Blonde Gator

We’ve reached our last state in Mexico, Chiapas.   Yesterday was the beginning of the Easter Holiday week, and apparently almost everyone has reached their destinations.  The roads were very empty, and much to our delight, we found ourselves on GREAT roads yesterday, where we had expected them to be difficult.  We were on autopistas and then a 4 lane divided freeway.  Life is good.

We navigated south and east away from Puerto Escondido, along the Pacific coast….although the road is somewhat inland.  We winded our way through the mountain valleys, desert one minute, lush, tropical valleys the next.  Once we left Oaxaca, Chiapas became more cattle country…although we passed miles and miles and miles of mango farms.  I have to think of the Mango king, oh how he’d have loved yesterday’s trip.  Tiny yellow mangos, big purple and green ones, and medium sized red ones.

Since it’s the Easter Weekend, we decided to try a little coastal village to see if there were any interesting rooms available, unfortunately, not….so we’re just off the main road in Mapastepec, about 2 hours from the border.  We met some Californians on the road yesterday, who had left Tamarindo CR (about 20 minutes north of our destination).  They’d done some exploring, and we have some great tips.  Oddly, after 3 years in CR, they’re planning to move to Antigua, Guatemala.  With young kids, they weren’t happy with the beach/school environment for their children, plus they had friends/family in Antigua.  Oh, and my across the street neighbor, Louis, will be visiting Costa Rica next month sometime, Blonde Mom is trying to get the details, but I think he’ll be close enough for us to visit him, too!  It truly is a small world.

I didn’t take very many pictures yesterday, but I was flabbergasted as we were driving, literally out in the middle of nowhere, and came upon a wind farm!  There must have been at least 200 windmills, at least half of which weren’t turning.  This is your future, stoopid warmers!

Windfarm ~ SNAFU ~ they should all be facing the same way & turning

This was apparently the Eurus Wind Farm, largest in Latin America, and cost $550M.

I’m having a hard time envisioning that on the beaches in Florida.

Eurus Wind Farm

Okay, we are soon to be off, headed to Antigua, Guatemala.  I’m told it’s pronounced An-Ti-Gwa, unlike the Carribean island of Antigua, which is pronounced On-Tee-Ga (which I was told repeatedly when I visited that lovely little place back in the early 80′s).  We’ve met a few people on this trip who raved about Antigua, supposedly killer leather goods, so I’m signing off.  The sooner we eat, the sooner we get on the road, the sooner I shop!

~ Blonde Gator

First, let me share with you that my mother is, and always has been, a car aficianado.  When we watch old movies….she points out the cars.  We watch Barrett Jackson together.  If you don’t know what that is…you’re not a car freak. 

Well, today we pulled into a Pemex station (Mexican National Oil Company)….and what to our wondering eyes should appear….a SOOSL (that’s what my mom used to jokingly call a Mercedes 300SL).

Only this one was special, it was a 1952 Mercedes 300SL, and had raced in the 1952 Carrerra Pan American road race.  Its current owner was reliving its past glory, retracing the road race.

1952 Gull Wing Mercedes 300SL

I can’t imagine taking a trip of that nature in a vehicle such as this…amazing.  From the Mercedes Benz Archives, I believe this car is in one of the photos toward the bottom where there are 3 of them.

A tight squeeze to get two big guys into the 300SL

I suspect we saw a $1.5M dollar vehicle today.

Well, it is about time I wrote about driving in Mexico.

The trick to driving in Mexico is to understand the psychology of the Mexican driver culture.

If you sail, you know the sailor’s rights of way where if a bow of a boat sneaks ahead of you they have the right of way.

It is the same in Mexico with cars.

But the other trick is to not worry about what is behind you (other than making sure a complete idiot isn’t coming up at 100 miles an hour when you need to change lanes) and to ignore everything else like bicycles, pedestrians, etc., as if you were moving through a herd of cattle.

Other than that it is a lot like driving anywhere. The autopistas run from 60-70 miles an hour and of course there are little bitty cars that don’t have enough squirrels and run at 20 mph. When you have one pull out and you miss the fact it pulled out a quarter mile ahead and you need to brake because there is a car right next to you trying to pass – ask Blonde.

Anyway, the drive to Oaxaca and the entire trip in Mexico has been on very well engineered and modern roads. There was a short stretch of about 100 miles where the road had deteriorated badly; but was under repair. This sent us to an average of about 40 miles an hour for 100 miles.

