2002 Teacapan to La Laguna Sta Maria del Oro

We have left Alamos behind and have parked on the beach at Teacapan. In some ways we still were not ready to leave the Colonial town but then maybe that is the best time to go as we will be more anxious to return. Many wished us safe travels and we hope to see them again in the fall. The last few weeks in Alamos were very busy. It seemed that we walked downtown about twice a day. Once in the morning and then in the evening as there seemed to be things going on. We enjoyed movies twice a week - alternating between foreign and American films. These were shown in the theatre connected to the Museum and the Museum director had to make a special trip to open the door for us and one evening he completely forgot. He was tracked down and the movie started 1 hour late. No one seemed to mind as the weather was pleasant and we all enjoyed the time to visit around the Plaza and since it was early on Sunday evening the local vendors were starting to set up their food stands for the crowd after Church.

We stayed one day longer than planned as we had an invitation to go birding at Isla Huivalai with Dave Verner. He is an enthusiastic birder and even had an extra scope for Chris to use. We saw 74 species in our visit to the marshes. This was mainly the migrant water birds from the north with large concentration of American Avocets, Northern Pintails, Lesser Scaups, Am White Pelicans and Brants. This area is north of Navajoa and on the coast.

We are now parked with our back door facing the beach and the spectacular evening sunsets. The temperatures are very pleasant during the day with the high only reaching 25' C and 15' C at night. Since we are by the ocean the humidity is about 80% or more. We are parked in a coconut grove and the coconuts seem to fall quite often which requires disposal and in Mexico that means burning them. Coconuts are made up of many oil and they burn and smoke quite vigorously. The smell is quite strong and penetrates everything. This is the unpleasant part of parking here, but there does not seems to be anyway to get away from it. The Mexicans do have a compulsion to burn leaves, garbage, dried grass and plastic. The town is built by an estuary with an island protecting the harbor. We are on that estuary and do not have the huge waves pounding the beach like on the open ocean. The beach here is lovely sand and at low tide is hard for walking or biking and you can walk for miles.

If you are trying to locate Teacapan on the map it is located 150 south of Mazatlan or about 50 km south west of Escaunapa. There is a huge mangrove marsh complex inland which has huge numbers of water birds. Our Winnipeg species fly here also for the winter.

Since I never sent this on in San Blas we have now moved on down the coast with a week in San Blas and then a quick visit to Miramar and then on to a newly opened park only 15 km south of Santa Cruz.

Our stay in San Blas was pleasant and seemed to be busy.A friend of ours from Ottawa, Ben Wassink, joined us there for a few days. We had a good time but the last evening we were there Ben was robbed. While we were having dinner his VW was entered and they took his bag which contained his digital camera, binocular, digital recorder, and birding books. Needless to say this was not a pleasant occurrence. We left early the next morning and did not realize this had happened and he was not aware of it until he was getting ready to leave also. We met him at Paraiso, Miramar and heard the news. The police found his bag and a few little things were left inside but of coarse the things that can be sold were gone.

In San Blas I did spend some time at the internet but the lines were so slow. We almost felt like taking a book along while we waited for the screen to load. The price was higher than usual so decided to do this work further on when everything was more conducive to receiving and sending our mail.

This e-mail will be sent from Tepic as we have had another change of plans. Chris has noticed a clicking sound in the front end of the truck and we want to have it checked out as soon as possible. Tepic is the only city in the area that would have the facitilies to check this and would be able to get the parts as there is a Ford dealership there.

This is being written about 100km from Tepic and we are at a new trailer park located on a cliff above the ocean. From the restaurant area there is a terrific view of the bay towards San Blas. The park is in it infantsy so in some ways it is primitive camping. The water for our shower is heated by a wood-burning water heater. The grounds are very shaded with mangoe trees and behind us is extremely dense oil palms and bushes. The bird activity is minimal but we have had some good walks of the area. Just a short distance is a beautiful 1km long beach that is deserted and behind is a mangrove swamp.

Since we are now headed inland we will go on to La Laguna Sta Maria del Oro and leave the beach area behind us. We don't really mind as the humidity will be much less inland and the nights will be cooler. We enjoy the beach for a couple of weeks and then we look forward to the highlands area. We have had a few bites including chiggers and some ants but we have been going into the mangroves and some grass areas so I guess we could expect it. The no-see-ums are for ever present along this coast.