Los Barriles (Day 9 & 10)

Day 9: Saturday Life in the van...it's pretty cramped sometimes but we have worked out a good routine for getting everything ready for bed and for the morning. I am pretty sure that we could not do this everyday, meaning set-up and tear-down, but once you stay somewhere for a bit, it's pretty good:

the office/kitchen...

indoor laundry/living room...

bookroom/living room/bedroom...

upstairs storage/living room...

That's van living. You just have to know where to put everything!!

not sure what these are but boy are they big!!

Martin, the gardener here, will wash your rig for $1.50 US/foot.

I think he earned his money on this one!! This guy is getting redy to head back to Canada.

We walked down to the beach again to see what was new with everyone down there. Lots of wind today so lots of kite surfers!

Notice the colour of the water??

..re-appearance of Dago...at the beach no less!!

Our new favorite, Mexican popsicles.....

La Fogata, just a few steps away from the park. Really good food!!

Nice Snapper dinner!!!

Not much else to report yesterday. Sweet hot weather. Just the way we like it for sure! Man, are we ever going through the ice! Soon it will be as big an expense as gas (...and beer!)

Doug would like to advise that he has now worn shorts and flip flops for about 21 days straight (with only a brief two day period of jeans...until noon or so!!)

Thanks for coming along.........

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Day 10 Sunday-Bunny Day!! Well, we double checked around the van, but I guess the Easter Bunny couldn't find us!!

This morning there was an awesome Easter breakfast at the pool, put on by a few of the main-stayers here. Really nice to be invited as we are just "temporaries". We sat for awhile and had a nice visit with everyone. That was pretty much it for the day. Came back to the van and then proceeded to visit with the nice people next door, who were kind enough to introduce us to Chocolate Whipped Vodka.......very problem-matic, but hey, at least we got our chocolate for the day!!

Our neighbour, Susie...there's the vodka!!!!

Nothing else to report. Tomorrow we have been invited to go with Terri & Mike Church on a day trip excursion to Santiago. They are doing updates on their book and thought we might enjoy the ride. Really looking forward to it!

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!!

Los Barriles (Day 7 & 8)

Happy Easter to everyone!! I hope you all enjoy this long weekend. Spend time with those you love, okay?? You will notice that I am having to do the blog slightly different while we are here. Basically, the internet reception here SUCKS!!! (...even with our Telcel stick). I am getting completely flabbergasted with trying to upload pictures. It is taking sometimes 10 to 15 minutes of fiddling around to even upload one photo. This is why I have grouped some days together. A few stiff glasses of wine and tequila & I can summon the courage to "get 'er done!!"

Day 7: Thursday We went out for breakfast, probably Doug's favorite thing to do. There is a really nice little restaurant called Caleb's Place. It is up in one of the little neighbourhoods I told you about yesterday. It has a million dollar view, softly playing reggae music and GREAT people & food. Might have to make another trip before we leave!! What I really liked about this spot is that it is NOT on the main drag. It forces you up into the lovely neighbourhoods and allows you to mix even better with all the nice people (and by "mix" I mean at least getting to say "hola" to folks other than those in the main areas). We believe, more, we want to see something other than the main tourist drag. At least we rode our bikes & got some exercise. It is ALL up hill!!

looks pretty unasuming......

After breakfast, we rode around up top again. We really like it up here. It is a quiet and peaceful neighbourhood.. As you ride around, every once in a while, a dog comes racing out, barking his head off. He checks you out, deems you unworthy of the ruckus and then flops back down on the dirt driveway. That's it. No more energy is needed or is available. You have been warned...

This lovely pink shrine was at the entrance to a storage lot. These unexplained placings are one of the things that we love about Mexico...

That wrapped up the day. It is nearly a full moon. Here is the best I could do with the camera. I will try again tomorrow for the "full" moon!!

Tonight there was lots of traffic by the locals. Seems most are heading down to the beach. It will be interesting tomorrow, being Good Friday, to see how crowded it is! We sat across the street from a local restaurant that has cheezy, live music playing and just watched everyone going by.

Cheers!!

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Day 8: Good Friday After yesterday's immense breakfast up at Caleb's, we were back on track with our hot oatmeal & multi-grain toast. Pretty exciting stuff for sure!!


