La Gata Campground
Lois and I left a cold and dreary Friday Harbor on the 10th of January 1996 with the idea of going somewhere to get warm. It took a while to find it because we didn't head straight south. First to Spokane for a visit with my Dad, then to Tiburon, CA to see Lois' daughter Kristy; another stop in Fallbrook to check on brother Don who had just gone bionic with a new knee. From there we followed the U.S./Mexican border across Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas before crossing it at Brownsville. Somewhere in Texas it started to warm up and Mexico didn't disappoint us. Here's the story:
To the grocery store one last time for ice and a couple of things we'd forgotten, Breakfast at the Pancake House, called Nan, Kris, and Norm. Norm says Dad is doing better but still in the care center. Then it was check out of the motel and on to Mexico across the bridge to Matamoro (Toll $1.00). At the border we had no problem with imigracion. The old guy accepted our affidavits of citizenship without question; but at the aduana it was another story. The boss there gave us several lectures on why we should have brought our passports or birth certificates. He finally gave in though and let us "import" our van. The lady there took our credit card impression and had us sign a promise to return the van in less than six months. Then she put a sticker on our windshield and, with a $5.00 tip to the aduana capitan in the parking lot we were on our way.
Matomoro is a typical Mexican border town...big, busy and dirty. We made one stop at Banco Mexico for money. I had to use my Visa card to get the ATM to work. I can't remember if the debit card worked when we were here or not. In any case, I got $N2,000 pesos at an exchange rate of somewhere around eight to one. It took about half an hour to get out of the city and out onto the flat agricultural plain of the valley. They sure have big fields on that plain...some plowed land stretched as far as we could see. Mais seems to be the big crop but it isn't growing now. We saw nothing but plowed fields which looked ready for planting. As we drove down Mexico 180 toward Ciudad Victoria and Tampico the land gradually lost its flatness. First there was just a little roll to it, then low hills, then steeper until we were rolling though country much like that of Southern California. The roads were pretty good, not much shoulder but well surfaced, at least until we got to the La Coma junction where Mexico 101 turns off to Victoria. Then 180 got a bit bumpy with chuckholes and patches. Some stretches of that road had patches on the patched patches.
We were having a bit of trouble reading and understanding Sandborn's road guide. He gives so much detail that it's hard to sort out the essentials. I'd been pointing toward staying at an RV park near Ojo de Agua which he said served great barbecue but ended up about twenty miles beyond it before realizing we'd passed it.
| No problem, once we figured out where we were we stumbled...with the book's help ...into a great spot called La Gata RV Park about three miles east of Soto La Marina on the road to La Pesca. Ernesto, the owner, parked us on the grass next to a neat palapa on a bluff overlooking a beautiful river, the Rio Soto La Marina.We have electricity and water at the palapa. He has several parking spots with palapas and is building more right down on the river. He also has a boat ramp. Neat guy, he gave me a tour of his place. This is by far the nicest RV camp we've ever been in. And the weather is great. We sat with the doors and the windows open while the sun went down over the river. Not even a mosquito or bug to bother us. | La Gata Campground |
Fog this morning, and later clouds which kept the temperature just right all day. We got up at dawn, had breakfast, and rolled out of our pretty park about 8:30. Back on 180 headed south toward Tampico we had an interesting and pretty drive. The road surface is one minute very good and the next filled with potholes and patches but at 45 mph not too bad. We got to Tampico about 11:00 and it took us an harrowing hour to get through the city. It is even more intimidating than Matomoro. A solid three lines of traffic moving inches apart through streets crowded with pedestrians. I got lost once trying to follow Sandborn's map but lucked out and ended up on the big toll bridge out of town. We've seen it; we're glad to be out with our lives; we won't be back. Next time we'll take the bypass route.
Things only got better after that. The farther south we got the more lush and green the countryside became. Palm, banana and citrus trees started appearing in groves along the road and in the fields, ponds of water seemed to be everywhere and there was even water in the rivers we crossed. Now the country was looking more like Costa Rica than Southern California. We also climbed higher and in the distance mountains started appearing through the haze, many with the distinct shape of old volcano cones. We stopped for water & ice in the lovely little town of Narjanos in the heart of citrus country. It is about as Mexican a town as we've ever seen. The pharmacia there was out of ice but the pharmacist insisted on my sitting and waiting while he went somewhere else to get me a bag. Nearing Tuxpan they highway climbed over a mountain to a village with a beautiful old stone church. I would have loved to had a picture but there was no place to stop. Tuxpan itself is a lovely city. A long waterfront park lines the edge of the Rio Tenechaco, the big river leading to the sea. I was surprised to see big ships in the river. Tuxpan must be a deepwater port. We didn't have time to do a lot of looking around today. It was getting late and we wanted a place to park. Sandborn says that you can park "under the lighthouse" so we headed out the ten mile river drive toward the beach. There we stumbled onto a gringo named Mark who waved us down in the street. He's from Maine and has been here a couple of months and was hungry to speak to someone who spoke English. He pointed us to a palapa restaurant on the beach where we could have dinner and park for the night. Neat place run by a nice lady named Santa. She fixed us a great plate of camerones ajo, big prawns fried in garlic, while we walked the beach. We also met a young couple from Quebec with whom we checked in at customs yesterday. We've been playing tag with them all day. Spent the night parked on the sand behind the palapa. Not bad, but a little noisier than last night. Barking dogs kept Lois awake for quite a while.
Got lost again this morning. We rolled out of our parking spot at La Arche about eight, stopped at a little grocery along the causeway for five gallons of purified water which we poured into our tank, and then headed for Poza Rica (Rich Hole), or at least that was our intent. We came to a sign saying Poza Rica to the right so I turned right. Three or four blocks later we passed another sign saying that Poza Rica was back in the direction from which we had come. I decided I'd better go back that way so tried to go around a block. The only problem was that I turned down a one way street the wrong way. And of course there had to be a policeman at the end of it. He stopped us and gave me a lecture about keeping my eyes open but let us go. Next I turned down another street trying to find the end of the bridge to Poza Rica and found it was a dead end. Then, turning around I backed into a tile roof overhang and broke a tile. Had to look up the lady who owned the building and pay her. She said, "No probelma." but I gave her twenty pesos anyway. When we finally got on the bridge going the right way things got better.
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No problems getting to the Tajin pyramids. They are pretty impressive. They've done a magnificent job of restoring the structures and have built a beautiful museum at the entrance. We paid our fee of 16 pesos each to enter, wandered among the pyramids for an hour admiring the huge structures and beautiful carved panels, then watched a performance of |
| the "flyers" spinning down while the ropes they were tied to unwound from the 100 foot pole atop which they started. It wasn't quite as impressive as the books make it sound; the four flyers sort of slid off the top with their ropes rather than "hurling themselves off" as the book says. And the ropes are guided through holes in the rotating top structure so that it's more like a big kids merry-go-round than anything else. Nevertheless, we gave the man on the ground his ten pesos for watching. As at any Mexican tourist location, there were dozens of merchandise hawkers all around the entrance and parking lot. | 
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From Tajin we went back to the junction at Poza Rica and then headed on south toward Veracrus, country getting more and more tropical as we went. This is sure citrus country, and pinapples, and bananas, and coconuts, and papayas. Rolling along 180 somewhere south of Papantla I spotted a nice looking barbacoa stand along the highway so turned around and went back for a look. Wow, the best barbecue we've ever tasted! It's called Merendero Dario II. The operator and cook fixed us up a plate of chicken, beef, pork ribs, and pork loin which was out of this world, along with tortillas, black friolis and salsa. About 2:30 we checked in at the Hotel Torres Molino on the "Costa Esmeralda" where the road parallels a long sand beach for many miles. Neat place. We have a big room with two beds, a shower, and a big kitchen equipped for cooking with a full sized frige. I took a swim in the gulf...not as warm as the Virgins but not cold either. We ate dinner, a salad, in the room. Didn't need much after our barbacoa lunch.
