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We made it!!!
For those keeping track of how many miles I drove...
Day 1: 414
Day 2: 698 (never again)
Day 3: 467.5
Day 4: 508.9
Day 5: 382.0
Day 6: 352.3
Grand Total: 2823 miles
And the award for worst roads goes to....
It's a tie: Shreveport, LA and Sinaloa, MX!
Our second day of travel displayed landscapes of ALL kinds! We had mountains similar to what we saw in New Mexico and Arizona, flat land that extended for m i l e s like in Texas, then in turned into green vineyards, orchards, and farmlands like in Louisiana, and finally the lush, tropical seascapes of Florida. Scroll through the pics below and you will see two of my favorite sights while in Mexico: the goats (sometimes they were cows or horses) that just congregate on the sides of the highways grazing without a care in the world and the tiny, rural Cruz Roja (Red Cross) medical station in the middle of nowhere!
We had to go through a bunch of tolls on the way down. Half were free via the "Libre Transito" initiative. The ones that were free had people standing at them requesting donations. I did not donate. I did not even roll down my windows. The people were nice enough, but COVID!! No thank you!! The government down here also does not play when they ask people to slow down. They have things called "topes" (pronounced toh-pehs) and "vibradores" (pronounced vee-brah-door-ehs) that WILL take you to a near halt. The topes are like our speed bumps, but sooo much worse - they're HUGE! And the vibradores are bumps on the road that gradually lessen in distance until your entire car is vibrating if you go over them too quickly. I didn't take pictures of them, but if you are curious you can read and see the suspension killers here!
The slow downs could be scary because townspeople would gather around the topes/vibradores and try to get you to stop and buy things or wash your windows or any number of things that were just super sketch. They would, literally, try to stand in front of the car to stop it. Nope, I would lay on the horn and just keep on rolling. There were quite a few people who did not appreciate how close I got to them with my vehicle, but - hey - they can easily remove themselves from my path, which they ultimately (and wisely) opted to do.
Anyway, we made it to the exit for the beaches of Mazatlan and you could immediately see the hotels peeking through the landscape. We are staying in El Sabalo Country (the Shade Country), which is one of the popular expat neighborhoods in Mazatlan. Look at how pretty!
By 3:15PM we made it to our condo building where our landlord greeted us and the security guard, thankfully, helped move all of our luggage to our new place. We were too tired to do anything, so we ordered some food and crashed. The following pics were taken the following morning. It was a little cloudy, but cleared up quickly. We (me, Mom, and Mia) grabbed desayuno at a local restaurant, which was DELISH! Then we spent the day by the pool. That was it. Our whole first day in Mazatlan!
I am going to start posting weekly so everyone can keep up with what we learn and how things unfold as we begin this new journey.
As always, we will wrap up with some Mom pics. PS, the most frequent statement during our trip was, "Awww, there it goes" as she missed a great shot and, "STUPID PHONE!" even though we all know it was user error.
Until next time!
Take a leap and choose JOY!
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