Hi Everyone
Just thought I should post something about the drive down vis.a.vis the security situation on the roads etc. This blog is primarily for friends and family because I'm not one to use a Facebook account but in case you came across this by searching for info about driving in Mexico I'll give you my take in things.
First though, please understand this is just my opinion. I don't know anymore about what really goes on down than the next person.
We left Nogales AZ Friday morning at 8:00am and crossed into Mexio with no issues. In fact it's a non-event. For those of you that have never done it you don't actually "clear" customes at all. You basically just drive down a narrow road with a few customes officers on each side and you get to a split where there are two lanes; one for those that have something to declare and the other for those that don't. If you take the nothing to declare lane you just drive through and wham, bam, you're in Mexico.
The first thing we noticed over our last trip down two years ago was the increased traffic. Last time there was a deserted feel to the roads and it was a bit spooky but this time the roads were all busy and there was lots of other traffic. It may be because it's the end of the Christmas /New Year holiday and a lot of families were heading home but it was definitly busier.
The next thing we noticed was a significant increase in a police presence. And by this I mean a huge increase. We saw numerous checkpoints and lots of high-profile patrols. And if you think Mexican police aren’t intimidating you haven’t pulled into a gas station and stopped next to three large one-ton pickups that have been retro fitted with machine gun turrets and are full of very large Mexican Federale’s, all wearing blacked-out full combat/riot gear, all with balaclava’s and toting machine guns. These guys mean business and aren’t to be trifled with. But..... rather than scarring us it gave us a huge sense of comfort! No one bothered us and it was great to know the government is taking the situation seriously.
So, long story short.... we spent a long day on Friday and a half-day yesterday, driving the 1,100 klm from the border to Mazatlan and it was completely uneventful. No security issues at all and no problems of any kind. It’s divided highway almost the entire way, which ranged from really crappy, to less crappy and to OK – with a few Autopista stretches thrown in that are really quite good. The tolls add up though; $35CAN on Friday and another $30CAN yesterday. The alternative though, is taking the free roads which are a LOT slower and in much poorer condition.
So there you have it. We’re now in Mazatlan in a condo overlooking the ocean and our little SUV is securely parked in the parking lot waiting to be loaded with Mexican treasures we hope to buy over the next few days.
Adios Mi Amigos
Dale
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Greetings from sunny Dawson Creek
Hi All
I'm back in Dawson Creek but not for long. For those of you that don't know me I do consulting work for credit unions and I've had a contract to assist a credit union here in BC's north off and on for almost two years. I arrived a week ago Monday and I'm leaving after work tomorrow. I fly home on Thursday and by Friday afternoon we plan on hitting the road South. It'll be a welcome change since here it's -20C!
We bought a townhouse in Gold Canyon AZ last February but it was late in our stay and we were only able to enjoy it for a week before we had to head home. Since then it seems like ages since we were there. The unit was unfurnished when we bought it so other than a bed it's pretty much empty. We're not much for marathon driving trips so it'll take us at least three days to drive down but we're really looking forward to the trip because we'll finally get to start furnishing and decorating it the way we like. We'll be in AZ for four months and I have to fly back and forth at least five times for work but I should still have lots of time for some great rides on the motorcycle I have down there and at least one road trip to Mexico.
We're driving to Mazatlan in January to stay for a week to do some shopping. Our plan is to buy as much of the art and decorating pieces for our new place as we can. And here where my absolute cheap side comes out. For anyone that's done it you'll know how unpleasant timeshare presentations are. They can be high-pressure and time consuming, and to the uninitiated or naive, they often result in unwanted poorly thought out purchases. But....... for someone that likes the thrill of the hunt and looks at it as a battle of wits, it can be a lucrative endeavour. Two years ago on a whim I went to a presentation and after 2 1/2 hours of repeated no's I left - but with $400US cash for my time. What? $400? Sign me up! I was able to go to four more before they caught on and it dried up. $2,000 in total over two weeks - and I was there for two months so it's not like I had anything better to do those mornings :-) So that's the plan for this trip down. It's not a vacation, I'm looking at it as a business trip. Time share presentations in the morning and shopping in the afternoon, and if I'm right, the whole thing will be paid for by someone else.
So only three more sleeps and we'll be on our way south where we'll do our part to support the American economy.
Cheers!
dale
I'm back in Dawson Creek but not for long. For those of you that don't know me I do consulting work for credit unions and I've had a contract to assist a credit union here in BC's north off and on for almost two years. I arrived a week ago Monday and I'm leaving after work tomorrow. I fly home on Thursday and by Friday afternoon we plan on hitting the road South. It'll be a welcome change since here it's -20C!
