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Montezuma's Revenge

Montezuma’s Revenge

We arrived in Mazatlan yesterday and are thoroughly enjoying it here. Our room is steps from the beach and we have been taking full advantage of both wading in the surf and simply walking the long boardwalk. It finally feels like the relaxing, low-key lifestyle we have been looking forward to and best of all, we are only 6 hours drive from our new home in Ajijic, but, first we have decided to…

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Land of the Free

Land of the Free

It is our second full day in Mexico, we crossed the border yesterday and though the crossing itself was easy enough the events of last night having booked and attempted to stay in, not one but two different hotel rooms, left a lot for us to be desired! We are approximately 600 miles into Mexico on our way to Mazatlan and are approaching a vehicle inspection point. This is very unexpected and…

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The Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City

It is late night, we are still on our first day in Mexico. We detoured slightly from our GPS map to head over to the beach for the night. We managed to secure a room in the small town of San Carlos, unfortunately, it was so loud and awful not to mention, the fact we just did NOT feel safe there, so we packed up and headed to Guayamas (a larger neighboring city about 15 minutes away). As it…

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This is a nightmare!

This is a nightmare!

We have just pulled into San Carlos and are thrilled to see the water and beach. This looks like a very cute little town and we are impressed as we drive up the strip and back, exploring the  area and what it has to offer. After some scouting, we decide to stop at what looks to be a very nice hotel, however, they do not accept dogs, so we continue on down the strip. We are finally able to find a…

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Driving through Mexico

We crossed the border into Mexico around 7:00 am and have just completed all of the necessary paperwork needed to bring in our vehicle and stay the maximum 180 days on our tourist Visas. So far, we are thrilled by the ease of it all since we had read many horror stories of other people’s entries whereby, they had all of their inventory checked and cross checked against their manifest. We had…

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And so it begins

And so it begins

We are leaving Las Vegas, the storage unit is crammed to the top, our truck is full, and I have a folder with all of our important documents within arms reach, should it be necessary. It is already nearly 3 pm before we get on the road as we were making copies of all of our important documents (we know that we will need 3 copies of all of our paperwork at the border e.g. Passports, Car title, and…

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And We're Off...

And We’re Off…

We have just gotten home from our visit to Mexico. We know the house that we want to live in, and, fortunately, they like and want us as tenants, so that’s a good thing! We still have to come up with the money however, and they ONLY way that is going to happen is from selling most of our worldly possessions, namely my car.

I used to drive a gorgeous 2011 Challenger RT with ALL the bells and…

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This will only work if...

This will only work if…

We have had a very long, slow, boring day sitting in the Guadalajara airport for nearly 8 hours before our 50 minute flight to Mexico City. We are tired and uncomfortable, we don’t speak Spanish and everything is foreign to us. We are in a taxi since we have an overnight layover and we got a room this time that we secured over the internet. This hotel was supposed to be very close to the airport…

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We have just made an offer on the rental property we want to live in and it was accepted. We are ecstatic and are ready to enjoy the rest of the weekend before the daunting task of liquidating all of our assets and actually accomplishing a move to another country. Naturally, we have no idea what that will entail as of yet, but, we can worry about then we get back…Lets Celebrate!

We have made reservations (recommended on the weekends) to eat at Tango tonight. From what we have read, this is supposed to be the best restaurant in town. We get there a bit early and are seated right away. The place is very large and crowded. I have some wine and we start with  Caprese Salad, and Hearts of Palm Salad, then we decide to get the 26 oz Filet Mignon for two with a side of Asparagus. It is all delicious! We are extremely impressed and we know that we will definitely be eating here more in the future. The bill comes and we have sticker shock, and NOT because the bill is so high but quite the opposite! Note: We, as poker dealers, having worked in a tipping industry for so long, have a tendency to over tip, with that being said, our total bill including a generous tip was $32.00 USD and since we are currently out of pesos (because we only exchanged a little at the airport, they take our U.S. dollars no problem and give us a good rate too). We take our leftovers back to the room and decide to head to my new favorite bar ;)