Oh, but of course, it was time for groceries - AGAIN!! Now, I am sure some of you suspect, by now, that we are feeding a small army or eating way too much. Truth is, again, we don't have much room in the van and really don't have a good way to bring home much at all.....until TODAY!! Doug fashioned one of our travel baskets up on the rat trap of his bike. We rode up to the grocery store and manmaged to fill it up quite nicely and it stayed put all the way home!!

...this is a LOT of food, don't you think??

You can see above just how much we brought home too! After unloading this IMMENSE amount of food, Doug got water from the little store across the street. He even managed to sweet talk the lady into not needing a deposit on the big water bottle as he brought it right back after filling up the tank in the van. Then it was off to the little fruit & veggie market across the street as well. My new routine for cleaning veggies & fruits. Fill the sink with our drinking water from the van. put in 5 or 6 drops of iodine and swirl them around for a few minutes. Take them out, re-fill the sink with clean water & rinse them. So far, just so far, I have managed NOT to kill us with iodine overdosing. However, if we both drop dead, someone could point out that maybe that's what it was!! (ha ha ha). I sometimes even use just good old soap and water but have learned through my experience (and experience is the BEST teacher) that lettuce and soap don't get along very well!!

After ALL these chores, we headed down to the beach. There were lots of families there, enjoying themselves. There were definitely all varieties of camp set-ups. Check out a few. Notice one guy even brought his dump truck!! Was pretty neat. Unlike in Canada, where you would have to park a mile away and thn walk out with all your stuff (for the day only). They can drive right up on the beach and stake out their spot for the weekend!! FREE!!

...you gotta admit, he wouldn't have any trouble with how much stuff he wanted to bring!!

This is a "late" shot from Wednesday that I forgot to include.

Already they were getting ready for the festivities!! 

So, I tried to get a photo, again, of the full moon. Not too successful, but at least it was something. 

We have also had the pleasure of getting to briefly talk to Terri & Mike Church while they are here in the park. In our minds, they are the GURU's of  Mexican camping and the authors of the books that you have all seen by our sides for the past few years. They are as warm & genuine in person as they come across in the books. We have listened to them speak twice in Abbotsford BC at the RV show. We will really enjoy getting to sit down with them over a glass of wine (or two) this weekend!

Cheers!

(This is actually posting on Saturday. I will do a real Saturday posting this evening and see if it goes any better!!)

Los Barriles (Day 5 & 6)

Tuesday: Walked up to the mercado to get a few things in the morning. We walked because Doug's bike got a flat tire so it is on the agenda to fix today. This is a very nice town to get around in, walking or riding:

Considering that the tins on the right are the "normal" size.......

So with a "few" groceries in hand we came back and Doug got started on his bike tire. Out came the handy, dandy repair kit that he got (and his refreshment) and presto:

Well, a man must have his Pacifico!!

Bike all fixed!!!!

Well, that wrapped up Tuesday. Not much new.....BUT, we did play Scrabble again (hey, it's hard to always fit it into our routine now, what with all that sunshine, swimming, etc.)

Nancy's days without make-up: 26

Scrabble Wins: Doug 6 - Nancy 4

Wednesday:

Waiting for morning coffee.....

Just waiting....

and watching....

Pretty cool sand sculpture and pretty big!!

I believe some of it has been broken, but it is still something to see!!

After the beach walk, we rode up to the dentist office. I had a filling put on my molar with the hope that it will last a long time. Seems to do a crown, with the upcoming Easter holiday would have taken about 3 weeks and we just don't want to be here quite that long! Here's hoping it lasts!! (Cost: $60 US - lovely Mexicali University trained dentist)

After the dentist it was time for another bike ride and another small trip to the store (hey, when you are riding bikes everywhere, you don't bring many things back at once!!) We rode a long way up through the back part of town. You can see by the water in the background, how far we have gone. Mostly up here it is pretty regular neighbourhoods, all dirt roads, everyone always waves and says "Hola"!!

Then time for pretty much the greatest of Mexican snacks: FRESH corn tortillas and peanut butter (well, the peanut butter is my idea!!)

I just liked this shot. It was up the top of town, the entrance to the cemetery but somehow, I think I caught it, just right......

Alrighty then, that's the last two days. We will still be here tomorrow and then I think we will be packing up to head down to the Cabo area.

Cheers!! 

