We Retired Early in Bay of Banderas, Mexico- And Love It Here!

[Music] I'm Paul we're originally from a little town called Crum Texas my name is Sue Paul and I have been married for 16 glorious years we chose to move to Mexico because we retired on March 15th of 2020 and we had out had all plans to move to Panama I had lived there when I was in the service we went back a couple times and toured around and we had everything done was ready to go five days after we retired when coveted lockdown hit five whole days and uh so we had to cancel our airline tickets we sat around the house in Texas for a couple months got tired of that I was on a zoom call and talked to somebody that talked about watuko Mexico or the next week we caught a plane went to huatuco Mexico fell in love with it and went back to the States for four days sold everything we owned and went back to watuko been to Mexico ever since did the research to move to Mexico and and uh and we love it here we we think it was a smart decision for us so we like Mexico better because the food is better the people are happier and one big Advantage is being that much closer to the U.S if we I mean we saw a family in the U.S so if we need to get back there for whatever reason it's very easy here it's a two-hour flight so when we first chose to move to Mexico and we had learned about watuko we moved there met a lot of people had we loved the town but it's a very small town they didn't have some of the amenities that they have here where we are now so about six months or so ago we packed up drove up to here it's a two and a half day drive from huatuco to Puerto Vallarta area and we moved to this little town called La Cruz Guana Casta we have a lot of the advantages of the same as Huatulco a small town a close-knit community but we have Puerto Vallarta within 30 minutes with all the conveniences there Costco you know Sam's Club Home Depot great grocery stores well even here great grocery stores great hospitals a lot of conveniences that we didn't have there we didn't consider everything that we probably should have when we first moved to watuco even though I would never knock that area like I say it's great but we didn't consider the advantages of having more medical available here bigger grocery stores a lot of the things that we used to buy in the United States you couldn't Buy in watuco but you can buy here in this area we live at now so those are some of the things that we didn't take in consideration but they weren't bad things they were just things that after a year and a half we thought we would just change up a little bit we researched several places but this this area especially the north of Puerto Vallarta kept coming up at the top of the list of all the conveniences you need it's still beach towns um it is a little more crowded here for sure but out here we feel like we're kind of isolated from from all the traffic of Puerto Vallarta even Nuevo okay so and the other thing we liked about this area over watulco watulco had one Golf Course for hundreds of miles here we have like five within 30 minutes so and some really nice ones so and we play golf so we love it here we love the choices La Cruz is about 30 to 45 minutes away we're north of the Puerto Vallarta airport so that makes it getting out of here or coming back easy I mean we're not in the area where it's very heavily populated and noisy around the airport we're out in a more of a rural rural area and um it's it's only a 30 to 45 minute drive we like this area because like we said before it's small it is a community it's not touristy I mean there's a lot of some a lot of Tourism goes in and out of the marina there's restaurants and little tiendas and that kind of thing but it's not a tourist town at all that we really like about that when we can walk a block and a half down the street and there's three or four restaurants right there there's uh the Town Square is right right beside us so you know when there's something going on here and they they do a lot of festivals and you know fun things in the Square so we can walk down and and walk we can walk to so many things here we can walk to the marina we can walk there's beaches on either side of the marina so there's a lot of things to do one of the things we also did when we first moved here by walking every place we would meet people sitting out in front of their houses and it shocked me one day I was watching two little boys playing marbles when we all were young we all played marbles well one boy had a marble the other one had a rock so it kind of hit me and so I went down and bought them toys and Marbles and coloring books and and just gave them out to those local people and so now when we walked down the road uh you know everybody hollers at us here in Mexico I'm known as Pablo and so and Susana and so we're walking down the road and everybody they're everybody in their houses step outside and hey Pablo hey Susanna and it's it's just a close-knit town we have felt very welcome in this town when we first moved to here we actually lived in Nuevo Vallarta which is actually Nuevo now you're eating now but we lived in a townhouse over there that we found on Marketplace and we liked it it was nice it was across the street from the beach but everybody around us was on vacation and so we felt like we weren't getting to know anybody because everybody's on vacation and it also didn't have a proper yard for the dogs so we started just watching for rentals and this one showed up actually just on Facebook one day not even Marketplace just on Facebook so we came out to look at it and has a yard for the dogs it's got plenty of room more room than we need and a nice view so it was in the same price so it was a no-brainer this this is and it's quieter out here um and like I said we feel part of the community and the way about being on vacation it's not where you live yeah with the rental we've been very happy we have a fantastic