We bought a townhouse in Gold Canyon AZ last February but it was late in our stay and we were only able to enjoy it for a week before we had to head home. Since then it seems like ages since we were there. The unit was unfurnished when we bought it so other than a bed it's pretty much empty. We're not much for marathon driving trips so it'll take us at least three days to drive down but we're really looking forward to the trip because we'll finally get to start furnishing and decorating it the way we like. We'll be in AZ for four months and I have to fly back and forth at least five times for work but I should still have lots of time for some great rides on the motorcycle I have down there and at least one road trip to Mexico.
We're driving to Mazatlan in January to stay for a week to do some shopping. Our plan is to buy as much of the art and decorating pieces for our new place as we can. And here where my absolute cheap side comes out. For anyone that's done it you'll know how unpleasant timeshare presentations are. They can be high-pressure and time consuming, and to the uninitiated or naive, they often result in unwanted poorly thought out purchases. But....... for someone that likes the thrill of the hunt and looks at it as a battle of wits, it can be a lucrative endeavour. Two years ago on a whim I went to a presentation and after 2 1/2 hours of repeated no's I left - but with $400US cash for my time. What? $400? Sign me up! I was able to go to four more before they caught on and it dried up. $2,000 in total over two weeks - and I was there for two months so it's not like I had anything better to do those mornings :-) So that's the plan for this trip down. It's not a vacation, I'm looking at it as a business trip. Time share presentations in the morning and shopping in the afternoon, and if I'm right, the whole thing will be paid for by someone else.
So only three more sleeps and we'll be on our way south where we'll do our part to support the American economy.
Cheers!
dale
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Entry into to the Cathedral entrance tunnel
The first part of the tunnel
This was taken with a flash to show the salt deposits on the tunnel walls
One of a series of small alters
This is where my point and shoot camera just doesn't cut it. I shot this without a flash to try to capture the image but it just doesn't do it justice. This chappel seats more than 1,000 and it's 800 feet underground if that helps give some perspective
A city within a city and salt, lots and lots of salt
All good things must come to an end and so too must our trip to Colombia. We’ve had a great time, saw some fantastic sights and met some incredible people but we’re definitely in wind down mode now.
We flew out of Santa Marta yesterday and arrived in Bogotá after a 90 minute uneventful flight with LAN airlines. I played major tourist and booked us into a really nice hotel and made arrangements for a car and driver to pick us up at the airport. It was more than a taxi but still really reasonable by our standards and was a welcome change from the chaotic scramble for a taxi.
And here I have to apologize for my earlier comments vis-à-vis Bogota. The city is huge and as much as I thought we’d seen a large part of it when we spent the day visiting four credit unions when we first arrived, apparently we didn’t even scratch the surface. Our hotel is in a VERY nice area in the north end of the city. It’s not the actual Zona Rosa - and truth be told I’m not exactly sure where we are in relation to down town - but it’s an area of low rises and businesses that reminds us of the West End in Vancouver as much as anything else. There’s hardly any graffiti, it’s clean and orderly and if we’d stayed here instead of the La Candelaria district my description of Bogota would have been very different.
And I don’t think I’ve mentioned the most amazing thing yet - Medellin may have its Metro but Bogota is just as rightfully proud of its Transmillenio; a bus system unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It seems a few years back the city planners decided to build a large metro system, not unlike Medellin, to augment and replace a lot of the existing city busses. They designed a system that would run dedicated rail lines between existing roads and highways and went so far as to designate the right-of-ways and start the construction. And then, like so many good intentions, things fell off the rails so to speak during their financial crisis in the 90‘s at the height of the war against Pablo Escobar. But rather than let a good idea lie dormant they simply changed things up a bit to live within their means. And what a job they did! Rather than light rail the new Transmillenio is a system of dedicated intra-city bus lines using bus-only road and highway lanes and utilizing literally thousands of double and triple articulated high-end busses. There are raised pedestrian walkways giving safe access and the terminals to get on and off look more like a subway stop than a bus stop. And all the secondary bus lines feed into a Transmillenio station so it’s easy to get anywhere in the city safely and inexpensively. For all intents and purposes they’ve built a light rail system without the light rail. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. We could learn a lot from the ingenuity of Latin America.
And now the hotel. Hotels in general in Colombia are more expensive than what we expected but at the higher end (for Colombia) we’ve found much more value and this hotel is no exception.
http://www.lancasterhouse.com.co/index.asp?idioma=bogota-colombia-hotels
Our room is absolutely amazing although room hardly seems an adequate description for a four-room, 500 square foot suite, complete with a full separate kitchen and a large outdoor patio with two seating areas and patio tables to seat eight. It’s an old hotel from the (40’s?) that has been wonderfully preserved - it’s almost like staying in a museum or visiting a vintage building as part of a tour. All the original doors, trim and furniture are original Art Deco and still in place. The staff are all in uniforms or in grey or black business suits with white gloves and in the bar there’s a piano player and a bar tender wearing a white shirt and bow tie. The bar is open 24/7, as is room service and the included breakfast buffet, complete with waiter and chef in white shirt and bow tie, was a deluxe spread of fruit, breads, waffles, eggs cooked to order and local juices coffee and hot chocolate.
