Love it or Leave it

The Sayulita Shore

Around noon on Sunday we pulled into Sayulita and found our way to the Sayulita Trailer Park despite the main bridge into town being closed down. The owner didn’t recall us making a reservation only a few days before, but not to worry, he had a great beach-front spot still available where we met our neighbors, Lyman and Susan, sunbirds from Oregon handing out in Mexico in their 1977 custom painted Dodge Camper Van. Well, this got Ben all worked up, being that he himself used to drive a 1977 Chevy van, Sam, and soon we were old friends with our new neighbors.

The church in the center of town

In days to pass we felt popular around the trailer park, making friends with several other campers there. We certainly can’t take the credit as all of these people first approached us to ask about our vehicle (John at Ecamper was right when he told us we’d spend hours explaining our camper!). Another nice couple we met (also from Oregon), Pat & Ray, offered up lots of travel advice, yummy granola, and the use of their boogie boards (Thank you!). We really do hope we have the privilege of meeting up with so many of these folks again sometime throughout our year of travel.

Bungalows at Sayulita Trailer Park

Boogie boarding addict

During our 4 days in Sayulita we fell in love with a lot of things - the almost white-sand beaches, the just right waters, the cute artsy town, everything about Sayulita Trailer Park – we know we’ll be coming back someday. But just so it doesn’t sound too perfect, there were a few turn-offs that weighed heavily on us. First off - the crowd. Granted it is Spring Break /Semana Santa, so lots of tourists were there, both Mexican and American. The other turn off was the attitude of the people from Sayulita. Many of the shop owners and waiters had an arrogance about them. We understand they have this prime piece of real estate that can’t be found in many other parts of Mexico (we’ve looked), and that they have to deal with annoying tourists all the time, but seriously be grateful that we’re here, making your town thrive!


All in all, Sayulita is a great small town and much more our style than it’s not-so-distant counterpart Puerto Vallarta. While it has tons of charm, if you hope to vacation to a place that truly feels like Mexico, Sayulita may not be for you. But if you’re simply looking for a relaxing vacation on the beach where you can try your hand at surfing and not have to stress out about traffic and crowds, you should book a flight right away…...just remember not to schedule it during the 2 weeks around Easter!

blasted in San Blas

After leaving Mazatlan we headed south to San Blas. We stopped at Playa El Borrego for some lunch and ended up at a place right next to Stoner’s (the American hangout). We were having great fun watching a Mexican family make fun of an All-American, Barbie & Ken’s California family next door at Stoner’s when we were blasted away by this:

Lunch in San Blas from Krista Lengacher on Vimeo.

Yes, that’s right – a 10 piece band right there next to us while we munched on our fish tacos and shrimp quesadillas. It seemed to go on forever, but we didn’t mind. I was amused watching the cute clarinet player’s eyes as they disappeared when his cheeks puffed in and out.

After lunch we headed out of town a bit to Playa Amor where were set up camp at Playa Amor Campground and met another young American couple who were traveling in a giant RV. Since Playa Amor wasn’t much on the playa (beach) we watched the sunset and went to bed early, trying to escape the mosquitoes. As we were packing up to pull out the following morning, the Mexican families started rolling in with tents in tow, to begin their Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebrations. This should have been our first warning of the craziness yet to come.

First we made a quick stop at a cocodrilario (crocodile park)

The view from Playa Amor RV Park

Down the road in the town of Las Varas we hit a milestone in the life of our Element – 10,000 miles. Even though only about 5,000 of those have been ours (we bought it with a little over 5K) we took pictures. Las Varas was having a Palm Sunday celebration, but we didn’t stop. We were on a mission….

Las Varas celebration

Wonder how many more miles we'll have by the end of this trip?

Corn: It's for breakfast, lunch & dinner

It hit me this morning when I opened up a box of Cheerios and read the label. The label listed all the ingredients from maiz integral (corn) through arroz (rice) to salvado de maiz (corn bran), and aciete de arroz (corn oil). Ok, there are twenty other ingredients but I selected those that popped out at me, considering that I’m reading (actually listening to) an The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of 4 Meals by Michael Pollan. Krista borrowed the “Book on CDs” from the Denver library and we downloaded the entire book to my ipod. It has been an interesting book, one you really should read if you want to know why you’re eating corn at every meal.

