Journey To Mexico Life

From Canada to Mexico. Our journey to a new life in Quintana Roo.

Hello Everyone! Welcome to our Journey.

I decided to start this blog for a few reasons. Not only does it give me something to do during the hot summer days (we are officially in the ’40 days of heat’) but even though I did a TON of research before we embarked on our journey, we still encountered many learning curves along the way (and still are, lol). So if this blog can help even a few families on their journeys, well worth it!

We (boyfriend and I) have always wanted to retire in Mexico, particularly the Mayan Riviera. From the first time we visited, over a decade ago, we fell in love with this place. So when Canada became more and more …….interesting to live in throughout the last couple of years, we thought, ” this might be a great time to get out of dodge and see if Mexico really is for us or not”. Best case scenario; we love it here and choose to stay! Worst case scenario; we can go home. And so my research began.

Good thing I am such a planner! It turns out there are so many people flocking to Mexico over the last year, they are really cracking down on peoples’ visas. The old idea of ‘just fly in on vacation and never leave’ doesn’t work anymore. A lot of people are getting their tourists visas for literally the amount of time their vacations are booked for. Immigration has started checking peoples visas in the tourist parts of town, and deporting anyone who isn’t valid. So if you plan on being here for longer than 6 months, this means getting your temporary residency.

Temporary residency MUST be started in your home country. It is a pretty simple process really, made really simple if you already speak Spanish! We hired an immigration lawyer to make sure we didn’t fudge anything up. I found there is so much information out there, it is easy to get overwhelmed; especially when you already have a busy life (as most of us do)! There are many options to Google: https://mexlaw.com/immigration-law-in-mexico/ , https://wherecani.live/mexico-immigration-lawyer/ , https://www.easylegalmexico.com/immigration/ , are a few. The nice part about this is, even though a lot of the process in Canada is not too difficult, our lawyer also made the follow up appointment in Playa del Carmen for us. The government sites in Mexico are not so user friendly, and do not always translate for you. If you do not speak Spanish well, it could be VERY difficult to get your appointment booked. And the lawyer only cost $300 CAD, which for us was money well spent. I HIGHLY recommend booking your appointment in Mexico ahead of time, as here in Playa immigration is booking at least 6 months ahead. So when you only have 6 months to get to Mexico, after getting your residency visas, and only 30 days to complete your appointment in Mexico once you arrive, all your effort could be for nothing if you don’t make these deadlines!

Getting the residency itself is fairly easy if you can meet the financial requirements. There are many sites out there for advice on the requirements, so always double check, as Mexico likes to change the rules sometimes. When we got our visas the requirements were: you needed to prove either 1) individually have $60,000 CAD in your account for a minimum of 12 months, or 2) individually earn a minimum of $2800 CAD per month for the last 6 months. Either options will require bank statements for proof. As of today the requirements are https://consulmex.sre.gob.mx/leamington/index.php/non-mexicans/visas/115-temporary-resident-visa . In less than 12 months the rules have changed, so always double check! Then you need: a Mexican sized passport photo, which you can get anywhere you would get a regular passport photo, the application fee when you get to your local consulate, which was $50 per person for us, your bank statements of course, and your actual application. Again, double check if you need anything else, as the rules can change! Then 6 months to get to Mexico!

The next truly tough part was trying to decide when to put the house up for sale. The challenge being, if your house sells too quickly and you aren’t quite ready, you need a place to live! There is always an airbnb I suppose, lol. Or do you risk your house not selling by the time you need to leave, which is exactly what happened to us. Thankfully there is nothing that can not be accomplished online or through email. We also rented a small storage unit for non replaceable items that we will ship down later, as long as all goes well! Sold or donated everything else. Packed up and off we went!

We decided to drive down, for a few reasons. I am extremely scared of flying, so if there is an alternative, I am on it! Also, we brought our fur babies with us, and they are 65lbs and 90lbs so they would have to fly in the cargo area. I have heard that even airline employees will never put an animal in cargo if they can help it, as they have seen too many bad outcomes. This coupled with my already terrible fear of flying, and now I am really frightened to stick my babies down in cargo like a couple of pieces of luggage. Who hasn’t had luggage damaged from a flight?! No thanks! Lastly, we are the crazy people that get emotionally attached to our vehicles, (When I finally donated my last car to the kidney foundation https://kidney.ca/kidneycar/ , I couldn’t even watch them load her up, lol.) So we couldn’t just leave her behind! Which brings us to a learning curve we only found out about when we tried to register our truck here in Playa. Vehicles MUST have some sort of importation documentation BEFORE they cross into Mexico. You must have an importation broker to do this https://soniadiazmexico.com/nationalizing/ . Unfortunately for us, nowhere in my research did this fact come up. On top of that, our immigration lawyer didn’t mention anything, and she knew we were driving down. Thankfully for us, Quintana Roo is a “safe zone” (I think because of all the tourist) and you do not need local registration. I assume that will not be forever, but it buys us some time! We are trying to figure out how to remedy this, and when we do, I will update you!!! Hopefully all we have to do is drive to Belize and back, lol. *fingers crossed* Side note: we have local friends here that moved to Playa from Mexico city, and even they are having difficulty trying to figure out how, or if, they need to register their car.