When we checked in a bellman whisked our bags away and installed them on a trolley to take to our room and while we taking care of the check-in process he quietly attached new name tags with the hotels logo to all our bags. He showed us to our room and gave us a tour reminiscent of a movie from the 30’s or 40’s and we then had a complimentary glass of wine while the piano player serenaded us in the bar prior to us taking our early dinner in the dining room set with sparkling china and beautiful linens. It’s definitely not as modern as the Diez in Medellin but I can’t remember when I’ve felt so welcomed in a hotel. All the staff now greet us by name and it’s truly an amazing experience. Muy Bueno - such is life in Colombia!
This afternoon we took in a sight that I’m not sure how to describe. I know the pictures I took will be woefully inadequate and I’m afraid any mental picture I attempt to paint will be just as poor.
http://www.tourcatedraldesal.com/en/
There’s a small town an hour outside of Bogota where there used to be a large salt mine deep in the surrounding mountains. Apparently in the 30’s when it was actively being mined the miners carved chapels, naves and alters out of the rock so they could offer their daily prayers for their safe return when they started work each day. These were eventually enlarged and further developed until there was a very large cathedral carved out of the rock and salt deposits 200 meters underground. Then in 1990 the entire site was abandoned because it was geologically unstable and considered a safety hazard.
The government of Bogota with assistance from the Colombian government both felt that this was a site that should be reopened and preserved so they held a national competition for an architectural design for a new facility and the results are beyond amazing. The new “Salt Cathedral” is a complex of interconnected tunnels and huge amphitheatres carved out of solid rock 800 feet below the surface. There are three large “Cathedrals” that are used as places of worship on Sundays that can accommodate as many as 7,000 parishioners and the entire experience has become a pilgrimage for local Catholics. Rosi and I aren’t religious but it’s had to argue with the sense of peace and tranquility that seems to exude from the very rock walls themselves as you descend deep into the mountain and the feeling off spirituality that engulfs you as you listen to music playing softly in the background. The tunnels are softly backlit with subdued indirect lighting and they interconnect through hidden stairways and wide ramps all leading deeper into the mine. The chapels themselves are huge naves the size of an airplane hanger carved out of solid rock with large rock alters illuminated with hidden spot lights - and the overall experience is beyond amazing.
Today is our last day in Colombia and this will be my last entry. Tomorrow we fly to Toronto where we overnight before completing the journey home via Vancouver. It’s been an incredible trip and I can’t think of a better way to finish it than the visit today to the Catedral de Sal.
Cheers
Dale and Rosi
Safe and Sound in Colombia
We flew out of Santa Marta yesterday and arrived in Bogotá after a 90 minute uneventful flight with LAN airlines. I played major tourist and booked us into a really nice hotel and made arrangements for a car and driver to pick us up at the airport. It was more than a taxi but still really reasonable by our standards and was a welcome change from the chaotic scramble for a taxi.
And here I have to apologize for my earlier comments vis-à-vis Bogota. The city is huge and as much as I thought we’d seen a large part of it when we spent the day visiting four credit unions when we first arrived, apparently we didn’t even scratch the surface. Our hotel is in a VERY nice area in the north end of the city. It’s not the actual Zona Rosa - and truth be told I’m not exactly sure where we are in relation to down town - but it’s an area of low rises and businesses that reminds us of the West End in Vancouver as much as anything else. There’s hardly any graffiti, it’s clean and orderly and if we’d stayed here instead of the La Candelaria district my description of Bogota would have been very different.
And I don’t think I’ve mentioned the most amazing thing yet - Medellin may have its Metro but Bogota is just as rightfully proud of its Transmillenio; a bus system unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It seems a few years back the city planners decided to build a large metro system, not unlike Medellin, to augment and replace a lot of the existing city busses. They designed a system that would run dedicated rail lines between existing roads and highways and went so far as to designate the right-of-ways and start the construction. And then, like so many good intentions, things fell off the rails so to speak during their financial crisis in the 90‘s at the height of the war against Pablo Escobar. But rather than let a good idea lie dormant they simply changed things up a bit to live within their means. And what a job they did! Rather than light rail the new Transmillenio is a system of dedicated intra-city bus lines using bus-only road and highway lanes and utilizing literally thousands of double and triple articulated high-end busses. There are raised pedestrian walkways giving safe access and the terminals to get on and off look more like a subway stop than a bus stop. And all the secondary bus lines feed into a Transmillenio station so it’s easy to get anywhere in the city safely and inexpensively. For all intents and purposes they’ve built a light rail system without the light rail. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. We could learn a lot from the ingenuity of Latin America.
