Settling into Bucerias

—Blogpost written by Bob 

In this blogpost, we continue our 6-month winter excursion in Mexico.  We arrived by car in San Miguel de Allende (SMA) on October 15, traveling from near Annapolis, Maryland where we live on our sailboat.  We then traveled west by car to Bucerias.  This blogpost described our first few days in Bucerias where we will be based for our last two months of this winter.

Thursday, February 3

The cool temperature of the morning got down into the mid-50's--it was very comfortable sleeping with our windows open.  This afternoon, like yesterday afternoon, it was expected to reach 80 degrees F. 

Little frog sculpture and
signs by our front door.

We made it to La Comer and back this morning and the car has no crinkled parts—the good news of today’s story.  The bad news is the huge disagreement we had in the process.  Maggie can’t judge distances and she can't handle chaos and today’s driving situations were chaotic.  The problem is that her navigation skills are somewhat lacking too, which was why she was driving and not me.  After today I vowed that she will never drive again in Bucerias.  It simply was not safe for anyone with her driving along a 8-lane highway (4 lanes in each direction) with both her hands over her eyes and simultaneously screaming that she couldn’t handle it.

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We had lunch (half a meat loaf sandwich each) in our apartment after we learned that the restaurant we intended to visit, Culi’s, didn’t open until 3 PM.  We walked to Culi's (0.3 mile away) after 4 PM.

Maggie at Culi's Restaurant.

Culi's was everything it was cracked up to be--excellent meals and superior service!  Since we arrived so early in the day, we were one of only two parties there at the time.  We both had mahi-mahi and we shared a large serving of grilled asparagus and scalloped potatoes.  We even shared a dessert--a very elaborate presentation of vanilla flan.

Vanilla flan with caramelized spun
sugar around the outside
for dessert!

On the walk back we noticed some of the homes we had passed on the way to the restaurant.  The homes covered the extremes. 

A high class home on a corner
lot in Bucerias Centro.

A middle class home on an interior
lot on Calle Cinco de Mayo 
in Bucerias Centro.

Friday, February 4

Like yesterday, the day began with an overcast sky.  It was 59 degrees outside at 9 AM but it didn't feel cold at all. We had the A/C on in our bedroom and set at 22 degrees C (71.6 degrees F) during the night.

Our major goal for today was simply to spend the day near the beach here in Bucerias.  We started walking toward the beach around noon in search of a particular restaurant we selected ahead of time.  However, we stumbled upon another interesting restaurant along the way, Los Tejabanes.  It had a very interesting patio on the front of the restaurant but, today, we chose to use the inside dining area. 

The sunny portion of the outside
dining area at Los Tejabanes.

A cupola on the roof of a home on
the beach side of the highway.

On the beach side of the highway, condos
were almost everywhere, many
still under construction.

We walked through the open air market area on our way to the beach where all types of beach things were being sold.  (I bought a t-shirt.)

The Bucerias sign by the
main beach area.

Horse rides were available
on the beach.

Mexican families enjoyed
a sunny beach day.

We soon found out that there was no need to walk through the market, the sellers came to us on the beach.

A young girl selling little animal
bobbleheads on the beach.

We took a taxi back to our apartment.  To our surprise the taxi's were well organized--all we had to do was to walk to the nearby taxi stand and wait our turn in line for the next available taxi.

Saturday, February 5

My primary goal for today was to accomplish a map update for our car's GPS.  We lounged around most of the morning, updating our blogs, etc.  By the way, Mexican neighborhoods are noisy!  Maybe even more noisy than usual on a Saturday morning.

A yellow lily in bloom on
our dining table.

About two o'clock in the afternoon we had lunch in our apartment--Maggi
e made pasta and pasta sauce--it was great!  Then, I finally buckled down to accomplishing my goal for the day.  I had a difficult time getting my laptop to recognize my Garmin GPS--after a lot of reading and experimentation I found out that I couldn't use the mini-USB connection on the GPS's mount because it only transfers power (not data!).  It took a couple hours to figure out that I needed a different cable and I had to hook up between the actual GPS (not the mount) and the laptop.  Once I got this figured out, it took another 2 hours to upload updated software and updated maps.  By now, the day was shot but my mission was accomplished!  (Incidentally there was no cost from Garmin for the map update!  I used our apartment sufficiently fast Internet and my VPN with the Washington DC server location to make the transfer.)

Sunday, February 5

We spent a very leisurely Sunday morning relaxing in our Bucerias apartment, watching some new YouTube videos and catching up on our blogs.  A nice ocean breeze blew through the open windows.  The outside temperature warmed up from an overnight low of 62 degrees to the mid-70's in the afternoon--almost perfect winter weather in my opinion!  (We slept using the A/C again last night mostly so that we could block out the outside noise by closing the windows.)

The view from our balcony.

We made a major finding this morning on how to make a left hand turn on Route 200 coming through Bucerias--it is done from the far right lane of the service road, believe it or not.  When the traffic light on the highway turns red, traffic in both lanes stop.  Then, traffic on the service road can make a left turn (or a u-turn) while watching out for traffic coming from the service road on the opposite side of the highway.  (This was the chaos we experienced a couple days ago.)

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We watched the Pro Bowl as we waited for California Pizza to open at 3 PM.  As we waited I made a Batanga (tequila and diet coke) for the first time.  I salted the rim of the glass (using sea salt) and poured 1 part tequila and 2 parts diet coke and squeezed 1/4 of a lime into an old fashioned glass filled with ice cubes.  It quickly became my new favorite tequila drink!

The Batanga: Tequila and
Coke (photo courtesy
of "A Couple Cooks")

The afternoon could not have been more pleasant with the perfect temperature, consuming a couple Batanga's, eating pizza, and watching the Pro Bowl on my iPad.

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During the coming week we plan to visit Sayulita, a beach-side town just north of Bucerias, and possibly some other adventures before spending a week in the jungle south of Puerto Vallarta.  Stay tuned...

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