As a planner, I had a rough idea of our trip planned out. Last thing I wanted was to miss that consulate appointment! From Alberta, Canada to Playa del Carmen, Mexico is a 9 day drive, so says Google. We both have fairly active jobs and are not accustom to sitting a lot. I need a stretch break after about 2 hours, lol (which is just healthy for your body actually….). So I planned some longer drive days; about 8 to 9 hours, and some shorter drive days; more like 4 hours. This worked well, and neither one of us got too tired of the drive, or too cranky. This worked out to be a 12 day trip, with a couple extra nights here and there to break it up, as well as give us wiggle room incase anything might happen to go wrong along the way. Thankfully the only thing that went wrong was the day we left. Everything always takes longer than you think! Had we learned nothing from our camping adventures?! Lol. But thankfully I did not plan for us to cross the border that day, so it was all good. We ended up spending our first night in Claresholm, Alberta, which is about an hour from the US border. And our journey had begun!

July 25, 2022

Day 1:

First official day of travelling. So with our truck packed to the brim, we head to the border in hopes that it will be smooth sailing. Neither one of us has ever crossed the border with so much stuff. We had decided to bring, since we were driving anyways, a few things we just didn’t want to leave behind, like our wine collection. We understand this would not be something a lot of people would bother with (we have gotten a lot of interesting reactions from people when they hear this). However, we have been building our wine collection for over 10 years now, and have quite a few bottle that have been cellaring for quite a long time now. As we had around 90 bottles of wine, we also didn’t want to pound back all these nice wines just to get rid of them! As it turns out, you can bring as much alcohol across the borders as you want, just be prepared to pay duty on it. So we brought our cases of wine and 1 case of spirits also, as my boyfriend also had a severe scotch collection, with a side of tequilas. As it turns out, it is only $0.05 per bottle you bring across! Good choice us! Lol.

As far as the dogs, which are on a raw food diet, both borders do not allow raw meat to cross. Thankfully both Canada and the US have many options of dehydrated and freeze dried food; so we stocked up. Side note: Mexico does not really do raw dog food, or anything really resembling it. But they do have a good selection of kibble, including Royal Canin!

There were also 3 plants I REALLY wanted to bring with me. One was the baby of the plant I bought when I first bought my house. I specifically picked this plant for my new bedroom, and so it was pretty special to me. Another was the clipping from some very dear friends of ours’ plant, which was doing very well. And the last was the baby from another pair of dear friends of ours’ plant (the husband is my boyfriends bestie). This was a small way of taking, and keeping our friends with us on our journey. Unfortunately comes in my first official learning curve of the trip; the phytosanitary certificate. What??? What is that?? So, even though we had (my mom actually did this for me as we packed our things for storage) rinsed off all the dirt from the roots and plants, and transferred the plants to open mason jars filled with water beads; https://www.michaels.com/water-beads-by-ashland/10184069.html, apparently you need a phytosanitary certificate https://incodocs.com/blog/phytosanitary-certificate-document-for-export/ for plants to cross the border. And no, this can not be done at the border crossing, I asked. So my little plant babies were confiscated to be frozen and disposed of later. *sigh*.

Other than that, the border guard was amazing! Super friendly, chatting a bit about the dogs with us and then wishing us a happy journey! Whew!!!! Now we didn’t have anything to hide, and we declared everything, including the treats we brought for the dogs. But still, NO ONE wants to be pulled over to have their vehicle torn apart in secondary! So we were super relieved at what a breeze it was for us! We pulled over at a lone restaurant/pub right beside the highway, a little ways down and in the middle of nowhere, and had a fantastic burger and beer. I wish I would have taken a picture of it, as the mushroom burger really was good! And hello Montana!

July 27, 2022

Day 2:

So after waking up in Bozeman, Montana, which seemed like a nice little town, we headed out for Wyoming on a drizzly morning. Claresholm to Bozeman is only around 6 1/2 hours of drive time, so we aimed for a longer drive day today. Although, when you add stretch breaks, pee breaks (for the dogs too!) and the odd food stop, the 6 1/2 hour day can easily turn into a 7 1/2 hour drive day! It was a fairly uneventful drive, which is good, but boring. We ended up alternating between music and podcasts. Thank goodness for podcasts! Lol. We ended up listening to some really good, and sometimes controversial episodes, which was fantastic as it gave way to some really good conversations. Wanting to make good ground today, get the first leg of the journey off to a good start, we tried to keep our stops to a minimum, so the entertainment was appreciated.

Although Montana it very beautiful, it also has some pretty flat, uneventful parts as well! Thankfully crossing into Wyoming is all mountains.

As we got into the back half of the day, it was time to find a hotel for the night. This is where I encountered another learning curve. Canada has become very pet friendly over the past 5ish years. Very few hotels now a days have restrictions on size or number of dogs you bring, so you have a very wide variety of choices. This is NOT true in the US. If you have a larger dog, you better only have 1! And so I realized, our next choice of where to stop was becoming very limited. This is also where I became aware of a hotel chain called Motel 6 https://www.motel6.com/en/home/destinations.html . Pets are not only welcome, they stay free!!! What??? I have NEVER encountered a hotel that did not have an extra pet fee. They seem to be fairly north american wide, which is even better. And no restrictions on size!!! What a great place! So we now had the option of staying in Wheatland, or Cheyenne. We chose Wheatland, as that would bring us to an 8 1/2 hour travel day; the actual drive time being 7 1/2 hours. Even though the “big guy” seemed to be ok with the drive, I was ready to park it for the day!

Even though it was not the nicest day, Wyoming does have some nice landscape!

July 29, 2022

Day 3:

We started out early this day, as we had a bit of a long day planned. We also thought it would be a good day to get some time in at an off leash park. Boy I will miss the amazing landscape of Wyoming!

