Almost Home

It's been awhile since we have been able to write, we have been so busy. So this will be along update!

After San Pedro, Guatemala, we headed to San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico. We had a great day there exploring the town and checking out the market. On our second (and last) night we decided to park our car on the street so that we could leave early (before there would be anyone at the hotel to unlock the parkade for us). In the middle of the night Chris heard a car alarm going but it soon turned off and he didn't think much of it. The next morning when I headed out to the car to load up some of our stuff for our drive to Puerto Escondido, I discovered our window was smashed out. At first I thought nothing was missing since our DSLR camera, GPS, and all of the things we had bought along the way appeared to still be there. Then after a few minutes we realized Chris' big bag was missing. He had alot of things in his bag (about $3000 worth), so we decided to go down to the police station to get a police report so we could claim insurance to replace some of the things. We were stuck at the police station for hours while the police hung out outside just chatting and enjoying the day (ohhhh Mexico). Finally we got our report and were on our way to Puerto Escondido with a broken window!

In Puerto Escondido we found an amazing place to stay, called Dan & Carmen's. It had a swimming pool, free wifi, and a huge room with hot water and a kitchen. We negotiated a great deal with Dan after explaining everything we had just been through in San Cristobal.  We had a few relaxing days in Puerto Escondido, and on our last day we were sitting eating dinner trying to figure out what time it was when I asked a young guy coming out of the restaurant. We ended up chatting wih him for awhile and he told us that he heard the roads to Acapulco (the direction we were supposed to be heading the next day) were closed due to teachers strikes. He was unable to catch a bus beacuse they weren't running, but we had our car so we decided to give it a try, and give him a ride. We ended up making it fine and never saw any strikes. We ended up driving almost half way across Mexico with him (all the way to Sayulita)! Unfortunately in Puerto Escondido, the maids threw away our police report mistaking it for garbage, so we are really hoping we can still claim insurance without it...

After Puerto Esconidio we spent one quick night in a town called Pie de la Cuesta, which was a fairly expensive resort town for mostly Mexicans, very few tourists. Next we were planning on heading to Manzanillo but a few hours South of it we came across a beautiful stretch of beaches and saw a sign advertising camping at one of the many turnoffs. We ended up spending a night on the small property of a Mexican couple and their daughter. We were the only visitors and had an antire beach to ourselves. It was amazing! The only downside was that there were ants everywhere and we all got bitten up pretty bad (including Nina).

The next day we went to Sayulita where we spent two days relaxing in the sun, Chris did a little surfing, and I got a tattoo (anyone who actually reads this blog will have to wiat until I get home to see it, it will be a surprise)! After spending almost a week with our friend we picked up in Puerto Escondido, we said our goodbyes and headed North.

Our next stop was a little town near the Mexican border called San Carlos, which is very popular with the RVing crowd. We spent the night camping in an RV park.

The next day we crossed the border into Tucson Arizona. We spent about 2 hours waiting in line at the border (they are currently doing some construction to expand the border so it was a painfully long wait). The actual crossing was a breeze though. They didn't search our car, and didn't even ask to see any of the paperwork we had prepared for Nina. They just waved us through and we were on our way.

We are now camping at another RV park in Tucson waiting until we can get the window fixed in our car tomorrow (today is Sunday so we have to wait until Monday), then as soon as that is taken care of we are off to Joshua Tree National Park for a night, then LA, San Francisco, Eureka, Portland, Seattle, then home! It's been a blast but we are very ready to get home:)

Adios,

Natalie