June 5, 2022 |
HeyZeus helping with the navigation
(Click any picture to enlarge) |
After four fantastic months living in Lo de Marcos (LDM) we packed everything up, hooked up the truck and said our farewells to the few RV’ers who were left in the park along with the owner Juan Jose and his wife in the early morning hours of Thursday April 21. It brought a smile to our faces to see Juan Jose and his wife come out to wave us goodbye as we drove off. Something totally unexpected and wonderful.
The drive from LDM to the Mexico/US border would take us four days. The first day was to be a relatively short day, taking us into Mazatlan (MZ) for the night. But as things go in Mexico even though the GPS said we should arrive by 1pm, it took three hours longer than that! This is not for any accidents or major issues in the drive but because of a mix of issues with Stella leading us astray. We named our GPS Stella because we experienced a few not so fun “detours” she sent us through on our drive down. And, not one to let us down she reminded us why we named her that not long into our first day’s drive. Our delay in arriving in MZ wasn’t just Stella’s fault though, there was an international motorcycle festival starting in MZ the following day that saw many many bikers on our route. They didn’t slow us down, what slowed us down was the additional time it took all of us to go through the NINE tolls we would navigate that day. We estimated each toll took 15-20 minutes, about 2 or 3x longer than normal.
On our drive out of LDM we knew we needed to program the GPS a little differently than just putting in “Mazatlan”. This is because on the drive into LDM Stella led us through the most windy and crazy road along the coast which nearly gave us a heart attack. But don’t you know that route was supposed to be 20 minutes shorter than the route we should have taken? Ah, Stella is always so thoughtful. Too bad she seems to forget that we are 61 ft long (with the truck on the back), 8.5 ft wide and 13.5 ft tall and are not meant for narrow windy roads with overhanging trees and no shoulders! And she shouldn’t forget as she’s an RV GPS which has our measurements programmed in her! Argh. Then again, it is Mexico and I’m pretty sure Stella isn’t Mexican. Learning our lesson we plotted our route inland through Tepic then onto MZ.
 |
The blue route is the one we plotted.
The grey route that follows the coastline is the route Stella “guided” us to in December |
Rather than take highway 200 the whole way, we veered onto the new “autopista” which had recently opened while we were in LDM. It branches off the 200 right around the small village of Monteon which is only about 5 or 10 minutes outside of LDM. In the picture below you can actually see the small yellow strip of highway if you zoom in although, when we left it hadn’t been updated on Google Maps yet. Had we seen it on the map we wouldn’t have taken it. It is labelled as the hwy to Tepic but in reality is just a small offshoot of the 200. For the 118 pesos or approx $7 CDN it cost it was not worth it. It very quickly looped us back onto the 200 without saving us any time in my opinion. I think it’s just not finished yet. Once back on the 200 we started to climb into a mountainous region with many many cuuuuurrrrrvvvvy stretches, no shoulders and narrow roads. The scenery was gorgeous, so long as you didn’t focus on the lack of shoulders and the sheer drops! Needless to say, we didn’t speak too much during this long section of windy mountainous road. Too much concentration required. Oh, and I almost forgot…on one stretch there was a man stumbling along the road. Pretty sure he had too much tequila the night before. Sheesh!
 |
| Some of the vista along hwy 200 toward Compostela |
Somehow our friend Stella thought we needed some extra excitement on day 1. The drunk man and crazy curvy mountainous roads weren’t enough and she threw a curve ball at us in Compostela. GPSs are fun…especially when they say things like “take the next right…take the next right” but give you no indication of how many meters away that “next right” is. Well, you can guess what happened. In one of those frantic “take the next right” moments we of course took the wrong “next right” and ended up heading into the cramped city of Compostela. Remember what I said above about the size of our rig? Cramped cities and our rig do not go together. Thankfully Dan is an absolutely amazing driver and it was in this detour that he proved it beyond question. In the midst of trying to turn us around Stella directed us down some incredibly narrow side streets. As Dan manoeuvred us around the corners we thought for sure we were going to get stuck. With the truck on the back it is not possible to back up the RV. It will damage the tow bar. And, if you’re in the middle of a turn and you get stuck, good luck getting the truck unhooked. To hook it up and unhook it you need to be directly behind the RV. So don’t get stuck in a turn!
