Having accidentally driven the cuota much of the way from Mazatl\u00e1n to Culiac\u00e1n last year<\/a>, doing so this year wasn\u2019t even a consideration. Yes, it\u2019s faster, but that\u2019s all there is to be said for it. The libre is much more scenic and there are more services. To me, it\u2019s worth the extra time. If I was in an RV, though, I\u2019d find the cuota worth the money to save all that stopping and going and slowing down as we go through the towns!<\/p>\nI thought about stopping in El Quelite, but I had no idea what sort of shape The Road would be in and didn\u2019t want to spend a few hours doing touristy stuff and then discover that The Road would be in worse shape than last year and take hours and end up on Isla rushed and burnt out. Maybe on the way home?<\/p>\n
It feels like I made it to Maz in record time this year, even with my stops. There was a very tiny detour around an overpass, otherwise it was very straightforward to get through town. I nixed my plans to stop at Soriana since I wasn\u2019t hungry and decided to head straight to Isla. I made a final pit stop because you do not want to face The Road with anything sloshing around in your bladder!<\/p>\n
There was a huge accident right at the turn off for the airport and traffic redirection appeared to be a nightmare. I told the police officer right at my exit that I was headed to my home on Isla de la Piedra and he looked very relieved that I wasn\u2019t a tourist he\u2019d have to reroute!<\/p>\n
The first part of The Road was better than last year, but that\u2019s not saying much, in that it was just as rutty, but there were fewer lakes. When I got to the end of that bit, I came upon my water guy from last year, parked while talking to someone. He recognised me and shouted, \u201cHola amiga! Bienvenidos!\u201d Funny how he was the last Isla person I saw when I left in the spring!<\/p>\n
Then, there was the very nice paved section. Then a little bit of graded gravel. Then a long section with huge rocks that haven\u2019t been graded. My truck could barely go over some of those rock piles. It was really bad. An RV would find The Road impassable.<\/p>\n
Since I drove The Road several times last year and know what my truck can do, I wasn\u2019t as nervous and drove it pretty quickly, making it to Isla in exactly 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
I checked out the house and it was obviously not ready. I went to my landlady\u2019s place and she was so relieved to see me, saying she knew I had said I would not be calling again, but she had still expected a final check in (serves her right for being so hard to reach last year! *g*). She said she needed a couple of hours, but the house was mostly done. I told her I was in absolutely no rush and was going to visit my friends L&N who live on Goat Island. As long as I had a bed tonight, it was all good. She said absolutely! I had thought to arrive around 2:00 and it was around 12:30, so I was early and hadn\u2019t expected the house to be ready anyway!<\/p>\n
L&N were thankfully home, so I spent a couple of hours and had as many beers. \ud83d\ude42 I gave them their purchases and they were very happy, especially to see as much cat litter as I brought them. They only arrived yesterday and, like me, are glad to have landed. They had the flights from hell from Winnipeg!<\/p>\n
They had stuff to do, so I headed back to the house to park my truck around 3:00. The yard looked a lot neater, so I suspected I could go back to my landlady\u2019s to get my keys. Yup! She confirmed that I have lots of gas (propane\/butane) and that she\u2019ll get my internet turned on ASAP. TelMex is apparently closed tomorrow, so it will happen Tuesday and I should be online by Wednesday\u2026<\/p>\n
In the meantime, I\u2019ve discovered I have usable internet with my Wilson Sleek cradle in the truck. That means the phone has to be in the truck and then I\u2019m limited by the computer\u2019s distance from the phone. Ergo, I\u2019ll be working from outside this week! That suits me just fine, it\u2019s HOT.<\/p>\n
Now, the house\u2026 It\u2019s obvious that she was rushed to get it ready for me tonight in that I\u2019m missing little things like a roll of toilet paper and towels, the washer isn\u2019t hooked up, and the water heater wasn\u2019t on. Absolutely no biggies.\u00a0 Oh, and the fridge smelled like someone died in it, but ten minutes after putting a bowl filled with a couple of spoons of coffee in it, it was fine!<\/p>\n
Other than that, everything was good! The house is freshly painted, there are new curtains in the kitchen (which aren\u2019t as nice quality as what was there last year, but have a much lovelier pattern and offer more privacy), there\u2019s a better (and nicer) bedspread in the bedroom, and\u2026. she got me the armchair I asked for for the living room. I am SHOCKED. It\u2019s not what I would have picked out for myself, but she did really well with my request. It has the arm rests and back support I want and a decent cushion for my butt. I wish I had a foot rest, but I can put my feet up on the couch and will pin a towel or something to the seat so I don\u2019t get it dirty. I know I am going to spend a lot of time reading in this chair this winter!<\/p>\n
I emptied the truck right away and set to work getting nearly everything put away! I want to wash all my kitchen stuff as everything is gritty but I promptly sorted through what was here and put away what I won\u2019t use, then figured out where my stuff will end up. I don\u2019t have the extra counter unit this year, so I\u2019m glad I brought a table on which to lay out things. I may go pick up a set of plastic drawers because I really have no place to put things like dish towels or utensils. But I can at least make coffee tomorrow morning!<\/p>\n
Tomorrow\u2019s project will be to start setting up my office, but there\u2019s no rush for that since I won\u2019t be working from it for a few days. My landlady asked if I mind if she leaves both twin beds in the house and I told her it\u2019s fine even though it will mean a more cramped office. I am going to take the liberty of doing some furniture rearranging and move one out of the way.<\/p>\n
In between bouts of putting stuff away, I headed \u2018downtown\u2019 to see if the grocery store was open, which it wasn\u2019t. No biggie. It should be open early tomorrow and I\u2019ll need fresh tortillas anyway! I wasn\u2019t planning to cook tonight, that\u2019s for sure! I didn\u2019t need anything badly enough to stop in at an abarrotes (convenience store), of which there were a handful open.<\/p>\n
I headed out to Miguel\u2019s restaurant around 6:30 and boy were they busy! Always a good sign! He and Angela greeted me warmly and took a couple of minutes for a super quick catch up. I had the shrimp burritos (surprise\u2026) and they were as good as I remembered them! Angela asked if they were okay and I said, \u201cWith a belly full of good food, I\u2019ll sleep well tonight!\u201d She laughed and said that made her happy.<\/p>\n
Like last year, I\u2019ve come just after lots of rain, so there are huge puddles of water all around Isla. Unless I want to take a huge detour, there are two huge lakes between my house and the restaurant. I went around one to get there and around the other to get home. In the dark. With barely any lighting. I didn\u2019t slip in the mud or fall in the water or trip on anything the way I did when I arrived last year until I got my Isla footing! It\u2019s like I\u2019ve never left! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
It\u2019s really good to be back! I wonder if tomorrow will be a \u2018I just want to hang out at home in my PJs\u2019 or a \u2018Maz, here I come!\u2019 day. We shall see. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had a nice evening in Guam\u00fachil. I delayed dinner as long as I could, but by 6ish, it was time. I went down to the restaurant and ordered a Pacifico and the enchiladas mole. Like last year, the food was really delicious! They talked me into have their prune cake for dessert, too. \ud83d\ude42 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[854,851,6,815,14,635,814,3],"tags":[853,794],"class_list":["post-4137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culiacan","category-guamuchil","category-homemaking","category-mazatlan","category-mexico","category-north-america","category-sinaloa","category-travel","tag-accommodation","tag-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}