Windy and a little rain this morning as we got ready to go. The sea which had been almost flat yesterday afternoon was showing lots of whitecaps. We had breakfast in the room then showered. Had to go over to the office and have the manager turn on the hot water before we could shower. They turn off the circulating pump at night. Got rolling about eight. Very pretty drive into Veracrus. It's mountainous country and getting greener every mile. We got to the sugar cane belt today, and big banana and papaya plantations. We rolled into Veracrus about eleven. It's another big city, not quite as bad as Tampico but not as pretty and relaxed as Tuxpan. It too has a long waterfront drive with some magnificent buildings and statuary along it, but not much in the way of walking parks. We were looking for a phone which would let us direct dial the US and finally found one in a big shopping center on the south side of town. The only problem was that old code for direct dialing AT&T didn't work and the international operator said my international calling card number is no good. I ended up calling Rudy collect to get the address of F&M Visa so I could make a payment. Later, looking through Sandborn's book, I another number for AT&T, 95-800-462-4240.
The country south of Veracrus is flat for many miles with nothing but huge cane fields to see. Then it starts to get bumpy again as the road comes close to the shoreline. There are huge sanddunes in the vicinity of Alverado which have been stabilized by grass and palm plantings. Lots and lots of little towns filled with people all busily crossing the highway on their way to somewhere. And talk about Topes, these speed bumps are real industrial grade. It's like going over a curbing. You have to come to a complete stop then sort of push your way over them. They sure do the job of slowing down the traffic though. We stopped in the village of San Andres Tuxtla at El Pollo Feliz and bought "un pollo" for $N30.00. Un Pollo included about two pounds of corn tortillas plus salsa and onions, more than enough for both our lunch and dinner. We stopped for the night just west of Acayucan at the Hotel Las Joyitas where Jose Luis, the guy at the desk, let us park on their tennis court for thirty pesos. I think it's the only money he took in today. The hotel is empty. When I asked when the tourists came he said in Abril y Mayo. We had a nice level spot under the mango trees back behind the hotel away from the highway and spent a very comfortable night.
Cloudy with more showers today. Wonder if this is normal weather. It's sure comfortable. Temperature is in the high seventies and the rain has been so light that it's not been a problem. We left our parking spot on the tennis court about 7:30 and drove just a few miles from Acayucan to a shiny new Pemex station where we filled with gas and had breakfast served by a very matronly Mexican lady. Bacon, scrambled eggs, refried beans with little slices of goat cheese on top, and a big pile of tortillas held us for the day. The drive from Acayucan to Villahermosa wasn't as scenic as we've been having. Most of it is on multilane highway and through flat, oil producing country. Heavy traffic on the highway, but not as many rough spots on the road and not as many topes to slow down for. We stopped in Cardinas to mail a check off to F&M Visa. Found the post office without much trouble. We pretty much bypassed Villahermosa, another big city on our route, and got out to the village of Palenque about 13:00. I was hoping to get some money at the Cajeta Automatica in the bank there but it was out of service. Lots of hotels and motels in Palenque, the first hint of what we were to find when we went out to the ruins. One of the two trailer parks on the road to the ruins was packed full and the other under construction. At the pyramids, talk about people, they were swarming over the site. We opted to visit the museum rather than fight the crowds. It was relatively quiet. Didn't learn much here that we hadn't learned in Tajin. This was a larger city and according to the literature a more powerful one. It was one of the earliest Maya cities and the first to be abandoned for reasons unknown in about 600 AD. After looking over the hotels in town we decided on the Hotel Tulija, one that Days Inn has franchised. Not bad, and very reasonable at about $25 for the night. But when I plugged our coffee maker into the socket all hell broke loose. It shorted out the receptical, one of the cheap Mexican things. It must have fused the wires inside because, after several explosive tries at turning the circuit breaker back on, the clerk moved us to another room. Then the beds were so hard that I brought in the pad from our van. Lois thought that was overdoing it but we had a fairly comfortable night after it cooled off enough for us to turn off the air conditioner. I've got to remember my rule about windows that open. It was pouring rain at dinner time so we ate here in the hotel. Again, not too bad but not too good either. Food was tasty but pretty greasy.
It rained all night, into the morning, and for quite a while after we were on our way. I moved the van over right next to the curb at the rear of the hotel so we could load without getting things too wet. We went downtown again first to see if the ATM at the bank would work this morning...we're getting a little short of pesos. No luck, the machine said it was "temporarily unable to complete your transaction". Okay, we've still got enough money for a tank of gas. We filled at the Pemex, bought a bag of ice for the cooler and hit the road in the rain. There's not a whole lot between Palenque and Francisco Escarcega except tiny villages and huge fields of cane and mango orchards. We were crossing the delta of the Rio Usumancinta which our book says carries a full third of the water in all the rivers of Mexico. The river itself isn't that impressive to see. It's so spread out that we crossed it on series of four bridges.
Escarcega is a busy little city. The highway bypasses it but we stopped to try again to get pesos. No luck this time either. After a long wait, during which I had visions of having lost my credit card, the machine told me that it could not establish communication with my bank and to please try again later. They were getting ready for some kind of party in town...they had the street blocked off and great piles of chairs stacked on the sidewalk. From Escarcega to Champonton is about ninety miles of pretty good highway. We drove it in an hour and a half, getting there a little before noon. Champonton is on the east shore of the Gulf and the waterfront there sure isn't as pretty as it is on the other side. The water, at least today, is kind of a murky brown color and looks very shallow. We didn't stop in Champonton but rolled on to Campeche on a four lane divided toll road, for free today I guess because it is Sunday.
We got into Campeche about one o'clock and were immediately impressed with the city. There was none of the intimidating crowded feeling that we usually get in a large city. The avenues leading in and out are wide and the traffic today wasn't heavy. In the heart of the city the streets are narrow but one way and there are sections of a great stone wall which protected it from pirates in the 16th century. Beautiful old stone churches seem to be on every corner. We drove up and down the narrow streets, stopping now and then to get out and examine a church or plaza more closely. There are libraries and museums in several places in the old wall but they were closed today. No problem, we could still imagine standing behind the big bronze cannons and firing at the ships in the harbor.
The book says that Campeche was a major harbor for the early Spanish but it's sure not much now. We drove along the Malacon and out onto a long breakwater in front of the city. The only boats there now are hundreds of Pangas and a few sport fishing boats. What looks to be a planned marina is empty except for a couple of sunken hulks. There are lots of monuments scattered around edges the city and along the waterfront, beautifully designed if not very nicely executed, but the overall impression is of grand plans gone astray. The real city is still in the older parts and the central market. We took another tip from Sandborn and looked up a little RV park in a suburb of town called Samula. It's a pretty place run by a nice Mexican lady whose American husband died twenty years ago. She charged us fifty pesos, about six bucks, for parking. We walked to Samula's central plaza and ate dinner at the street stands there. Had jicama and orange slices at one stand and a really good torta carni at another. It was fun practicing our Spanish with the friendly people on the street.
Bright blue sky this morning for the first time in several days.
Roosters crowing woke us. Brightly colored birds in the orange
toped flamingo tree in the yard across the street. We got off
to a lazy start, cleaning up the van and fixing a big breakfast
on board. When we finally got going I couldn't find my way out
of town. We wanted to take highway 261, the route to Merida via
the ruins. I knew it split off from the 180 autopisto as we came
in but I couldn't find either this morning. We went far out one
highway and a half hour later found ourselves back where we started.