landlord we need something he's right there to help us in one way or another rather is getting us to the right people or him just coming out here and helping us take care of something that we can look out our back window we're looking right into the marina um so we get to see the boats coming in and out every day and even when they come back and all the people have been out partying on boats all day so you can hear everybody's all excited and so it's it's it's it's fun living here yes and in the in the uh busy season uh out at the marina they have a market it's on Sundays but this Market has always been the biggest that I've seen and they have some of the funnest um artwork and the people will stop and talk to you and explain their artwork to you is and then they have food at the very end and so you get to a taste of of all the culture um yeah the the little the market here out at the Marina has been really fun but it's not going on right now but it'll be back in another couple of months so uh one of the things at the market is over our shoulder you can see the picture on the wall and that is a uh what's the art which art and and a guy that did it we've met the actual artist that made it and he explained the story of it it's kind of a like a clock and it goes around clockwise and tells a story and if we can't remember the story it's real simple because he took the the picture and if I turn it over and he wrote in English the whole story of that picture on the back of it so it's not just some artwork it's actually a story of the area and it's a piece of it's a piece of wood with beeswax on it and then little strips of yarn that make the whole picture it was very intricate renting is difficult it was difficult in watulco and it's difficult here because these places cater to vacationers and so they Jack the prices up for High season and some of them will sit empty just to be rented in High season so it's very difficult to find a landlord who is willing to rent full-time at a at a reasonable price we had the same problem and watulco is very small so it's kind of a bigger problem there but here we we found the same thing that it's very difficult to find long-term reasonable rental especially with any kind of view if you have a view of the ocean a full view of the ocean it's ridiculous the prices but people are paying it so they get away with it you know so um and I understand that's a problem with locals because they totally remove the locals from the market with some of the prices in in the areas and they are forced to move back away away from the water just to get something they can afford so it yeah it's difficult it's difficult to find you just have to keep looking and if you're looking if you're looking for long term do not come in High season come in low season come in the middle of summer or late summer I'm you know we've started to see a lot more things pop up lately for rent but it's it's not easy it's not a quick process there's no MLS there's no apartments.com to find something you have to really look you have to talk to people and the best way is getting to know people and network with a bunch of different people and you can find something it just it's not quick to find something also it's not it's very difficult to rent a house we consider ourselves very lucky to have a a full house a lot of condos duplexes that kind of stuff here I mean it's just it's very difficult to find a house and please please please don't rent something without seeing it don't take pictures and think that's the furniture that's going to be in the house when you travel here and get into it because it's probably not going to be there um so what you do is you you get on Facebook and you find people that live here locally and and somebody that will go out and just look at the house for you and walk through it and take pictures for you instead of what's posted on Facebook it's a world of difference it is a world of difference and you'll be surprised there are a lot of people here that live here year round that are more than happy to help people and and find a nice place to stay we actually did it for someone else yeah we've we have helped people find houses we've never charged anybody anything that's not our thing it's just we like helping people that's that's one of the things and and one of the things we like to do uh not just we like helping the uh the local people we like helping the people that are traveling here um people laugh at us because we met a couple the other day and the lady was telling us that they just moved here they live here permanent but they don't know anybody and she says she says she can't just walk up and talk to people and I said it's nothing for us to be sitting in a restaurant and you hear people speak in English and we just walk over and ask them where they're from and several of our friends today are people we just walked up to or they walked up to us in a restaurant and just started a conversation so it's not hard to meet people and meet people that are willing to help you do something when you're not here but you're you know you're coming and you need a little bit of help the community here it's small it's we've got to know you know our neighbors we know we walk down the street to bayana Blanca and we talk to people the same people every day you know we've got we've gotten to know people in our town so we feel comfortable here I guess the only thing I don't like about this town are that so many of the streets are dirt and ours is and it right now it's in terrible shape because of the rain and there's not a lot of city services for that sort of thing that's but that's everywhere that's not just here so um that's that's the only thing I can think of that I don't like there are some things that are a little bit of an irritation but it's what makes this place so cool back in April they had a festival here like celebrating the history of the town patronalis I think