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We drove down to Mexico along the same route we have been using for years and got stopped just before Hermosillo by the police who tried to fine us for not stopping at a non existent Stop sign! As usual we speak only German and no Spanish which makes it harder for them. We pretended that they were allowing us to go and drove off only to be stopped again further along the road when the police car stopped diagonally in front of us blocking our route!
We were surrounded by 5 policemen armed with machine guns! We knew that they just wanted money so we sat there with folded arms and when they asked for our drivers licence, which we never hand over, we asked for their police ID and made it obvious that we were writing down their licence plate number.
Eventually their boss turned up and he was a lot friendlier. He explained in broken English that he couldn't speak English and he phoned up his own father who lives in America to talk to us! The father then translated what the problem was and I calmly explained that I am a retired police officer who knows what a stop sign looks like, that we have done nothing wrong and that the police just want to get money out of us that we are not going to pay!
The father then spoke to his son and all of a sudden there was no problem any more and we were wished a good day and allowed to continue!!! It still annoyed us though, because it's the first time we've been stopped in Mexico and, considering all the problems there are here, they really don't need to make it harder for the tourists who still come here.
We drove down to San Carlos and went to deliver Christmas presents and other items to Rosemary and Andrew who are renting a condo on the beach until March 2015.
We found a spot on the beach where we parked up and stayed for almost 5 months. The weather was perfect for most of the time, warm during the day and cool at night. The dolphins swam in the bay nearly every day and we could put our solar panel out to use the computer and eventually got our website up to date - so many months of reports and God knows how many photos but it all had to be worked on and finished!
We also found a place to dump and get water at a hotel that used to be a camp ground and only cost us $4 once a week. We had supermarkets in San Carlos and nearby Guaymas where we could also fill up with propane. We had everything we needed and ended up just staying here for the whole time instead of driving further south. It was wonderful and peaceful.
We certainly weren't bored because there was still plenty to do. We made Rosetta cookies with Rosemary and had a wonderful Christmas Eve meal with her and Andrew- Prime Rib beef with mashed potatoes, carrots and an aspic ring. Afterwards we watched the boat parade - 20 boats decked out with Christmas lights going around the bay and right past us. We went back inside for dessert - pecan pies we had made the day before along with whipped cream! Yummy!
Christmas in San Carlos
We met up with friends - Brian and Lily, and Phyllis and Russ- when they passed through heading south and again when they returned north. We enjoyed the barbecue at the Condo's next to us for Andrew's birthday so much that we went a second time.
We went out on a day trip with Phyllis and Russ to see the pearl farm in Guaymas. We went on an excellent tour with one of the three owners who started the business 26 years ago. They had been students together and had written a project about how to start a pearl farm. They only got a C minus because they were told it wasn't possible! Well, they proved everyone wrong!
It is now the only pearl farm in the Americas and the only one in the world who farm rainbow pearls. It took them 6 years to develop a system by trial and error. They use net bags for the oysters to simulate coral and the oysters are transferred to increasingly larger nets with larger holes as they grow.
When the oysters are 2 years old they are surgically implanted with a pearl ball from ground Mississippi oyster shells along with a pearl graft. They have only 40 seconds to perform the operation otherwise the oysters will die.
The oysters are returned to the nets in the Sea of Cortez, removed every 2 months to clean off barnacles and then harvested when they are 4 years old. (Oysters only live for 5 to 6 years.) Only 30% of the oysters have rainbow pearls of high enough quality to sell, 30% have inferior pearls which are thrown back into the sea as fertiliser, and the rest don't have any pearls.
Pearls are produced because of a natural defence mechanism in oysters. Worms use acid to create holes in the oyster shells and get inside. The oyster fights back by secreting calcium bicarbonate to cover the worms. A maximum of 6 layers are secreted each day and the oyster keeps on producing layers, but each layer is so small that it takes millions to produce a pearl.
Rainbow pearls created in the shell will be flatter and elongated and can be used for jewellery. The surgically inserted pearl balls will have two years worth of layers on them and will be rounder, although not as perfectly circular as the white pearls that most people know about.
It is certainly a lot of hard work to produce a small amount of rainbow pearls. Just to give a comparison - 12 tons of black pearls are harvested in Tahiti but in Guaymas only 0.004 tons (4 kilos) of rainbow pearls are produced.
Pearl farm in Guaymas
It was a fascinating tour and then we went to see the Elephant cacti - huge cactus plants whose bases look like elephant feet that only grow here and in Baja California, Mexico.
For Kirsten's birthday we went to the cinema in Guaymas and throughout our stay here we spent a lot of time watching DVDs - all 8 seasons of 24 (almost 200 hours!!) and the first four seasons of Downton Abbey. Fortunately we had our solar panel to generate enough power for the computer.
