Utah to Costa Rica Road Trip

We left as soon as we could then stopped at a gas station to ask for either an “Iglesia de Mormones” or an Internet Café. She didn’t know about the “Mormones”, but gave directions to an internet café instead, which led us down a paved road that turned into a dirt road that led right through a “neighborhood” which was way out of town, but no internet café. We found ourselves back on a paved road that was wide and in good condition. Deciding that we should just head toward Mazatlan, we set off going east on this paved road thinking (hoping) it would lead to the highway. Instead it led to…nothing. This great big paved road went out and stopped in the middle of nowhere. So what do you do? We returned the way we came…and we just passed a dead horse.

Well, we did make it to Mazatlan, and it is AMAZING! Gorgeous, stunning, magnificent, glorious, wonderful! We have been thoroughly enjoying our time here (now 3 days)- it is an absolute paradise. The resort we are staying at is called El Ranchos and it is beautiful!! It is located on Calle Sabalo Cerritos, which is right on Playa Cerritos (Cerritos Beach) www.elranchos.com They are rustic bungalow style villas. Ours is a two story with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, dining, and full kitchen. It is very quiet, quaint and cozy. Most of the time we have the pool or Jacuzzis to ourselves, and the private beach as well. They have an onsite restaurant, which is upstairs overlooking the restaurant, but today they served our lunch poolside.

The most wonderful part about El Ranchos is their spectacular gardens! They are amazing! I definitely feel in paradise being surrounded by them. I highly, highly recommend this place.

When listening to “How to Be a No Limit Person,” Wayne Dyer asks, “How long would you sleep if you had no clocks or calendars, no specific meal times or bed times?” He says some studies show that people only need 4.4 hours of sleep…so we got excited by that and have been staying up late and getting up at 4:30 am to go running on the beach. And do you know what? I feel great! The only “side effects” are that if I sit down for awhile I get really sleepy, and when I lay down (to go to bed or to put the kids to sleep) I crash almost immediately- which for me is great because I used to have trouble falling asleep.

We spend most of our time swimming, either in the pool or the ocean, and playing in the sand. My favorite thing is to collect the countless sea shells- there are so many of them and in a multiplicity of colors and varieties. I think I want to make some jewelry out of my favorites.

We did go to Walmart again. It’s so interesting because it is Walmart, but it is geared to this culture. Some of it is kind of like an open market- the seafood section, and the bakery, where they walk around with trays and pick out their breads. The eggs aren’t refrigerated, they play Mexican music (on a boom box), anyone serving food (behind the meat counter, etc) all wear face masks, and my favorite part, is all the women, and some of the men, can’t resist but pinching Aaliyah’s cheeks! They just love babies and they say, “Hermosa!” (beautiful).

We did have one adventure in Mazatlan. After Walmart, we got heading out of town back to Culiacan (North where we came from), so we tried to turn around, but got totally lost. We were WAY out of town, on some dirt roads, and then found out we were heading the wrong direction, and the ocean was on our right, instead of our left. Well, after much difficulty and asking multiple people for directions (getting directions in Latin America is…mmmm, difficult) we finally got headed back the right way. I can only say that it is the only time so far that I have felt scared while in Mexico. It makes me appreciate Utah roads a lot more- they make sense.

The only other adventure that we’ve had is when Parker walked over to the pool in his clothes, then decided that he wanted to go swimming, so he took them all off and ran back to our room butt naked to put on his swimsuit. That got a few laughs!

Livin’ the Dream, Baby!