Turnkey Camping

​ Today was a laid back day. Pradit was able to zoom with his teacher and have some time to get caught up on schoolwork. Lucy and Jude did their schoolwork as well. Our tour guide from earlier in the week helped arranged water delivery and a propane delivery man came as well. We took a trip to Soriana - Mexico’s version of Walmart. We restocked groceries and came back just in time for happy hour and a drivers meeting.  Our sweet group got me a beautiful painted wooden platter because I stepped in as book keeper while our original Wagonmasters had to stay back in La Paz because of illness.  Our friends Jan and Paul stepped in as temporary wagon masters until our friends can catch back up. The group is doing really well and tomorrow is a big day with the Carnival Celebration. It is the third largest in the world.  

​ Today we had a country tour. We visited three small towns:   Las Osotos to see  dancing horses  (pretty sad),    La Noria Town to see demonstrations of leather handcrafts: belts, sandals, etc, and a cathedral, Vinata de los Osuna for a tequila tasting for some of the grown ups. Apparently tequila is made from the agave plant - it isn’t something I’ve ever liked.   They also made agave syrup there.  and finally  El Quelite Town with an authentic regional lunch.  The boys were able to ride horses and we even off roaded in an area where the bridge had washed out due to a hurricane. It was a good day but we are tired after a full day of touring!  

The morning started with a 9 am tour.  We were picked up at the campsite by five "Pulmonias".  They are open air Volkswagons.  Jude picked the car with the coolest rims and it just so happened that the tour guide landed in our car.  Each one seats 3-4 people plus the driver.  Our guide was so wonderful and told us all about the city!  She said that Mazatlan first got small Pullman Motor driven taxis years ago.  These small open air taxis arrived in the winter and people nicknamed them "Pneumonia".  At some point, they were swapped for VW's but the name stuck - so hundreds of "pneumonias" drive around the city transporting tourists wherever they would like to go.  It is a really fun way to explore the city - and a relief to not have to drive our big trucks around.   Our first stop was the malecon - a beachside walkway filled with vendors and paper mache statues celebrating upcoming Carnival.  Many of Mexico's cities have large m...

The Ferry Ride was the part of the trip that made me the most nervous.  We have been on a few ferries before - but this one is an 18 hour crossing - going across the Sea of Cortez / Gulf of California - about a 200 mile journey.  We were also loading 9 rigs onto the ship!  The morning of our departure in Tecolote, the wind really picked up and the waves were roaring.  We set out led by the green angels at 12:30 pm.  The ferry terminal was only about 20 minutes away and the drive was pretty - right along the coast.  All 9 of us were lined up in numerical order and we entered the terminal.  The guards checked our trailer vin numbers against our Temporary Import Permits and drug sniffing dogs went into some of the rigs.  We cleared the checkpoint and were then weighed and measured.  We found out that our rig fully loaded was 16,755 lbs!!  Quite a load.  Next, Stu went into a ticketing office to get his ticket and the rig paperwork -- d...

​This last stop has been one of my favorites. All of the Airstreams pulled up and backed in to the beach site. We could hear the waves as we slept with the windows open. On the first day, Lucy and I went down to the beachside restaurant with friends and had delicious grilled shrimp tacos and street corn.  On the second day, they pulled boats up to our campsite and we loaded up for a day of adventures. The first stop was La Bandarilla - proported to be one of the prettiest beaches in the world. There was a mushroom rock formation that was pretty. The guide told us that the soccer team  climbed on the rock and broke it so it is now artificial.   The boat went to Spiritu Sancto Island next - apparently there is a book by John Steinbeck called The Pearl  about this national heritage site. Our guide pointed out various rock formations - one looked like a gargoyle, another like a mask, a witch, and even the Baja Peninsula. The boat went thru a rock archway.  Next we w...

​ This has been one of our favorite cities so far!  I was due to have a gestational diabetes screening soon, so Stu took me into town to the East Cape Medical Center. Everyone was really friendly and the lab only cost $25 usd. He dropped me off at 8 am and went back to get the kiddos settled with breakfast and staring their day. The clinic drew my blood to check for baseline sugar levels after fasting, I drank a glucose solution and waited an hour - they drew my blood - and then waited another hour for the final blood draw. The results were emailed to me by 2 pm!  Everything looks good.  When the family picked me up, we talked over the idea of renting a side-by-side for a few days. The city roads are small and our truck is quite large. We decided it was a good plan - so we stopped by the rental facility and I drove the side by side back to the campground while Stu drove the truck.  We got settled and then started out on the day’s adventure. You are allowed to drive t...

​   (photo credit to my friend Janet. We are the rig with the bikes on back) We skipped the tour of Todos Santos because the long tours get difficult for the kids. Instead, we he a recharge/relax/reprovision day. We got groceries, diesel, water, ice, etc.  The group lined up at 9 am to head to Los Barillas. It was about an hour and 45 minute drive to the next campground. We are staying just off the beach and Bruce arranged a fun happy hour/Birthday party for our new friend Peter. Lucy, Stu and I walked across the street for tortas and fish tacos and the boys watched a movie. 

​ Yesterday the group had an organized city bus tour and lunch. The guide, Pamela, was adorable as spoke English very well.  We loaded up on a really nice bus and headed into La Paz. The tour started with a three story history museum.  A museum docent guided us through  - and the history covered early times through the Mexican Revolution. Next we walked next door to an old building that had once been a sanitorium, then prison and now a combined library and day care center.  The building was old and beautiful and we were told that it was haunted and had underground tunnels leading to the nearby mission.  The bus returned to the terminal and we walked around the city - stopping in the mission, some small  shops and then along the shoreline to lunch. The city was very clean and had beautiful sculptures near the water.  Lunch was across from the beach and included delicious desert.  While we were touring, Stuart and two of our friends - Peter and Fred...