Christmas recipe for traveling Oberstorfians and Walsers:

Take some beautiful traditional Christmas music from the alpine region, mix it with the trumpets playing Stille Nacht from the church steeple on Christmas eve and muffle that with the quietly falling snow flakes of the holy night. Then close your eyes…

Around noon on the 24th of December I retreated to our camper, found Radio Vorarlberg online and listened to music and christmas stories from home. I missed the yearly “Concert” from Koletta and family that often happened in our house and concluded their “Christmas Ralley”. But I found the video clip from three years ago and played that.

We spent two weeks over Christmas with our friends Rosa and Leon in Los Barriles at their beautiful waterfront home, parked the camper in their yard and enjoyed life in “compound”. The days flew by with visiting, fishing (so we could cook more great meals) and early morning walks with the dogs. Christmas dinner was a 20 lb turkey with all the trimmings, friends and neighbors came over for the feast and a good time was had by all. Life was easy and relaxed at “Casa Pescador”, it was great to reconnect and have some good laughs.

Casa Pescador

When we left we did so with the promise to come back (and finish the garden shed project ;-)again.

From La Paz we took the ferry to Topolobampo on the mainland of Mexico. The ship reminded me of our Alaska ferries, no frills but nice and clean, the paperwork could be streamlined a little better. But oh well, this is Mexico.

We got to Topolabampo in the evening and at 11 pm drove with all the trucks and semis toward Las Mochis. At one point we got pulled over by the police who kept asking Günter if he had been drinking alcohol. Then they told us not to drive at night and to take a hotel in Las Mochis because it is very dangerous at night. Bad roads, cows, crazy truck drivers and bad people he told us are present on the highway at night. We know that, but with the ferry schedule the way it is, you have no option. Downtown Los Mochis we asked at the Ibis hotel if we could park and they were very nice and showed us a spot and notified the security guard. So far so good.

The next day we drove the toll road south to Celestino, (north of Mazatlan) and went to a small camp ground on the beach. Other than Rick, a “long timer” from Canada there was nobody there but Nancy the cat, which soon was “our ” cat since Günter fed it milk.

There are several shrimp hatcheries here along the beach, they hatch the shrimp roe and raise them to 1/2 inch size and then sell them to shrimp farms. All the shrimp you can buy here are most likely not wild caught. At many roadside stands along the roads you can buy them fresh or dried.

Günter has been fishing with his new fishing pole (Christmas present) no luck so far. I have been fixing chiles rellenos with poblanos we got from some locals, the recipe is from Rosa (no breading) who also showed me how to make Jamaica ( hibiscus) tea concentrate. You add it to a glass of cold water and have a nice cold drink anytime you want. Put it in a wine glass and pretend it is red wine haha. I have also been baking bread with the Cobb Grill and it works very well. Next I will try banana bread.

After a few days we took off again and chose to ignore the toll road and take the old highway south.

The country was dotted with little towns. Lush gardens, fields of corn, peppers and tomatoes, mango orchards and palm trees flew by. Soon the dry Baja desert was just a memory as the country side got more and more tropical. Local markets sell fresh fruits and vegetables and we stocked up on papayas, mandarins, grapes, cactus fruit and limes.

Out on the coast again we found a little fishing town called Teacapan where, along the beach at the edge of town, several Canadian “snow birds” with their large campers and trucks, their pets, satellite dishes and all kinds of outdoor toys are settled in for the winter. The sandy beach here goes for miles and miles with countless palm trees and an occasional village.

Our camping spot is nice, but with three Canadian rigs and their 5 barking dogs with will probably not last long.

We like to ride the bicycles around town, talk to children, barefoot and shy, but very curious. I always have to resist giving them a treat, it would encourage them to beg. In Los Barriles I bought a harmonica at a garage sale, now I wait for the right occasion and the right child to hand it over as payment for a favor.

The estuaries around here are a birdwatchers paradise, in this 80 km lagoon we have seen some beautiful birds like Roseate Spoonbills, Wood Storks, a multitude of colorful smaller birds as well as iguanas and turtles. I am glad we bought a bird book in La Paz!

So, we will now ride the bikes into town to “Ciber Evolution” across from the bakery and upload this part of our travel diary to the blog. And buy some bread as well.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Rosa and Leon in Los Barriles

Teacapan

Petri Heil