As we started about an hour and a half from the border, we were in Colorado in no time!

I tried really hard to find us a route around Denver, but it would have added significant time we just didn’t want to spare. I do not like city driving on a good day, so the thought of driving right through such a huge city was not appealing. Thankfully the scenery, back to more mountains, was very beautiful and distracted me from the upcoming endeavor!

So amazing! This is one of the things I will miss about being in Alberta, the quick access to our Rocky Mountains *sigh*. However, having said that, I will NOT miss -30 degrees Celsius!!! Lol. As for Denver, thankfully boyfriend was driving. Most of the highway through Denver was huge! Always at least 3 lanes, but going up to 6 lanes in one direction. That’s 12 lanes of highway across!!! This is just way to much for my country driving butt. I wish I had taken pictures of this madness to show you, but I was busy trying to manage my anxiety and didn’t even think of it, lol. I’d like to say next time, but truthfully I hope there isn’t a next time! I was so glad when we got out!

Roughly an hour south of Denver is Colorado Springs. Inside the city limits, but not quite “in” the city, we found one of the BEST dog parks we have ever come across! Bear Creek Dog Park https://communityservices.elpasoco.com/parks-and-recreation/bear-creek-dog-park/ . This off leash park, with a separate area for dogs under 25lbs, is absolutely huge! We passed through in the very beginning of April, so all the trees and grass are still dead; but I can only imagine how wonderful it would be in summer, all lush and green! If you ever pass remotely close to this area with some puppers, I highly recommend the detour. Our pups just loved it!!! They have many rest areas, washrooms and wash/drink station(s) for the dogs. Many garbages about and even an obstacle course area!

After we finally tore ourselves away from this little (actually quite huge) gem, we were onto the next long stretch of the drive. Pretty uneventful again. As we crossed into New Mexico, we almost missed seeing the sign! We were in the mountainous area, and they have this “Welcome to New Mexico” little sign tucked almost in the ditch! Needless to say, I did not get a picture of that one!

As we drove along, things became more hilly than mountainy. We finally stopped for the night in Santa Fe. Nothing about this place seemed interesting. Again, we had to stay in a Motel 6, due to the dogs, so options limited. This is the ONLY Motel 6 I do NOT recommend, and would never stay in again. Not only was the place run down and not in good shape, the lady at the front desk was not a ray of sunshine, lol. On top of that, we could not find anywhere that would deliver food. We could not find any good restaurants (not wanting any sort of fast food) when we took the dogs out for a walk. Boyfriend ended up walking down to a local mart and grabbing a premade salad and sandwich. All together, not a place I would choose to go back to. But, at least the view getting there was nice.

August 2, 2022

Day 4:

Today started out exciting. We were on our way to Roswell, NM and planned on staying 2 nights. I have always wanted to visit here, and everything I’ve seen about it looked so fun! Santa Fe to Roswell is only a 3 hour drive, so that was also exciting! And so we headed out, with absolutely no rush to our start.

We got to Roswell around….12:30pm-1pm I believe. Since we were way too early to check into our hotel, we decided this was a great opportunity to drive around and really see the town; then we could decide to park somewhere and explore further. As we drove around, we got more and more disappointed. There actually isn’t a whole lot to Roswell. It seemed that the “shtick” was to just put some alien decorations on your business and off you go. There was 1 main “alien” area 52 museum, and then a couple smaller shops. That was it!!!

Otherwise it was just a nice little small town decorated with UFO stuff. And so we decided to amend the plan to just 1 night. And I did have a bit of a chuckle at how “American” it was…..

This is definitely NOT something you come across in Canada (nowhere I’ve ever seen!!!!). This is where I also learned about “Let’s Go Brandon” lol!

We did come across something very neat though!

A little piece of Alberta in Roswell!!! I love it!

Roswell is also the place where we started really getting the warmer temperatures. And so with, apparently, not much else to see and heat really ramping up, we took the dogs for a nice walk, grabbed some snow cones and a shake (got a plain snow cone for the pups, and they loved it!) and headed to the hotel early. A little pool and hot tub later, and we were good! And in case you were wondering, being 4 days in already, how are the babies doing? Well, we are super lucky that our dogs love to travel! The truck is just one big kennel to them. And although Sisa, the Doodle, doesn’t mind travelling and hotels (she’s just happy to be wherever we are) the big guy, Tuco, oddly enough, loves hotels! They were doing just fine! *big smile*.

August 4, 2022

Day 5:

Today was a bit of a longer day headed from Roswell, NM to San Antonio, TX; about 8 hours of drive time. This is where the dessert really made itself known! Although the drive itself was, for the most part, slightly boring and flat, there was some fantastic surrounding scenery!

The boring……
Did not know New Mexico had these!

Again, we missed the “Welcome” sign. We kept our eyes open, but didn’t even see it! At least the New Mexico sign we saw as we passed it; the Texas sign was just, not there! (I sure it is somewhere, lol). As we puttered along the way, the heat set in at 32 degrees Celsius. As just 2 days ago we were driving through the mountains, and a couple days past that we were in the -degrees, this was hot! We ended up busting out the AC at some point along the way. This is actually quite telling, as we are not AC people! Even right now in Playa it is usually 32-35 degrees (NOT including humidity that makes it feel like 40!) and we don’t use the AC in the truck, and only use it in the house for the wine and the dogs (yes the wine needs AC!) So clearly at the time, 32 was dang hot for us!

I did really enjoyed the new vegetation. I am a big plant person and the cacti were everywhere!