The best way to summarize the book is through this box of cereal. The cereal was distributed by Nestle Foods, a partner with General Mills in Mexico, with offices in Mexico City. With both as major US companies, I’m sure that the major ingredients for this, that being corn, came from a farm in the mid-west. Mike Pollan visits the farm of George Nalin in his book, where we learn that corn as a commodity is heavily subsidized by the US Government. I knew of this, but not the degree that it affects the industrial food system. So the corn grown in the Midwest, subsidized by my tax dollars, was processed by General Mills to extract the ingredients that were shipped to Mexico to make the cereal that I bought in a 375 gram box for 36 pesos ($2.57). What happens along this food chain, so to speak, is a tremendous amount of cheap oil and water. And profits for General Mills and Nestle - farmers sell corn for less than it costs them to grow it, all thanks to the Nixon administration’s reversal of a FDR policy as part of the new deal. What this policy has done is caused farmers to grow more corn – it’s the only way to make money, by lowering the cost to grow corn. This has created such a surplus of corn that we process to replace sugar (as high fructose corn syrup), use it in our gas tanks (as ethanol), feed it to cattle to fatten them (with assistance from antibiotics), and export it to Mexico as part of NAFTA. What the price I paid for the box of cereal doesn’t include is the environmental cost (for petroleum from the Middle East, water from the Ogalla aquifer, air pollution from harvesting, processing, and transport), nor does it include the social cost for the displaced corn farmer here in Mexico. For more information on that, read the blog of two guys cycling through Mexico to Paraguay.

If you want to learn more, pick up a copy of the The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of 4 Meals.

Fresh & Easy

Even though we happen to be temporarily living in our car, we don’t necessarily always want to eat Ramen noodles or Ma & Cheese (especially because we’ve been listening to the audiobook Omnivore’s Dilemma during our drives). We also don’t want to spend a lot of money eating out all the time. Instead, we try to buy local, especially when it comes to produce and cook a healthy meal at “home” whenever we can. Since we both love the surf & sun, lately we’ve been inspired to add a tropical flare to our meals. Here are a few of our easy recipes.

Mango Salsa
1 mango
3 tomatoes
1 spring onion
a few springs of cilantro
a bit lime juice
salt to taste

Dice it all up, squeeze on the lime juice, stir in the salt and serve over fresh seafood or brown rice.

Camarones (shrimp) a la Benjamin
½ kilo fresh shrimp
vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic
1 spring onion
a dash of soul food seasoning
a splash of Pacifico beer

Peel & wash shrimp, sautee with garlic & onion in oll, uncovered for 5 minutes. Add beer and cover until cooked completely.

Smoothies Mazatlán
5-6 chunks of mango
1 banana sliced
a splash of milk
a handful of ice
a packet of Emergen-C (1000% vitamin C)

In a glass, add in the following order: ice, mango, banana, milk, Emergen-C. Blend with stick blender. Yum! Breakfast in a cup with easy cleanup!

Smoothies Todos Santos
Basically the same as Smoothies Mazatlán, but since we didn’t have milk at the time we used more ice and a bit of yogurt.

pineapple chunks
1 kiwi sliced
ice
a splash of water or juice yogurt (if you like it a bit thicker)

Blend together in a glass and sip in the sun somewhere inspiring.

Starbucks, Señor Frogs & Shrimp

Back at home in Denver we’ve become accustomed to seeing a Starbucks on each street corner and in every grocery store. Here in Mazatlán the equivalent of Starbucks is Señor Frogs, a Hard Rock Café like tourist trap. Honestly, about every other block there is another Señor Frogs Official Store. As far as we could tell there was only 1 actual restaurant, but the Señor Frogs gear is being hocked all up and down the strip in Zona Dorada where we happen to be staying in Mazatlán’s finest RV Park, Mar Rosa. I’m not kidding – Mar Rosa RV Park really is pretty nice, at least for RV parks. It’s in an excellent location, oceanside, right in the heart of Mazatlán, unlike so many of the other RV parks in large tourist areas that are always on the outskirts of town. The bathrooms are modern and clean, wifi & laundry service are available, the help is friendly and knowledgeable and the neighbors are the sweetest (at least if you get there before the Jarvis Gypsies leave). Within minutes of our arrival we were warmly welcomed by our new neighbors, Canadians Val & Bill, who also happen to describe themselves as gypsies at heart. Val kindly offered us her old copy of the Church’s Bible (Traveler’s Guide to Mexican Camping by Mike & Terri Church), something we have been kicking ourselves for not purchasing before we left home. Bill gave us some tent stakes he was no longer using which helped make the assembly of our “patio” canopy much sturdier.

