Puerto Escondido

Happy new years! Well, now we are in puerto escondido with all our friends! We arrived yesterday afternoon after a hot hot drive from the north! Puerto escondido is soooo different than i remember it. Tourism has definitely arrived here! So we are just going to hang out here for a few days and chill out at the beach. Hopefully do some surfing, although the surf is very strong here… we will see!

Yesterday we met some people in a van doing the same trip as us. They helped hans, Amelie and bryan get a hotel room (everything was booked!). they said that the night before their van was almost broken into… now one of their locks don´t work. So last night we were sleeping in the van on the street – it was very hot and the bugs were eating me! All of a suden… knock knock on the door at like 2 in the morning. Sylvain woke up and kind of freaked a bit… turns out it was bob mccauley! Just wandering home after the bar, and saw the yukon plates! Pretty funny reunion!!!

Anyways, everyone have a great new years and enjoy the night! Sylvain and marsha






the three amigos!








tough day

road block!

Pie de la Cuesta

Happy new year!

Firstly, patrick - we have mexican insurance!! We are all good!

Well, currently we are in Pie de la Cuesta, about 10 kms north of Acapulco. We have covered a lot of distance in teh last week or so. The main reason for driving quickly was to pick up Sylvain´s friend Bryan in Acapulco.

After spending 5 days in Chalaca, we headed south. The mex 200 is a good hwy but very windy and up and down. Which menas we go show! Our first stop was melaque, which is about .5 hours north of manzanillo. It was an almost free beach with lots of canadian snowbirds. Almost everyone in the campgrounds are from bc, with a healthy mix of quebecois. Almost no americans. We managed to meet one person our age, Ceslo from san diego area, and proceded to drink ourselves silly! For our part, it was fun to hang out with someone who was doing the same trip as us, and for him, he has been traveling solo save for his dog… we all had things to say, and tequila and rum loosen tongues!!!

Needless to say, the next day was a very slow start!! The drive along the Michoacán coast was amazing. We both can´t wait to go back and explore slowly. White sand beaches, surf, little villages with palm huts – paradise!

We picked up bryan and brought him back to Pie de la Cuesta with us. Unfortunately he was in the midst of a nasty flu… his first day and a half were a bit slow paced. And now he is better, but last night sylvain picked up his bug – will i be next???

Poops is doing great. The other day i was at a red Light and traed to go on the green – but i couldn´t! there was absolutely no pressure on the gas pedal! Luckily i was able to get to a side street. Sylvain discovered that a screw had fallen out that connected the gas pedal to the engine-y parts (excuse the technical language). So he was able to fit another screw in there, but it was only a temporary fix. He asked if i could go back and find the screw or bushing on the highway… like i know what they look like! So i went back to the scene of the crime and started picking up misc mechanical parts from the side of the road that i thought matched his description. I went back and displayed my auto parts collection – and lo and behold! Our missing screw! So after a few high-5´s, we were back on the road!

Now we are just relaxing until hans and Amelie arrive on Friday. Then we are heading about 8 hrs south of Acapulco to puerto escondido!

sylvain sick on the beach

boys doing the dishes

praying for our safety on the road

nice views!

sylbano sur la playa

people camping on the beach!

melaque at night

Check it out!!!













La baie de Chacala, the best in the west!!!









Ma premiere lagoustine a vie!!! Delicieux!!!










La petite poops a cote des meilleurs voisin du monde!!! Ils sont Quebecois biensur... hi,hi,hi

Poops all shiny and clean, just for you Reggy.

Sylvain playing frisbee by himself.

sun sun sun!

Just about to write my blog, and a drunk mexican girl just totally punched her boyfriend square in the face! And we have front row seats for all the action!!! crazy...

i have a bunch of pics to put in, but this blog thingy HATES ME for some reason and every single entry is like pulling teeth. i have lost my patience again!!! maybe manana some pics will show up!

well, we´ve been lazing the days away in Chacala. it is about 1/2 way between mazatland and puerto vallarta - but is miles away from that insanity! we went to san blas, which is supposed to be a surfing mecca. probably is, but we aren´t in the wavy season anymore. all we saw was a beautiful beach, lots of sand flies and some weird american ex-pats! we decided to continue down the road. we got a whole 15 kms and decided to stop.

next stop was chacala! we pulled into our beach slot beside rene and denis, a couple from quebec. very cool people. this is their 5th winter in mexico and have been a wealth of information. they have told us a bunch of free parkings along the west coast - can´t wait to try them out!

the waves are pretty fun here. i havevn´t been this beaten by waves since puerto escondido many years ago!