On the second try I decided to go south along the waterfront until
we met 180 coming the other way. We drove through the little village
of Lerma and past the wharfs where the big tankers unload to the
Pemex storage tanks and, after asking directions finally stumbled
onto the right road. The rest of the driving was easy. 
It's about
forty miles from that junction to Edzna, the first of the ruins
we visited today. It is another of the Maya cities which dotted
this region around the time of Christ. This one is known for being
the center of a great network of irrigation canals and cisterns
used in farming the valley where it is located. We climbed to
the top of one pyramid and wondered at the size of the huge stone
edifices forming what they call the Grand Acropolis.
On the way out of the park a tiny deer ran down the road in front
of us before finding a path off into the thick grass that lines
the road. It wasn't as big as many dogs but appeared mature. I've
never seen one so small.
From Edzna it's another thirty miles to Kahah the next site we visited.That's were I met my downfall.
| We had climbed one pyramid and admired the hundreds of carved images of the big nosed rain god and were on our way down when I stumbled on the rough stone step. It's a good thing I only had four or five steps more to go because I rolled the rest of the way down. Skinned a couple of spots and banged my right knee a bit but other than that, and an injured pride...several dozen other tourists witnessed my fall...I thought I was okay. | 
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Well, it's where we set out to go and we're there. As is often the case the end isn't anywhere near as great as the means; but I'm getting ahead of myself. Today's drive was pretty boring after some of the neat country we've seen. Soon after leaving our pretty little trailer park in Santa Elena we came to the edge of the plateau we'd been on and could see what seemed to be an endless, jungle covered plain stretching off to the horizon. It was like looking off across the ocean from a high cliff. And that was it; for the rest of the day we drove through that endless jungle with no humps or bumps except in the road surface, and not even many curves.
In the 300 or so miles we drove there are only two towns of consequence: Merida, a big city, a pretty nice big city but a big city never-the-less; and Valladolid, a middle sized city with a big church in the center. We didn't stop either but had lunch in a neat little roadside restaurant in Chicken Itza. We also drove out to the site of the Chicken Itza ruins but didn't go inside the gate. It, like Panenque, was overrun with tourists. There were dozens of tour buses and hundreds of cars in the parking lot. We turned around and left. My knee's better but I couldn't climb a pyramid today anyway. We got to Cancun about three o'clock and immediately got lost. Heading to what we thought was the main hotel district we ended up at Punta Sam, a narrow strip of sand that runs out north of the city far from the primary tourist area. There are a few condos there, and some big clubs, but no hotels that looked like our type. We did pass one nice looking trailer park but we were looking forward to a hotel bath after three days on the road. The blue Caribbean sea sure looks good as compared to the murky colored stuff on the west side.
Well, we retraced our steps to town and headed out toward the airport before finally getting our maps and our surroundings sorted out. Wow! Once we found the real hotel district we weren't sure what to do with it. It stretches for almost fifteen miles along what might have been a big coral reef. Monstrous buildings which make the Maya's pyramids look tiny line the shore. We drove and drove and drove without seening a hotel in which we thought we'd be comfortable. Neither of us was ready to stumble into one of these palaces in our grubby clothes and backpacks. So it was back to Punta Sam and the El Meco trailer park we'd seen there. It's a very nice place actually, with clean restrooms and showers, power, water and sewer connections. The guy at the entrance gave us a "special" rate of $N60.00 for the night.
Didn't go far today. Leroy, the guy from Alaska who we met at the Torre Molino, had recommended that we stay in Akumal instead of Cancun so we just poked our way down the coast, sticking our noses into every beach resort along the way. There are a bunch of them because this is a very pretty coastline. There's not much to see from the road because it runs through the jungle a half mile or more from shore, but there are many little side roads that take you out to the beach. We ran out to Puerto Morales, one of the places where you can take a ferry to Cozumal, and Playa Carmin, another. We stopped at a roadside cenote (natural well in the limestone)and bought a pretty woven cotton blanket. Drove into several resorts. On of the nicest is Playa Adventura which has waterways wandering among its buildings big enough for cruising boats to navigate. It's very pretty but much lower key than the palaces in Cancun. All of these places are Gringo resorts though, the only Mexicans we saw were the help.
Akumal is pretty much the same thing, one step further down the scale. We found Leroy and Margaret by wandering down the beach road until we spotted their orange and brown van. They invited us in and gave us some tips on where to stay and snorkel. Unfortunately, my knee still isn't up to snorkeling yet. Too bad; the waters here are that beautiful turquoise blue over the white coral sand. We rented a bungalow at the Villas Maya for $85.00 US. That's splurging for us, but it's a neat room with a good shower and windows that open wide to let the sea breeze through. Had lunch in the big palapa bar on the beach, oggled the pretty bikinis and muscular men, then drove along the beach road to the lagoon at the end. The tourists here are all gringos too. It's not really our kind of place but it was fun for a change. Napped in the late PM then had dinner in the beach restaurant. So-so food and poor service tonight. We've eaten better on the street.
We were up and out of the hotel by 7:30 this morning, long before the restaurant or office opened. Had to leave our Visa slip open. Hope that won't be a problem. We drove south down the straight jungle road for several miles looking for a place to have breakfast. At Xel Ha, a fabulous natural aquarium, we got through the entrance before the help showed up and walked along the long fishfilled pool for quite a ways before they caught up with us and wanted an admission fee of $N70.00 each, not bad if we had been planning on spending the day snorkling but a little much for a walk arond the pool, so we left.
| We found breakfast just above Tulum, a neat and clean restaurant called the Mayam Turquesa where we had a really good meal. Lois had hotcakes and I a dish called Hueves Montegena which was great. As we were leaving one of the employees had a small animal on a leash at the entrance, a Coatimundi? | 
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The whole waterfront is one long park with the typical Mexican monuments and statues scattered along the way. We drove that then through the center of the city which isn't bad for one of its size. Got money at Banamex...they take our debit card...then went back to our trailer park to find that our spot had been taken by another RV. The only other available spaces were either crowded up against somebody else or near a very noisy restaurant so we bailed out and went back to Cenote Azule. Glad we did. It's run by a nice old Mexican lady who keeps the showers and restrooms perfectly clean. And the toilets even have seats and work properly, something you seldom see in Mexico except in the better hotels. Here our parking cost $N30.00, about $3.75 US. We walked from the trailer park down to the Cenote Azule restaurant for dinner at the side of the pool. There was a family swimming there while we ate. Looked like fun. The pool must be filled with fish. When our waiter tossed a few tortillas on the water the fish tore up the surface fighting over them. The service was good but the Langosta Mojo de Ajo was too highly seasoned for our tastes.
Sometime during the night we realized that our little refrigerator hadn't been running. Oops, we depend on it for things like milk, butter, meat, etc. It isn't very big but it's bigger than our cooler and keeps things clean and dry. I suspected that on of our Topes had gotten to a connection somewhere; however I wasn't ready to tear into the wiring this morning, so we moved what we could to the cooler which still had a little ice in it and took off. Nicer drive today. The road from the junction of 307 and 186 to Escarcega, which Sanborn says is extremely rough, turned out to be no worse than many of the other roads we've driven. And it's a much more interesting drive, through hilly country most of the way with varied forms of cultivation...sugar cane, bananas, rice, coconuts. The road surface is mostly good. The only real slowdowns...below 50 mph...were at the bridges which all seemed to be 'en reparacion'. The 'desviaciones' take you off the road and across the dry stream bed over some sometimes very rough bumps. There are several Mayan ruins along the way. We stopped at one, Chicanna, and took some pictures of more fancy stonework. The restoration work done by the archaeologists is as amazing to me as the original work. They seem to be able to take a pile of rubble and put it back together better than all the king's horses and all the king's men.
