Mazatlan to Los Mochis - April 22

June 8, 2022

HeyZeus exploring Las Jaibas RV Park, Mazatlan
(click on any picture to make it larger)

We arrived at Las Jaibas RV park just before 3pm on Friday April 21. One day down, three to go until we hit the border!

The park was practically empty and we had our choice of any of the spots at the back which would allow us to keep the truck connected to the RV.  I’ve been following a blogger who stays in this park every winter and she’s documented how it has changed over the years.  In the most recent years a huge condo development went in surrounding the park where there had before been jungle.  I can only imagine what it would have looked like before.  I really didn’t care for the high cement wall that surrounds the park separating it from the condos.  It’s also not on the beach, it’s about one block from it.  That too would be a negative in my mind when it comes to wintering there.  We do however really like Mazatlan.  We were pleasantly surprised by it when we first visited on our way down.  In particular we liked Punta Cerritos RV Park where many of the sites are leased year round and people have built beautiful palapas and outdoor kitchen areas.  Las Jaibas is only a short drive from Punta Cerritos and the other park we stayed at, Mar-a-villas.  You can read more about our five night stay in Mazatlan in December here.

The price at Las Jaibas for one night stay was $700 pesos or approx $45 Cdn.  That seemed kinda high to me, but we were there for the convenience of the park being on the north end of Mazatlan and it having sites big enough for us to drive into without unhooking the truck.  When we were in Mazatlan in December we drove into this park to check it out.  At that time we were told it was $400 pesos per night ($200 pp).  I’m not sure why it was $700 when we visited in April.  It may have been because of the international motorcycle festival that was happening that weekend (although the park had only one motorcycle tenter while we were there on the Friday night).  Or, it may have been related to the size of our motorhome.  When we stopped by in December we were in the truck, not in the RV.  

Our site near the back of the park

Google Maps view of the park and proximity to the Mazatlan beach

Arriving in the mid afternoon gave us time to take HeyZeus out for a walk.  He loves his walks and would get so excited as we opened the RV door to a new location.  Below is a short video clip of him fascinated with the Chachalaca birds that were roaming the park, they have quite the song.  There were some HeyZeus was watching but I didn’t dare take my eyes or the camera off him for fear he’d bolt on me and get out of his harness.  That’s one of our biggest fears when travelling and taking him out on walks.  If he is fast enough and can pull the leash taught he can very easily back out of the harness. Thankfully, he gets so many walks in a day that he doesn’t attempt that.  It’s really only if he gets spooked that it can happen now.  And, those birds are big enough and loud enough that they could easily freak anyone out.

There are many different types of Chachalaca birds.  The ones we saw in Mazatlan and also in Lo de Marcos are called rufous bellied chachalacas.  They are a fairly large bird roughly the size of a small pheasant.  They roost high in the trees and can really make some noise when they want to.  I found a good video clip on YouTube that captures the “song” of the plain chachalaca, it sounds the same to me as the song the rufous bellied ones have so I’m thinking the song doesn’t really change too much between the different varieties of this bird. Click the link: Screaming Chachalacas

Rufous Bellied Chachalaca

HoseHey watching the Chachalacas from the safety of the RV dash.  

Everyone is ready to go!

As planned, we hit the road for day two of our journey out of Mexico at around 10:00 a.m. April 22.  Our destination was Los Mochis where we’d stay in a gas station truck stop overnight like we did on the way down.  10 a.m. temps were 26 degrees celsius and sunny when we hit the road. 

This stretch of road was pretty bad on the way down, so we weren’t looking forward to it all that much.  We had memories of long stretches of “shake, rattle and HOLE!” due to heavily potholed roads as I documented in this previous Blog post.  Thankfully, on this stretch leaving it was not as bad as we remembered.  There were still bad stretches, but not as many as we had on the drive down. I did manage to take a short video clip of one of the bad stretches to give you an idea.  Pardon the swear words lol!

GPS estimated our arrival time to Los Mochis at just before 3pm.  Of course the GPS doesn’t account for stopping at the numerous tolls along the route.  When we finally made it to Los Mochis it was closer to 5pm.  The overnight accommodations weren’t fabulous but it was fine for one night.  We stopped at a gated trucker stop with onsite security and paid a donation of $60 pesos (approx $4 Cdn) to the security guard.

Lima Truck Stop, Los Mochis

Mazatlan to Los Mochis

Total miles driven - 246 miles

Total number of tolls - 6 tolls

Total cost of tolls - $1,321 pesos (approx $85 Cdn)

Total cost of fuel - $24.99 pesos/litre - filled just under 1/2 tank (40 gallons) for $4,000 pesos ($250 Cdn)

Accomodation - $700 pesos ($45 Cdn) Mazatlan + $60 pesos ($4 Cdn) Los Mochis 

Day three would take us from Los Mochis to Guaymas and what a day it would be!  😳 More on that in the next post.

Until next time / Hasta la proxima vez!