tomorrow we are heading further south. to where? don´t know yet. we will stop when we feel like it! our only goal is acapulco on the 29th to pick up hans and amelie.

life in poops is good. it is hot hot hot during the day but it cools down at night. sylvain fixed all of our bug screens so we have a nice bug free breeze at night. it is also pretty cool to wake up hearing hte ocean and seeing stars out the roof. we have discovered that one of our pillows is much more comfy than the other--- it is a mad dive to get it first each night!

we have discovered more great benefits of drinking beer. when you return 2 big bottles (about 1000 ml), the return deposit leaves the 3rd bottle purchase at about 15cents... also, if you drink 5 big bottles, you return the 5 beer caps to receive one big beer free! are you following the math? buy 5 beers, get 2 free (one from recycling fee and the other from the caps) and then get another beer for cheap... turn those in, get 1 more free beer, and 1 at a discount... turn those 5 caps in for another free beer... it is a paradise!

Enfin de la chaleure!!!

Hola amigo y amiga, c’est encore nous, nous avons finalement échappé au grand froid du nord pour arriver sous le soleil chaud de Mazatlan sur la côte ouest de Mexico. La route entre Durango et Mazantlan était une des plus belles et des plus dangeureuses que j’aille vue jusqu'à date. Elle s’appelle El Espinazo del diablo = La colonne vertébrale du diable, des paysages à en coupé le souffle et des descentes à en donner des frissons. Nous avions 320km de route à faire et ça nous a prit 8heures, courbe après courbe, nous filions à une vitesse moyenne de 40 km/h. Finalement nous arrivâmes à Mazatlan vers la fin de l’après-midi, juste à temps pour notre premier couché de soleil sur la playa del Mexico.

Donc nous avons passé deux jours dans un RV park dans la zone touristique de Mazatlan. On s’aurrait cru au Canada tellement il y avait de monde du BC et de l’Alberta. On pensait que nous avions amené beaucoup de baggages avec nous mais on s’est vite rendu compte du contraire lorsque nous sommes arrivés dans ce camping. Ce qui m’amène a vous parler des différents types de voyageurs que nous avons rencontrés…


Sierra Del Madre Occidantal
















This is Sylvain passing a semi truck on a blind corner. He is learning how to drive like a loco... I mean, a local.






Premier couché de soleil








Il y a le type économique qui se déplace avec sont véhicule de tout les jours et camp ou ça lui plait avec sa tente.







Il y a le type un peu plus luxueux qui a un petit winnabago avec toutes les commodités de la maison.







Il y le type Gros Luxe qui ne veut rien manquer. Généralement équipé d’un gros méga Winnabago accompagné de leur véhicule de ville, de son satellite pour la t.v. et de tout les gadgets inimaginables.





Et finalement le type plus aventurier, avec le stricte minimum, équipé d’un Vanagon de préférence ou toute autre mini van aménagé pour le camping. Très versatile, économique, autosuffisant et qui peut camper à pas mal n’importe quel endroit dans ce monde. C’est pourquoi dès maintenant nous essayerons d’éviter les grands centres touristiques et irons à la découverte des petites places moins développées. Direction San Blass, petit village de 9000 habitants, réputé pour ses longues vagues pour le surf. À suivre…

Durango!

well, we were heading to creel, in the mountains - for some biking and hiking in the massive Copper Canyon.

we left chihuahua and had about 100 kms to drive to reach our next campsite. as we left at about 2.30pm we had lots of time. then it started raining. then we arrived in the city with the camp area - and we lost the highway! in fact, we lost all highways! the book told us some highway numbers, the signs said different ones... we ended up crossing that crazy city about 5 times in a raging rain storm in the dark during rush hour! once again, broke both rules as it was VERY STRESSFUL!

after about 1.5 hours of searching, we finally found our spot. good timing too, because there was now a blizzard outside! yes, mucho snow in mexico! our yukon van was experiencing only it´s 4th time driving in snow and our first time sleeping in the van in the snow - IN MEXICO! so our plans for the canyon have been cancelled for now. creel is another 600m in elevation and the forecast calls for more snow in the 3-4 days! definitely time for the beach!

driving is definitely a different traveling experience than taking busses and hotels all the time. it is much more chaotic and less structured! you kind of have to go on the faith that the other drivers don´t want to be in an accident either...
yesterday we were driving along the highway, and luckily we were going slow around a corner because a horse leapt out of the ditch onto the road! scared the hell out of us!!! all we could do was swerve out of the way and yell ¨jesus cristo!
so we are leaving the snow and are heading south - should be running on the beach in a few days!

i am just going to put the pics at the bottom, as it is very time consuming... here is our map of where we are currently. the dark pic of poops is actually poops in a snow storm!