It's about 150 miles from Chetumal to Escarcega and we did it in 3 ½ hours including our stop at Chicanna. That's not bad time for Mexico. In Escarcega we stopped for ice and water, filling our tank with one of the big jugs that all the arborrates carry. This one was plastic and a little lighter than the glass ones. Then it was back along highway 180 the way we'd come. We were surprized at how many checkpoints we came to today. At one place we were stopped three times within a quarter mile. First by the army who seemed to be everywhere, every young man with a rifle slung over his shoulder; then by a man in an aduana uniform; then by an "inspector" of a different kind. All asked for our passports and checked our tourist permits, then waved us on. The army guys always have to 'inspect' our vehicle. Lois doesn't even hesitate now; she just unlocks and shoves open the sliding door to the van. The kids are always nice, and pretty good at getting into the van with their long rifles without banging anything. It's like the rifles were a part of them.
Got to the motel I'd remembered outside of Palenque about 3:30. It turned out even better than we'd hoped. It's got eight units within a walled enclosure each with a concrete pad in front. The rooms are big but very sparsely furnished, with only a bed and a bench. Huge shower with a very slick marble floor. Clean toilets, without a seat of course. $N70.00 for the night. Wish we'd known about this place when we came through before. We unloaded and then went to work on the frige. All the wiring checked out okay. The problem turned out to be a blown fuse in the back of the frige which we could only get to by taking the whole unit out. It's a kooky kind of fuse and the circuit is also protected by another fuse in the fuse box, so I just jumpered the fuse and we re-installed the frige.
The label on the frige says it draws 6 amps and the smallest fuse I had was 25, so I decided to go to town for a smaller one. Dumb idea. I should know that Mexican auto parts stores don't carry much in the way of safety stuff. All I could get was a 20 amp fuse and on the way I managed to scrape off another of our big hubcaps and put a small dent in Henry's rear fender. That happened right here at the motel turning out of the narrow entrance arch in the wall. We lost one of our hubcaps on a tope; now we're missing two.
Well, this was by far the most interesting and scenic day we've
had since we left home. We got away from the motel a little after
seven and drove straight out to the Palenque ruins, getting there
before they opened at eight. We broke out Vern's Christmas pumpkin
bread and ate it for breakfast while waiting for the park to open.
There were quite a few people there but nothing like the crowd
that was here last week. It was a beautiful, sunny morning and
the pyramids and other Maya buildings were really spectacular
in the morning sun.
My knee is still bothering me so we didn't do any climbing but could get a very good tour of the major structures just strolling the level paths and broad grassy areas. It is truly an impressive sight. Amazing what they did without metal tools or beasts of burden. Everything was done with manpower.
From Palenque we drove south on highway 199 which almost immediately started climbing into the mountain. Sandborn complains that the road is curvy and it certainly is, but the surface is wide and well maintained. That's the kind of driving I like. As we climbed higher and higher into the mountains we were treated to some really great views out over the green valleys. More and more it reminded us of our drive through Guatemala; and with good reason. We are close to the Guatemalan border here and the indian people are the same with the same customs. Tiny farm houses dot the mountainsides and valleys and the native people were all along the road, almost always carrying some kind of a heavy load...big sacks of grain, firewood, a large timber, bundles of sticks eight feet long. The common way of carrying things is on the back with a band over the forehead. It's amazing how these little people can carry such large loads. The start early; even the little ones have something to carry. The women's costumes are very nearly like those in Guatemala, bright colored skirts and blouses, but the men we saw today weren't wearing the colorful pants and shirts we saw at Atitlan. Lois spotted a roadside stand with a bunch of the blouses displayed, so we stopped and bought a few. They are pretty. It seems to be harvest time for corn and beans. On flat rooftops, concrete pads in the yard, even along the concrete shoulders of the road the harvest was spread out to dry in the sun. We climbed and climbed, topping out finally at 8,200 feet according to our altimeter. As we did the vegetation changed from tropical jungle to pine forest and the air cooled. We couldn't have asked for a nicer day. Near noon we got to the city of Ocosingo and drove right into the middle of the Sunday market there. Great fun. We parked the van and went shopping. What a mass of merchandise was spread out for sale. One large area was devoted to produce with the Indian ladies seated on the concrete floor offering their wares. Across the street a fast talking auctioneer was selling blankets at bargain prices. It was noisy, smelly, and fun. We had a really good lunch of tacos and orange juice. Ocosingo is the place where the Indian uprising took place a few years ago, but the only indication of that we could see was signs painted on the walls saying, "Tiempo para Chiapas!"
It was four o'clock before we got to the junction with highway 190. We debated about which way to go. Sanborn shows trailer courts both north in San Cristobol de las Casas and to the south in the village of Teopisca. We decided on the latter...San Cristobol is a big city. We almost missed the one in Teopisca though; it no longer looks like a trailer court and there's only one tiny sign which Lois luckily spotted. One other RV here, a couple from Belgium, Koenraad Van Der Maelen and Lea Evraad, who are touring North America. They just came from Guatemala. They are also sailors and sailed their 36 foot boat from Belgium across the Atlantic and Pacific to Indonesia before selling it. They came over to our van and we spent a couple of hours comparing notes on places like the San Blas Islands and Guatemala. They are gradually heading north and plan to tour Canada and Alaska this summer. Neat people. We invited them to Friday Harbor.
Well, it couldn't last. Yesterday was just too neat to happen again. But we had fun today too. This morning Lois fixed one of her super breakfasts and we pulled out of our mountain park a little after eight. The morning drive was much like yesterday's. We climbed from 7,000 feet back to 8,000 between Teopisca and the junction. This seems to be a charcoal fabrication center; we saw big bags of it stacked all along the road and it was the load for many people. From the junction we dropped down again to the city of San Cristobol de las Casas and then back to over 8,000 as we climbed again. For an hour we had some spectacular views as we cruised west along the high ridges. The Indian people were busy again this morning. On this slightly chilly morning many of the men were wearing brightly colored, woven ponchos and the ladies shawls over their shoulders. Then we came to the edge of the world; in a few miles we dropped 4,000 feet to Chiapas de Corzo and then another 2,000 to Tuxtla Gutierer. The temperature rose from a very comfortable 65o to 85o or better, the pines were gone, and, instead of corn, sugar cane and huge groves of mango trees lined the highway. We were back in the climate I usually associate with the word Mexico. We stopped in Tuxtla, a typical big Mexican city, to get some cash and buy an ice cream cone. This time I went to Bancrecer instead of Bancomer and the machine took my BECU debit card. That saves an interest charge.
