We've been at El Rancho RV park since Monday, and we're parked in a large compound 30 minutes from downtown Oaxaca. I've actually spent rather more time within the four very high walls of this place than I first intended but therein lies a story and lots of conversations.
There are two youngsters from Barcelona, Catalans they said with a laugh, (not Spaniards!) and I talked to Alex and Carlotta the evening of their arrival but they have interior work to be done to their van so in the morning they zipped past on their way to the mechanic; thus I snapped a picture in case they don't come back before we leave. Not supposed to happen but its always a possibility in this life on the road. The van is a Mitsubishi Delica four wheel drive. Much admired in Europe but the first time I've seen one. It looked quite compact.
On the road we often look for wild camping spots, especially in the US where camping is crowded and expensive and I feel like I'm in a trailer park. In Mexico we enjoy wild camping as well but when we visit a city or a tourist attraction we like to be able to park in a place with facilities where we can stay for a few days, do chores like laundry, fill the water tank, empty the porta potty and so all that. Plus we can drive into town, park the van and use it as our downtown base. For attractions where Rusty's not welcome, museums and so forth we leave him in the van. If its hot we can run the rooftop air conditioning. Then when we're done we drive back to the campground and resume life in our spot.
Rusty likes campgrounds as he doesn't have to worry about street dogs and he pretends he's in his own yard. He moves from shade to sun and sometimes under our van and sometimes under a bush. He knows we will be driving again but he takes full advantage of the pauses. He enjoys town walks because there are lots of smells we let him spend time on plus there aren't street dogs in the big cities, which is much more relaxing for him.
An older German couple moved in next door with a bright yellow VW van, a more modern model than the traditional Kombi, but communication is a bit tricky as he speaks only German and she speaks some English, though I think she is a bit shy. I blast my few words and phrases I know in German and am unafraid of making a fool of myself which I think helps them feel less shy. Their dog is eleven years old and has some back trouble but I really like how he just jets off across the lawn with a weird lumbering gait and doesn't give a shit about being nearly crippled. Rusty likes him too so they pee together companionably.
Two youngsters driving a Belgian registered older Toyota Landcruiser were next door our first night, but they left the next day. They are actually Dutch and speak French as they lived in Brussels ( a French speaking city) and also excellent English, so we chatted a fair bit. I was surprised we had a lot in common despite our age difference, our attitude to travel particularly. Like most Europeans in this area they shipped their van to Veracruz and are heading to South America so we hope to meet them again next year.
When we do meet new people Layne opens her notes page in her iPhone and writes down nationality and type of vehicle (yellow jeep or Class C RV or white truck, nothing too technical) and their names so we know who they are. Last night two large RVs arrived and parked in the family section of the park. I spoke to the two little girls as their parents parked the RV in the dark. I was walking outside to feed the stray dog at the gate and they wanted to pet Rusty.
"You're from Virginia?" I asked looking at their tags...No she said, and she was maybe ten years old with her younger sister.
"I'm from New York. My sister is from Ecuador, our Mom is from Brazil but our Dad is the one from Virginia." Go figure. No problem I said as long as we all keep talking and we laughed. I enjoy meeting people with lives more complicated than my own.
The photo above is the same as the one I used at the top of the page. From the left there is a US Promaster, possibly a factory built camper by Roadtrek, and the owner is a single American woman, who is less a traveler and more a long term resident who drives a small Nissan sedan called a March. I have never spoken to her but she waves as she drives by and she has a different life goal obviously than a couple of nomads like us.
The yellow van is owned by a retired Australian couple. Guy came over to chat and he told us they have been on the road for a decade but had a difficult start as they bought the van from a custom builder in Australia and it came with a raft of problems. Apparently the pop top roof is still giving them issues as they plan to ship the van home to Australia from somewhere on the West Coast. Possibly Long Beach in the US or Vancouver in Canada. Those kinds of decisions can be predicated on cost, availability of ships or the difficulties of the required documentation which vary from country to country. Flexibility is the Overlander's friend.
The Vermont registered Class C RV next to the yellow Australian is owned by a French family who live in Colombia and are traveling in Mexico with a New Mexico registered van which is much smaller and handier than the full sized RV. You can register an RV in Mexico for a ten year permit and their idea is to leave the big vehicle here and use it as a vacation cabin! He enjoys the fact that I speak French so we chat when our paths cross. You just can't assume anything when you see a license plate!
Finally the big truck at the end of the line belongs to Stefan and Petra two Germans who have been on the road for eleven years. They have lived here a long time, more than year I think, and Petra makes it her job to feed the packs of dogs who are not strays but are not well fed, in the street outside the campground. They speak good English and are a fund of information for the rest of us. Petra below talking to the campground caretaker:
In the photo below there is a Swiss registered RV that has been parked and not occupied since we got here. Petra's dog Mandu is walking past it.