The drive to San Antonio went really well, and we made good time. This all changed when we got into the city!!!!! Now something to note; I am the person that disables my location permissions, and have pretty strict permission allowances on my phone. Driving through San Antonio was the worst experience I have ever had, and I’ve been through LA! The freeways are super wide with on and off ramps everywhere, that are also very poorly marked (like as you are driving past the off ramp you see the sign for the off ramp)!! If I had my location on and used the GPS to guide us, I am sure it would have gone better. Having said that, there were also times, after I finally did turn on the location, that unless you are super zoomed in, you still might take the wrong ramp/turn as they are so clustered together at times. It was truly an awful experience. We got lost 3 times missing exits. At least for San Antonio, always use location and GPS!!!

We ended up finding this nice little house, on airbnb, that is walkable to the Alamo, and has a nice yard. We thought the puppers would greatly appreciate a yard for a day, and so we decided to stay here for 2 nights. This was a great idea as we were lost for so long, after our long drive day, we ended up getting to the house after 10pm; so no time to really enjoy the yard that night! Thankfully they seemed just as happy to have the extra space of a house.

Quick bites to eat, and off to bed as it had been a long day!

August 8, 2022

Day 6:

Today was a lovely day! A nice lazy morning, drinking coffee at a table! After almost a week of just get in the truck and go, sipping coffee at a table was so nice. Our only plan was to walk down to the Alamo, and that was it! *sigh* (in the good way, smiling). If you are ever in the Alamo area, we found a fantastic restaurant with really good coffee!!!! Apparently the food is so good; as I waited outside, with the dogs, for boyfriend to come out with our order, a local was telling boyfriend that he used to live in the area, and the food at this restaurant is so good that him and his wife drive across town once a week to still eat there! Wow, is that ever a good endorsement! And yes, the food was amazing! We ended up going back a second time, lol. To date, they have the best refried beans I have ever had! So, if you are ever in the area, you have to check out J & I Cafe https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g60956-d4193780-Reviews-J_I_Cafe-San_Antonio_Texas.html . Even though there are many many restaurants and cafes in the area, quite impressive actually, we just went back to J & I Cafe.

Small side note; there are no real grocery stores in this area. On our venture to find breakfast and more coffee (when we ended up finding J & I Cafe) we googled grocery stores and marts. The only one that was walkable was a little mom and pop store, which had the barest shelves I have ever seen!!!! I am not even sure 10% of the shelves had food on it. It was literally a can here, a box of something there. So sad. So if you also airbnb it that area and plan on cooking, grab your groceries on your way!

After we had the dogs out for a good walk, we tucked them into their kennels, and headed to the Alamo. It was about a 30 minute walk, which was very nice after spending so much time in a vehicle. It was a bit smaller than I thought, but it was definitely worth going to; we learned a few things for sure! And there was some of the neatest trees I have ever seen, including one older than Canada itself!!!

This tree is literally older than Canada!!!!!

After walking through everything, we set out in search of food and drinks! We found this wonderful little mall off a river, just south of the Alamo.

Along the right hand side of the river are a bunch of restaurants. This is where we found Margaritaville. Wonderful selection of, you guessed it, margaritas! Food was very good also. And, it is a wonderful spot to sit for a break, as you can watch the birds and little boats go by. I find any water very relaxing, and always enjoy sitting by it! So a few margaritas later, and we finally decided to head back. Gotta still have time to enjoy that yard, lol!

And so after we got back we just sat in the back, enjoying the weather, throwing the ball for Sisa, and watching Tuco explore. And boy did they enjoy it!

What a great day! We all had significant exercise and were quite content. We ordered in and turned on some netflix for the evening. Another spoil content for the day; the next day we were headed to Aransas pass for a couple days, which is only about 2 1/2 hours away. We (tried, lol) stayed up a little later having no need to rush in the morning. Great end to a great day.

August 10, 2022

Day 7:

After sleeping in as much as we could (I am an early riser, unfortunately), we packed up the truck, and headed to J & I Cafe for an amazing breakfast and coffee (too good to not go back again!). Then with location and GPS enabled, we set out for Aransas Pass, which is just north of Corpus Christie on the east coast of Texas.

If you are interested in Navy ships, we passed by something neat we didn’t know was there. Although I suppose if you are into Naval ships, you probably already know it is there! In Corpus Christie is the decommissioned aircraft carrier USS Lexington, aka: The Blue Ghost https://usslexington.com/about-the-uss-lexington/the-ship/ . It is now a floating museum, which I think is super neat!

We stocked up on some groceries on our way to our cabin, airbnb again, so we didn’t have to leave if we didn’t want to, then we showed up at one of the cutest cabins I have seen yet. This place was absolutely perfect!!! The perfect “warm weather” place; everything you need in the house, with the most amount of space being outdoors. Love it.


At first I thought it was pretty odd to have a yard in a yard, but come the evening it proved itself to be absolutely lovely. One reason being, it has an outdoor shower!!!!

I have always wanted to use an outdoor shower! I was super pumped. This little place is such a gem, we decided that if Mexico doesn’t work out, we would just come back here, lol. The house has everything you need, including that it can sleep up to 12, including the hideabed in the front room. The yard is ginormous, complete with fish gutting station. Oh, and by the way, apparently Aransas Pass has some of the USA’s best fishing! Did not know!

So we opened some drinks and enjoyed the big and little yards. Dogs were so happy bounding about, we actually would lose them around the side of the house, lol. We used the charcoal bbq, our first venture into charcoal, which proved a useful learning curve as almost all bbqing in Mexico is charcoal. Enjoying the beautiful weather and some cold drinks, dogs off exploring, we were in heaven. Then the sun set. Here is where the little yard in the yard showed it’s purpose.