We have been fortunate to find ‘off-the-cuff’ very good and clean and inexpensive motels along the way. All save one – an emergency stop – had internet and restaurants.

A bit of trivia. Mexico has gone to the Burma shave style road signs (without the theme) just a number of one or two liner signs along their autopistas.

One says, obey signals. Antoher says, don’t drive while tired. Another says, don’t throw rocks onto the pavement (I saw that one three times).  Yet another (Mexican sense of humor) says:  “This highway is not here for you to increase your velocity”

Like the US which is a distinct culture where you can tell you have entered the country or watching a film made in the US – many signs everywhere telling you what you cannot do.

Sigh!~

However, it isn’t really as bad in Mexico.

One needs patience and a sense of humor to drive in Mexico (and everywhere else South of the Border) or don’t do it.

I mean that.

If you can’t roll with a lot of punches and take being cut off personally, don’t do it. Just don’t.

I’ll write more later.

~Iguana Man

We’re one week into the adventure.  We’ve made almost 2,400 miles, have crossed a timezone, a border, and about a hundred different eco-systems.

I didn’t quite give you full disclosure about yesterday…OMO!  A good day, and a bad day.  Tampico was amazing (I now have a Mexico photo page up).  We decided to drive down the coast, headed for a town called Pozo Rico.  Nice town.  Unfortunately, we didn’t know there was some festival going on there (I haven’t looked it up, you can if you’re ambitious).

Needless to say, no hotel rooms, even after we’d scoured the downtown, being jostled off to side roads for the parade and the festiva.  The Iguana Man did a yeoman’s job navigating through that mess, and seeking shelter, to no avail.  We did, however, find two short sheet hotels that had room.  *Ahem*.  So…we hit the road and drove for several hours after dark.   I’m glad we didn’t see where we were driving last night….the roads weren’t great (too many potholes)…but at least the big trucks were off the road.  And we found the plain but totally adequate Hotel California!  What a lovely place.  We were able to leave, however.

This morning when we awoke, packed the car, and hit the road….voila!  We were on the Carribean.  I mean, right on it!  We drove on south….we were thinking of heading over toward Cancun.  One of the Iguana Man’s favorite movies is Apocalypto, filmed in the jungles between Veracruz & Cancun.  We thought about finding a nice place to hang for a few days, but after an hour or two on the road, looking at a beach that looks just like mine…and realizing the wind was blowing 40 mph, we decided to bag it.  It was well (like 2 days) out of our way.

So, we took the autopista (toll road) west…the autopistas are well maintained and easy to navigate, if a tad expensive (and the Mexicans in little cars are insane, plus they allow double semis, no weight limits….autopistas are the way to go) to Oaxaca.  We went through mountains today that were well over 6,000 feet (my passenger side brake pedal doesn’t work for shit….must contact Nissan).   We are now in the “high plains desert”.  An hour or so short of Oaxaca is where we stopped, in a most lovely town called Tehuacan.

We exited the main road, and about a mile down the central avenue saw an interesting motel.  So we pulled in.  It was built about 25 years ago, by either an Indian (from India) or someone who travelled there and was in love with it.  The motel has a Taj Mahal motif, from the pillars, statuary, and restaurant decor, to the rooms themselves, with cool plaster headboards.  Best part….room is less than $40.  I took some pictures, shall take some more in the a.m. 

The wonderful thing about these small hotels is that they are designed for security, one way in, with a wall the whole way around…no worries.  Did I mention the climate here?  I’m sure during the summer it is blistering hot, but it is about 70 degrees, clear and no humidity.  We have a window open.  I can hear the band playing (but not loudly) in the bar. 

I find I’m rapidly leaving the States behind and getting into a different groove.  It’s just different here.  Not better, mind you…but just not fast and furious.  Pleasant. 

Blonde Mom is doing fine…she broke her cell phone (good news…she now can use e-mail to tell me these things)…but a friend fixed her up and she’s back in business.  She’s doing well, planning to go to Kansas City….when she gets back I’m going to pop back to the States and drag her back to Costa Rica for a few weeks.

I’ll try to update our photo pages further tomorrow…the internet here is pretty good, but then it gets twitchy and I get tired of waiting for two/three minutes per photo, sometimes with a “fail”….but rest assured, there’s lots of good stuff on my camera chip.

All the best to you and yours…and thanks again for stopping and leaving comments.  It absolutely thrills me to log back on here and find comments!  You all are the best.

~ Blonde Gator