Our arrival in Lo de Marcos, Nayarit - December 2021

March 4, 2022

Lo de Marcos, Bungalows El Caracol y Trailer Park

We arrived in Lo de Marcos the mid afternoon of December 15 as planned.  The drive from Mazatlan was uneventful…well except for STELLA our GPS!   We listened to her again instead of following the excellent directions we had printed from the Nogales to Puerto Vallarta road log created by Bill and Dorothy Bell of On the Road in Mexico (*blue font is a clickable link).  We SHOULD have gotten off the 15D onto hwy 200 which would take us through Tepic but Stella kept us on the 15D to save 20 minutes (not!).  It started out not so bad, as we turned toward the coastline.  Nice new stretches of concrete highway - wide, beautiful vistas.  Then as we approached the coast things got crazy.  Narrow windy roads with drop offs on either side, NOT meant for large rigs with trees overhanging.  Talk about S T R E S S!  But there was no turning around, we were committed.  Thankfully we got behind a transport truck so we just mirrored everything he did, if he was driving on the other side of the road, so were we.  So much for saving time, it easily added a super stressful hour onto the drive.

The route we should have taken - Hwy 200 through Tepic

The road Stella took us on.  Hard to tell from this map, but those curvy roads along the coast were a nightmare!

We eventually made it safely to Lo de Marcos.  And as we entered the small town we decided to turn Stella off shortly after she tried to route us down some narrow streets.  Well, let’s be honest, they are all narrow.  Especially with cars parked on either side.  Realizing Stella was no use to us, we turned her off and navigated by sight and feel.  Of particular importance was looking for low hanging wires and enough room on the street to get by/around.  With a rig that is 13.5 feet tall, keeping an eye out for low hanging wires is critical, particularly in small Mexican towns.  Although very bumpy due to washed out cobble stone roads with numerous topes (speed bumps), we made it in one piece to El Caracol bungalows and RV park.

It was a tight entry to El Caracol but as usual Dan manoeuvred the rig beautifully into our spot.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get her level - too much of a slope and soft grass.  The park manager was very helpful and friendly.  We arrived just when she was getting ready to leave for the day so we agreed to settle up when she returned the following day. 

Our site in El Caracol

After hooking up the water and power we took Heffay and HeyZeus to check out the beach. The park was beautiful, small and quant but sadly the beach access for the kayak wasn’t good.  So that night we walked across the street to La Palapa restaurant where we had delicious fish tacos and talked about our options.  These were the first non-breaded fish tacos we’d had since coming into Mexico and they quickly became our favourite with cheese melted and fried into the fish along with an amazing fruity salsa with pineapple added on top.  I wasn’t sure at first, but boy when I bit in…YUM!!  While enjoying our tacos we talked about our next steps. We’d booked this spot until end of January, but also knew there were numerous RV parks in the town.  

The next morning we set out to explore the other parks to check out their beach access.  Just as we were getting dressed and ready to go out, we realized we had picked up a big furry hitch hiker from Mazatlan…OMG!!!!!!  And, although I tried to relocate him, I was unsuccessful.  He was just too fast and there was no way I was risking him getting away from me to hide somewhere in the RV.  Sorry fella, RIP you furry beast - ACK!!!  

One of two gorgeous trees in El Caracol

We visited Villas Tlaquepaque which was where we had been originally trying to get into.  It is an absolute gorgeous park with beautiful pools, restaurant and bar and located centrally right off the main road in “Lo-de” as the regulars call Lo de Marcos.  They had space, but sadly did not have good beach access for the kayak.  And, even if we could get the kayak to the beach, it was not possible to launch there as the waves were always very strong crashing into the beach at that end of the town.  Prices were $16,000 pesos per month (approx $975 Cdn with current conversions) for stays of 3 months or longer plus metered hydro.  We were told they hydro averages out to $1500 pesos per month (approx $91 Cdn).

Next we visited Cruz Maria - a small RV park right on the ocean as well - but it was full up so we went next door to La Parota RV Park.  La Parota is a nice big park with large lots and beautiful flowering plants in between each site.  It has 30 amp power, good water pressure,  septic and nice concrete pads at each site $11,000 pesos per month (approx $670 Cnd) plus metered hydro at 4 pesos per kWh.   It also has a surf bar and restaurant “Tomatina’s” and best of all EXCELLENT beach access for the boat with an actual ramp onto the beach.  Thankfully, the owner Juan Jose had lots of spaces available for us to choose from.  We moved into La Parota later that morning. 

Google view of La Parota RV park

 

Our Site - B4

Nice view from Tomatina’s Surf Bar & Restaurant

Meanwhile on Vancouver Island, literally since the day we left on November 7th the weather had been unbelievable with flooding due to torrential rains washing out major highways and restricting trucks ability to deliver goods (and gas) whole towns flooded out, empty grocery shelves, gas rationing, snow storms with 30 cm of snow dumped on Nanaimo over one evening and even a tsunami advisory in Victoria and Sooke in mid January.  All the while, we’ve been here in paradise!  Oh, how grateful we are!

Total distance driven Mazatlan to Lo de Marcos - 247 miles (398 km)

Total tolls - $2187 pesos (approx $135 Cdn)

Total fuel - $215 Cdn

Until next time / Hasta la proxima vez!