From Tuxtla the road west drops down still farther to reach sea level as it crosses the Tehuantepec isthmus. And the weather today got hotter and drier. There's sure not much out there to see. Our Indian people are gone, the dusty little towns are inhabited by folks in dowdy clothes like ours, and the farm fields are as flat as the ocean. As we crossed the state line from Chiapas to Oaxaca the road surface, which had been smooth as silk, changed to terrible. It was so rough I had to slow to under 35 mph and then the wind started to blow. At times it blew so hard that I had to slow down even more. We started looking for a place to spend the night about three and just couldn't find anything we liked. There were no trailer parks along the road and in Salina Crus all the hotels were gubby, dirty looking places. It was after six when, poking around somewhere between Salina Crus and Santiago Astata Lois spotted a guy waving at us. We had crossed the same bridge three times looking for a place to park and he was standing by a small stream down below it. We stopped and he waved for us to come down. Okay, down the dirt road we went to the house of Raquel, a cheery, chubby guy who wanted to practice his English. He directed us into his driveway and then ran to get a writing tablet. Neat! His handwriting is excellent, and his written English better than his spoken. He said he learned in Saltino at an engineering school there. While Lois cooked dinner he and I carried on an interesting conversation about all kinds of things. Turns out that there is a small pueblo here in this valley, 42 people he said. He is the number three man in the village. While we were talking several of the other residents came by, dropped by the bus at the end of the bridge.
| One group caught a ride on an ox cart which just happened to be coming up the riverbed road as they arrived. We saw several ox carts today, the first we've seen on this trip. The three of us ate the frajitos Lois had prepared and then talked until dark when Raquel put his tablet under his arm and said good night. Nice encounter. The wind blew all night long. I think there's a real Tehuanapecer going on out there. | 
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Up and rolling at seven this beautiful and breezy morning. Raquel, as well as the rest of the pueblo, was up and moving at dawn. The Mexican rural people are not late sleepers. We didn't go far today, only about a hundred miles to the big Mexican coastal development at Huatulco. We were here in '89 and then again in '90 but never got farther than the little town of Crucecita from the bay where we anchored. Driving, we came to a junction with a beautiful parkway about ten miles below that bay. It led us across the hills past several relatively undeveloped bays and beaches before we got to the big super development of Tangolunda. There are several big hotels there as well as a Club Med. The grounds and streets are all meticulously groomed, not at all like Mexico. We gawked for a while and then rolled on, looking for something we recognized. We stumbled into Crucecita without recognizing it. When we were here it was still a city being built, and largly occupied by the construction workers. Now it's a very pretty, low key, Mexican tourist town. As we came in I spotted a clean looking place with a big sign, "Lavanderia". Sure enough, a nice lady said she'd have our laundry done in two hours. Great! We gave her all our dirty duds, parked the van in a shady spot, and went off to explore the town on foot. Had a very good breakfast at a sidewalk restaurant, machaca y huevos for me and a big fruit plate for Lois. Then we went shopping. Bought two bottles of vodka, one wine, and one Quantro for about six bucks U.S. and tortillas, onions, tomatoes and a big pork chop for three more. Our laundry cost us $6.00 more.
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After picking up our laundry we went hunting again for some place we recognized, and a hotel for the night. Found both over the hill from Crucecita in the little bay now called Santa Cruz. Our bay was there, along with El Capitania de Puerto. The marina which had had nothing but pangas in it is now filled with big boats. And the square which was under construction is now a beautifully landscaped park. We checked out four hotels and got a room in the Binniguenda on the first floor looking out on the pool for $N230.00, about $30 U.S. What a deal. First stop, the swimming pool in a lovely setting with four water spouts pouring from a beautiful rock wall. Oh, that cool water felt good. We swam for a while, sunned for a while...in the shade of course...and then put on clean clothes and walked to the beach for lunch. |
Up at five this morning to a cold shower. Seems a lot of Mexican hotels turn off the circulating system to save power. I went out to the desk and asked for agua caliente and by the time Lois got up she had hot water. From Huatulco we drove to Puerto Angel. No changes there. Still the same little bay we remembered with pangas drawn up all around the shore and the big mulle sticking out in the middle. The Capitania de Puerto office still where it was and the navy commissary where we did some provisioning. I mailed a letter to Dad at the post office and we drove through the one street in town refreshing old memories. Then we discovered that that street led up the hill on the west end of the village. Well, why not? Maybe it would dead end, maybe not. We kept driving. Glad we did. A few miles over the hill and along the shore we came to San Augustinello, a long row of palapa restaurants and campsites behind a beautiful beach. Just beyond is a group of brand new buildings with a sign saying that it is the Museum de Tortugas. At the gate we found that it didn't open until 10:00 and it was only 9:30, so we went back to one of the palapa restaurants for breakfast. At the proprietor's suggestion we ordered filete de pesca and, boy, was it ever good. Fresh tuna cut thin, firm and white, done mojo de ajo.
| Back at the turtle museum we had a forty minute tour led by a young man name Alfredo of a big aquarium with some thirteen tanks filled with different species of turtles. Alfredo spoke both English and Spanish and at each tank did his descriptions in both for our mixed language group. We learned more about turtles than we probably need to know. At the end of the tour he showed a video taken during one of the mass egg laying sessions on a beach near here. | 
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Up and rolling at 6:00 this morning, before dawn. It's the first time we've driven at night in Mexico and I crawled along at 20 miles an hour watching for burros, pigs, and cattle. There was a big black steer on the road yesterday but we saw nothing of him this morning. Our project for the day was to get Henry lubed and his oil changed, a job I figured we could get done in Acapulco. We got into the central area of town about nine without seeing a lube place and were trying to find the road out when we stumbled onto one, a big ESSO automobile service joint. They looked like they knew what they were doing so I order the full service. It's a good thing we'd gotten an early start because the full treatment sure wasn't your normal ten minute lube and oil change. The first thing the attendant did was put old Henry on the lift and wash his underside with a high pressure nozzle. He washed and washed and washed, and every time I'd think he was done he'd start washing again. It was warming up and I was beginning to suspect that the guy was just doing it to keep cool, but other attendants were doing the same thing with other cars. It wasn't until after almost a half hour of washing that the guy started greasing and draining the oil and changing the filter. That didn't take long, but then he lowered the van and started washing under the hood. He scrubbed the engine with soapy water and then sprayed again with the high pressure hose before putting six quarts of oil in the engine. When it came time to start the engine for the leak and transmission check Henry refused to start. He was just too wet. Our attendant pulled the distributor cap and blew it out with an air hose, but the air coming out of the hose was also wet. After several tries at starting, and while I was getting more and more concerned, Henry finally coughed, backfired a few times, and came to life. Wow, what a relief! I 'd had visions of us having to spend more time in that big dirty city than we'd planned.
Okay, Henry taken care of, we headed for the road out of town...the boss at the service station had pointed it out on our map. A few minutes later we were on it, winding along the cliffs where the famous Acapulco cliff divers do their thing. The drive from Acapulco to Zhuatenejo is more varied than that below Acapulco. There are still the huge plantations of coconuts in the valleys but also the road comes close to more beautiful beaches, long sandy crescents decorated with blue and white waves in front and waving palms behind. It took about four hours to make the trip. I'd had in the back of my mind staying in one of the small hotels which line the beach at Zhuat but I'd neglected to consider just how they were arranged. Most of the ones near the central area are built on a steep hill just behind the beach. Because we'd only eaten at their restaurants, I hadn't realized that they didn't have any parking space and that climbing from the beach to a room would be a real challenge for my knees. We looked at one pretty shabby room in the Hotel Palacia on Playa Madera and then went hunting on Playa Ropa, the beach farther from town where the hill isn't so steep. It was hot and we were sweating and just before I was ready to give up on a beachfront room, we found what we were looking for at hotel called the Fiesta Mexicana. Got a room on the second floor, right above the bar and beach, with a big tiled shower and airconditioning. Not quite as well appointed as the room we had in Huatulco but very satisfactory. First thing we did was to change to our swimming suits and head for the water, which is even warmer than that of the Huatulco swimming pool. We'd swim for a while then come back to our table under a palapa and have another Margarita, then go for anther dip. We did that until the sun went down in the west, then came in and took a fresh water shower in the room. Had our Valentine's Day dinner int the hotel restaurant on the beach. So-so food but great atmosphere. Another neat day.