 |
| The first (and last) detour Stella took us on - into Compostela |
So here we were, attempting to make an number of extremely tight right hand turns down narrow streets where the sidewalks are a good 2 feet above the street level and there are lampposts IN the street - not in the sidewalk. We were literally within inches of hitting a lamppost with the truck. I got out of the RV to stand by the post and guide while Dan watched me and manoeuvred the front wheels up onto a shallower section of sidewalk that raised up double in height after only a few feet. We were within inches of the bumper hitting the raised sidewalk portion. It’s funny, when this happened of course we jumped into troubleshooting mode - I got out and monitored the back end and we navigated the turn together. It did make me think though of all those YouTubers out there who in a moment like this would have grabbed their camera to capture it all on film. I couldn’t even imagine doing that. It would be way too much of a distraction. I don’t know how those YT’ers do that, but then again some of them make pretty good money so I guess that’s the difference. I was happy enough to be able to find the exact detour on Google maps and then use street view to share what the actual streets we went down looked like (see below).
I’m pleased to say that Dan navigated this detour with not one scratch on our Beautiful Beast and even without one single swear word. Sure, we said “what the hell Stella!” a lot but Dan never lost his cool although he did desperately need a smoke after that! He is an amazing driver. Once he managed this miracle I’d laugh every time during the rest of the trip when he’d jokingly say “I’m not sure I can make this turn”. To which I’d reply “Yeah right!” And we’d both smile. 😊
 |
| Check out the height of those sidewalks on the left hand side of the street. With a rig our size we always have to pay attention to our tail swing. These raised sidewalks add another layer of complexity. This was the actual street we turned right off off (Allende) and onto Rosales - see below. |
 |
This is the actual corner Dan made the crazy turn on
Thankfully that sidewalk on the left was slightly lower at the corner and that raised lip didn’t start for a few feet. We needed every inch we could get! |
 |
| The last right hand corner Dan navigated - off Rosales and onto Hidalgo. Another tight corner onto a narrow street with another lamppost almost in the street |
 |
| You get a sense of how narrow the streets are in this picture |
Once out of Compostela we thought we were back on track. It was only after a few miles that we realized we were headed east and inland rather than north toward Tepic. Stella had re-routed us toward the 15D toll highway. And although it would eventually get us to Tepic, it did add time to our drive (not including the time it took for our detour into Compostela). Once we realized this we made the decision to turn Stella OFF. Although we watched the map we went “old school” and decided just to follow the signs and stay on the 15D toll highway until we got to the border. Best decision ever!
 |
| The route we ended up taking from LDM to Tepic then onto Mazatlan |
You can see from the map that the route we were on took us along some extinct volcanos. The terrain was so incredible! Even though Stella seemingly led us astray, we enjoyed this route immensely. Amazing highways and incredible vistas! Remember, to see any picture larger, click on the picture.
 |
| Lava fields! |
 |
More lava fields
|
 |
| Beautiful highway- 15D |
 |
| See the volcano!! |
 |
| This was new for us. We’d never seen a red line in the middle of a highway lane before. This one was on a long stretch of mountainous highway. In Mexico this red line notifies truckers that there is a runaway lane up ahead. Truckers with brake failure are to drive in that lane so that they can be positioned to the runaway lanes for a safe stop. |
 |
| Blue agave fields lining both sides of the highway, nourished by the rich volcanic soil |
 |
| More agave fields - on the left |
 |
| Our co-pilot - HeyZeus 💕 |
After what felt like an incredibly long day, we pulled into Las Jaibas RV park in Mazatlan just before 3pm but what felt like 4pm as we had gone through a time zone change. It was neat to stay there as it is the park where a blogger I follow stays every winter with her husband. I’ll write more about the night we spent in Las Jaibas in another post as this one is getting a tad too long, even though the pictures are amazing.
Total miles driven - 314 miles
Total hours driven - 8 hours
Total number of tolls - 9 tolls
Total cost of tolls - $3,214 pesos (approx $207 Cdn)
Fuel cost - Diesel $24.80 pesos/litre ($1.54 Cdn) - topped up 1/2 tank for $3,000 pesos ($189 Cdn)
Until next time / Hasta la proxima vez!
No comments:
Post a Comment