I want to let my readers know we are fine in San Carlos, Mexico and have absolutely no regrets about our decision to buy a house here. We have been here long enough now that I can give you some plusses and minuses and thought I would mention a few.
Minuses:
Scorpions and other insects. We have had two scorpions in the house and a few more outside. They scare me. Everyone sprays regularly with an insecticide inside and out, and regretfully we have started doing that too. One neighbor has lived here 40 years and says he has been bitten twice and was very ill.
There is not a real downtown with a city center and nice architecture.
That it is difficult to find vegetarian or healthy meals in any restaurants……that I know of.
Not very responsive government entities for infrastructure problems that the town has such as water or sewer leaks and water shutoffs with no explanation as to why or even when the water will be back on. We have not been personally inconvenienced with these issues but many others have. The fact that most of our property tax money goes to Guaymas instead of taking care of San Carlos doesn’t seem fair but I hear Guaymas, which San Carlos is really just a suburb of, is broke.
Plusses:
Natural beauty with the prettiest sea colors I have ever seen. Some days the water is deep blue, some days turquoise and other times light aquamarine. There is an overlook (Mirador) here from which National Geographic named the view one of the 10 best in the world.
The year around warm to hot weather with blue skies. The majority of the northerners leave in the summer due to the high heat and humidity but we decided to try and stay through one summer to know if it is really uncomfortable. Mid-June is the time when the humidity kicks in and it has but I love it. I can’t get over how we live in the desert with such a dry climate all winter and spring and now the air feels exactly like the tropics. Fabulous! But we have been told July will be hotter and more humid, August more so, and September too, with the heat and humidity finally breaking about mid-October. So ask me again in September how I am loving it!
It is so much less expensive to own a house here than in the U.S. From property taxes to insurance, to utilities; we are saving so much money I think we could take a South Pacific cruise every year if we wanted to. And groceries! So affordable, but mostly for “from scratch” cooking items. Processed foods are as high as in the US. Vegetables are fresh, plentiful, and so cheap. At the same time, we are now finding almost anything we want which wasn’t the case in years past farther south in Mexico. Some of the stores even have sections with imported German, Italian, Chinese etc. foods. And finding items like chia seeds, quinoa, tofu and so on are no problem.
Being able to obtain our US mail here. We use a mail service in Tucson and usually someone goes north at least once a week and picks up the mail to drop off at the Remax realty office in San Carlos which is very convenient to us.
San Carlos has almost everything we need but when it doesn’t, the larger city of Guaymas is only 10 miles away. This is where we go to Home Depot, Walmart, Sam’s Club, and anything else we can’t get in San Carlos.
Feeling healthier with clean air. No allergies or respiratory problems for me here and being at sea level I feel much better. My oxygen level is now 96-97 compared to 91-92 in Colorado. We have some friends from Colorado that bought a place in San Carlos the same time we did and the oxygen levels situation is the same as mine.
Many many restaurants to eat out inexpensively but at the same time, not healthy but quite tasty!
It is so easy and inexpensive to get work done. Landscaping, plumbing, sealing the roof, you name it. We had to have a tree cut down and removed. Cost? The equivalent of $12 US. In the US it would have cost a couple of hundred dollars.
Very friendly people, all nationalities included.
Watching and looking at boats. There have been some fishing tournaments recently and the boats take off in the bay in front of our house and with two large marinas in town we can look at boats all we want.
And there may be more plusses coming up, some of it is hearsay and some have been reported in our local forums and the news. A small hospital might be built just outside of town. An assisted care facility might also be built on the waterfront in San Carlos. There is more development planned and real estate sales have picked up so the economy is turning around after several years of the downturn that the US experienced. And another big news item is that Guaymas, which has a shortage of water for the growing city, is planning to build a water desalination plant.
I am sure we will encounter more negatives along the way, but the positives will continue to be in the majority.
Wanderlets 