Mandu made himself known to Stefan and Petra when they were in Katmandu eleven years ago and decided he wanted to live in their truck with them and here he is. Rusty and he acknowledge each other but aren't friends even though they look like brothers.
There are two other Swiss campers, one couple we met in San Cristobal, and there is a British truck with Neal a former policeman in Britain and his wife Pat, retired with daughters in Britain and on the road for years in a big overland truck. They met the Australians in the yellow truck all over South America.
Neal also pointed out a truck with an unusual license plate and said he saw them in Portugal a few years ago and never expected to see them in Mexico. I went to talk to the couple from Lichtenstein. That's a crazy home base as Lichtenstein is a German speaking teardrop sized country wedged between Austria and Switzerland with a population of around 38,000 people. They have a customs union with Switzerland so they must use Swiss Embassies around the world when they need help. Lichtenstein has four embassies and only one outside Europe which is in Washington. I doubt Mexican officials see many Lichtenstein passports...I went over and met Alex originally from Austria who met Denise and married her and moved twenty minutes across the border. He’s lived in Lichtenstein 20 years, left behind an adult son, and got his pension so they are on the road. He is so happy to be gone from that complicated expensive cold and wet little country! We laughed a lot together sharing our pleasure in warm weather while escaping bureaucracy.
It just goes on and on and you will notice that aside from the one long term resident who lives her own life there are no US travelers... There is a really nice couple of women from British Columbia in a small RV across the way. A friend of theirs was driving down the street and watched a puppy get tossed from a moving car. She found a home with the RVers and she is a crazy little bugger bouncing around at the end of her harness, annoying Rusty who does not enjoy hyper dogs or puppies...And on the subject we come to the sad story of the campground. There is no happy ending yet.
She is a younger female about Rusty's size but not his 60 pounds. She's neutered and fed daily by campers including us of course right now, but she has no home.
I posted a these pictures of her on the traveler forum hoping that someone might pick her up and I confess I'd really like to take her but Rusty is the block. No way I'm stressing him out and I've tried to encourage love to blossom but it hasn't so far. Unlike many Mexican dogs she is friendly and clearly wants to live with someone and she loves getting pets (Rusty does not like me touching her so I have to be careful) but I can't see how we can get her back to Key West to a friend who might give her a home.
Before you get too sad her lot could be worse, she is looked after and will not go hungry. I told Petra I'd give her a break and feed the dog while we are here so we also bought a bowl to give her food morning and evening and not just put it on the ground. I give her treats and keep her water bowl full, but I wish Rusty would take to her, I think he'd have more fun in Mexico with a built in back up on our walks, but there it is.
One more character lives at the campground and he's always got a smile. Cali is his name and he takes care of us, calls taxis, cleans the toilets and does it well. I joke around with him so we get along. I grew up in Italy around men and women like Cali, in polite circles they are called salt of the earth and in case you were wondering, their salt is of the rather more crude sort. He enjoys laughing about the trials of men and women living together. While Layne was away at cooking school we exchanged male pleasantries of a kind that make sure he keeps an eye out for us his new friends but they are rather sexist jokes that I don't need to share here.
He didn't pose for that picture when he was watering the lawn but I admired his Mexican machismo with such a flow and he cracked up.
Layne had a great time at her cooking class, working through the market in Oaxaca and then sharing a kitchen with a dozen other students where she learned how to use the vegetables and fruits and make sauces and so forth. She has promised to dictate an essay for this page with her pictures and I hope we will put it together in the next few days.
She has ironically come down with a stomach complaint and has taken to our bed aboard Gannet 2. This is a good place to be unwell but for me I spent yesterday here looking after Rusty while she was away all day, and today I am here looking after Layne, putting ice in her glass basically, while she recovers. As campgrounds go this is a pretty good one. But still I have seen a tiny fragment of the city. I shall save those pictures of Oaxaca for tomorrow.
She did tell me she catalogued her photos and notes last night before she got sick and that she now knows how to cook nopales (cactus) without making it slimy! We shall see.
On another note I incautiously mentioned to Webb Chiles my noted sailing friend that I wanted a serape, (sir-ap-hay) a wool blanket with a hole for your head that one wears rather like a catholic priest's cassock. It is actually a comfortable way to stay warm and leave your arms free. Layne said the place to buy one was Oaxaca and when she came out of the market she told me she'd found the perfect one, for just $23. You decide.
Bear in mind Layne took the picture from her death bed and it was a hundred degrees in the campground...but the inside is made of soft wool that feels really comfortable. I keep it folded on our bed underneath Rusty's bed. He likes to sleep in his bed on the floor by the open door and the serape is at my feet when I get cold late at night when temperatures plummet. It turns out it makes a perfect blanket ( with a hole) to sleep under. No wonder Clint Eastwood was always wearing one in his spaghetti westerns. It also got Webb's seal of approval though I doubt he'd be seen dead in one. I am a happy to be warm and if someone in the states mistakes me for their gardener I'll survive. I'd actually be flattered.
