Villa Corona

Today we moved thirty Kilometers south to the small town of Villa Corona. Villa Corona is known for its beautiful Parque Acuatico Chimulco and it’s Hot Springs! There are three naturally hot pools and instead of pumping and filtering the water they simply empty the pools every night and refill them in the morning from the abundant underground hot springs. One of the side benefits for the people lucky enough to live in Villa Corona is that they get free heating and hot water! The water from the hot springs is piped throughout the town and into every home and business. The water has a very slight sulphur smell that you would quickly get used to although here, like everywhere in Mexico, bottled drinking water is the rule.

The Chimulco RV Park is probably the nicest RV Park we have stayed in yet in Mexico and is part of the pool complex. The aquatic park is open to the public during the day and is crowded with happy, laughing Mexican children and their watchful parents. Many of these visitors drive or bus down from Guadalajara for the day. They bring huge lunches that they eat at the many barbeque equipped picnic tables throughout the park. At night while the three main pools are being emptied and cleaned, another smaller pool is filled with hot water for the exclusive use of the residents of the RV Park. It is open from 7:00 to 10:00 at night. Tonight we shared it with three other couples.

There is a small lake beside the park which is a birding area and a nesting site for water foul. This is a lovely spot where we will spend a week. The camping fee for the week was $1,150 Pesos or about $105 CAN for a nice shady site with full hookups. This $17 per night includes free unlimited use of the water park.

We got Star Choice set up easily before dark, copying a neighbour’s settings. As I was tuning in the signal the neighbour behind us came over and offered to help. He said he had an “ulterior motive” for helping and that was that he would like to connect to our dish. This is a common practice down here. Why set up your own dish when the rig next door has one with four outputs? “No problemo” as they say in Mexico! This is what we did at the San Jose Park outside Guadalajara. I was starting to set up when my neighbour came out and told me to just connect to his dish. Very neighborly.

We are told there is a fantastic bakery in town that we will find tomorrow after I post this entry. There is no WIFI at the RV sites but it is available outside the park office where several tables with power outlets are set up for the purpose. After that and a swim I have to find a muffler shop to fix the Honda’s muffler that got knocked loose on a “tope” or Mexican speed bump that are sometimes marked with a sign and/or painted a contrasting colour and sometimes not. Even with the odd unmarked “tope” and endangered species bird pooping on the car, Life in Villa Corona is Good!