Adiós Winnebago

She was crying, its just too far away to see the tears.
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It seems like ages ago that we updated the blog and a lot has happened since. We left you last time having just arrived in a small costal town called San Carlos on the west coast of Mexico. It was still stupidly hot and the town wasn’t busy yet as most of the holiday makers come down around November when the temperature drops below the 100 degree mark. Still, we were there and had to endure the heat.

Taking advantage of the lack of tourists we decided to go deep sea fishing one day and managed to get a favourable rate for 6 hours out at sea. We awoke however to torrential rain and high winds on the morning of our departure. Emma mentioned something about catching fish in the rain but I informed her that the fish don’t mind if its rains as they always carry their umbrellas. Anyway, it was an early start and we made it to the harbour at 7am. After getting ready we set sail for the open sea.

The mahi mahi
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To say the water was a bit rough is a little bit of an understatement. We quickly hit swells and waves over 5 feet high and were being tossed around all over the place. I don’t normally get sea sick but we were both feeling a little queasy on this occasion but this was made good by several motion sickness tablets. I was determined to have a good time but Emma wasn’t having any of it. I think she cried pretty much the whole of the 6 hours we were on that boat. About 25 miles out to sea we hit into a shoal of tuna and several rods were going at the same time. This was much better and I even think Emma stopped crying just long enough to reel in several large fish. I later hooked into a Mahi Mahi, a large fish that shimmers a bright blue and gold as it leaps from the water trying to escape the very large hook now in its mouth. It also put up a very good fight; it took me about 30 minutes to get it in.

Is that a cactus in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?
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Again all this was happening whilst being tossed around in huge waves and listening to very loud Mexican rap music. One song I recall in my limited Spanish was about Speedy Gonzales, requesting that he go home. I did wonder if he was another Mexican resource that was exported to the Americans and they now needed him back for a spot of drug running or something. A day or two before a number of shootings had happened in Mexico, apparently the police and the drug cartels don’t all live as one happy family.

Then the rain started.
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The day after our fishing, and the obligatory fish BBQ we decided to try and get away from the continuing rain and head south. Emma was speaking to some bloke showing her a weather forecast but lost in translation the message didn’t really get through. He was basically pointing to his iPhone and saying “today, rain, tomorrow more rain”. Emma didn’t really pay any attention to this and thought OK, more rain. Neither of us paid attention either to the hoards of people now heading south with their entire possessions tied onto the back of a pickup truck. It was only when we got a bit further south we realised what was going on.

Is that a smile i see?
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I don’t think it was actually classed as a hurricane but it might as well have been. We were unable to travel any further south as all of the roads had been wiped out by mud slides. Now we are not just talking about a bit of mud on a road here, there were no roads left. Bridges made from steel and concrete had just vanished by floods of water coming off the mountains. We tried several routes but all were the same, we were stranded until it stopped raining and they fixed the roads. One estimate from a local put this at about 7 days. Not able to get to any campgrounds we ended up parking behind a hotel and running a large electric cable into the bedroom of some Spanish guys who were staying there whilst contracting for the local brewery. They turned out to be very friendly so we ended up staying with them all night drinking whisky and eating dodgy taco’s which we both got the shits from.

West coast Costa Rica on the way to get some beers.
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The rain eventually stopped and the next day we were actually allowed to go on our way. We headed several hundred kilometres south to a place called Mazatlan. We did actually stop someplace else for a night but it was nothing but a beach and a noisy dog that kept us awake all night howling at the moon. Mazatlan is built for Americans. The whole city is full of McDonalds, KFC and all the other US chain outlets. Instead of nice beach huts they are building high rise hotels and apartment blocks and you can’t get five minutes down the road without being accosted by a timeshare salesman. It was hot too and the mosquitoes were out in force. Between us one night we counted 48 bites. For all the bathing in repellent I had done I only had 10 bits less than Emma. Prizes for the first one to figure out how many we each had.   

Carlos from Spain, let me smoke his dope.
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It was in Mazatlan that we decided that we just didn’t like Mexico. Not only was it hot and dusty (apart from the muddy bits), there were muchos mosquitos and the roads were just plain shit. We weren’t making enough progress and the camper van was costing too much money. We decided to try and sell it and go our way on foot. After finding out that selling our Canadian camper van in Mexico was illegal we decided to drive back to the USA to at least get some money for it. This was before I crashed it again however.

Cant remember where this is.
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It wasn’t my fault, honest! That canopy just jumped out on me. OK so it was my fault. We were pulling into a Wal-Mart to try and find a local Autotrader or something. As hot as it was outside I thought it would be a good idea to park under one of those sun shades. The camper van did actually fit underneath it, the aircon on top of the camper didn’t however. So there we were, stuck 1000 miles in the heat of Mexico without any air conditioner. Luckily, armed with my swiss army knife and a huge hammer we had bashed it back into shape and it actually worked again. Phew. Lets get to America quick and sell it before anything else happens.

It took us 9 days to drive to Mazatlan and only 2 days to get back. From sunrise to sunset we were on the road avoiding bandits, army checkpoints and those huge potholes. Never again will I complain about UK or US roads. If you can survive driving in Mexico you can drive anywhere.

Just south of the US border exists a town of tin huts and cardboard boxes. Here lives hundreds of thousands of Mexicans who try daily to cross the border into the US. You know what, I don’t blame them. Whilst it was nice to see some of Mexico is isn’t really a nice place. Don’t get me wrong, the people are friendly and every town we drove through the locals would smile and wave at us. Not once did we feel threatened in any way at all but the country is just very poor and the climate makes it even worse. Imagine a place where you can’t put toilet paper down the toilet because the sewer system just can’t cope with it. Instead you have to put your used paper in the bin. Now combine that with 100 degree heat and shit inducing tacos and you might come close to what it is like. I’m sure there are nicer places but we just didn’t get to see any of them.

Anyway, back in the US we managed to sell the camper van on good old eBay. We lost lots of money on it and the guy who bought it got a real bargain. We stayed again with Ryan in San Diego and booked ourselves a flight down to Costa Rica. After 15 hours of travelling we arrived in the shithole that is San Jose. Our first night we stayed in a hostel that resembled a prison, there was a guard on the door and bars everywhere. The room stank of stale piss and we were kept awake all night by banging of one sort or another inside the hostel and the hoards of transvestite prostitutes outside. The next morning as you can imagine we found a nicer place to stay.

We have hired a small 4x4 for the next couple of weeks to get us around Costa Rica. The country is full of scorpions, huge spiders and a host of other things that will kill you but it is also home to some of the world’s most spectacular wildlife of birds, monkeys, turtles and crocodiles etc. Currently we are on the west coast having met a Canadian chap yesterday who was coming the same way. It is so different from Mexico, the grass here is a lush green so bright it almost hurts your eyes and roads are much better.

Today has been lazy, I can’t decide if I should go surfing in the sea where you might come across a crocodile or two at high tide at the river mouth or just drink more extremely cheap beer. There are plenty of rainforest areas here too, we plan to visit some of them over the next few days and also hike up a local volcano which is one of the most active in the world. It’s best at dark however when you can see the lava flows. Next week we shall probably drive a few hours over to the east coast which sits on the Caribbean Sea. Here the white sand beaches and laid back attitude should be great for topping up that tan.

Unfortunately we don’t have many pictures to show you, mainly because Mexico is just dry baron landscape. I’ll make an effort here though so you can get an idea of what you are missing. So for the moment we are alive and well. Emma has had the shits for the past 4 weeks but we can’t figure out what she is doing wrong. Not enough beer I say. Bottoms up, until next time.