Los Barriles (Day 4)

Didn't go far today, of course, in this town, there isn't far to go! Our biggest excitment was finding some propane canisters at the local little mercado. We will pay through the nose for them, but at least we will have a few more. We were running low but we could only bring so many of them from Canada and, believe me, we loaded up with about 6 of them...

Anyway, we rode around and checked out the local stores and then had a pretty cheap "early dinner/late lunch" and YES, I finally had my first beer here in Mexico. My kids would be so proud of me, and I must say, I did enjoy it but I did have to add some lime, being a newbie and all!!

After our lunch/dinner we rode out to Playa Norte which is about 1.5 kms out of town. It is the beach furtherst north of town. We had bumped into David from San Francisco (remember, he is the one with the Great Dane named Likely) at the mercado so we wanted to check out what his campsite was like. Of course, on the way, we had to stop for a little herd of goats crossing the road!! I love that!!

Playa Norte is nice, but a bit rustic. Bathrooms looked nice enough (which, believe me, when you don't have your own, that is important!!) They have a nice, big beach surrounded by a fence to keep the cows and goats out!

The sites are quite well-defined, but you can't tell from this photo, sorry!

Well, embarassingly, that is it for the day. We had a quick dip in the pool and did laundry. I know, pretty much a low-key day. I got my appointment at the dentist for Wed @ 2 pm, so I will keep you all up to date as to how that goes. Sounds like a great lady dentist. I will leave you with these last two shots:

...the sign says "Lavanderia" - laundry, pretty sweet set-up!!

Normally, I wouldn't bore you all with this photo, but there was just something about your clean clothes hanging amongst the flowers, being guarded by the iguanas on the roof!!

Well, that's our day. If we aren't doing something more exciting than riding around and doing laundry, I won't bother posting until Wednesday after the dentist visit!! Maybe we will have to "squeeze" in a Scrabble game tomorrow - we'll check with our hectic social schedule!!

Take care of each other!!

Cheers!

Los Barriles (Day 3)

Artisan show was really nice. Seems that there were alot of American artists and not quite as many Mexican folks as I had hoped, but still, it was very nice. There was a food/beer garden and a live band so everyone seemed to have a good time!

Some really great artisans here....

Then we walked next door to check out the Las Palmas Hotel. Very nice, two different pools and several restaurants. Not sure how much it costs, but seemed pretty busy:

After all that, we came back "home" and had a lovely dip in the pool. Most of my family would laugh hysterically to watch us trying to do a "timed" photo, complete with me running around the pool, trying not to slip to get in the water in time. I know I have a bruise in a spot I won't mention because of it, but, still it was fun!!

Just when we think we are getting tanned, it's time to get in the water....yup, still have

 those Canada tans!!

After all that, we looked up at the bathroom building and saw the mommy iguana and baby - that was pretty cool, especially since  the mommy is pretty big, her body is about the size of your hand (not including the neck, head and tail) She lives in the roof above the ladies side of the bathroom and you can hear them at night, ocassionally, digging around! In the second shot, you can see the baby on the lower left-hand side. Pretty sure they came out to see what all the racket was!!

After that it was time to make fruit salad, still the oranges from the orange grove in Mulege and a grapefruit picked by someone here at the park on a quad trip up the valley. It was probably the best grapefruit we ever had. We had one for breakfast today and the other is marinating in the fruit salad in tequila and sugar!!

Now, this is my kitchen, and I don't mind!!

So that's it for the day, except for the slight change in my husband. Seems the Spanish language can't say "Doug" so he has now been dubbed "Dago" by our Cuban friend in Mulege. Sorry kids, but this is the new Dad:

On a different note: This is a special shout out to our dear sister-in-law, Diana Beglaw. There was a big celebration in Langley BC last night for Diana. She has been cancer-free for 10 years now, yes, a whole decade!!! She fought the BIG fight and came out victorious!! We are very sorry to have missed this special night. We hear, from our sources, that it was quite the surprise (and maybe even a few tears were shed!!) Lots of money was raised for the Cancer society "Relay for Life". Way to go Diana and everyone!! We are very proud of you and you know we stand behind you all the way. I know many people were helpful in organizing this but a special nod to her kids: Brandon & Deanna (oh pregnant one!!) and Kyle & Amanda. But the biggest supporter of all ,her husband Don (Doug's brother)!! We love you all!! Everyone, get out there and support your local chapter of Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life!!

...and that, my friends is a wrap for today!!

Cheers!!