Currently viewing the tag: "Mexico"
Mexico has so many amazing cuisines and an equal number of restaurants to go along with them. We are starting a new feature which will take you inside the kitchens of some of our favourite dinning establishments. Not only will you get a look at how those wonderful dishes are being made, but the chefs have also agreed to share their secret recipes with you! So keep checking back here. We will have our first “Restaurant Recipes” feature next week.
The smart phone is part of our daily lives. Having one in Mexico makes things a lot easier. Even a simple trip to the grocery store goes more smoothly with a loaded phone in hand. Next to social media apps, these are the ones that we have found the most useful while living and traveling in Mexico.
XE Currency Converter
Cost: Free
With the constant change in the pesos to dollar exchange rate, it is nice to know what you are actually spending.
Spanish Dictionary and Translator
Cost: Fee
This app, by Curiosity Media, doesn’t have every word in it, and falls a bit short of a good old Webster, but it does the trick in a pinch. Not only does it show you the written word, it will conjugate the verb for you and play the translation so you can hear the pronunciation. The app has a few games on it to help you learn Spanish, plus a word of the day feature to remind you to keep working on your language skills.
Google Translate (World Lens)
Cost: Free
This app called “World Lens”(was owned by Quest Visual but has now been bought by Google) allows you to point the camera on your smart phone at any printed material and it will translate it for you into another language. It is best for signs or labels. It is not really meant for documents. I have the Spanish/English extension downloaded. It is not perfect, but this app has come along way. Now that Google owns them, they have been incorporated into their Google Translate app on iTunes, but it is still called “World Lens” on Google Play.
Units Plus
Cost: Free
“Units Plus Best Unit & Currency Converter” is a handy metric to imperial conversion to have. It converts meters to feet or temperatures from Celsius to Fahrenheit. This app converts length, area, volume, speed, weight, time, temperature and more. Handy for everything from cooking to renting a 200 square meter apartment. It does have a currency converter on it as well, but I personally prefer XE Currency Converter.
Skype
Cost: Free to Cheap
We no longer have a phone in our house. We rely on our cell phones for local calls, but for long distance to Canada or the USA we use Skype. Pronounced sky-pee in Spanish. Skype to Skype calls are free. Or you can use Skype to a land line or cell for only pennies a minute.
All of these apps are available for both Andriod and Apple products. What are you favourite apps? We would like to hear about them. Add them to the comments at the top of the post.
Ingredients for Mango Avocado Salsa
Wonderful, fresh fruits and vegetables are one of the many great things about living here in Mexico. We now eat so many more of them because they taste so good. After a lifetime of living in Calgary, where the produce was hard and tasteless, especially in the winter, I don’t think we really knew what “fresh” tasted like. Now it is such a pleasure to have great greens available just down the street at Chulim or from the passing vendors. When mango season starts you can hear the call of “Mango, Mango, Mango” from the loud speakers of the passing produce trucks as they come door to door. And since we have moved here, my love of avocados has increased. What better way to enjoy fresh mango than with avocado. This recipe takes full advantage of our best local produce. And you can spice it up or down to meet your taste.
Lovely Red Onion
Since moving here I had to learn essential skills like how to slice an mango.…
and an avocado. Including the knife twisting trick to get the pit out.
My favourite new gadgets is a pairs of herb scissors that I use for chopping up cilantro.
No Mexican recipe would be complete without the ubiquitous squeeze of lime.
Finish it all off with a little sea salt and some habanero pepper to taste and you have a wonderful side dish for chicken or fish. It also makes a great appetizer with tortilla chips.
¡Buen Provecho!
The USA Border to Puerto Morelos, Mexico
We have complied our stats from our latest drive from the US border, crossing at Columbia near Laredo,Texas to Puerto Morelos, Mexico and here is how it breaks down. You can compare these to our trip north in the spring of 2014.
Distance Covered: 3124 km or 1941 Miles
Hours behind the wheel: 39.5 (Google Maps is a little optimistic)
Number of Days Driving: 6.5 days
Camping at Mayabell
We took a total of 9 days to do this trip, taking an extra night in San Miguel de Allende and Cholua, Puebla. Our prices in gas and tolls are based on driving a truck and pulling a twenty-five foot trailer.
Cost of Gas: $10,490 pesos or $771 usd
Cost of Tolls: $4328 pesos or $318usd
Cost of Camping: $1614 pesos or $119 usd for 7 nights.
Cost of Repairs: $650 pesos or $48 usd
Road Side Service
While on the Arco Norte around Mexico city we heard a strange noise coming from the back of the trailer. We pulled over at the nearest Pemex to find that we had a broken trailer spring. This happens to us often, so we always carry spare springs. All we really needed was a mechanic who could change out the broken one. There was a mechanic where we stopped, but he was on the wrong side of the toll fence and he couldn’t cross over. We then went to a tire repair shop, they couldn’t help us, but they did have a buddy who was a mechanic. Within twenty minutes he was there replacing our broken spring. Forty-five minutes later we were all set to go…. but as we pulled out of the parking lot, we heard this terrible grinding sound. So back to the mechanic, only to discover that one of our brake assembly had fallen apart. All of the pieces were still inside the wheel so he was able to fix it and we were back on the road after only an hour and a half delay.