Mexico - try two...

I´ll try to recap what i meant to write the other day... for those that are not used to my email style, i don´t do capitals and it is rare for punctuation... takes too much time!

We´re in mexico! we left victoriaville on friday, december 1st. it felt pretty good to leave as a big snowstorm was developing - time for some sun! our plan was to drive right to mexico without any major US stops. sylvain really wanted to go to memphis, so that was our only destination other than el paso, texas!

mostly the drive was pretty uneventful - which is great when driving poops! our canadian insurance was cancelled for december 7th, and it was looking like we wouldn´t make it through texas on time. poops has a max speed of 100 km/hr on flat land... so we decided to extend our cancellation date by a few days to allow us to continue in a relaxed fashion.

we have two basic rules for poops and this trip. 1) take it slow, no rush, no stress and 2) never drive at night when we are down south for a variety of reasons.

However, the insurance company was not able to un-cancel our insurance, and we would have to take out another policy and pay a helft cancellation fee (?!). it is a good thing that we called though, because it turned out that our insurance was ending at 00:01 december 7th, and not 23:59 december 7th as we had assumed. so it gave us approximately 13 hours to go 1200 kms - we wanted to cross the border around noon because the closest town and first destination was about 400 kms from the border - and rule number 2 says no driving at night in mexico!

so, we drove like madmen, going warp speed of 100 km/hr, even passed 2 cars! made the border crossing for 2 pm and spent about an hour getting our paperwork in order, and we were in!!! the drive to chihuahua was really pretty. desert like with big mountains in the distance. it felt great to be in nature again! it has been a while!!

so the sun was setting and we were still 100 kms from the city. 1st day of the trip and we broke both rules! we arrived in pitch black into a huge, busy city without a place to stay. we found a large parking lot and asked the security guards if we could stay the night there.

they said no, and a whole bunch of stuff i didn´t understand. the conversation kind of went somethign like this:
them: ¨bla bla bla¨
me: ¨como?¨
them: ¨bla bla bla¨
me: ¨no intiendo¨
them: ¨bla bla bla¨
me: ¨no es beuno?¨
them: ¨bla bla bla¨
me: ¨como?¨
(long pause) them: si, ok, ok
me: (big smile) ahh muchas gracias!

we had a big laugh about that. not only could we park, but it was free! isn´t communication great?!

chihuahua

well, just did a huge blog with pics, and it vanished. grr. anyhoo, we are in mexico now! we made it, and are in chihuahua. we are heading west today, where it is apparently snowing. great!

i will write more again when my patience has been restored.

Poutine

Hummm, une bonne poutine... ça fait seulement 5 jours que nous avons quitté le Québec et je m'ennuie déjà d'une bonne poutine. Alors pour être sur que je me rappel à quoi ressemble la meilleure poutine au monde, j'ai prit quelques photos de mes poutines préférées.


The Poutine contest!!! Ici nous voyons les juges

qui s'apprettent à tester ces magnifiques poutines...

La grande gagnante est sans aucun

doute la poutine traditionnelle sauce brune,

frite maison de chez Annie.

La poutine chinoise. Elle se déguste très bien en fin de soirée après avoir prit plusieurs consommations alcoholisées. Elle remet l'estomac en place!!

La poutine Galvaude pour les amateurs

de petits pois et de poulet. Un petit peu plus santé...

Une poutine italienne, pour les

amateurs de sauce a spagetthi.

Une poutine ordinaire avec sauce BBQ,

ça fait changement de la sauce brune.

Et voici une cliente satisfaite!!! Vous pouvez

constater que la poutine chez Annie elle est

quelque chose. Et c'est seulement une petite.

VIVA LA POUTINA!!!!!

USA all the way

Well, we have made it south. Hopefully it will be getting warmer soon!!! We have been freezing every night... Poops is not so well insulated for winter travel!

We stopped in Tennessee for a break, and were in for a culture shock. How do they learn to talk like that?! The guy in the parts department of the auto shop was continually spitting his tabacco juice into all the garbage cans... a new level of customer service!

We are trying to get to Mexico as soon as possible - but Poops has another itinerary! Now we are in farm land (flat) we can max out at 100 km/hr, but the usual is around 80km/hr. The miles don't seem to fly by as they should!

I thought we had some other funny stories, but we are lacking inspiration right now. By the way, we lucked out and are posting from the "Best Coffee Shop" (with free internet) in Texarkana. This city is on the border of Texas and Arkansas - if you couldn't tell.

Mexico here we come!!!!

And we're off!!

This is it! We are heading south on December 1st! A few days behind schedule, but all is good!

We will keep you updated!!!!

Marsha and Sylvain