After six wonderful weeks with our children, grandchildren and friends, we fly back to San Jose del Cabo on Baja California on April 23rd. Apart from a thick layer of dust, MOMO survived our absence well and we spend the first night at the gates of the storage facility. After a big shopping trip, we head into the mountains the next day to Rancho Verde, where we acclimatize for a few days.

Our next stop is the campsite in La Paz, which is now almost empty as the high season is obviously over. In the morning we drive to the port to enquire about a ferry to the mainland and find ourselves on the truck ferry to Mazatlan in the afternoon. The crossing with TMC takes 17 hours and at 900 euros is no cheap pleasure. We are the only overlanders at the time and are crammed in between the large supply trucks and can sleep in the car.

Mazatlan has 500,000 inhabitants and is located on the central Pacific coast in the state of Sinaloa. Thanks to its 20 km of sandy beaches, the city was one of the most popular beach resorts in Mexico in the middle of the 20th century. But soon more and more package tourists arrived and the town lost its status as a splendid seaside resort. A good 20 years ago, however, the historic center was restored and populated by numerous artists. Today, a large cruise ship docks almost every day and its passengers flood the town for a few hours before things quiet down again.

We find a nice pitch opposite the ferry port on the Isla de la Piedra right on the beach. From there it's a 10-minute water cab ride over to the old town where we take a stroll through the historic quarter with lots of other cruise tourists. Beautiful shady squares, nice cafés and many art galleries invite you to linger. After a few hours, we take the water cab back to our campsite. 

We follow the Pacific coast to the south and drive along very narrow roads right into the middle of a lagoon area with many streams and very high humidity at over 30 degrees. The road ends at the jetty and we can spend the night in the parking lot. As dusk falls, however, the fun is over. Millions of mosquitoes make our lives hell. The creatures are so small that, firstly, you can't see them and, secondly, they can easily slip through the mesh of our mosquito nets. So a good night's sleep is only possible to a limited extent. Every part of our body itches terribly and stays with us for another two days until the itching subsides. So it's no wonder that we are awake very early and take one of the first boats to the island village of Mexcaltitan de Uribe at seven o'clock. The village was first mentioned in 500 AD and is said to be the home of the Aztecs. We are practically the first guests to walk around the village at this time and can really only watch as everything slowly awakens. After a good hour and lots of pictures of colorful houses, we just want to leave and get rid of our itch. And so we are back in the car by nine o'clock and leave this hospitable place. 

In the two villages of Acaponeta and San Blas, we take a stroll through the town and make a short stop for lunch. The roads through the villages are very narrow and we just about fit through with the MOMO. We continue to Chacala. We had already been there in 2016 and we really liked it back then. But times change and as it's the weekend, lots of coaches arrive before 7 a.m. and the beach and restaurants are accordingly full. It was too much of a good thing for us and after 2 days we decided to move on. 

70 km further on we come to Lo de Marcos, where we had already been in 2016, but the campground from before is pretty run-down and we start to get a little frustrated. But then we find a place to our liking. A very well-kept site right on the beach with nice beach bars nearby and a shady pitch for Momo. We immediately negotiate a cheap weekly rate because it can't get much better than this. We spend our time here reading and swinging in the hammock. For our 38th wedding anniversary, we find a great sushi restaurant in the village, which we will definitely be going to more often. The small town has everything we need, including a fish store where we are now regular customers. We have shrimps in all variations almost every day. For a change, we can also enjoy a tasty pizza or breakfast in the village. As it's a good 10 degrees hotter inland than on the coast, we postpone our departure every day. 

The shady pitch and the sunbathing area under palm trees on the beach are just too tempting and the weeks fly by. As always, you'll find out how and when things continue in the next blog.