our campsite at Mar Rosa

It didn’t take long before we had rolled out our fake grass and were relaxing in the shade, finally in a place where we could put down roots for a few days. The true attraction of Mazatlán is Old Mazatlán, a short bus ride down the malecón from the hotel strip in Zona Dorada. We paid a visit to Old Mazatlán our first evening for dinner and a walk about Plaza Pricipal and Plazuela Machado, where restaurants, live music and vendors line the streets. There is a truly beautiful 19th century cathedral that towers over the square and looks stunning lit up in the evening.

the cathedral

While it appears to go on forever, the beach in Mazatlán really wasn’t too appealing to us. Crowded with vendors and water activities, the sand is a bit rocky and the water is dark (I suppose we’ve been a bit spoiled with all the clear water we’ve seen lately). We actually didn’t spend much time sunning on the shores of the Pacific, instead we explored Mazatlán by bicycle – really the only way to see it all without a car. The malecón is miles long and is relatively easy to ride on without having to risk your life in traffic.

Quite possibly our favorite part of Mazatlán was eating the best meal we’ve had on our trip thus far – and guess what? We made it ourselves, right out the back of our ecamper. We purchased some fresh shrimp from a local fisherman who visited the RV park, whipped up some mango salsa from the produce we picked up at the market, and added some brown rice we had brought along. Delicious! All in all, we probably wouldn’t go out of our way to visit Mazatlán again, but we still had a fun time there without having to try too hard!

Shrimp a la Benjamin - so delicious!

¡Feliz Cumpleaños Benjamin!

Today, April 6th, is Ben's 32nd Birthday. He used to joke about wanting to be somewhere out of the country when he turned 30, but that didn't happen and instead I threw him a big party with all of his closest friends. Now, 2 years down the road, we are out of the country for his birthday in Sayulita, Mexico. Since we're on the road and can't celebrate in our usual ways, my birthday present to him is to spend the whole day doing whatever he wants (and whatever is available here in Sayulita). We're not sure what it will be yet, but whatever it is, we'll be having fun doing it together!

Here is a photo of one of the last times I recall Ben having an awesome day. That day we woke up in Crested Butte (his favorite mountain town), went snowshoeing on some pass outside of town, and then skiing at Monarch.

He was in all his glory that day!

Crossing the Great Sea

ferry dock in La Paz, Baja

Honestly we were expecting the worst, having planned to take an 18-hour ferry ride to Mazatlán, but when we arrived at the ticket office we soon learned that the Mazatlán ferry was not operating. No big deal though because there was another ferry that arrived only 5 hours north of Mazatlán in Topolobompo. This ride was a lot cheaper (about $200 including our car) and only 6 hours, which meant that we didn’t need to pay for a cabin to sleep in. Actually the whole ordeal was much more pleasant than we had planned on. We arrived 2 hours before our departure, pressed the infamous Mexican “button” to see if our vehicle would need to be searched -of course we got red, and therefore searched (but it was only about a minute)-, and drove into the underbelly of the boat.

Chihuahua Star

It's definitely not a Carnival cruise liner, but the Chihuahua Star really wasn’t too bad. It had a nice reception/lobby area, a restaurant, cafeteria, bar/disco, a big deck with a pool (drained unfortunately) and movie viewing/sleeping chairs. We passed our time reading, snacking and playing Bananagram (thanks Greg & Jessica). Before we knew it was had arrived in Topo, driven off the boat, and were on our way to Los Mochis for the night.

the winning puzzle

In Los Mochis we tracked down the one and only RV park to find the gates locked. Since we only had about 6 hours until we had planned to be back on the road, we found the local Walmart and “camped” in their parking lot. While we felt completely safe, sleeping at the Walmart isn’t recommeneded (at least in Los Mochis) because it is really really loud…..and a little ghetto too! Oh well, at least we gave the local something to talk about!