Loreto, MX in Tropical Storm IVO and Afterward--October 2014

Tani and I arrived in our home in Loreto, MX just as Tropical Storm IVO was approaching on Oct. 14th. The wind and rain blew for three days just after we arrived in Mid October. I was too busy clearing out the water in our courtyard and kitchen areas to take many pictures. Here is a picture of the water rushing down our walkways with about 4 inches of water flowing out to the lakes to the west and covering up the golf course with an expanded lake.

We have never seen the hills so full of green, lush, plants growing where before it was a desert. The golf course was underwater along with the entire second tee.

Here is a picture of our Paseo that was covered by two feet of tropical stormwater.

After the tropical storm, the skies cleared and we were back to sunny skies, and warm weather in the mid-80s as our daughter, Jessica, and her husband, Joshua arrived for a short vacation.

Jess had not been here for 3 years when our home was in the middle of a construction zone with contractor fences around groupings of their homes under construction, we were surrounded with dirt, dust and construction debris, and electrical wires snaking to all of the homes under construction.
Now we have beautiful landscaping, walkways, and fountains along with three beautiful pools along with a community center.

All of this has happened because when Citi suspended all work in June 2009, homeowners connected with each other through emails and social media, and we all stepped in as developers to organize and complete our Loreto Bay community.

We were among about 140 homeowners that were left with partially built homes who gathered together over the internet to proceed with the completion of our homes under the "global solution" offered by Stan Barton, Construction Manager of Beck Construction. We had lots of homeowner heroes that helped us through all of these challenges.

Here we are down at the Inn with the Nopolo Rock rising behind us.

We took Jess and Josh to the village of Loreto and they are standing in front of the city hall at the plaza with the ficus archway of trees along the walking street towards the Loreto Mission. Josh is also pointing to their little boy on the way.

When it is the first time for someone to visit Loreto, you just have to take a panga ride out to Coronado Island, which is a turtle sanctuary, and enjoy swimming in the white sugar sand, catch the barking sea lions, and the dancing dolphins on the boat ride.

Another place we visited was the Mission at San Javier about 34 km from Loreto up the mountains on a mostly paved road. This mission was founded in 1699 by the Jesuits, but was abandoned in 1817 and later restored by the government. About 200 people live in the area.

Here is the road to San Javier way up above us. And here is the part that is not paved that was washed out by a series of hurricanes and tropical storms these past two years.

We are now crossing the river area where there used to be cave paintings until the last Tropical Storm Ivo washed them away.

We finally arrived and you can see the San Javier Mission behind Jess & Josh along with the huge olive tree that the Jesuits planted.