When we arrive at the bar it is still early and there are very few people there yet. I give the generous amount of Marijuana back to the gentleman who gave it to me, since I am flying home tomorrow night and won’t be able to take it with me. We are sitting at the bar having a cold drink and as luck would have it tonight they have a regular Texas Hold Em Poker game, WHAT??? We cannot believe our good fortune! The game starts at 9 pm and is 100 pesos buy-in with blinds of 1 pesos and 2 pesos which means that we are effectively buying in for $5.00 USD and our blinds are .05 – .10 WEEEEEEE this is gonna be fun! We end up staying til nearly 1 am, having a great time and meeting the locals. I have lost 6 buy – ins, for the record I got my money in good or had a very high percentage to draw out more often then not! It’s OK though because, of course, hub wins 7 buy-ins and we use the extra to pay our tab. We are offered a ride back to our hotel by our new friend (who generously shared his marijuana with me all night) but we decided to walk since it is only a few blocks away.

The next day we check out the local Walmart and yup, just like home, BLEH so from there we decide to catch the bus to Chapala. This is a much larger town only around 5 miles away. We meet a very entertaining British lady while at the bus stop and we still laugh when we think about the funny story she told us as we waited. NOTE: While there is an actual bus stop in front of  Walmart, this is not typically the case. In this area you simply stand on the side of the road in ANY spot and wave, like hailing a taxi and the buses will stop for you. Once in Chapala we walk around the board walk and check out the town a bit making sure to stop in the American Legion, where everyone was extremely nice. We have some lunch and after a few hours decide to head back to our beloved little town of Ajijic that we are already becoming attached to. We are pretty tired after exploring all day, so we decide to hang out at the hotel and eat our left over steak from Tango choosing to relax the rest of the night.

Our flight isn’t until the following night but I want to get to Guadalajara early, get checked in and have 6 – 8 hours to explore the city. We wake up, have breakfast and our gracious host arranges a ride to the airport for us. We arrive in the early afternoon but since our flight isn’t until 10 pm they will not let us check in and there are no lockers, or anywhere for that matter to store our luggage and belongings. We can’t exactly go explore Guadalajara with our luggage in tow UUHHGGG we are basically stuck in the airport the rest of the day.

We FINALLY, board our flight to Mexico City and hub has booked us a room somewhere close to the airport. We deplane, get our luggage, and get a taxi. While the hotel we booked claimed to be near the airport, it supposedly was not the airport location the driver tells me in Spanish, stating that OUR hotel is actually 30 – 40 min away. I am upset, panicked, and paranoid as we pass a hotel just 5 minutes from the airport with the same name and head off into Mexico City in the middle of the night…

    Time to Enjoy We have just made an offer on the rental property we want to live in and it was accepted.

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Time for some R & R

Time for some R & R

We have just arrived in Ajijc MX with the hopes of finding a house to rent. We travelled all night so once our room was available we went straight to sleep.

We awake from our nap and head out to explore the area a bit and grab an early dinner. We have, of course, already researched what some of the top restaurants in the area supposedly are and we decide we are going to eat at Bruno’s which was…

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OMG NO, THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!

OMG NO, THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!

Here we are, finally February 15,2017 has arrived, we did not celebrate Valentines Day at home knowing we will have the whole weekend.

I grab our passports (to keep in my purse and have handy) while Chuck loads our luggage into the truck. We are leaving extra early to get coffee and pick up our son (Tyler) who will drop us off and use the truck while we are away. We are just about to get on the…

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Where do we go from here?

Where do we go from here?

If you have been following our story thus far then you know a little bit about the whats and whys of how we ended up in Ajijic Mexico. Next I will begin to share all of the details necessary to make such a drastic move and how we managed to do it in just 6 weeks time.

I still have to convince my husband-Chuck that this move would be a good thing for us and I have been scouring the internet for…