was what it was called for nine days they blew off these little bombs at five o'clock in the morning and it's it was a throwback to when they had to call people to worship the people in the mountains couldn't hear the bells the church bells and so they set off these little like m-80 bombs so that people could know when it's time to come to church so for nine days to commemorate that they set off bombs from five to six in the morning I'm I mean like 15 or 16 of them so you just go back to sleep and then you know there's another one and then at night from seven to eight they set off little bombs but hey but that's what makes this town so special things like that that are so it's different from any place we've ever been and for nine days say down in the the plaza was totally shut down for a for a party I mean they partied for nine days and during that nine days they'll they'll be different activities going on in the Square the thing that sticks in my mind the most is the very last day uh there's probably between 100 and 200 dancing horses they bring into town now that to me that's exciting I I could sit and watch the dancing horses all day long so the way we get around is uh here in town we're going to go eat or just go down to square we walk uh every there's a lot of things that are close by other than that we have vehicles we drive uh the Driving Experience here in Mexico is a little bit challenging you just have to learn to follow their rules and their habits or lack of or lack of rules but yes it's it's uh I when I go back to station we're talking to people and they ask me about the driving I tell them I says you know in the states when I drive in the States you have to pay attention what you're doing but in Mexico you have to really pay attention to what you're doing uh Sue will be saying oh there's such and such a story over here is right I can't look at it no I gotta watch that traffic because it's it's it's uh it can be very uh challenging but it's all good here in La Cruz we we have a big Marina out here so there's all kinds of water sports so if you like to fish or snorkel or there's islands off the point they can take you out to the islands and so there's a lot of things to do right here just walk out there they're surfing up the coast if you like surfing it's within 30 minutes there's some pretty good surfing so there's a lot of things to do we feel absolutely safe living here in Mexico for two years we have not had one incident where we've felt unsafe we I mean we even drove from Huatulco to here which is two and a half days and I was nervous but absolutely nothing happened it was it was safe it was easy there's bathrooms there's you know gas stations everywhere it's not the wild west you know at all so and the only thing we've heard of around here any kind of crime around here was somebody who got their license plates stolen off their car but that could happen anywhere you know being safe is one of the major conversations that we have with friends and family back in the States you know do you feel safe and and I've had people ask me straight out you know aren't you afraid of this or afraid of that and I say you know you just you have to be smart you don't go walking out in certain parts of town after dark and somebody I was having a conversation with somebody not too long ago and and I and they asked me about that and I said yeah I says there's there's a part of town that I I wouldn't feel safe walking after dark I said but you know what there's some places in Dallas Texas I wouldn't walk when the sun's still shining so what's the difference it says you just have to use your head and don't put yourself in bad situations so we've actually had no problems or scares of any kind here we still have our Medicare for in the states if something major happens we get on a plane and go back and get it taken care of but here I'm not afraid to tell people that when we still lived in watuko I had a really bad problem didn't know what was wrong with me went to the hospital I found out it was kidney stone they I was in the hospital for half a day IVs x-rays blood work you name it they did everything when I left the hospital I paid them eighty dollars cash money and that was my entire bill I was done and we we purchased a policy called skymed that will Medevac you out of here if you're not comfortable with whatever is going on medically that it will pay your way and it was pretty reasonable so we have that to fall back on if if it's something major medical but I've heard of people here even in busarias having knee Replacements and you know all kinds of surgeries and apparently it's a great hospital we just here in in Puerto Vallarta area we haven't had to go to the hospital so we haven't had a medical problem so we found out about the Mexico relocation guide through the Panama relocation tour she the the lady who started the Panama relocation tour has a daughter-in-law who's who is a Mexican and she decided to do the same thing for Mexico you can't do it quite the same because Mexico is a much bigger country but she's done a fantastic job of pulling a lot of information from major areas where where there are expats and she's got some great information in in her guide and she's doing also Regional tours now and so before we moved from watulco we were we were going to do some tours for her there but we wound up moving but um she's got some great information in fact when we came up here I used her person from Puerto Vallarta for some real estate recommendations and then when we I recently lost my green card my resident card so I looked in her guide to see who she said to go to and we had met a person but it turned out it was the same person she she kind of confirmed that that was who to use so we we've used her guide for several things it's it's been very helpful Marianna is very good to answer you if you have a if you have a question you've read things in there you have you know