A day of refreshing some fond memories. We walked the beach this morning before breakfast. It must be more than a half mile from one end of La Ropa to the other and we went to both. The Fiesta Mexicana is located about a third of the way along the beach from the north end. After our walk we had breakfast at the hotel and then swam, first in the surf and then the pool. It's a small but lovely pool with lots of palms and other tropical plants around it and if anything it's warmer than the sea. By 10:00 we were showered and dress for town. The boy at the desk called a taxi for us (by running down the street to the place where they all wait) and we were on our way. "Siete Pesos", said the driver as he dropped us across the street from the bank. I gave him ten. We got another $N2,000 from the automatic teller...those sure are nice...and set off through the mercado. Zihuatanejo hasn't changed much since we were here. Our favorite little taco restaurant is gone, replaced by a bar which doesn't open until evening, but everything else seems to be the same. We wandered the streets looking for a place where Lois could get her hair cut and found it right where I remembered it from 1989. While she was getting trimmed I wandered down the pescadero waterfront where all of the fishermen lay out their catch of the morning on the sidewalk. They had a pretty good assortment this morning: dorado, yellowtail, yellowfin tuna, amberjack, bonito, plus a bunch of small fish I didn't recognize. At a sidewalk restaurant I ordered a cervesa and sat watching all the tourists walking by. Zihuat has become a place to come for the crowds of tourists from Ixtapa about twelve miles north of here. That's probably what has saved it from becoming a tourist mecca itself. During the day the hundreds of little shops are filled with people, but there's not a highrise in town. I was still sitting sipping my beer and talking to a lady at the next table who used to have a business here when Lois came strolling down the walk, hair trimmed and ready to go shopping. So shop we did, first in the merchandise places and then in the big central market. We went into a corner restaurant with a sign saying they served tacos. A disaster. The stuff they served wasn't edible. We paid the bill and left the food on the table. I finally got a good taco at a busy barbecoa stand in the hectic central market. I'm sure there must be other places but that's the only one we found today.
It was about 2:00 when we got back to the hotel. We immediately stripped off our clothes and headed for the water. Oh, that feels good when you're hot and sweaty. For the next couple of hours we alternated between dipping in the surf and sipping Margaritas on the sand while watching all the funny people go by. Then nap time. Then dinner, much better tonight. I splurged and ordered lobster, a huge guy they served split down the middle with all his antenna still intact. Lois ordered quesadillas and we shared. Tonight the food was great.
Walked the beach again this morning, swam in both the surf and pool, then showered, had breakfast, packed up, and checked out. On the road about nine. The drive north on highway 200 is more interesting and varied than it is below Z-town. Once past Lazario Cardinas, a big power production city with a dam, and both nuclear power and oil fired plants, the road closely follows the coast. And the coast along here is a mixture of high rocky cliffs and wide sandy beaches, some deserted, others boasting small resorts. There was almost no other traffic on the road as we'd climb out of a palm filled river valley up one side of a rocky headland and then dive down the other side into a canyon fronted by a beautiful beach. This area seems to be as yet undiscovered by the tourists. We were heading for a small village on one of the best of these beaches, Maruata, where we'd stayed for a couple of days on the boat in 1989. I remembered that there was a motor home parked at the end of the abandoned airstrip there and thought that would be a good place to spend the night, We got there about 3:00 o'clock and, as is often the case when you try to go back, found things had changed. At the end of the runway where I'd imagined us parking is a military post; and they've built a big steel building beside the turtle egg enclosure. Small change of plan. We drove down into the village and asked the people in one of the houses where we could park for the night. A pretty young teenager who spoke excellent English directed us down the dirt road to la playa where we found dozens of campers scattered over what used to be the fishermens camp. Most had set up tents under the stick and post palapas of the fishermen. I talked to a soft spoken young man named Tracy with fuzzy braided hair popular in the Caribbean who said we could either park with the group or, if we wanted more privacy, out on the dry stream bed. We chose the latter, and parked Henry just behind the sand dune next to a sleepy donkey. There are burros, Brahmah cattle, horses, chickens, goats and pigs wandering around our home for the night. We settled down and then went exploring. We're parked right behind the most exposed of the three small beaches set between the rocks. The full force of the pacific swell hits here with a roar. Just to the east is a more protected beach where the force of the waves is dissapated by being forced to come through a big blowhole or a narrow opening between two rock islands. The third small beach is the one I've remembered most vividly.
| That is where, in 1989, a lovely freshwater stream flowed over the sand an down through a tunnel in the 100 foot high rock. There's no water in the stream now though; we're parked in the streambed where it used to be. There's still quite a blow from the tunnel though. It's too long to see through but the sea comes pouring out of the opening with every swell. | 
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| At the camping group I talked to a Canadian gentleman who told me he been here five years ago and it hadn't been crowded with campers then. Evidently it has been discovered by the turtle lovers and ecological crowd. Lois fixed up a big fruit salad for dinner and the odor attracted two of the burros to the van. I fed them the fruit peelings while Lois took pictures. Friendly little guys. Spend a quiet night listening to the roar of the surf. Another nice day on the road. |
Woke to the sound of pigs grunting just outside our window. The tide was in and water was seeping through the dune and making puddles in our parking lot. In fact the two-track trail we'd driven in on was running water and as we left one camper was busy moving his tent. I was a little worried about getting stuck but no problem. The sands in the streambed are mixed with clay and covered with a green growth that makes a firm surface even with water running over it. We splashed our way to higher ground and along the bumpy road to the highway. Another pretty drive today. Started out like yesterday afternoon...one pretty beach after another set between rocky headlands. Then as we approched Manzanillo the beaches got longer and the river valleys wider and the banana and coconut plantations bigger. The road was straigher too, so we could make better time. Got to Manzanillo about noon and, riding one of the new toll roads, whipped right around town without even stopping.
The big powerplant south of the city was still spewing out its smoke but it didn't look as black and sooty as I remember it. The day we spent in the harbor with the SEA RAVEN the wind was from that direction and our deck was covered with soot. Maybe they've cleaned it up a bit. From a distance Las Hadas' white buildings and towers stood out across the bay. The only reason to have stopped that we could think of was for frajitas at Giovanni's at Las Hadas, but that would have meant a trip through the city and we've been eating too well anyway.
North of Manzanillo the road turns away from the shoreline and runs through mostly agricultural country, easy driving on good roads. Around Chemela it comes back again to several high class resorts on the beach, including a big Club Med. That lasts until about thirty miles below Puerto Vallarta when back to the mountains we go. Before I realized we'd been climbing we were at 3,500 feet, there were pines along side the road, and we had to turn off the air conditioner. From the summit it's another pretty drive down the white water river canyon to Yalapa on Bandera Bay and then ten miles or more around the bay to the city. The mansions along that shore are something to see. You can't really bypass Puerto Vallarta but by taking the Tepic road you can avoid the cobblestone steets of downtown. That's what we did, ending up across the street from the airport at Islas Marias. We had a beer there while waiting for a triple order of their super barbecued ribs. I used to think they were the best I'd ever tasted but that was before I learned how to do baby back ribs on our Brinkman smoker. Now I think they are almost as good as mine. Anyway, we took three orders out to Nuevo Vallarta with us. That's where we spent the night. First order of business when we got to the parking lot was to see what I could do about our leaking fresh water pump. I took it apart and found a leaking gasket which is irreplacable here so I put some silicone sealant in it and put it back together. If it still leaks we'll have to live without it.
Nuevo hasn't changed for the better. If anything it's gone downhill a ways. Talking to a yachty on the dock from Oregon, they've doubled their rate without improving anything and half of the slips are empty. The two small grocery stores near the docks are closed. Too bad, it's really a nice little harbor. Spent another quiet night listening to the surf.
