Thanksgiving–Our Last day in Catemaco

We stop here each year and enjoy an American Thanksgiving dinner prepared by our American campground owner, Gene and his Mexican wife, Gaby. After we explained last week that the holiday came on 11/22 they moved their plans forward one week.

We stayed here a full week but it was the coolest, wettest  week since we have been coming down here. I didn’t take my bike down off the rack since I felt I would either get soaking wet or muddy if I took a long ride. We always expect some rain here since the area is a rain forest and the vegetation is lush & green.

There are only three people staying in the Casitas that Gene rents out in the winter and only one other camper. So I’m not sure what kind of pot luck supper we will have today. Gene prepares the turkey and Gaby does the dressing & trimmings. Of course Peggy cooked her famous brownies for desert.

Our plans changed after I got an e-mail from Gerry who flew into Xpu-Ha earlier this week. He said they are saving our campsite but things are starting to fill up, so he suggested that we get here as soon as we can. We feel we could make it there in 2 long days if the roads are OK. We will try to stay at a Pemex about half way there on Friday night.

Our Trip Plans for Friday

 

Catemaco Weather is Improving

No rain today so we took a nice walk into town and then stopped at the new Soriana Grocery store about 1/2 mi from our campground.

Here is the new town pier and some of the launches that they use for tourists.

Here is a nice view from the new pier looking toward town.

Very colorful tree along the Malecon.

Things have still been cloudy and cool (75^oF - 64^o), hopefully each day will get better.

Lazy Days in Catemaco

The weather here has been a little cool with off & on drizzle. Gene says he will fill the pool when things get warmer. On Sunday the couple from Michigan that was camped in their minivan next to us decided to move on to Chiapas where it was drier and warmer, They plan to go into Central America, maybe as far south as Costa Rica.

Things dried up after they left so we took a walk along the malecon listening to the cries of La Lancha from the local boatman looking for customers. They built a nice new fishing pier but I forgot my camera, so maybe tomorrow I’ll get some pictures of all the new stuff in town.

I stopped in a two little Telcel stands but my Spanish was so bad and their English lacking that I could not get them to understand what I needed to get my Banda Ancha working again. Not a problem yet since we have Wi-Fi here at camp that works quite well.

When we got back to camp a new couple arrived in their little German truck camper. They are Swiss and had the truck and camper shipped to Halifax, NS early this year. They toured Canada, Alaska and the west coast of USA before dropping down into Mexico. They must have gone down the West coast and all the way around the Yucatan and were now travelling up the Gulf coast back to the USA. Their plans are to continue around the Gulf coast and down into Florida . After that they will drive up to Baltimore where they will ship their rig back home.

We finally got a chance to wash all the road grime from our RV and compared to the little Swiss rig our little RV actually looks big.

We woke to a light shower again on Monday morning but the weather quickly cleared and there was plenty of sunshine. I decided to take a bus over to San Andreas Tuxtla which is a much bigger town of 150,000 people compared to the tourist town of Catemaco’s 20,000 people. The round trip bus ride on a local bus cost a little over a dollar for the 18 mi ride.

The center of town is about 1/2 mi. from the main road. If you get off at the Bodega Aurrera (mini Wal-Mart) there is a nice walkway that follows a canal into near the city center. Somehow I spotted a small Telcel store right off the town square. I explained my problem in my best Spanish which was good enough for them to understand. They did a few things, got on a computer, did some more and showed me that the account was magically valid again. They suggested I go a few doors down to a Coppel store and recarga the phone number associated with the card. I have no idea why the Telcel store couldn’t do it. I added 400 pesos to the account with no problem other than the long lines of people buying other things. I walked back to the Telcel store showed them my receipts and they said all is well, no charge.

When I got back to camp I found out that yes indeed my account was operational with 400 pesos credit awaiting me to sign up for 30 days service. I’ll do that tomorrow so that the card will work until we fly back home from Cancun in December. That way when we return in January I can add more and pay for 30 days from that point.

 

Here for a week in Catemaco

We are now at Tepetapan RV Park in Catemaco, VC. They keep predicting rain but it was dry all day until we got right outside of San Andreas Tuxtla. It rained hard for  about 20 minutes then the rest of the day was beautiful.

The drive was uneventful, we got an early start at sunrise and were happy to see the the roads between the Emerald Coast and Veracruz are still in good condition. We made pretty good time getting to camp at 1 pm after stopping to shop and gas up.

There are a couple of campers here. When we arrived, as always we were greeted by Gene. When we said we will stay until Thanksgiving he realized that Thanksgiving is not the last Thursday in November but the 4th Thursday. I hope we convinced him that he needs to put on his annual turkey dinner on the correct date.

Our RV was so dirty from the muddy roads a few days ago that I could not touch the outside without getting dirty. I got out the hose and washed off all the dirt, it looks new again.

They have Wi-Fi at Tepetapen, but I still haven’t got my Telcel Banda Ancha working. I stopped at a Coppel store and they confirmed that my number had expired so I needed to buy a new Sim card but they couldn’t sell me one and I had to go to the Telcel store. Of course they couldn’t tell me where it was. So I’ll try somewhere else tomorrow.

A Day at the Emerald Beach

The Costa Esmeralda is very different than the West Coast or the Yucatan beaches. West Coast is brown sand , the Yucatan is white coral sand, while this coast’s sand is almost black. There are at least 50 hotels, campgrounds and cattle grazing land in this 10 mile stretch of MX180 along the Gulf of Mexico. I’m sure all this development has led to the water pollution. I think the oil rigs and oil deposits in the Bay of Campeche have added the dark black color.

But it is very popular in the summertime with Mexicans from all over the country. But in the late Fall and Winter months most of the tourists come from out of the country. It seems warm to us but cold to the Mexicans. So with an El Norte brewing, we have the campground and beach to ourselves. We like Neptuno campground but TP de Alba and Quinta Alicia are nice parks also, we have stayed in both of them.

We finally found a Italian Coffee Co about 2 mi. down the road at a Pemex that allowed me to use their wireless internet to catch up with all my e-mails. I hope by Friday I can get my Telcel 3G USB wide band working again.

So this afternoon we took about a 3.5 mi walk on the beach. The skies looked stormy but it was the temperature was in the mid 70’s and no rain yet. Tomorrow morning we head to Catemaco with a stop in the Tuxtlas for grocery shopping.