In preparation of the Copa Careyes Tournament, a few Canadians travelled south of the boarder by car.  The Copa Careyes Tournament will feature well  known players including:  Carlos & Memo Gracida and Diego White. Brian Boyd from Santa Fe, NM, David Genovanis from Moscow, Russia and Bolko Kissling from Germany and Los Angeles are all traveling to the small town of Costa Careyes to play in the Copa Careyes Tournament.

Following is a story submitted about the journey to Careyes by car.

Greetings all from Rob (manager CPC) and Julie Roenisch,

My husband and I were invited to come to Careyes for Christmas to help with a tournament that they are putting on, with Memo and Carlos Gracida and other players from all over the world. When I went to my friendly travel agent he told me what the price would be for the tickets, a car to drive and most importantly in my opinion, that we probably couldn’t be able to take our fat French Bulldog because he was too big for carry on. Well that settled it, much to the horror of friends and family we decided to drive. Well, you would think we were driving to Bagdad, they were all sure we were going to be gunned down as soon as we crossed the border, or get lost, car jacked, robbed, left to fend for ourselves in the desert, etc etc etc. So it was with some trepidation that we approached the border crossing in Lukeville Az. It is a small border crossing west of Nogales, now one doesn’t go to any foreign country without doing the research about the necessary visas, car permits etc.

The crossing was so hassle free but it was a good thing that I knew what we needed because you pretty much have to look after getting the documents yourself, and finding the correct offices at the border but once you do it is a piece of cake. The roads south we really very good, we drove almost the whole way on toll roads which ended up costing about $100.00 dollars, money well spent. The signs in the cities were easy to follow and we didn’t get lost once, mind you, I was the navigator, need I say more!! We didn’t drive at night, which on strange roads in a different country is just common sense, there were gas stations everywhere, large, clean, government owned, with people to pump your gas and clean the windshield. There was also a heavy police and army presence on the road, a lot of stops and checks but they just waived us through. We had to leave the toll road to drive west to Puerto Vallarta and it was the trickiest road we drove on, very twisty, up and down, you get the picture. The bottom line, don’t drive too fast, pretty simple really!! It took us three days to drive from Indio Ca. to the resort at Costa Careyes, 2500 Km and we didn’t have one uncomfortable moment, well other than traveling with a fat, flatulent, French Bulldog. We got into our little casa and met two Canadians who live here in the winter and have driven down every year for ten years and their story is the same as ours, don’t drive at night and just use some common sense, pretty much what you would do if you were driving anywhere else in the world!

So the adventure continues, but  now with sun and sand and margaritas!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ciao for now
Julie