Well, we did it again, stumbled into the middle of Carnival, just as we did in La Paz in 1988. The best of Mexican holidays and we're here in one of the best of Mexican holiday cities, Mazatlan. But I'm getting ahead of my story. We rolled out of the Nuevo Vallarta marina at 8:00 Mountain time. The time line runs between Jalisco and Nayarit so Puerto Vallarta is on Central time and Nuevo is on Mountain and we got an extra hour of sleep. Not that it really matters...we go to bed and get up with the sun anyway. The drive to Mazatlan is varied and interesting. There was a light morning haze over Bandera Bay as we skirted its north side and headed up into the hills, and a golden one on the fields of the other side. Pretty morning as we drove through the cultivated valleys and hillsides of the coast. This seems to be tobacco growing country. We saw many fields of it today, and many drying sheds made from palm branches. We stopped at Las Vargas, the neat little Mexican town near our favorite bay Chacala, to buy fruit at a roadside stand and water at a place in town. Most of Las Vargas' streets are still paved with cobblestone layed neatly with two lines of wider stones showing the way for the rest. It's a bit bumpy but not too bad if you go slow. Leaving Las Vargas the road turns inland and starts climbing. Soon we were at 3,500 feet and looking out over steep hills and valleys toward the sea. Big sugar cane fields on top of the mountain. Then its down the other side into the big city of Tepic. We've not stopped there but have wondered at the great blue domed buildings visible from miles away. It's about 150 miles from Tepic to Mazatlan through wide valleys and a few hills. A good part of the time you can see west toward the huge flat area which our books say is mostly bog and swamp. There are no roads out there and it doesn't look like a place to be.
We rolled into Mazatlan about 1:30 and headed out toward Club Nautico where we'd stayed in the boat. We didn't really get a hint of what was happening until we came back into the center of town and started looking for a hotel room. Then we could see that they ahd either had, or were going to have, a big party. It wasn't until we found the whole waterfront malecon blocked off by the police that we realized that the party wasn't over...it is Carnival and it's going to last until Wednesday. Well, okay, but that means we may have trouble getting a room and we sure need a shower after three days without one. We drove out the Costa Ora to the end where they are building a huge new marina. It's not half done yet but there are a few small boats in it. It will be something when it's finished. Checked a couple of hotels out there hoping to find a room with no luck. We'd just about decided to head on out of town to find a place when we passed a nice looking trailer park with a swimming pool called La Posta beside the road. Why not? Sure enough, they had a spot for us right near the pool and showers, clean toilets and showers, and best of all, they were only a block from the malecon right at the end where the police were stopping all the traffic. We parked, put on our swimming suits, and headed for the pool. Nobody else there so Lois and I had the place to ourselves and spent almost an hour playing volleyball with the big ball in the pool. More exercise than we've had for a while.
The parade was supposed to start at 5:30 and I suppose it might have. It came from the far end of this seven mile long waterfront. It didn't get to us until after 8:30 but that wasn't a problem. Nobody expects a Mexican party to be on time. When we arrived about six there were already thousands of people in the street and confetti was flying everywhere. Several street vendors were selling bags of what at first I thought were hard boiled eggs. Nope, they were egg shells filled with confetti. When you throw one at somebody it breaks and the confetti flies out. We bought a bag and joined the throwing. Then Lois decided she'd rather give the eggs away than throw them and she started handing them out to the little kids swarming the street. Great fun. Some of the kids also had aerosol cans with shaving cream which they were spraying. I made the mistake of tossing an egg at a young lady and she and several of her companions got me good. I had to go into a restaurant washroom to get the soap out of my eyes. We ate dinner at a very clean and neat taco place...good bean and beef tacos...and had elotes (corn on the cob) and cotton candy for desert on the street. Must have walked two or three miles through the crowds while waiting for the parade to get to us. Wild latin music was everywhere and at one of the hotels which had several balconies fronting the street there was a water balloon fight going on between those in the street and those on the balcony. What fun.
When the parade finally got into view it was spectacular. Leading it was a fireworks crew setting off fireworks from the street right in front of the big bus leading the parade. As they passed us they let go some big bombs right over our heads. OSHA would have had a fit. The floats were great...big, noisy, brightly painted and lighted. The pretty ladies riding them looked tired but still smiled brightly, tossing colored streamers to the crowd as they passed. We were pretty pooped too by that time, and didn't stay for all of the floats to pass. We found when we got back to the van that we could still see them passing by through the trees. As at La Paz, the party went on until about three in the morning. Didn't keep us awake though. What a day!
Back to the mountains today on one of the most spectacular drives we've ever made. We left the trailer park a little after eight and had cleared the city by nine. Filled our gas tanks at a brand new Pemex on the way to the Durango junction and then headed east on Mexico 40. Soon after that we started climbing and the scenery just kept getting better and better. There's not a whole lot to see except scenery on the route we traveled. We stopped in Copala, Lidia Nitche's home town and the one she took us to visit on the bus. It's an old mining town that has become a Mazatlan tourist destination but this morning it was deserted. We shopped in the gift shop and I bought a leather glasses case and Lois a figurine. The old hotel is very Mexican in its decore but very gringo in its neatness and cleanliness. We also bought a jug of honey at a tiny shop on the narrow cobblestone street. All of the streets in town are one lane cobblestone. Good thing we had the only vehicle there.
After Copala we really started climbing. At 4,000 feet we lost the jungle look and were into the pine forest, then the spectacular views began. The drive today reminded us very much of our trip to the Copper Canyon. Indeed, the mountains here were formed in much the same way. The west slope, if you can call it that, of the Occidentals is the edge of a huge piece of the continental plate tilted up out of the earth's crust. They are named differently but I think the Occidentals are just the lower end of the Sierra Madres where the Copper Canyon is located. As the earth cracked and the western edge rose it created the palate upon which millions of years of wind and rain have sculpted some fantastic shapes. Time and again today we'd come around a curve and out onto a saddle where we could see a million miles in either direction. Deep multicolored canyons and wildly shaped mountains in the distance. Most of the road is very nicely surfaced but it's close to the curviest I've ever driven. Fortunately, there wasn't much traffic. It's pretty spooky to come around a hairpin curve and find a big truck and trailer in your lane. In one place where the road winds along an impossibly steep rock mountainside we saw the remains of a truck which hadn't made the turn. It was five hundred feet down where it had slid to a halt on a narrow shelf. In many places the road builders had had to cut away the top of a huge pillar of rock to make a shelf for the road. Fantastic drive!
Then suddenly it was over. As we reached the final summit the road straightened out and flattened and we were in the mountain lumber town of Buenos Aires. Just as around Creel on the edge of the Copper Canyon, here the mountains slope gently off to the east. Lots of lumber towns up here at 8,000 feet. They don't seem to cut much big timber here. The logging trucks we see usually have the logs loaded across the bed rather than lengthwize. And the milled lumber looks like it is for boxes or furniture rather than house building. We'd stopped in a tiny village on the way up for lunch... Gordidos, tasty tortilla pockets filled with goodies. The young lady making them did it from scratch, rolling the mais in her hands, pressing out the tortilla, toasting it on both sides on the grill, and then splitting it to form the pocket in which she put the good stuff. We ordered four different ones. One was filled with refried beans; the others with nothing we recognized but they tasted great. About three o'clock we started looking for a place to park for the evening and soon stumbled into another neat spot. The Parque Nacional El Tucuan isn't much of a national park by U.S. standards but it provided us with a great place to stay. We stopped and registered at the entrance house where a couple of teenagers signed us in, then drove along a dusty dirt road out onto a grassy meadow and found a parking place at the edge near the pines. It was a warm sunny afternoon but the moment the sun went down things cooled off rapidly. By bedtime we were happy to get out our big quilt. First time we've used that since we've been in Mexico. Along about dusk another vehicle with a Mexican family came in and parked off in the trees a hundred yard away. We two seem to be the only ones here. Pretty isolated spot.
