On the border at Nogales

The United States is building a WALL along the border between Mexico and the United States. Here you can see it as we are crossing back from Mexico into the U. S. of A. In fact we had seen the wall as we drove along Interstate 10 in Texas near El Paso just before we crossed into New Mexico. The wall will be continuous from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California by the time it is finished.

Heading North

To reach Mazatlan, we drove through desert in the State of Sonora until we got south of Guaymas then we drove into a very rich agricultural area that continued almost to Mazatlan, through the towns of Obregon, Navojoa, then we crossed into the state of Sinaloa, and the towns of Los Mochis, Guasave, and Culican. We saw many 'crop dusting' planes in the air and on runways that were not much wider than a dusty road. For many hours we kept passing trucks loaded with tomatoes until we finally passed the processing plant. This huge agricultural area produces corn/maize, beets and sugar cane, we have never seen such huge fields of tomatoes and squash, cucumbers this area is truly the bread basket for North America in the winter.

One sunset and two margaritas!

After a two margarita Happy Hour on the beach watching the sun set.....

Angela Peralta Theater, Mazatlan

The Angela Peralta Theater was opened in 1874 as the Teatro Rubio. Renowned opera singer Angela Peralta, dubbed the "The Mexican Nightingale", arrived for an engagement in 1883 but contracted cholera and tragically died (along with most of her company) before uttering a single note.

The theater after stints as a Mardi Gras Ballroom, movie palace, boxing arena and parking garage was abandoned and in ruins before restoration efforts began in 1987. It reopened in 1992 and today is a very beautiful building the pride of Mazatlecos with performances of ballet, folkloria dance, concerts, operas and plays.

Taxi, or 'Pulmonias'

Peggy, Bill and I spent one day exploring the market, and the old town area of Mazatlan.
We took a bus into town from the El Cid Hotel and took this taxi back to the house later in the afternoon. The pulmonias are used for transportation throughout the tourist area and are built on a VW body with a traditional air cooled VW engine.

Houses overlooking the ocean and the Malecon

Houses overlooking the ocean and the Malecon.










A whimsical roof tower room.






The standard square concrete apartment block with radio aerials in the back ground, and a new Spanish building in front.
Looking through the iron gates into the courtyards of a Spanish house you many times have the lovely cool feeling and view of the first photo with lush gardens and fountains.

Mazatlan Market

The meat stalls at the Market.

John and Peggy's House at El Cid

Bill and Peggy standing in the driveway.













The house has rounded corners inside and out.
















The terrace off the kitchen and dining room.







Joins the one off the living room, both open out on to the golf course.

Every morning at dawn we were greeted by the chorus of many birds in the trees around the house. One morning while John and Peggy were out playing golf in a tournament we tried to answer the phone, but with no success. Nobody there! Immediately after we heard a distant voice, sounding much like John saying 'Pickup the phone'. 'Pickup the phone' Trying the best we could, we could not answer it.....the voice kept calling 'Pickup the phone'. Turns out this was the soft call from the Doves, around the house, sometimes they sounded just like the ringing phone.

El Quelite fighting Cocks

Next to the cemetery was this huge fighting cock farm, evidently El Quelite is know for it's fighting cocks.

El Quelite Church and Square

The very pretty small church and next door the village square.

El Quelite con't

El Quelite is a very pretty, clean tidy little village.
















We stopped for lunch at a very interesting restaurant.
The second photo is the 'down pipe' to take water from the roof, it is made of concrete in the shape of a dragon.


John, Peggy, Bill and Myself, after enjoying a great lunch in a garden atmosphere.










A parrot at the restaurant.










A shop on the main street that John and Peggy bought a clay mask to hang on the wall of their courtyard at the house.

Mazatlan, Malecon and Beach

Just some views of the water front along the beach and Malecon.

Mazatlan Broom Sales Men

Broom Sales Man.

Stone Island, Mazatlan

We spent a very lazy day at Stone Island Beach with John and Peggy and some friends of theirs, Bill and Anne, and Gordon and Linda, reading, swimming, just chatting with a very nice Mexican lunch and a few Margarita's.

San Carlos

We were very interested to see the harbour and dry storage area at San Carlos.
The huge dry storage area was just about full with yachts on craddles for the summer and the coming hurricane season.









The boats are lifted out of the water at the marina and put on a craddle with wheels that takes them about a half mile along this road to the storage area.







We knew we were getting close with the sign on the hill.

San Carlos Marina and Harbour

A small but very protected marina.










From the entrance looking into the marina, lots of new buildings being built.






The Anchorage outside the marina.

Superstition Sunrise RV Park

Derek and Lene hosted the fair well dinner before the 'snow birds' started heading north. From the left are Anna, Lene, Steve, Marilyn, Pat, Brian, Derek, Nancy, John, Carolyn and Bill.


We had a very busy five days with Brian, Marilyn and Suzy before they headed off back to California and we headed south into Mexico.

Leaving New Zealand

After a most enjoyable but hurried 5 week trip to New Zealand it was time to close up the boat and on the 10th of March, Rose drove us to the Auckland Airport to catch the return flight to Phoenix via San Francisco. Having crossed the 'date line' we actually arrived in SFO before we had left Auckland, proving I guess that time can stand still.

Carol, a friend living in San Francisco met us at the airport and we were able to catch up on the last couple of years before it was time to board our flight for Phoenix.

Brian and Marilyn met us at the airport in Phoenix and after a short drive we were back 'home' to a delicious Chinese meal and a very welcome long overdue sleep.

Kerikeri Cruising Club

The Kerikeri Cruising Club from the hill above, you may have to click on this picture to bring it up a little closer. Ardmachree is moored in the middle somewhere.

Brad and Helens

A photo of Brad, Helen, Bill and Brock in front of their lovely house and garden where we have house and dog sat many times.

Bay of Islands Classic Car Ralley

On our last Sunday in New Zealand we were lucky enough to join the Bay of Islands Classic Car Club Rally over to the West Coast's Hokianga Harbour. It was a fun rally having to identify 'points of interest' from eighteen photographs along the way. Lunch and prize giving were at the historic pub right on the harbour.

The first photo is of Brad's 'new' Jaguar with the following pictures of various Austin Healey's, MG's and TR's.
Note the 2nd to last photo of the silver Austin Healey 3000, a real favourite and the last photo with the white MG and friends Larry and Brian opening the trunk/boot.