Rosemary's sister Linda and her husband Larry stayed in San Carlos for a month and we made Shepherds pie for them and Andrew one evening whilst Rosemary went for a spa weekend in Tucson.
Beth, Bill, Anya and Liam flew down in their own plane for three days and stayed with Rosemary and Andrew. There wasn't much time but we did go out for a meal one evening with them all where there was live music and people were dancing. We ate first and then got up to dance but the band finished for the night, packed up and left!! Was it our dancing - I know we're out of practice but they didn't have to make it that obvious!
Beth brought us our new pressure cooker that we had ordered online. We want it for South America where there will be times that we are in higher altitude and cooking takes too long. The altitude doesn't affect pressure cookers and it also saves on drinking water (needs less fluid) and propane (takes less time - e.g. potatoes, 2 minutes!)
On our first trial run we burned the food!!! The steam wasn't coming out the way we thought it should so we kept waiting before adding the pressure. Result - burned food! Since then we have got the hang of it and have made soups, lentils, Frijoles (Mexican pinto beans) and lots of other stuff. So far we haven't burned any more food!
We managed to watch a lot of the German Bundesliga soccer, Champions League and European Cup qualifying matches because we had a wifi connection in Winnie. To keep ourselves fit, we bought some fitness/stretch bands from Walmart and looked up stretching exercises whilst sitting!!!! Watch the football and get fit!
We had to buy some new bands because Kirsten had been using her old Terraband (stretch band) which must be at least 15 years old. Anyway, it had got a bit brittle (probably from under use!) and every time she used it, I heard a "thwack" sound followed by Kirsten shouting "Ouch!" Another piece of the Terraband had broken off. In the end it was so short it was unusable and we had to get new ones!
I needed to go to the dentist to get a crown and a veneer replaced which took several visits over 6 weeks. I finally got them finished the day before my birthday so I could eat my birthday meal. We were also introduced to a new game called Pickleball - it is a bit like tennis with smaller "paddles" and a plastic ball with holes in it.
We only managed to play four times but it was very good fun and we definitely got sore muscles after the first time we played- took a day or so to recover! It came as a bit of a shock seeing as we both go walking every day, I walk at least 3 miles and Kirsten also does her exercises and a short run. So we aren't unfit! Nevertheless, the Pickleball obviously used other muscles which got sore!
At Easter we got surrounded by numerous families who came to the beach for the weekend. It is the main celebration here in Mexico and there were hundreds of people camping out on the beach. We were expecting it so the loud music and all the noise didn't bother us. At least the bin men came several times to take away most of the rubbish but there was still a lot left over afterwards.
Not everything went smoothly during our stay. One of the legs on our solar stand broke off but it still worked with only three legs. A valve for our water system was leaking and when Kirsten pulled it upwards, she couldn't get it back in place and it leaked even more! So we had to empty our water tank by holding a pot underneath Winnie to catch the water coming out of the overflow.
We also needed to get new shock absorbers in the front as Winnie was bouncing a lot every time we hit a bump - very often in Mexico! We went to Autozone and ended up buying the parts and then getting them fitted at a local garage. It only cost us $90 in total. We also had to get our valves adjusted on our new engine and get our timing re-done.
The weather wasn't always perfect and we had at least three rain storms coming over. The area around us got waterlogged each time and took over a week to dry out afterwards. It turned the area into mud and quicksand so we couldn't drive.
Unfortunately, Kirsten did drive Winnie one time. We were going out for walks and I went out even though we could see a storm approaching. I thought I had time but after 20 minutes I turned around from my normal route and went back towards the Condos and over the other side. The storm came over so quickly I took shelter at the entrance to the Condos and waited for a break in the rain to dash back to Winnie only 50 yards away.
In the meantime, Kirsten thought I had got caught out in the storm without shelter and drove off to fetch me not realising that I had gone in the other direction. She nearly got stuck in the mud - it only takes a few minutes of rain and the ground becomes a quagmire. She was just driving back as I came around the corner from the opposite direction!
Our back tyres, which are duals, weren't just caked in mud, the space between the duals was completely blocked. We tried to get some of it out but it hardened and we had a real job trying to unblock them. Of course Winnie looked a real mess, so on our last day we gave him a wash.
We headed back north after doing last minute shopping and were planning to stay about 60 miles south of the US border in Santa Ana for the night. We didn't set off from San Carlos until noon but took the toll road north of Hermosillo for the first time rather than taking the detour. It saved us a lot of time which meant we arrived in Santa Ana early and it was too hot to park up in the sun.
So we carried on north and crossed the border into Nogales the same day. There were road works in Nogales which created traffic problems and a 30 minute queue to get to the border and it was already dark. But the border crossing only took 30 minutes. We finally parked up for the night at 9pm and went to do our shopping. It was a very long day but we made it back to the US for, probably, the last time!
