7:30 am: so, we were woken up by the military police at 5 am. welcome to mexico! i was sleepy and confused and smiled at them a lot and apologized for not speaking english. they seemed to determine that we weren't a threat, and went on their way (ie piled into the back of a giant-ass pickup truck with their giant-ass guns and drove away). while it was a bit of a jarring way to be woken up, it actually wasn't particularly scary, even though they were decked out head to toe in fatigues that covered everything but their eyes... i think they just wanted to make sure we weren't living here or something. anyway, it was a testament to how tired i was that i actually fell back asleep after that experience - not well, mind you, but i did sleep.
i dreamed about travelling in a camper and having a dog :)
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| walmart parking lot smoothies for breakfast : ) |
today we are heading for san luis potosi - we picked it because it seems like a reasonable distance and is on the way to oaxaca, but then discovered it has a national park with hot springs just south, so um... HECK YES.
we're a bit tired after a not-so-restful night, but it's 7:30 am and we're on the road, so that's an improvement over past days!
11 am update:
we're just past monterrey now, we took a toll highway from nuevo laredo to monterrey, it was $270 pesos (about $22 CAD). there was another toll monterrey to saltilo $139 pesos ($12 CAD)... there are another couple of toll options on the way to san luis potosi, so maybe we'll try a non-toll option and see how bad the road is (note: we did this later, the road was fine, but gina seems to want to take us through tollways any time she can. bitch). i would describe the roads in general as "fair" thus far. a few tire-eating potholes in the city, some washboard sections on the highway. but nothing the defiant can't handle. however, we'll see what the road to this national park is like, i have a feeling it'll be a bit more rough (it wasn't, particularly).
the drive to monterrey was really beautiful. mostly flat with a few really steep ups and down through the mountains. when we first started out, everything was really misty, but the sun is well up now and the mist has mostly disappeared. mike said the trees and mountains remind him of the flintstones, and he was aghast to see a scrap metal truck loaded so heavily that the sides bowed out and it was listing to one side. i just laughed and said "welcome to mexico"! we've also seen a few cars blatantly driving around with entirely flat tires... that can't be a good call, haha!
just before we hit the toll road this morning, we passed through the secondary customs area, but there was nobody there, and no indication that we needed to do anything, so we just drove on by. hopefully that doesn't come back to bite us in the ass later...
2 pm update:
we have been driving all day, it's 2 pm and we're about 250 km from san luis potosi. we should get there in time to inquire about camping at the hot springs, and hopefully go for a soak as well.
the roads today have been great, except that we've paid $614 pesos (just over $50 CAD) in tolls. from what i've read, toll roads get a lot less frequent further from the border, so hopefully that's the case. also, it seems that they charge us more because the defiant is a duelly. it took us a few stops to figure this out. anyway, c'est la vie, and the speed limits go up to 120 km/h here, which is amazing, and the roads are actually good enough to go that speed for the most part.
the area of the country we are in is really beautiful - it's quite high. we're currently at 1700 m above sea level, and climbed as high as 2200 so far. the climbs were crazy, with transport trucks doing no more than 20 km/h as they chugged along. coming from about 300 m from sea level in nuevo laredo, it's quite different. it's warm, but not crazily so - i'd say it's less than 20 degrees c (it got warmer later!!), but the sun is shining, and it's very much desert, where nuevo laredo was fairly humid. it reminds me a lot of the okanagan, with it's plentiful shrubberies and low, rolling mountains. one thing that we especially like seeing is hedges made of cacti, there are quite a few that we've seen, made of many different types of cacti. cool!
there are occasional little restaurants beside the road, and people selling potatoes here and there, but this area really is very desolate, and we drove about 200 km this morning without seeing a gas station.
aside from our wake-up call, we've only had to deal with the police once as yet - they had a roadblock set up, and just asked us where we were coming from (canada) and where we were going to (oaxaca) and if we had any animals (sadly, no) (all in english too!!). they didn't ask for any of our paperwork or why in god's name we were driving to oaxaca from canada. i guess they just assumed we were crazy gringos and sent us on our way. very pleasant.
they have what appear to be cardboard cutouts of police cars that are set by the side of the highway to make people slow down. mike has been really good about not speeding (and it turns out i'm not allowed to drive his truck in mexico because only the owner and their spouse can drive it, and if i got caught they could take the defiant away from us!!) but we've had a few good laughs seeing people slamming on their brakes only to realize they've been had by a fake police car.
