Dec 5, 2021
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| Totonaka RV Park, San Carlos Mexico *Click on any picture to enlarge |
Hard to believe it’s only been three weeks that we’ve been here at Totonaka RV park. It seems like longer, we’ve settled in nicely and are now turning our eyes to our next stop which will take us further down the coast to Los de Marcos which is just over an hour north of Puerto Vallarta. Before I share more about that though, here’s an update of our time so far here in San Carlos.
Date of arrival: November 14, 2021
Temperature: 33 degrees celsius
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| Top: Our 1st spot before we realized the afternoon sun made it impossible to sit outside Bottom: The spot we moved to day 3, further back in the park |
The first part of our adventure involved figuring out the power situation at our site. Although we paid for a 50 amp site (which I admit I was surprised to hear they offered), we couldn’t find any site that we could plug into without having issues. Thankfully a nearby neighbour saw us walking around from site to site to test the outlets and he came over to help. He too was from BC, lots of Canadians here. As it turned out, he had an extra auto former he was selling for a friend. After buying that from him, we were set. No worries about frying our electrical system as the auto former helps to regulate the infamously high and variable power here in Mexico. We had planned to buy one down here as they are much cheaper than if you buy in Canada. Bonus that we got one second hand!
The beach here is gorgeous, right across the street from the park. There are many other beaches too within a short driving or walking distance. The beach across from us has a few palapas, a ramp to walk down and a larger ramp for boat access. I don’t think you could launch a boat on a trailer from the ramp as it is really steep. It does work great for us to bring our Hobie Tandem Island (TI)kayak down to the beach. We walk it from our site across the road and into the water.
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| Sunset pictures Top: Looking West toward the sunset and the extinct volcano Tetakawi Bottom: Looking East at the moon bright in the sky |
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| Heffay LOVES the beach! His favourite part is chasing the shadows the birds cast as they fly overhead 🤣 HeyZeus on the other hand is not too keen about the beach yet. He chose to stay in his carrier instead of exploring |
We’ve gotten into a nice routine here. Everyday we’re up just before the sun rises. Heffay is primarily to thank for that, but I’m surprised to say how much we actually enjoy getting up that early. It is a beautiful time of the day, quiet and cool. Plus, even though we’re up early everyday there is always time for an afternoon siesta! The day starts with a walk around the park and over along the beach with Heffay. He’s learning to “heel” but is always very tempted at all the smells and surprises on the ground - especially when the stray cats in the area help out by pulling chicken bones out of the garbage. UGH! I’m constantly saying “What are you eating?” And reaching my hand into his mouth to recover his latest treasure. I’m hoping he’ll grow out of that. While Heffay and I are out and about, Dan takes HeyZeus for his daily morning walk. He’s is so much like a dog, it’s crazy! That is except for the cries he makes as he basically demands his morning walk. He’s got quite the vocal cords.
We keep forgetting Heffay is still a young pup and still has lots of learning to do. It’s not hard to forget he’s a pup given his size already. I’d guess he’s near to or just over 60 lbs now. He’s such a great dog, very smart and a great temperament. He loves everyone and wants to visit with every person and play with every dog 🥰. And, slowly but surely he’s winning over HoseHey and HeyZeus. They still don’t hesitate to put him in his place though. Sweety on the other hand, she’ll have nothing to do with him…she’s too old to put up with his shenanigans!
We’ve had a few great days out on the water in the kayak already. Learning something new every time we go out. Primarily learning how to transport it even easier and also having a few fun moments like realizing shortly after we launched that we forgot to put the plug back in! Ack! But as the title says, no bad days. We quickly recovered and set sail again. We absolutely LOVE the TI, it is the best boat we’ve ever had and is SO much fun. We laugh now as being boat owners for many years who liked fair weather boating, we were always looking for days when the wind was slow or non-existant. With this TI though, we WANT the wind to fill our sail and take us exploring with little to no manual effort at all! It’s AWESOME! I made a short video of our first time out. Click here to watch it.
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| Pelicans and Dolphins! |
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| Our paracord bracelet/keychain hobby |
I guess my final update is that we just set up our Telcel cellular plan. We realized quickly that the Solis Wi-Fi plan we had wasn’t going to allow us to keep in touch back home. We burned through our monthly 20GB of 4G data within a week. We still have 3G unlimited which does allow us to do most things online without much difficulty but isn’t fast enough to allow us to FaceTime, even if audio only. So, to Telcel I went. Thankfully, they had someone who spoke enough English to help get us set up. Although I’ve been learning Spanish and trying to use it, I’m finding it a bit difficult to understand them as they talk so fast and the masks (still mandatory indoor everywhere here) also makes it a bit difficult. No worries, though, I’ll get there! Oh yeah, back to the Telcel plan (squirrel!). It is an amazingly cheap plan…12 GB of data and unlimited talk and text throughout Mexico, the US and Canada for only $30 Canadian a month. Awesome! So now we can keep connected back home.
Oh wait! That’s not my final update…how could I forget! We had a MAJOR change on Nov 30….I got a new husband! Although Dan loved his “epic” long white beard, after the second veteran in the park asked him if he was in Vietnam too…he thought it was time to shave it off. 😳🤣 I have to say, it was a truly epic beard. My bet is that he’ll start to grow it once again. Time will tell.
Still loving every minute of our adventure. Looking forward to our next stop which will take us further down the coast into Los de Marcos to Bungalos El Caracol (link) where we’ll spend Christmas and welcome in the New Year. We’ll be there from December 15 to January 31. We’re super excited for this next stop where we’ll be right on the beach and into a different climate. We’ll be going from the desert down into the jungle area where Dan is looking forward to hearing his birds! The ones we’re used to hearing when we vacationed here in the past. More on that in a future post, after I figure out what they are called!
