Scenery around Aticama

Our 188 mile trip to here.

Had some heavy rain and lots of thunder yesterday afternoon. And dark sky behind us – north – and rolls of thunder this morning. Supposed to get heavy rain again in a while and last off and on till Tuesday. At least it has cooled down to the mid 70s but still HUMID! Kind of hung out around here yesterday except for a short drive on the beach and then by road a ways south. This is heading north on the beach towards San Blas. No one out on the beach ‘cause of the weather.

Only went as far as where they are building a new wharf.

It happens to be right where the new Autopista from Tepic to San Blas will end.  Problem is the Autopista isn’t open yet. Maybe in March. Will sure make it a nicer easier trip to get here. Hope it does for the area what the Durango road is doing for Mazatlan. Then again maybe it will bring too much progress.

Some serious building going on.

We turned around and head back south towards Aticama, passing the RV park.

Over the sand and up the hill to the dirt road heading into town.

Passed some of the oyster fishermen out getting their catch for the day. They use inner tubes with a net attached to hold the oysters.

Just a view of the ocean.

A mural we went by – don’t remember from last time.

Another view of ocean and tropical growth.

One of many banana plantations.

Look at the fence posts – they are growing into trees. Stick it in the dirt and it grows here.

A view of little river at edge of Aticama – for those of you who read Tioga and George this is where he stayed at lot while here. In fact it is where we met him. Now there are palapas built there.

Driving north through Aticama. Here too the road has been repaved. Thank goodness it was really bad a few years ago.

Pass these guys sitting in the shade of a dump truck. The boy is sitting the man is working on something.

Today we hope to get into San Blas to the market, but kind of waiting for the weather to stop being so Wet! 

El Chaco RV Park and San Blas

It is cloudy and warm and muggy here in Aticama – hopefully it will rain and get it over with. We haven’t done to much but go into San Blas a couple of times to eat. And just hide out from the humidity. (if there are a lot of typing errors please forgive them - the tape over my broken fingernail finger keeps doing its own thing.) Living in paradise - Bill just asked what day it was and I had to look on the computer to figure it out!

Here is part of the road heading into San Blas. Lots of vegetation around here. Tropical and other wise.

The street leading into San Blas – last time we were here a couple of years ago it was more pothole than pavement. Since then it has been paved. Bill says it's no fun to drive any more - he can't zig zag all over the street. 

The arch leading into the main street of town – the street we drove down in 1978 in the motorhome. There wasn’t near as much town then. – read all about it in our book  All The Way to Argentina! Plug done.

Last time we were here a couple of years ago there was a lot of work going on in town. The arch is newly painted and the street newly paved.

All the wiring on this street was put underground. And ALL the buildings were refaced and painted. Kind of strange that they are all white though. I like the old fashioned street lights.

I wonder if the town is trying to become a Pueblo Magico. One of the things with a Pueblo Magico is all the signs for the businesses have to be the same. And now all the signs are like this one.

Another longer view of the street and a better look at the street light. Neat huh?

More of the signs. Got to love it – the front of the buildings are painted but not the sides.

Stopped to walk around the main plaza – watched this Huichol man doing some beading.

Looking across at the old and new churches – side by side.

See the little lady – she is about 4 ½ feet tall and quite old. Ever since we’ve been coming here she and her equally old, small husband have set up their stand every night in the main plaza.

Lots of bicycle, scooter and pedestrian traffic in San Blas to watch out for.

This is really blurry but is something we see all the time – four people on this scooter.

This morning I took a walk around the campground and took some pictures. Here is the Alfa behind the jeep - lots of grass and flowers around this year. There are four of us here - one open space.

 Looking at the beach and the palapas - very cloudy sky - expecting rain later in day. 

 Part of the campground - all palm trees. 

An area of hammocks by the restaurant. Nice and shady.

 The pool area

 The restaurant

 Inside the restaurant

And in case anyone is wondering - no bug bites so far.

And that’s about it for this time. It is getting darker and darker out – but not cooler – ugh. Still don’t know what the campground is costing us as the owner is in the states and won’t be back until next week. Gotta love Mexico. 

We are in Aticama again

Good Morning from Aticama – right now I don’t have any Internet connection – the Banda Ancha only works when it wants to here. And those times are few and far between. So I’m waiting to get the passcode from the park.  So anyway – yesterday.

We got up early finished getting everything ready and went across the street for breakfast at Torres. Getting the day off to a good start. Then off we went for about one mile to the gas station. Oh boy! We needed a LOT of gas. 3668.71 pesos worth! Around US$ 255.  That was 68 gallons at 3.80 a gallon. Not cheap to travel here any more

.So about 9:30 we got on the highway. Love the new bypass around Mazatlan, makes it so much easier and quicker. The only problem is there are no gas stations unless you get off the Autopista – so going north or south you have to plan ahead for gasoline.

Down the road a ways we passed all these vendors selling shrimp tamales and dried shrimp. Must have been about twenty of them.

Here the road was divided but most of it was two lanes with decent shoulders. This was a Fiscal Inspection – we got waved right through. No idea what a Fiscal Inspection is – glad we don’t have to know.

Leaving Sinaloa and into the state of Nayarit.

Continued down the highway until our turn off – and luckily we didn’t miss it. Here I have to mention the tolls for the day. We drove total 188 miles, probably 30 of them not on a toll road. The cost – a whopping US $80! About 50 cents a mile! At least the road was mostly good. If only two lane. Not fun to get stuck behind a police man doing 40 miles an hour with his light on and/or a double semi carrying a load of crushed cars – barely moving. Poke poke poke along. Back to getting off the Autopista. Onto a very narrow secondary road that got much narrower crossing over this bridge. Not even a bicycle could have shared it with us.

Passing through a little town with four topes – school was just getting out. Everyone shouted HELLO!

This is a very agriculture area – I think this is rice. Also tobacco, corn and bananas.

Into the town of Villa Hidalgo. Since we were here last a couple of years ago they have repaved the main street. Very nice and smooth now – but they didn’t take out the topes – another nine of them.

Continued on down to Guadalupe Victoria where we make the turn to San Blas – a distance of 17 miles and there were a total of 20 topes. We were dreading this stretch of road cause it used to be potholes with a little road around them. It too had been repaved. But it is still pretty narrow. Bill came to a stop and let this truck ease by us.

Just a pretty view. The mountains in the background are up by Tepic – lots of clouds over them.

Where there is a vendor there is a tope – more tamales. In front of the Corona distributor. 

Turning to head into El Chaco RV around 2:00.  I’ll take some pictures and write more about the campground later.

After getting set up and settled we headed into San Blas for FOOD. Bill was starving. We stopped at Tradiciones restaurant.

The owner Javier, the cook, Victoria and Bill. We were greeted with hugs and smiles. Like returning home to family.

Bill had chili rellenos over chicken milanese with fries, I had the same chicken with guacamole and we shared a big salad. He had coke and I had ice tea. Javier had to go to the store next door to buy them as he no longer stocks them. Cheaper to buy them. He also ran out to the central market to get the ingredients for the salad. I love Mexico.

The tables in the restaurant.

After eating we walked up to the plaza for churros. Again a great welcome – Everyone wanted to know where we were last year. Why we didn't come down. 

We also stopped and talked to the Huichol woman who made Bill’s hat bands. Got big hugs from her. As they talked she had tears in her eyes. Then on home where we watched the sun set.

To bed early.