Today's drive was a big contrast to yesterday's. We rolled out of our pretty whispering pines campground about eight-thirty. Had to get the custodian out of bed to open the gate at the entrance to the park, but he was nice about it. We left a twenty peso tip. The trip into Durango was nice, mostly flat with a couple of dives into deep canyons along the way. The pine forest gradually disappeared and was replaced by farm land. The farmsteads along here all were carefully walled with neatly placed rocks and in the yards are big shocks of what looks to be tall corn stalks. Durango is the typical big Mexican city. It's set in a wide valley which was filled this morning with smoke and smog. One hundred foot high hill with a mission on its top dominates the view as you approach. We didn't stay to investigate but whipped through the edge of town on a wide divided street. Then it was north on Mexico 45 and a completely different sort of drive...flat cultivated land at first with a couple of goodsized lakes, then desert country much like southern New Mexico. We passed a few dusty little villages where the buildings and walls are all made of gray adobe bricks and stopped at noon for some very good Tacos Dorado in the little city of Rodeo. I had a little misunderstanding with the lady serving them. I assumed that Tacos Dorado were fish tacos and couldn't understand why she asked me if I wanted beef, chicken, or cheese. It seems Tacos Dorado is the name of the taco stand. She didn't have fish of any kind, let alone Dorado. At the Chihuahua border we were stopped for an interesting inspection. The young man who got into the van to check for drugs immediately grabbed my field glasses and asked if he could have them "for free". I grinned and said, "No". Then he found a bottle of vodka and again held it up and asked, "For free?" No way, Jose! I think he was just pulling my leg but couldn't be sure. Then he found a pack of playing cards and did an interesting thing: he bit on the corner of one of the cards and was pretty obviously tasting it. Do you suppose cocane can be packaged in the form of playing cards? I don't know how long he might have continued with his inspection; but another guy, who acted like the boss and who had a serious looking rifle slung on his shoulder, came up, demanded our papers, scanned them and told us we could go. They never did look beyond the surface stuff. I guess we don't fit the profile of drug runners. We got to Parral about 3:00 and started looking for a place to stay. Parral is a good sized town of 90,000 with several beautiful old stone churches. Couldn't find anything that looked like an RV Park so we settled for a very nice room in the Motel Camino Real. The cold which has been coming on for several days finally hit me this morning, so I'm on Contac and not feeling very peppy. Went to bed early. Tomorrow we'll have to decide on our route to the border.
Out of the motel at dawn this morning. Lost three quarters of an hour to Sanborn's confusing instructions when we took the wrong turn at one of the several forks in the road. Recovered when I decided that there was no way we were going to get back to the U.S. going southwest. After we found the right road, Mexico 24, things went just fine. Stopped in the little village of Valle de Zaragoza for breakfast at the Restaurante Rodeo. Nice clean place where they served both flour and corn tortillas with our Huevos Mexicana. The most interesting thing we saw this morning was the stone fences that are used in this area. Miles and miles of neatly fitted stone walls three to four feet high outline the fields, enclose corrals, and have sometimes been used as the base for adobe buildings. I's guess the labor required to have built those walls would rival that required to build all of the pyramids in Mexico.
Got to the junction with the road from Chihuahua to Cuauhtemoc about eleven and into the city by noon. Cuauhtemoc, like most big cities, had a layer of smog lying over it as we rolled into town. No matter, we needed to replenish our money supply and you can only do that in the big city. We stayed just long enough to hit a bank machine and the grocery store, the headed west into the mountains again. We'd decided that we pretty much knew what the drive to El Paso would be, flat, dry, and not very interesting. So our plan is now to go back across the Sierra Madres to Hermosillo and cross the border below Ajo in Arizona. Glad we did. The driving got interesting almost immediately out of Cuauhtemoc as we climbed from about 5,000 feet to 6,500. The rock here seems to be mostly sandstone and the wind and water have carved it into some fantastic shapes. We stopped for the night in the Parque Nacional Cascada de Basaseachic in another beautiful spot under the whispering pines. One other camper here, a couple from Switzerland, Honspeter & Marie-Rose Stehle, who have taken a year off and toured North America. They drove to Alaska last summer and have been as far down as Costa Rica this winter. They only have a couple of months left before they have to go back to work and replenish their money supply.
Chilly last night and this morning. Must have been close to freezing, but I've never seen more stars in the sky. Bright warm sun this morning and I'm feeling better. I think I've got my cold whipped. Hons and Marie came over to say goodby as we were packing up.
| They have a very interesting vehicle. It was designed for touring Africa and was built in Switzerland. Huge tires...it must have two feet of road clearance...it looks like a big armored car. They need a ladder to get into it. It also looks like it would go anywhere, road or not. We left our pretty camp about 8:30, fifteen minutes after they did, and caught up with them taking pictures along the road. Neat folks, they travel even slower than we do. | 
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Up and down, around and over the mountains we went. Stopped for lunch at a restaurant next to Sanborn's "big white house" just beyond the village of Yecora. We were stopped twice for "inspections" there. The first, by a young army guy, was the most thorough we've ever had. At the restaurant the lady had just served our carni asada when a bunch of people arrived. Seems they were members of her family - sons, daugters, grandchildren - whom she hadn't seen in some time. They had quite a loving reunion while we were eating our lunch.
It was five o'clock before we got into Hermosillo and, as usual in a big city we couldn't wait to get out of town. Took the bypass and the northbound toll road hoping to find a decent looking place to stay. There were a couple of motels along the road but I remembered the nice little RV Park in Santa Ana where we stayed in 1993. That's where we ended up about seven. Edgar greeted us at the entrance and showed us a place to park. Quite a few RV's here tonight. Looks like it may be a caravan but we were too pooped to check. Just had a drink and crawled into the sack. We'll take it easier tomorrow.
Up and rollin' at 07:30 this morning, heading west on Mexico 2. Stopped in the tiny town of Cibrita hoping to get breakfast but the one decent looking place smelled so bad we opted to buy rolls at the panaderia next door instead. Pretty desert drive this morning. Straight as an arrow and excellent road most of the way through the prettiest cactus forest I've ever seen. The Organ Pipe, Choilla, and Seguero are magnificent along here. Looked like they's had rain recently too...the Ocotillo were all turning bright green.
Got into Sonoyta at 10:30, filled the gas tanks...Pemex gas is $1.08/gal, bought a couple of trinkets at the local trinket store, and then headed across the border. Had to wait a few minutes for the guy in the bank to come out and remove our windshield decal and take our import permit then we were on our way. At the U.S. border station they didn't even ask our nationality. The guy just asked if we were bringing anything from Mexico. I said, "Just a few trinkets." and he waved us through.
The Organ Pipe National Monument is just across the border. We stopped there and spent an hour or so looking around but decided to roll on. They have a nice cactus garden walk with all the common cactus labled. The campground is nicely layed out but has no showers and after three days we were ready for one. So we ran on up to Ajo, went to the museum there and to the big open pit copper mine. The museum is a pretty good one with lots of neat old stuff from the early mining days. Then it was on to Yuma. After several stops we found a bank which would buy our pesos. Bank One gave us $0.1293, a very good rate. Then it was find a motel. Went to four before we found a non-smoking room at the Corcovado Motel. The lady there told me that this is their high season and they have sold out every night for the past few weeks before 5:30. They're also pretty proud of their rooms. Cost us $64.00 for a $32.00 room, very plain but comfortable with a good bed and shower with hot water in the early morning. Had dinner at a place next door called Rocky's Pizzaria. Great pizza sauce, best I've ever tasted.