Hope you were able to get a cake! Costco in Cancun seemed to have a shortage of them yesterday 🙂 And you know that they will sell out of them today. If you are not familiar with the tradition of Los Tres Reyes Magos you can read about it here. In the mean time, Happy Dia de Reyes!
Will you be wearing red or yellow underwear when you ring in 2015?
If you haven’t noticed, even the new Chedraui grocery store in Puerto Morelos is selling red and yellow under garments. It is a Mexican tradition to wear a pair of either colour when you start off the New Year. If you wear red panties, you are hoping for a year filled with romance and love. If you wear yellow panties you are hoping for a year of prosperity, luck and money. You can’t just wear any old pair of underwear, they must be a new pair, worn for the first time as you ring in the New Year.
So what colour underwear will you be wearing as you ring in 2015?
¡Feliz Año Nuevo from Salsa & Sun!
This is the route we take from Laredo, Texas to Puerto Morelos, Mexico. Pulling a 25′ travel trailer it takes us about 40 hours behind the wheel. Our average speed is about 70km/hour or 44 miles/hour. In the USA we easily roll 100km/hour. The difference between driving in Mexico and the USA is the road quality and those unexpected delays that you are bound to come across.
We recently crossed from the USA into Mexico at the Colombia Solidarity International Bridge. This crossing is a bit out of the way, but Bridge 2 in downtown Laredo is a bit tight for RV’s and the permit process is easier at Colombia. The Colombia crossing is 26 miles to the west of downtown, off of a toll road (if you are coming from the north). There are no toll booths on this road. We have used it twice and happily waited for the state of Texas to charge us. They never have.
This year we stayed at Vaquero Village & RV Park, just off of the I-35 and Highway 285 the night before we crossed. We had never heard of this place, but it worked our very well as a jumping off point for crossing at Colombia. The owner is a very nice Mexican who couldn’t understand why we would want to cross the border. This place has good Wi-Fi if you park at the back of the campground near the office. One tip make sure you get gas before you leave the I-35.
There is a toll to cross the Solidarity International Bridge, it can be paid in pesos or dollars. Once you cross the bridge you are at the Mexican border. Keep to your left and go through the gates where you will get a red light or a green light. We suspect this is done on weight as we are heavy and usually get a red light. It doesn’t seem to matter, which colour we get, they always stop us. This year to our surprise, after getting a red light, they sent us to the x-ray machine. This crossing now has a new vehicle x-ray, large enough to fit our truck and trailer into easily. Once you drive into the x-ray you are asked to to remove any pets and yourselves from the vehicle and stand behind a cement wall under a shade cover while they scan the vehicle. This takes about 5 minutes.
Once you are cleared to go, you can move on to getting your visa and car permit. The entire adventure took us about 40 minutes. The 25km check point that was always a big hassle seems to have been made redundant for Aduana. They only checked our immigration papers and waved us on. Then it was off to Saltillo.
Torta Árabe con Queso
Tacos Árabe (Arabian Tacos) are very similar to the Tacos al Pastor that are served in the Yucatan. The main difference, the location. Tacos Árabe are a Puebla dish. It is one of the most popular dishes in the area, although not authentically Mexican. Tacos Árabe is a Middle Eastern dish that was introduced in the 1930’s with an interesting history. Easily served on a tortilla or torta, the meal was quickly adopted by the Mexicans.
Hard to make on your own, here is a recipe for them.
Real Tacos Árabe are made by layering pork loin and onions on a spit. This task can take over an hour to complete. Then the pork is slow roasted for many hours to perfection in front of red, hot coals.
In Puebla we enjoyed our tacos with a cold beer at a small chain called Tacos Tony.
Tacos are under $20 mxn ($1.50 usd) each or you can by meat by the kilogram. Tony’s was good, but the best way to enjoy Tacos Árabe is at an open air fair or market where people are lined up to get them and you just know they are piping hot.
You need a super sharp knife to chop the meat up.
This man really liked his knife!
Today you will find this happy couple dancing their way along the Malecon in Puerto Vallarta much like they do everyday, not because it is Cinco de Mayo. Tourists ask us all the time about this holiday, which is largely just celebrated in the USA. We don’t hear much about it in the Yucatan. If you would like to know more about it, the International Business Times has a great article on “Is Cinco De Mayo Celebrated In Mexico?“. 
In the meantime it is a good excuse to have a margarita anyway! (like you really need an excuse?) Saludos!
There are two amazing waterfalls, Aqua Azul and Misol Há, in the state of Chiapas. Aqua Azul is located just 69 kilometres past Palenque (a must see) on the road to San Cristóbal de las Casas (another must see). Both were packed with people swimming in them the day we were there. How Rob was able to get pictures without people in them I’ll never know.
The Cataratas de Agua Azul (Spanish for “Blue-water Falls”) is filled with beautiful blue water due to it’s high mineral content that comes from the limestone it cascades over as it fall into the pool below.
These pools make for great places to take a refreshing dip.
The Misol Há Waterfall with it’s thirty-meter (100 foot) drop is a stunning site when you first come upon it in the jungle. Only 20 kilometers past Palenque, it is an easy stop on your way to Agua Azul.
You are able to walk in behind the falls and look out through the water while a gentle mist cover you.
