Winter in Mexico recap

Another cool morning here in the Arizona desert. The good news is during the day it isn’t getting real hot yet so we can keep the windows open and the AC off. The bad news is Bill’s allergies have started again. Zyrtec doesn’t seem to help – so maybe today we’ll go to a drug store and see if there is anything else. Guess we’ll keep the windows closed and use the AC if necessary.

We didn’t do anything yesterday except go out to breakfast and then come home and watch TV. Barcelona won their game, yippee! And then we watched the end of the NASCAR race. Not happy about the winner.

So decided to recap our four months in Mexico.

We spent 126 days in Mexico this year. Entering mid-November. We traveled 2200 miles in Mexico in the Alfa and another 2100 miles in the Jeep! That’s a lot of driving intense as it is in Mexico. Zillions of topes and a whole lot of toll booths to the tune of $640. On the whole the roads were pretty good. Except for the stretch in southern Sonora between Los Mochis and San Carlos. But they are being worked on. Bill rates them overall an 8 out of 10 – 10 being the best.

$1700 in campgrounds for an average of $13.50 a day. Expect for the two nights in the truck stops we had full hookups everywhere – and mostly 30amp electric. The park in San Carlos even had cable TV available.

Some campgrounds had WiFi at the site - some had it available in the offices. We used the TelCel Banda Ancha Internet service to stay online. It cost us $119 for the four months and we still have a couple of days left.

Our biggest expenses was eating out – sometimes three meals a day! Averaged out at $13 a day.

This year except for Bill’s cold and two day upset tummy we both remained very healthy. So much better than last year when we were both in the hospital! And his allergies didn’t bother him there at all.

No mechanical problems with the Jeep or the Alfa except for the clack, clack in the wheel which cost us $33.50 for the mechanic to take the wheel off and liberate the stone that was in there. For the first time in 10 years that wheel is not ticking.

We also spent $740 to have all nine storage bay doors on the Alfa refiberglassed and painted to get rid of the blistering that had been getting worse for years.

All in all it was a very good winter. We met a lot of great fellow travelers who we hope to keep in touch with and visited with many of our Mexican friends. Enjoyed the beautiful cities and small villages and great weather.  

If we head home following the shortest way it is 1700 miles. We could do it in eight days if we drove every day. NOT. But we usually wander around some. After all at home there will still be nights below freezing! So no real time for getting home. And so far no route in mind. 

Hum...have to find a new picture for my heading.