Click on a photo to enlarge it.
Monday was a relaxing day and on Tuesday we did the usual cleaning and tidying up before setting off west, heading for Guadalajara. We stopped at a
Pemex for the night about half way there.
On Wednesday we drove through horrendous traffic on the way in and out of Guadalajara which has been exascerbated by road works. We finally got to
Dave's workshop at 5-30pm where we would leave Winnie to get several repairs and maintenance done.
It was great to see Dave and Carmen again and we were warmly welcomed back into their home. Dave was extremely busy and there were at least five
other motorhomes parked up at the workshop for repairs, so we were a bit concerned that he wouldn't be able to fit us in.
We stayed there just over two weeks, which was longer than planned, but we managed to get various maintenance done and also got Winnie new springs
which raised him at the back by a few inches which will help a lot and we don't squeak anymore when we go over bumps etc.
During our stay there, Kirsten spent about 60 hours preparing a website for Dave's workshop and getting it online. She had help from Alanya, Dave's
granddaughter who had done a project for college on Dave's workshop. So Kirsten could use some of the stuff that Alanya had already prepared.
Carmen was dragged in to help with translation into Spanish - the website is bi-lingual. Helen helped out with the English although she got a bit
stumped with all the technical, mechanical terms!!
There were also quite a few memorable moments. Kirsten was driving Carmen's truck on the short distance from the workshop to the house (only about
500 metres) and missed a turning so we ended up taking a detour! We should know the route by now!
We also managed to get ourselves locked inside our bedroom!! There was something wrong with the door handle and we had to bang on the door and
shout for Carmen to come and let us out!
Dave took the door handles off and went to get new ones. In the meantime, Helen went into the bedroom but the wind coming through the open window,
slammed the door shut. Helen had to climb out through the window to get out!!
Our soap went missing from the bathroom - or we thought it had. We found it squashed into a back rubbing sponge in the shower!
We made a fruit salad but used the wrong sort of bananas - we didn't know that we had used frying bananas which are orange inside! And it took us
15 minutes to work out how to use the oven when we had offered to make a chicken casserole and potato gratin. Kirsten had to get on her stomach and
reach in with a lighter to light it - she screamed when the gas lit and with a "whoosh" nearly burnt the hairs off her arm!!
There were two power cuts whilst we were there, one lasting for over three hours in the evening, so we had to use candles and had no water as the
pump is electric! So we couldn't go to the toilet!
We met Sammy, Luis's wife, for the first time along with her two children, Carlo (5) and Fiona (1). We sat chatting with her for a few hours and
she gave us some candles she had made herself! On another evening we all had to babysit Carlo and Fiona and they fell asleep exhausted on the sofa.
Carmen was also exhausted!
We went into the centre of Guadalajara for the first time and spent about 3 hours wandering around the town hall, looking at the massive mural
painted on the ceiling of the stairs and went inside the main cathedral and various other churches. Although we have been to Guadalajara before
we had never made it into the town centre to see the sights!
On one of the Sundays we went to the large market along with Carmen's daughter Luz-Marie and the whole family. We bought software and some DVD's.
We also got our Britannica encyclopedia exchanged - we had bought it on three CDs last year but it has never worked. They gave us the 2006 version
instead.
We spent hours helping Carmen out with the spring cleaning and then the kids took a few minutes to make everything dirty again!!! And we helped
Dave out at the shop by cleaning 2 cars for him so that they could be handed back to the owners.
We managed to write on our website and downloaded and copied loads of DVDs from Dave's massive collection. We have enough films to watch for the
next 5 years!!