It was so beautiful! Well lit and very private. We opened a bottle of wine and played cards. The fence of the little yard also blocks a lot of wind, so perfect. Then before bed, we used the outdoor shower. The crisp, but not cold, air, crickets chirping and the moonlight on you; this was an amazing experience! It was the most peaceful shower I have ever had. This was my turning point from “well an outdoor shower would be neat, I suppose” to “an outdoor shower is a must for all warm climates!”. If you ever have the opportunity to use one, have an evening moonlight shower; you won’t regret it! And it is now my mission to have one in whatever new home we get, lol!

And with that, it was off to bed.

August 12, 2022

Day 8:

Today was nice and relaxing! We had passed a Sonic on our way through yesterday, which is a drive-in, and since I had never been to a drive-in before, we decided to hit it up! We also really wanted to take the dogs to the beach. Other than that, just stretch the legs and relax! It was so nice having a yard again, just to be able to let the dogs out and not worry. Tuco was also super happy to be “on guard” again, lol.

We didn’t find a beach per say, but we did come across what I think was just a good fishing spot. There were some vehicles pulled in on the land just in front of the water, with some people fishing nearby. So, we decided this was a good place to pull over also. The dogs just loved it!

So with some nice cooled off and wet puppers, we drove around a little bit and saw some of the town. That didn’t take too long, lol, so off to Sonic! Cute little town; has everything you need but not a whole lot more.

Pretty darn good selection! And the prices were decent also. We got a strawberry milkshake with our burger, and we were not disappointed! I hadn’t had a milkshake in quite some time (fun fact: Dairy Queen has formaldehyde in it’s ice cream, so I refuse to eat it) so I might have been just super happy to be drinking one! Lol! With that under the old belt, and the heat starting to really turn up, we headed back to the house. Dogs bumming around the yard, and some cool beverages, we played one of my favorite games!!! (SUPER excited that it came with the house) Cornhole!!!!

Following that was a nice relaxing evening again, another glorious outdoor shower, and off to bed!

August 16, 2022

Day 9:

Wow! Day 9 already! Today we were headed to Brownsville. Since we had no idea what to encounter at the US/Mexico border, we thought it would be best to stay right at the border, giving us the full next day to deal with whatever might come up. We had a full truck box, and the dogs, and even though I had researched what you are allowed to bring across; there, as usual, was conflicting information on what was allowed. We tried to play it safe, but you just never know!

We had a nice start to the day as Brownsville is only about 3 hours from Aransas Pass, so no rushing in the morning! Woohoo! And with that big beautiful yard, we didn’t need to worry about walking the dogs either. Hello extra coffee time! Also worked well because we were sad to leave this gem of a place, so we packed up rather slowly, lol. So, sometime creeping into around lunch time, we were on the road again.

Thankfully we were nice and relaxed, after our great couple of days, and the drive was beautiful; so we were in great moods! (and getting excited to be so close to Mexico)

Getting into Brownsville, we finally found our last Motel 6 (they are not in Mexico, sadly). We got the dogs (and ourselves, lol) out for a nice walk, doubling as a search for food. Now a little side note; restaurants are a bit tricky for me, as I am intolerant (not allergic, that’s different) to tomatoes. If I eat a tomato, I get incredibly ill. It is a similar reaction and outcome to an allergic reaction digestively, except it is not caused by a histamine response (so not Benadryl or anti-histamine will help) It is caused by lacking the proper enzymes to be able to digest the tomato; so my body rejects it completely. I have to think it would be similar to lactose intolerance, but thankfully I do not have this issue (because I am a cheese-aholic!) so I can not really compare. Since arriving in New Mexico, the vast majority of food is Mexican or TexMex, which I vary much appreciate normally, except that the majority of all the food has tomatoes in it, lol. Boyfriend was in heaven though!

So after checking a few menus on a few restaurants (thankfully most restaurants have the menu outside the front door) we found a nice restaurant with some good options for me, CobbleHeads Bar and Grill https://cobbleheads.com/ (highly recommend!). We hailed down a server, and went to order some food to go (still having the puppers with us), and the server proceeded to take us to a table on the patio! Woohoo again! Then he proceed to bring each one their own water bowl!!! And then he loved them up a bit. Boy were they in heaven! What a fantastic place this was! It was off a cute little river too, that had some interesting looking ducks. And as I have previously said, anything by water is great in my books!

This also kept the dogs entertained, as they love to bird watch (well, love to bird chase actually, lol), so their attention was covered. Although, I swear there was this one duck that kept swimming past us, very closely past us, just to torture the dogs a bit…..

Since we were all watered and taken care of by one of the best servers, and it was apparently happy hour; we stayed for a few extra margaritas. It was such a peaceful and relaxing place (and happy hour), how could we not!

Eventually we finally walked back to the hotel, and decided since the dogs had just gotten some exercise, they wouldn’t mind being kenneled for a bit while we hit up the hot tub! (most Motel 6’s have hot tubs). Then after we got back, we decided to keep the relaxation going and opened a bottle of wine. After calls to the family to check in, and a bedtime walk, we were tucked in for the night, happy as peaches.