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| misty morning road from nuevo laredo to san luis potosi |
we are thinking of stopping in mexico city tomorrow. we want to be in oaxaca by monday because many schools do monday-friday classes, but we've heard that mexico city is far nicer than advertised. we might just stop there for lunch and a wander to break up the day, depending on time. we're also really excited to get to oaxaca because we feel like we'll be a lot more comfortable once we can communicate a little better. we'll just have to see if one week is enough...
6:30 pm update:
we're just leaving san luis potosi, heading for gogorron hot springs, where we have been assured we can camp. we went into san luis potosi to look for the tourist information office, which, of course, had recently closed. we asked a friendly local if he knew where the new one was, but alas he did not - and neither did google on his smartphone. he did, however, tell us that we can camp at the hot springs, so we're taking his word for it.
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| anybody want to rent a tourist information office in san luis potosi? |
mike got hit by a car. not badly, just a bump on the leg, but i think he may have pooed a little. we also almost got the truck stuck. san luis is one of those little towns with tons of supernarrow one way streets, and the defiant is nothing if not a beast of a pickup truck, we tried to make a left-hand turn from one of these silly streets onto another, and got sort of wedged in. anyway, we backed out of it, and went straight ahead instead. gina was not most pleased with the change of plans, but she recovered beautifully.
we also stopped and picked up frozen fruit and a $12 CAD litre of bacardi white, so we're enjoying some sweet, sweet boozy smoothies.
i have to tell you how pleased i am with the interactions we've had with police/military/security so far. the guys who woke us up this morning were obviously in good spirits, and didn't give us any trouble. the police officer at the roadblock earlier was very friendly, and when we couldn't find the tourist office, it was a security guard who got his friend (the friendly local) to help us. after hearing horror stories, and being told we'd be stopped every 10 km to be bribed, i've been pleasantly surprised with the experiences we've had so far. no being pulled over so far, no bribes, nobody has even asked to see our i.d. (knock on wood)
9:30 PM update:
wow, finally at our campsite and fed, boy what an adventure this evening was. we didn't leave san luis until about 7 pm, and didn't REALLY know where we were going (gina had never heard of the place, and just the friendly stranger told us we could camp here, but no more than that). we ended up driving around in the dark, and getting off the highway at a TOWN called gogorron, as opposed to the balneario de gogorron... we drove into the little town (basically offroading, by our standards), and passed a funeral procession (on foot), singing and walking through the town in the dark carrying a huge virgin mary statue. it was really beautiful, but also a tad eerie. in the end, this area had at least 3 flower shops and 2 funeral homes that we saw. i wonder what that's about.
we drove around the town, basically doing a lap of it, being mooed at by cows and stared at by locals. we finally gave up and i asked at some sort of establishment (coffee shop? bar? internet cafe? all of the above?) where to find the balneario do gogorron. a guy pulled up then, who spoke less english than i speak spanish, but who took charge and drew us a hilarious map. hilarious or not, it was totally accurate. it turned out we'd gotten off the highway about 15 km too early, and just needed to wind our way through the tiny towns of reyes and san miguel before coming up on the balneario on the left. it was 8:30 pm (way after dark, and way after they tell you you should be done for the night, and way past our sleepy-assed bedtimes) by the time we got here, but here we are!! i managed to communicate our camping-related needs to the security guard, and while camping cost us a whopping $300 pesos ($25 CAD) it was totally worth it and i would have paid them even if they'd been asking twice that. now we are all settled in for the night, just had a delicious dinner of fried mushrooms, onions, broccoli, garlic and spices with toast and herbed goat cheese spread. we're drinking heineken and looking up camping options for tomorrow. we're going to just allow ourselves to sleep until we wake up, seeing as we've had a couple of short nights in a row. we're here and cozy and we've paid out the ass, and we couldn't be happier. we only have to make it 850 km in the next 2 days to be in oaxaca by monday for spanish classes, so we should be able to take it a bit easy :)
also, apparently some particularly large and well disguised tropes (handmade speed bumps that crop up all over the place) managed to dislodge our fridge door today. luckily this just resulted in softer cheese and banged-up beer, and mike has since repaired the door.
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