Greetings from Sayulita, Nayarit, Mexico
by Pam Schlotter
For many years, my husband Bill and I have dreamed of moving to Mexico and becoming fluent in Spanish. I previously attended an excellent Spanish school in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and for many reasons thought of returning there to continue our studies. But we are water people, CKFers and surfers. I circumnavigated Isla Tiburon, the largest island in the Sea of Cortez off the mainland of Mexico, with Ed Gillet. We have been on some long kayak trips in the Sea of Cortez off Baja and a memorable CKF trip to Animas Bay. We kayaked the 430 miles of Yukon River with Len Goodman, Paula Chavez and several others. I was with a group that was lucky to get off the water alive off the Pacific coast of Baja. Something I don’t want to re-live. So we decided we just had to find a place on our beloved Pacific Ocean.
I am 59 and Bill is 54, still a few years away from permanent retirement, and we will have been married 30 years in March next year. But we decided the time to follow our dream was now because you never know what the future will bring. Bill was a publicist at UCSB and I worked for Rain For Rent designing temporary systems to move water. Even though we were basically happy and successful in our jobs, we were both feeling overworked and were more than ready to make a major change.
When one first thinks of dropping out, it seems an easy thing to do. You quit your job, pack your things and drive away. Not so. In no particular order we had to apply for Mexican visas; store, give away or dump belongings; arrange for mail and money to be sent to Mexico; etc. etc. and etc. again. By far the worst part was packing up our house, sorting through 30 years of assorted stuff to decide what goes and what stays. We thought we could do it in a mere four or five days, but 10 days after we started we were still at it. There were times when I began to wonder if any dream was worth this much work. It seemed everytime we scratch five things off our to-do list, 10 more appeared to take their place.
Then came the job of fitting all we were taking with us into and onto our van. We went light on clothes and household goods, but where to put the 5 kayaks, two wave skis and three surfboards?
We finally left Oxnard on Saturday July 9, an excellent day to travel. We made Nogales, AZ (at the border that night). We had to stay at a secure motel and chose Motel 6 where I had once stayed with an Ed Gillet group on a trip to Isla Tiburon.
We crossed the border at the Nogales truck crossing early Sunday morning without so much as an hola from Mexican authorities. We drove right across without stopping. The next stop was the bureaucratic hell where foreigners must stop to obtain required permits to import (drive) cars in to Mexico (not required in Baja the last time we were there). We have heard you need one to cross from Baja by ferry to the mainland. You often wait forever in line—sometimes 2+ hours—to get to the window and when you get there you are told you are always missing a copy of something. Please go get it and come back. This time, however, we were in and out in 15 minutes. No lines, no problemas.
We drove the rest of the day through the Sonoran desert and along some rivers. We spent the night in Ciudad Obregon in a Holiday Inn at $100 USD/ night. We chose this hotel, which we had stayed at before, for its locked and guarded parking lot. We had bikes on the back of the van and $100 is cheap for their safety. The next morning a guy at a Pemex tried to cheat Bill out of 50 pesos (about $5), but after a brief discussion, he handed it over.
We rolled along the next day without incident. And I finally started to believe we were really going. We had decided to spend the night in Mazatlán, a place not friendly for vans piled high with kayaks (low entrances to enclosed parking). There were places on the street, but with the bikes to consider, we decided to look for something out of town. The roads are really good – two well-maintained lanes in each direction -- until you get south of Mazatlán and then it is back to 2 lanes. For safety sake, and for comfort, too, we prefer not to travel in the dark. So as dusk arrived, we headed out near the Mazatlán airport to look for lodging there. We found a beautiful golf resort off all by itself and on the ocean. We figured the rooms to be at least $200/night. We usually camp, but this time of year with the heat and with the car packed, we had decided to stay in motels. When the receptionist said noventaciento (900) pesos por noche, my disbelieving brain thought there must be some mistake. The exchange rate is about $10.45 pesos per US dollar. We stayed there and enjoyed a wonderful dinner and watched the sunset.
Tomorrow we would be in Sayulita. We didn’t have much to unpack and I would be surfing and kayaking and going to Spanish classes without a worry in the world. Bill would be working on his writing which includes screenplays, novels and some travel articles.
We arrived in Sayulita in the early evening, although it was still light. Since we are so far south and at the eastern edge of Mountain Time zone, the days are shorter in the summer than California. After finding the keys to the gate and the house and letting ourselves in, we drove to the beach and ate at Don Pedro’s on the beach that night. We were getting tired of eating in restaurants after “camping” out at home for 6 days and the 4 day trip. Tomorrow we could unpack, buy food, unload kayaks, surf and kayak, check on Spanish school, get internet cable to the house along with a satellite dish. Get the house organized, including putting all the books away.
The weather here is hot and humid in the summer, almost oppressively so to the newcomer. Instead of jumping into the zillion activities we had planned, we lay on our bed, slept and sweated away the first day beneath a ceiling fan blowing at hurricane force. And the next day wasn’t much better. But we’re getting used to and are functioning near normally now. I’ll tell you what we’ve been doing since our arrival next time.
Pam Schlotter
Submitted on August 1, 2005