August 18, 2022

Day 10:

Today is the day!!!!! We are crossing into Mexico! Woot woot! So we learned that Mexico is not very dog friendly. I could not find any hotels that would host 2 large dogs (which I later learned that Google is not as reliable in Mexico as it is in Canada or the US). So instead of wasting a bunch of time trying to find a hotel, I just booked us an Airbnb. I found a nice one in Tampico, which is ocean front, so extra bonus! Tampico is only 6 1/2 hours from Brownsville, so this gave us a ton of time at the border crossing; which is what we wanted as we had no idea what to expect there.

Turns out it is as unorganized (as we learned) as the rest of Mexico, lol. So we pull over into the “something to declare” section, leave the windows down for the puppers, and head inside. Now you might think that since it is the US/Mexico border, the border agents might speak some english, well you would be mistaken! There was the border agent, a vehicle registration agent, and an insurance agent inside. We go to the border agent first, where we learned we can’t even get our passports processed until we register the truck, through 0 english! (Thank goodness for translations on the phones!) Ok, into the registry line. This gentleman also spoke 0 english, lol. But we found out we can’t register our truck in Mexico until we get vehicle insurance. Ok, over to that guy, which thankfully didn’t have a line. He actually did speak some english, so that was helpful for us. After we got our insurance ($500 USD for 1 year, bargain!) we head back to the registry line. Ok, finally we register the truck ($400 USD, which you actually get back if you leave within a month). Ok! Now back to the border agent.

Side note: Boyfriend had to go out to the truck when we were in the registry line, to calm Sisa down, as the drug dog had been circling the truck, and she was losing her mind, lol.

So finally we get our passports finished, and we are allowed to head out. As we are looking around, there are no signs telling you where to go to declare things. There are not really a lot of signs period, lol. We still had everything to declare, including the dogs. So we wander around on foot, and finally decide to ask a guard that was manning the exit lane. He told us to head to the exit lane and when the guard there goes to allow us to leave we can declare things there. Ok. So off we head. We drive up, show him our truck insurance and registration, which he wanted to see, and then he raised the arm and ushered us through. All of a sudden we are merging onto the highway! Wait, what?! Don’t they want to make sure the dogs are vaccinated? Don’t they want to check our stuff?? NOPE! Lol. Apparently they just want to make sure you paid your dues for your vehicle and that’s it! Now was this just a mix up, maybe. Will this be everyones experience, maybe not. Everyone in Mexico seems to “know” different rule. That seems to be very common here. Now having said that, we were still in there for just over an hour, so I am certainly not going to complain about letting us through!!! Lol.

Hello Mexico!!!!

The toll highways were in pretty good shape. Driving was pretty nice and smooth going. Side note; you MUST have pesos for the tolls. CASH ONLY, PESOS ONLY. And there are not a lot of ATMs along the way. Another learning curve; in Canada and the US there are gas stations everywhere, and they all have at least one ATM. Not in Mexico! Not only can the gas stations be far and few between, a lot of them do not have ATMs. So make sure to stock up on the pesos when you can!

We also learned some new driving rules! The shoulder has the dotted line instead of the solid line, which we found different, but whatever right! Then we noticed a lot of people driving on the shoulder.

Well this is odd, but we followed suit (when in Rome….). I decided to Google driving on the shoulder in Mexico. Turns out this is just the polite way to drive! This way people can pass you. And unlike in Canada and the US, it doesn’t matter if there is oncoming traffic or not!!! The oncoming traffic just moves over onto the shoulder also!

This was so crazy!!! But as we trucked along, we realized how awesome this is! There is never a giant line behind some slow poke because there isn’t a break in traffic to pass. You just go into the middle of the road, and everyone moves for you. The flow was great! This is genius! And the oncoming traffic expects it, so I assume far less accidents.

The only down side of the toll roads are there isn’t a lot to see. No real small towns that we saw (I mean we were just barely into Mexico, lol), but the landscape was fantastic!

Love it! Now, as good as the toll roads are, there are still some good potholes, so you do need to pay attention! It is funny; we were warned by everyone not to drive at night in Mexico. No one really said why, so we kind of assumed it would be more dangerous for scams and traps, or ways for bad people to get you to pull over so they can rob you. Turns out that’s not true. That may be the case somewhere in Mexico, but we NEVER felt unsafe. Why do you not drive at night? Because you can’t see the potholes, which can take up your whole lane sometimes, and there are a shocking number of people who do NOT have tail lights. Other than that, no worries!

A very small pothole, but pretty darn deep!

So with our first travel day in Mexico going very well (beautiful day!) we get into Tampico just around supper time (which was good, as the dogs had a bit of a longer day in the truck).

They were ready to be done for the day!

We got them out for a good walk while we went in search of a taco cart! Boyfriend and I got hooked on street meat when we were in Tanzania! We found a fantastic cart and had our first official street meat tacos. And yes, they were delicious!!! (and cheap!) The average taco is around 20 pesos (about $1.25 CAD), an 3 tacos will fill you up usually! Love it!

We walked the neighborhood a bit, until it started to get dark. Headed back to our airbnb, and had a relaxing evening and some long conversations with the family, now that we were finally in Mexico. Good end to a good day.

August 30, 2022

Day 11:

So far, our experience in Mexico has been great. When we got up this morning, the birds were chirping and there was also this other noise I couldn’t place. I look out our balcony, and there is an elderly man sweeping the leaves off the sidewalk in front of his (I assume) place. This reminded me of my Oma’s time, when people would do little things like sweep off their sidewalk. Love it! Then about 20 minutes later an elderly woman a few doors down swept off her sidewalk. It was nice to see people taking the small prides in their neighborhood. This is mostly lost in Canada (at least from what I have seen). Everyone in Canada is like “that’s not my job, that’s not my responsibility, I’m not wasting time on that”; so sad. So my day started off nicely!

