Our Last Day

Part of today was spent preparing the house for seven months of closure. We do not want a repeat of this year's mold so we have hired a summer maid to open the house every three weeks plus a couple from Michigan, who are here most of the summer, will watch for any air conditioning and humidity problems that may arise.

The rest of the day was spent at the pool celebrating Semana Santa with many of the park residents. Games, swimming, burgers and beer were the highlight of the day.

Semana Santa [Holy Week] is celebrated by Mexicans all over the country, but it is most prominent in coastal towns. Families and students start arriving at noon on Thursday with the wind up on Saturday night. San Carlos will be quiet again by Sunday afternoon. One count had 9 000 cars and 55 000 people arriving by Friday with even more arriving for the big Saturday evening concert. I suspect the estimate of 100 000 new arrivals will be right on. Pretty good for a small town like San Carlos.

The traffic moves at a snail's pace for hours - most gringos get their groceries before Thursday. Even with the hectic pace of the weekend we usually enjoy this time of year. Tonight might be an exception! The number one band in Mexico has a concert tonight and they just happened to have set up their stage right beside our park. We watched them erect the stage area this morning and knew immediately that we were in trouble. Adelle, this is right across the street from the EXTRA, on the way to the gym.

The pictures show the traffic on the streets and the activity on the beach. Usually San Carlos is a sleepy little town with very few people on either the streets or the beach.

Maybe we should have left today - although because of Easter, the border crossing wait time into Nogales yesterday was 5 1/2 hours!

We will be without Internet for the next four or five days as we will be camping in some of Arizona's beautiful State Parks.