questions about some things she will she will respond very quickly and deal with you one-on-one it's not just she throws a book at you and and that's it she's personally very helpful she we've we talk to her a lot and we've asked her you know before we chose Puerto Vallarta we went through the guide and looked at you know different areas and which ones were safe and which ones were you know what what it was like to live there and so and if and she doesn't have the answer she usually knows somebody that does have the answer so she gives you the information who who to contact for that area of the question you've got so she's a very helpful person it's it's an online guide so we we have it whenever we have a question I can't say that I've read the whole thing because it's a lot I mean it's a ton of information but it's easy to search and it's easy to find what you need to know one thing that we like about the guide is you know we have talked about you know take a little vacation take a week and go here go there and a lot of the places we would be going to there are people there that you can contact and they'll help you find a hotel or a day pass some place or whatever you know it's it's so that's the nice thing about the book and it being online because she keeps it updated even if you're not just moving here you live here like we do you can still refer to the book to go travel someplace and go visit another area well some days um we play in a golf league and so we play every Wednesday sometimes we play also on Sunday we you know the golf courses here are empty on Sunday which is the opposite of the U.S so Sunday's a good time to play golf so we usually pay once or twice a week any day that I'm not doing anything I go to water there's a water aerobics class up the street so I go to that if I'm not doing anything else Paul's working as a marshal at one of the golf courses now so usually once a week he works the other thing we do is we like to go to the go to a beach somewhere we do have a real nice Beach Club right down the road from us here that our landlord happens to be a member of so we get to go there for free and it's it's a very nice beach with swimming pools uh beachfront food drinks all that um sometimes you don't want to keep going to the same place all the time so we'll just go down the road a mile and pull into a parking lot walk out on the beach you might pay a hundred 100 or 200 pesos to rent a table and and a an umbrella and chairs and sit there and and people watch on the beach it's I have more fun watching the people and watching uh first of all the how much time the parents spend with their children and how much time the people spend with their parents and grandparents and open them move take them out into the water and and taking care of them personally and making sure they're still enjoying life so we really enjoy just sitting on a beach having a drink and watching the people we do that actually quite often and every couple weeks we drive up to Sayulita and watch the surfers we like to watch the Surfers there's a market up there so we walk around and cool little town once every two weeks or so we go into Puerto Vallarta and go to Costco and have a hot dog and ice cream do a little shopping but I don't know we stay busy we we tend to stay busy and sometimes we don't sometimes we sit in our recliners and look out the window you know like old people some of the challenges that we we see as painters or whatever and they say they're going to be here at nine o'clock they might be here at 2 and and and sometimes it is it's nine o'clock but they might say nine o'clock on Monday and they show up at nine o'clock on Tuesday it can be a challenge but that's the way of life here in Mexico and so you get you kind of get used to it also like if you need plumbing parts uh I have learned if I need a plumbing part whatever it is I need I completely take it apart and take the old part with me because they have so many different kinds and models and makes and and so on and so forth that it's it the first time I did it I went to the I went to the plumbing store four times to to get one little piece and every time I brought it home it was it was wrong so uh it's it's just a little aggravating but it's something you get used to and you you learn you learn their ways after being in you know having a job and working and everything's you know time time time time and then you move here and you go out to eat and it might be 10 minutes before a waiter comes around and it might be another 20 minutes before you get a drink and it might be another hour before you get food and that was kind of hard to get used to at first but now it's like it's expected if somebody brings the food quickly you're like whoa I didn't you know that's too soon you know I'm not done just sitting here so you learned that dinner is going to take a couple hours and that's and that's fine that's okay you know one thing I've learned to actually respect a lot here is when I'm done eating I don't get a bill until I'm until I ask for a bill uh and I got I got so used to that our first year here that you know we went back at Last Christmas and visiting with my brother and we went to a a restaurant and I'm trying to get the girls attention so I can order another beer she brings a bill and sets it on a table and I think well I guess I know what I mean my money because they want me to pay for what I've already had so you don't have that problem here you can sit there without anything to drink for a half an hour and then just call a waiter over and say hey I need another beer and that's expected here they they will not bring you that once you sit at the table it's your table until you're done with it I learned to really respect that here in Mexico because they respect family time and if you're having dinner with your family then they respect that to leave you alone let you have your dinner and stay as long as you like I love that