Mexico appears to be what Canada was 30 years ago. Very refreshing for an old school person like me! Canadians have become so nose deep in their phones, they literally run into you on the sidewalk. No thanks! In Mexico, so many people on bikes and walking everywhere, kids outside playing, people actually outside enjoying life! Love it!

Ok, back to the travelling! So we finish packing up, loaded up, gassed up and we were off. Now since we were warned “Don’t drive at night!” I went onto airbnb to find our next stop. Judging on travel time with pee breaks, and when the sun roughly sets, I got us a place in Veracruz, which was about 6 hours of drive time. The drive itself, being that we stayed on the toll highway, was nice and smooth, and the scenery was beautiful!

There is actually quite a few farms in this area! It is so lush and green, also just off the ocean, which we got to see about 2/3 the way to Veracruz!

So beautiful and exciting!!! And of course, the palm trees kept getting more and more abundant!

Now I don’t know about all of Mexico, but here they have some neat bridged! I have not seen a bridge like this before!

Overall the drive was uneventful, which is obviously a good thing! But there were so many neat things along the way, I highly recommend the drive for people who have the time to do it!

The toll highways do kinda turn into a secondary highway every once in a while. Now this also means the road itself gets a lot worse, with far more abundant potholes. But when this happens it is always because it is going through a small town, or village. Mexico’s potholes are next level, btw! Whatever you might have encountered in Canada, Mexico is worse tenfold! It reminds me of Tanzania when we were wondering if the “road” was actually a road, lol. However, this is usually just for the actual road or highways that are not toll roads. But when you are going through these rougher areas, it is actually worth it!

Maybe this is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love when roads are enclosed with trees! Not only is it a cooler drive, being shaded, but it is just so lovely. And this is also where you are going to come across a fruit or veg stand! Yum!!! Fresh fruit is always the best!!! And in the more remote areas, super cheap!

Once back to the normal toll highway, we were back to admiring the view from afar (still no hardship!).

So we get into Veracruz, and I have the location on, using the map to find our airbnb. So remember that in Mexico, Google is NOT precise like it is in Canada or the US. The airbnb host even sent me a pin, but thanks to Google maps, we got lost for almost 30 minutes, circling around the same area we knew the airbnb had to be in, but not acutally finding it. On top of that, we learn that the pictures are not always as they seem. Our airbnb picture of the outside of the place must have been many years old, because it didn’t look the same anymore. Another note; we were driving threw a residential area, aka, not built to accommodate trucks!

We finally find the place. It is (from what we know now) a fairly standard home in Mexico. But again not built for trucks, lol.

It was a lovely neighborhood. We walked a couple blocks to a grocery store to stock up a bit, and stretch the legs, all 12 of them, lol. And headed back to relax a bit, and enjoy having a whole house again!

We finally managed to get the hockey game loaded, and even Tuco was enjoying having a couch again!

Side note; we also learned that having screens on the windows is not standard anywhere in Mexico, we went anyways. If the place does have screens, this is a perk that will be advertised by “has fly screens” on the ad. This boggles my mind for a couple reasons. It is always summer here, so you ALWAYS have bugs, and the screens also keep out ALL the bugs including spiders and cockroaches, that apparently fly (gross!). So why wouldn’t this not only be standard, but maybe mandatory! Also, it is always summer here, so it is always hot! You want the windows open, especially in the mornings and evenings when it cools down and the breeze is amazing! Still to this day don’t understand this.

Something I do appreciate is the use of concrete! It is simple and maintenance free, and won’t mold in the humidity! Just smart.

After we are all fed, and couched and hockey’d up, Tuco was so comfortable here, he did his staple going to bed without us! Our cute little old man! So I guess it was bedtime, lol!

Goodnight!

September 1, 2022

Day 12:

Today the plan was to make it to Candelaria, which was where the next airbnb (which turned out to be a lovely little motel) was located. It is kinda in the middle of nowhere, and a little out of the way; but it was the only place I could find that was within a 6-9 hour drive. From Veracruz it is about 8 1/2 hours of driving. The day started off normally; pack up the bedroom, go eat. Clean and pack up the kitchen, pack up the rest of everything, and complete out check out list.

And so, with the location yet again enabled, we were off! Today was the day we made the very large mistake of assuming that; not only do all gas stations have ATMs, but that there would regularly be gas stations along the highway. Not true and not true! Lol. So we end up coming to our first toll and we do NOT have enough pesos (we really thought we would pass a gas station by now, it had been hours). It turns out they do not take any other currency (fair enough!) but they also do not take any sort of cards either. It is literally cash pesos only! So we roll up to the both and are now stuck there, lol. Thankfully a guard came over to help. Long story short, we gave him a $20 USD bill (the toll was like…….maybe $5 USD) and he would settle up for us in pesos later. Whew!!! Then he said we could go to the Oxxo that was within sight, and get out money there. HA! Not only was there no ATM, the cashier refused to do cash back if I bought something (which I just watched him do! *angry face*). This is one of many incidences we have encountered where someone doesn’t want to help us just because we are foreigners.

Ok. So now we NEED to find an ATM! I am Googling and Googling (I haven’t learned yet that Google is super unreliable in Mexico) and the only ATM that pops up is in San Andres. We discuss and decide we don’t really have an option. It is only about 50km off the highway and it is lists as a highway, just not a toll highway. Google maps says it is a 30 minute drive, so off we went!