And now the hotel. Hotels in general in Colombia are more expensive than what we expected but at the higher end (for Colombia) we’ve found much more value and this hotel is no exception.
http://www.lancasterhouse.com.co/index.asp?idioma=bogota-colombia-hotels
Our room is absolutely amazing although room hardly seems an adequate description for a four-room, 500 square foot suite, complete with a full separate kitchen and a large outdoor patio with two seating areas and patio tables to seat eight. It’s an old hotel from the (40’s?) that has been wonderfully preserved - it’s almost like staying in a museum or visiting a vintage building as part of a tour. All the original doors, trim and furniture are original Art Deco and still in place. The staff are all in uniforms or in grey or black business suits with white gloves and in the bar there’s a piano player and a bar tender wearing a white shirt and bow tie. The bar is open 24/7, as is room service and the included breakfast buffet, complete with waiter and chef in white shirt and bow tie, was a deluxe spread of fruit, breads, waffles, eggs cooked to order and local juices coffee and hot chocolate.
When we checked in a bellman whisked our bags away and installed them on a trolley to take to our room and while we taking care of the check-in process he quietly attached new name tags with the hotels logo to all our bags. He showed us to our room and gave us a tour reminiscent of a movie from the 30’s or 40’s and we then had a complimentary glass of wine while the piano player serenaded us in the bar prior to us taking our early dinner in the dining room set with sparkling china and beautiful linens. It’s definitely not as modern as the Diez in Medellin but I can’t remember when I’ve felt so welcomed in a hotel. All the staff now greet us by name and it’s truly an amazing experience. Muy Bueno - such is life in Colombia!
This afternoon we took in a sight that I’m not sure how to describe. I know the pictures I took will be woefully inadequate and I’m afraid any mental picture I attempt to paint will be just as poor.
http://www.tourcatedraldesal.com/en/
There’s a small town an hour outside of Bogota where there used to be a large salt mine deep in the surrounding mountains. Apparently in the 30’s when it was actively being mined the miners carved chapels, naves and alters out of the rock so they could offer their daily prayers for their safe return when they started work each day. These were eventually enlarged and further developed until there was a very large cathedral carved out of the rock and salt deposits 200 meters underground. Then in 1990 the entire site was abandoned because it was geologically unstable and considered a safety hazard.
The government of Bogota with assistance from the Colombian government both felt that this was a site that should be reopened and preserved so they held a national competition for an architectural design for a new facility and the results are beyond amazing. The new “Salt Cathedral” is a complex of interconnected tunnels and huge amphitheatres carved out of solid rock 800 feet below the surface. There are three large “Cathedrals” that are used as places of worship on Sundays that can accommodate as many as 7,000 parishioners and the entire experience has become a pilgrimage for local Catholics. Rosi and I aren’t religious but it’s had to argue with the sense of peace and tranquility that seems to exude from the very rock walls themselves as you descend deep into the mountain and the feeling off spirituality that engulfs you as you listen to music playing softly in the background. The tunnels are softly backlit with subdued indirect lighting and they interconnect through hidden stairways and wide ramps all leading deeper into the mine. The chapels themselves are huge naves the size of an airplane hanger carved out of solid rock with large rock alters illuminated with hidden spot lights - and the overall experience is beyond amazing.
Today is our last day in Colombia and this will be my last entry. Tomorrow we fly to Toronto where we overnight before completing the journey home via Vancouver. It’s been an incredible trip and I can’t think of a better way to finish it than the visit today to the Catedral de Sal.
Cheers
Dale and Rosi
Safe and Sound in Colombia
Saturday, September 8, 2012
It looks deceptively easy at this point
View through the jungle
View from one of the headlands
View in the other direction - it was VERY steep to get up here
Rocks to be clambered over
We went through a section that was covered with these snake holes. Just when I thought they were all old and abondoned a head poked up the size of my fist. I missed the picture but we gave them a wide bearth after that!
Starting to get a little warm
This section was approx 50 feet long and all I could think of was the
spiders just over my head
Only 30 minutes in and almost soaked through
Through the rocks instead of over
This is about the half way point - somehow I don't think Rosi is feeling the love
Heat stroke anyone?
Double rainbow from our balcony. Everyday the weather is the same; beautiful clear days until around 5:00 and then showers and/or thunder and lightening in the evening
Sunset from our balcony
The entrance to the Tayrona National Park
The first stretch of trail - boardwalk, how nice - this won't be so bad :-)
They lied!
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