever even been here?

We are currently in the Mexican state of Michoacan. The RV Park we are at is located about a half an hour from the big city of Morelia (pop 800,000).

On February 11th, the Canadian government issued an updated "travel advisory" for the country of Mexico, telling people to "Exercise a high degree of caution". Of course this is the same thing that they have been telling us each year since we began our RV travels of Mexico in 2007.

Off to see the butterflies!

Every fall, more than one billion monarch butterflies make the 4,500 km (3,000 mile) trip from Canada to the mountains west of Mexico City where they spend the winter huddled in fourteen colonies.

Five of these colonies are open to public viewing.

We've been to two other locations previously, so we're glad that yesterday's trip was to a different one.

Everyone arrived, but not without a few hiccups!

What a great group of people we have in this RV caravan. Everybody was ready to go by our 8:00am meeting, and we were all pulling out of the RV park by 8:20am or so. Right on schedule.

Our goal is to always be parked up by 2:00pm in the afternoon. That way, if there are any problems along the way, you have lots of daylight hours left to fix them. We were only doing 160 kms (100 miles) or so, but of course you can never get anywhere quickly in Mexico, so better to start earlier than later.

Another full day of tours and meals out!

Once again, the bus arrived right at 9:00am to pick everybody up. We had the same tour guide, Cony, and the same driver, Geronimo. So it's kind of nice that we can get to know them a little bit by spending more time with them.

There is such a busy schedule just now that some members of the group simply chose not to go. So this time, there were seventeen of us who went and two stayed behind.

Getting ready for our first travel day

Everybody in the RV caravan group enjoyed a well deserved day off yesterday. Almost everybody just hung around the campground and did some minor maintenance and cleaning of their rigs, and I'm sure that some simply relaxed!

At every stop along the way, we have group tours organized, and they really don't get a chance to just kick back and relax until we arrive at the beach on March 3rd. Of course they are not obligated to participate in every tour, and usually 3 or 4 different people do exactly that.

Our first full day with the caravan group

We always thought that these caravan tours were a little expensive. But I don't think we realized exactly how many "extras" are included in the price that you pay, especially with this particular caravan company. Yesterday was a great example of some of the extras.

And man, they keep you busy! Not much time for relaxing. Although today, Superbowl Sunday (and Kevin's birthday!) is an off day for the entire group. I've got some things to do though, like installing a brand new CB radio for Sherman. Everybody on the tour has a CB radio so that we can all keep in contact. It's not used for minor chit chat...only important stuff like upcoming turns, obstacles on the road, stuff like that.

The caravan has arrived!

After Thursday's hiking marathon, we needed a day to rest. So other than doing a few buckets of laundry, we spent much of yesterday just relaxing. In fact, we never left the RV Park.

And then of course we were expecting visitors. Lots of visitors!

Around 2:30pm, they arrived. Ten RV's, traveling in a caravan. We were looking forward to meeting this group of people who have been together since January 9th.

Well, that was an adventure!

"Why don't we walk from the RV Park to Guanajuato".

Said nobody. Ever.

That is, until we arrived here.

We were in the mood for a hike, and we saw a mountain in the distance, in the direction of the city of Guanajuato. I don't think we originally planned to walk all the way to the city, but somewhere along the line, Ruth said "Instead of returning the way we came, we could hike all the way to the city, and then take the bus home".

And this is exactly what we did...but it wasn't one of our better ideas.

Guanajuato is an amazing city!

We did some laundry yesterday morning. Remember I had said there was a laundry room here at the RV Park? Well there is. But it's not for the use of the campers! Go figure. The guy says that it's for their use to wash the linens for the little hotel here. Then, he offered to have someone come and do our laundry for 35 pesos per kilo. For perspective, we normally pay between 12-16 pesos per kilo.

Good thing we have our Breathing Mobile RV Clothes Washer with us!

The plan for the next month

Yesterday, we left the Oasis Balneario at about 11:00am, but it was about 1:30pm by the time we actually got on the road towards Guanajuato because we stopped in Dolores Hidalgo to do a big grocery shop and go to the bank.

After that, it was only about 80 kms (50 miles) to our destination.

Why won't they pick up the litter?

Yesterday was a national holiday here in Mexico (Constitution Day), and we hadn't realized that until we saw them filling the big swimming pool again. Actually, they hadn't emptied the pool on Sunday. When they filled it, they didn't fill it to the top. Yesterday, they added enough water to fill it to the top, and warmed it up in the process.

Not many people though. After all, it's winter!

January Expenses

Wow, another month done already. Only three months from today and we will be back at Cabri Park in Saskatchewan. Time flies when you're having fun!

Okay, on to our January expense report. It wasn't a bad month, although we overspent in just about every category. Not by much, but a little in each category adds up! We spent a total of $1,506 CAD for the month.

Best thing we ever did

Someone asked a question on a facebook forum as to what was the best RV modification/upgrade that you have done. Well, the best thing we ever did was to add solar panels to the roof and a decent battery system to the motorhome. Given the cost of a new RV, I can't figure why they don't come with solar panels and a decent battery system right from the factory. But, of course everybody has their own idea of how much electricity they need, so I guess it's better kept as an aftermarket installed option.

We love being self sufficient for electricity! That's what allows us to sit in one spot like we are now without having to listen to the daily drone of a generator.

We were right...

This is a very quiet peaceful spot to hang out for a few days. That could change today and tomorrow as they fill the big hot springs pool, but even if it does get a little busy, it won't bother us. We enjoy seeing people out having fun.

It turns out that this place is very busy during busy season. I was talking to our host yesterday and he said that when Semana Santa (Easter holy week) begins, the place gets as many as 800 visitors a day.

Back to the countryside!

We walked to the market one last time before leaving Dolores Hidalgo yesterday morning. Picked up a kilo of fresh tortillas for 12 pesos ($0.96 CAD), and a kilo of lean ground beef for 140 pesos ($11.20 CAD).

We hadn't asked for the price ahead of time, since ground beef has never been that expensive. But 140 pesos per kilo for ground beef is getting up there. Had we asked in advance, we probably would have shopped around a bit.

Lunch at the local market

We went for a walk around town. Dolores Hidalgo (pop 55,000) is not a huge place and we really didn't have a plan on where we were going, we just simply walked the streets until we got hungry enough to stop for lunch.

And what a great lunch we had!

We should be safe here!

We're normally up between 6:30am and 7:00am. So yesterday was the one day that we tried to get up a bit earlier than normal, and it was 7:20am by the time we looked at the clock. So much for early.

Not that it really mattered. We try to get an early start on travel days, but we were only planning on going 35 kms (22 miles) or so. And we had Trish and John coming over at 10:00am to take advantage of a ride in Sherman up to the small city of Dolores Hidalgo (pop 55,000).

Anyhow, everything worked out without being rushed.

Time for a change of scenery

We've been here four nights, so it's time to move on. Trish and John are coming over this morning and we're all taking a drive up to the small city of Dolores Hidalgo (pop 55,000). It's only located about 35 kms (22 miles) north of where we currently are, so it won't be a long drive. Just enough for a change of scenery!

And we heard from our friend Chris over at Living and Boondocking in Mexico who said that you can stay overnight in the parking lot of the municipal auditorium there, so we're going to check that out since it's located very close to downtown.