Sooooooo, here we learned about how the actual roads in Mexico are. I wish I had taken pictures, but truthfully I was just trying to control my anxiety and hold on for the ride! If anyone has ever been to Tanzania, this is exactly what the roads were like. In some areas roads was a stretch of the word. In some places, the pot holes were so large, you literally can not avoid them! A lot of the time the holes would take up your entire lane and were over a foot long. The “30 minute drive” took us 1 1/2 hours!!!! I was SUPER glad we drive a truck! Some of those holes would definitely take out a car.

It wasn’t all bad though! Being off the beaten path, we saw a lot of small villages, small farms and beautiful scenery we never get to see on the toll roads. It was a very nice change!

So we finally make it to San Andres, and now need to find this ATM. Here is where I learn that unless you zoom in a ridiculous amount, one way streets do not show up on Google maps. So turns out the ATM was pretty much downtown. I am sure there were a ton of other ATMs that just didn’t show up in the search, but we hadn’t learned yet and were headed for the sure thing. Turns out just about all the streets downtown are one ways. So this makes things a little more interesting. The streets are not very long, so while I am searching for a good route, zooming in and out repeatedly, we would pass the street we needed because I wasn’t able to accomplish my task before I needed to (we’d get to the end of the street and have to turn somewhere). So after we were both significantly annoyed, we finally found a small place to pull over (this city especially is NOT truck friendly) and figure out how exactly to get there. We finally make it to the ATM, (thankfully!!!) and I pull out the max cash to make sure we don’t run out again! LOL!

So now we need to get back out of this place. Same issue. And the center of this city is in a circle, so there are many streets that come off the main circle. No grid at all, which of course I am used to. So about 5 minutes later I have directed us back into downtown (nooooooo). Another learning curve, when are don’t grossly zoom in on the map, if streets are super close together or parallel, you can’t actually tell which street you turned onto.

Well, we finally made it out, now horribly behind schedule. So at this point we are both pretty irritated and pretty annoyed. So I apologize for the lack of pictures, but it did not really cross my mind at the time.

As we get closer to our destination, it begins to get dark. At this point the sun is setting around 7:30-7:45pm. I open up the maps, and we still have about an 1 1/2 hours left to go. In this last hour we realize the real reasons you should never drive at night in Mexico; you can not see the potholes, and many people do NOT have tail lights. It took us a little bit longer because we decided to follow another car so we could follow their lead.

We ended up getting to the motel at 10pm. Candelaria was such a cute little place! We couldn’t really see too much getting in so late, but what we saw looked really nice. The motel was absolutely wonderful also! They had full time security and even had homemade sandwiches and desserts in a cooler for purchase. This is super good for us, since we hadn’t eaten since…….I can’t remember, lol, but we sure didn’t eat supper!

And so with a quick bite, a walk for the puppers, and a shower, we were off to sleep!

September 23, 2022

Day 13:

Well, today was the day!!!! Last day of driving! We woke up super excited to almost be there. After we packed everything up, we got some coffees and headed out. From Candelaria to Playa del Carmen is about an 8 hour drive. A little over 4 hours to the coast, and then straight up along the water. I still wasn’t used to all the green beauty so I was even more excited to drive along the coast!

Another beautiful day in Mexico! Puppies seemed equally content! Lol

The trees here still amaze me! The first half of the drive was same same; green and lovely, and uneventful. As we passed the corner off the highway for Chetumal, marking roughly half way, we were officially driving along the ocean again. Unfortunately, until you get to Tulum, there is a lot of land and trees blocking the view. It was ok though; we knew the ocean was there!

Along this stretch of highway, there were many little stands and vendors set up. We got 3 (very large) pineapples for $50mx (about $3.25cad). I was in heaven already! Did we need 3 pineapples? Probably not…..but for that price, yes we do!!!

Tulum was a bit of a disappointment. I am not a fan of Tulum anyways. I find the people tend to be rude and just out to take advantage of the tourists. For example, some of the clothes for sale are more expensive than at home! Ridiculous! Last time we were in Tulum, the only thing I really enjoyed was a little taco place, which was still reasonably priced and super good. And as we drove through, we noticed it was no longer there. Tulum nowadays is a close to the beach community for the wealthy and snobby expats, that would like to be somewhere tropical with all their comforts of the north American life. So not only are a lot of the tourists snobby, but the locals have also become rude and snobby. No thanks! However, they do have some great resorts in that area, and the ruins are good to go see. So if you plan on staying mostly on the resort and touring around a bit, but not really going to town; still a nice place then!

After passing Tulum we all starting getting a little antsy. As we got closer I, unfortunately, stopped paying as close attention to anything but the road signs. We got into Playa del Carmen around 5pm, and had time to look for a taco cart, as we were not meeting the guy at the airbnb until 6pm. Thankfully, there are taco carts everywhere! Woot woot. We have learned that the average taco (depending type of meat etc.) costs between $15-30mx per taco ($1-2cad). And 3 tacos fills you just fine!

We finally get to our airbnb, get the tour and the rundown of everything, as it was in a gated community (thankfully our guy spoke some english because we still hablo poco espanol!) We unpack the truck, which was a bit of a task, and then we were super pooped! We set up our wine racks to finally lay our wine on their sides again. We give the families a call and a bit of a video tour. Then a tiny bit of tv before we were passing out, lol. All that excitement and we are now passing out of exhaustion, lol. I have to think it was also the stress relieving tiredness that our long days of driving were done!

So off to bed, and then to actually settle in tomorrow.

October 11, 2022