One section of the road had some magnificent views

As our regular readers know, we're not big beach people. But, we do enjoy a week, or two at the most. So yesterday we made our way down the twisty, windy highway MEX80 to the dusty beach town of Melaque/San Patricio.

We got going just before 10am, with a plan to arrive just after 12 noon.

Camping with armed guards

We headed out yesterday morning at around 10:30am. A little bit of a plate start, but we knew we were only going to be driving about three hours.

First stop was for gasoline, at 23.98 pesos ($1.86 CAD) per liter. That's the equivalent of $5.07 USD per gallon.

Avoid non essential travel!

I belong to several travel forums on the internet, and one newbie traveler posted the current travel warnings for Mexico. 

The Canadian government says that the area we are headed to is listed as "Avoid non-essential travel!"

Your safety and security could be at risk. You should think about your need to travel to this country, territory or region based on family or business requirements, knowledge of or familiarity with the region, and other factors. If you are already there, think about whether you really need to be there. If you do not need to be there, you should think about leaving.

Where to next?

We had been planning a full week here in Etzatlan, but we're thinking we're going to head out tomorrow (Monday), a day early. 

We're heading down to the coast, but we're taking a route we've never done before.

Mexico is no longer the bargain it was, but it's still far cheaper than Canada!

Our week here is going by quickly. In fact, time itself seems to be going by quickly... we're already 1/3 of the way through January!

We walked into town the last two days. Ruth's cheap phone was having charge cable connection problems, so we needed to find a cellphone repair place.

What new countries do we want to visit?

Following on yesterdays post about countries we've been to, but don't feel the need to return to, someone suggested we should list the new countries that we really want to visit.

And there are a lot of them!

Which countries would we not return to?

One of our regular readers made a comment on our facebook page yesterday... "You’ve been to many countries. Are there some to which you wouldn’t want to return?"

And there are! The question actually prodded me to update our "countries visited" list, which I hadn't done for a couple of years.

What happened to Central America?

One of our long time readers saw that we are going to Kyrgyzstan in May, and asked "What happened to Belize and continuing on to South America?

And she was right to question that! When we made our Central and South America plan, it was designed to be fluid. We don't have to be anywhere at any certain time, and we knew it was a three or four year plan.

Moving on today

We never did make it into the swimming pool! Being a Monday, they only had one pool open yesterday. And so it was quite busy, and already turning green by the time we looked at it. The regulars here say the best time to get in is right when they fill them first thing in the morning, but I'm afraid we're not in a swimming mood first thing in the morning!

Arrived at Chimulco Water Park

On Saturday we walked into the town of Valle de Juarez and got some errands done. I was able to pay our home internet bill at the local Oxxo store, then we stopped into a hairstylist for Ruth to get a haircut.

Then we went back into town in the evening and had shrimp for dinner!

Big trip plans just booked!

When we did the "stan" countries two years ago, our friends Danielle and Ron had told us about a campervan rental company in Kyrgyzstan that they had used and really enjoyed. That thought has been stuck in our minds since then. We didn't really do Kyrgyzstan the justice it deserves at the time since we had been there in November and most of the mountain accommodation had been closed.

So we wanted to go back at a better time of year!

Another fiesta!

We relaxed and hung out here at the RV park most of the day yesterday... nothing wrong with that!

But late afternoon, we were invited to another fiesta. I don't think there was any purpose behind it, just that a lot of relatives had been here over the holidays and some of them were heading home to Chicago area.

Made it to Valle de Juarez

Last we checked in, we were parked up just west of the big city of Morelia at the sandstone rock formations called Los Piloncillos. We slept well there again... total peace and quiet!

But it was chilly the next morning, so we got up and drove right away. We were taking another back road... and it was in BAD shape!

2025 Year in review

Overall, we had a great 2025! 

We started the year in Mexico, and we ended the year in Mexico. But in between we were in Spain, Scotland, England, Italy, Albania, Ireland, Greenland, Iceland, and Canada.

Into and out of the big city of Morelia, Mexico and another great overnight spot

We had a great sleep at the top of the mountain, and then headed downhill all the way into the big city of Morelia (pop 900,000).

On the way, we stopped for an hour at a Pemex gas station with a good parking area and had some breakfast and filled up with gas.