yeah our life has changed so drastically moving here it's it's kind of hard to believe that this one actually adjusted because he is a Taipei worked you know 12 hours at least a day and constantly on the phone we couldn't go on vacation we couldn't get away from it so when you totally cut that off I thought he would really have a hard time adjusting to that but he just slid right into it it was like it was so drastic and so different but I think we handled it pretty well you know sometimes we get a little tired of each other because we're together all the time but beyond that I mean it's just it's good it's all good but I have seen cases of couples that can't handle all the togetherness no blood pressure pills anymore you know we both lost weight you know it's just been easy we also have a lot of people ask us well what about the language barrier because I don't speak Spanish I I can speak enough Spanish to order my food order drinks you know the minor stuff I have no problem with but to carry on a conversation it it just doesn't happen Sue's done very well she studies her Spanish and she does a whole lot better than me but here in Mexico in this in areas that we've been in uh generally there's the people speak enough English that we don't have a communication problem and if you do I pick up my phone and use Google Translate and I speak into it it repeats it in Spanish they listen to it and then they answer my question and it repeats it back to me in English we don't really have a communication problem it's we've never one time had a problem with that yeah when we first moved to Mexico it took a while for me to remember that I wasn't on vacation this is my home now and so once I process process that through my head that this is my life now it's been good it it just because you feel like some some mornings did to this day I wake up and think I still feel like sometimes I'm on vacation but I'm not I live here so if you're considering moving narrow down what you want do you want to be on the beach do you want to do you want to be hot do you want to be cool what kind of temperatures do you want what do you want to do because there are people I've heard that move here and realize they have no interest they have no hobbies and they they're bored out of their minds so think about what you want to do all day once you do retire but definitely put boots on the ground you have to go where you if you're thinking of a of this area then come here and get a Airbnb and stay for a month and live like a resident not a tourist and just see if it's something you can handle there's people that can't handle everything being not easy in the U.S you know what to expect when you go to a restaurant you know what to expect when you go to a car dealer you know what to expect when you need a driver's license here it's so different if you're using a walker or you're using a wheelchair don't expect a nice smooth sidewalk to go down just I've never seen a level sidewalk anywhere that I've been to in Mexico and it's just part of the the culture here is just you know they build part of a sidewalk and I know two months later I built another part of the sidewalk and it's they're they're it's it's rough walking it's rough you you could not take a wheelchair down a sidewalk here any place uh and that's but she was a little bit what she said about the temperature uh as we said we when we first moved to Mexico we moved to watuco and again I can't say enough nice stuff about watuko a beautiful town but it is a lot hotter in watuko than it is in Puerto Vallarta vicinity what I have seen is usually about 15 degrees Fahrenheit warmer in the watuko area than it is in the Puerto Vallarta La Cruz area in fact when we first came here we literally had to go buy some jackets because we were walking the dogs in the morning it was cold we had to have a jacket when we lived in matuko we never had to have a jacket another thing that I've seen is don't expect Social Services to exist and if they you know if there are governmental things that you think need to be done you can't demand it I mean I I see on Facebook you know some people get on there and well my the street light in front of my house doesn't work who do I have to call well you don't have to call anybody I mean don't expect it I mean I was talking to a lady that cuts my hair and she said if the if there's a spot on the street that needs to be fixed generally the people in the businesses get together and go fix it you know don't expect the government to be there I can't think of anything that I would change about how we've how we've come here and the things that we've done going to watulco was a huge risk because we knew absolutely nothing about it I mean we watched videos on and YouTube videos but we didn't we didn't know anybody who had ever we'd never heard of it before or knew anybody who had ever been there so it was kind of a big leap to do that and we're so glad we did because it if you've never been there it is it is beautiful I think coming here was kind of a more of a head decision rather than a heart decision because we're not young so we need to have good Medical Care available and we there were times we didn't feel that that was happening there and we're lazy we need the conveniences the shopping conveniences that are here are so much better it's cooler we really like that it's so much cooler here she used the right words uh this was a head decision and when we first moved to watuko it was a it was a heart decision we and we needed to uh we'd been retired for a short time we were going miserable sitting in a house in the United States couldn't do anything and so we moved to Watauga was it a good decision yes with moving here good decision yes [Music]

Channel: Mexico Relocation Guide

Views: 305,262

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Id: pZ-Wq4GYTtA

Length: 35min 9sec (2109 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 16 2022