day 8

day 8 - february 2

7 am:

we just got up, after about 6 hours of sleep. there must have been some sort of festival going on here, because there was crazy music half the night, and fireworks have not stopped popping in the distance yet. i'm sipping on a cup of pumpkin spice coffee we bought from cracker barrel in the states (good, but not as good as it sounds), and preparing for my first hot mexican shower. ohhh yeah. the guy who works here came by a few minutes ago, gesturing and assuring me that the shower was calliente, good to go! this is extra exciting because it's chilly enough out this morning that i can see my breath in the air. 

after showers and breakfast, we're going to go check out the pyramids, then on to oaxaca. another day in paradise! we're super excited to get to oaxaca and put down roots for a week or so - mike is tired of driving, and has started mentioning his desire for the defiant to have autopilot. lol. 

our campsite at las americas

 8 am update:

i looked it up, and calliente DOES mean hot. i am therefore at a loss to explain the frigid experience i've just had. my fingers and toes are like ice cubes. i don't want a smoothie anymore - we're making toast instead!

creepy old merry-go-round at las americas

10 am update:

we just went and saw the great pyramid, the church of nuestra senora de los remedios, the museum, and the tunnels under the pyramid. it was pretty cool! we were not allowed to take pictures in the museum or church, however i still got some good ones! hopefully i'll be able to upload some this week, but we're just having smoothies and checking the internets (scrap that, couldn't get a connection), then heading to oaxaca! 

mike atop the great pyramid at the church of nuestra senora de los remedios

 

some local random walking down the church stairs in a unique fashion

i met a nice overlander named lee today in the trailer park - he was probably 45ish, and he and his wife terry have been travelling in mexico since october (!!!), and he was very impressed that we'd made it from toronto in a week. they are also headed to oaxaca today, and it sounds like the only place to camp there is the overlander oasis (the place we read about last night), so we'll be seeing them there! 

it was really nice to have a conversation with someone else who spoke english, lol. lee said it was the end of some week-long festival, but he couldn't remember the name of it. this is why the music and the fireworks have been going non-stop. i didn't sleep as much as i'd have liked last night, however it was worth it to get to check facebook and email people i love and post to the blog :) the coffee this morning was pretty kickass, so i'm feeling alright. 

part way up the pyramid, with chalula in the background

1 pm update:

WE JUST PAID OUR FIRST BRIBE YOU GUYS!! 

we were driving through puebla, and went through a yellow light that turned red as we were in the intersection, and a cop pulled us over. he wouldn't accept a copy of mike's licence, so i produced the original. he told us the fine was $1200 pesos ($100 CAD), and that he would have to take mike's licence as some kind of assurance, and we could pay the fine tomorrow, because the station is not open sundays. i said NONONO we are going to oaxaca, we will go now, pay by visa? nope. we'll write you a cheque? nope. write us a ticket and we will pay at the station in oaxaca? nope. i thought for sure he was going to arrest me when i literally reached out and TOOK mike's licence from his hand, but there was no way i was letting him have it. after many "no comprende"s, and much banter, i made it clear that  under no circumstances were we going to stay in town another day OR let him walk away with the driver's licence. all of this took probably 25 minutes. finally, he suggested that we pay him the fine here, now. ah ha! (you are never supposed to be the one to OFFER a bribe, gotta wait for them to ask). i told him we had no pesos, but that we could give him $10 american - i told him it was that or VISA. and so he gladly took my $10 and left - i think we were more trouble than we were worth. MUHAHAHA. 

we're on the road to oaxaca now, and gina keeps trying to lead us back to the toll highway (there IS a non-toll option, which we chose to take today), however we're basically at the same point we'd be anyway, after paying senor police corruption $10. ah well. we feel like we've REALLY had the mexican experience now! 

3:30 pm update:

so, it seems gina may have had a point. after spending 5 hours on the road, we've made it about 120 km (and stopped at walmart for groceries and bribed a police officer). at this rate, we'll make it to oaxaca in 2015. so, we have swallowed our pride and are taking the toll road. the road today was a nice change - lots of small towns where people looked at me like they'd never seen a blond haired, blue eyed, dreadlocked chick in a tie-dye dress. 

when i did the research for this trip and saw that people were camping no more than a few hundred kilometers away from their last spot, i assumed it was just people taking their time and chilling out. not so. it seems even thinking we'd get 350 km in a day without paying tolls was a lofty goal, never to be achieved. lesson learned.

while the road today was an interesting experience, it was also FULL of topes (turns out we've been saying/spelling it wrong - there's no r), which they apparently even use in construction zones. (i think it was a surprise construction tope that took out one of the chains holding the camper in place. eep. luckily mike brought lots of ratchet straps!)

we also had a bit of a scare when i noticed that one of the side panels on the camper had popped open - we had no idea how long it had been like that, but that's where the little crank lives that pops the camper up and down. we had a bit of a heart attack thinking that the crank had been left in, and we were without a way to pop our camper up and down!! luckily mike had left the crank INSIDE the camper (a good call, it would seem) and the popped open door was just a casualty of a nasty tope. (this just in, it's happened again. bungee-corded it shut  - no problemo! :)

5:45 update:

we're almost to oaxaca! we have just driven one of the most beautiful stretches of road i have ever seen - from tehuacan to oaxaca. the tolls were about $25 or $30 altogether, but after this morning's slog it was totally worth it. and the views! oh man! we've been driving through the mountains all afternoon, and the roads have been great. twists and turns and unbelievable views at every glance. i've taken more pictures today than in the entire trip so far. i was just hanging the camera out the window and clicking away like a mad tourist.
a lot of mexico so far has reminded me of the okanagan, but there have been some beautiful forested stretches that bring the rockies and kootenays to mind. 

on the crazy road we've been driving today, we saw, no word of a lie, a kid sleeping in a giant bucket strapped in the back of a pickup truck. we also saw a dead cow in the back of a pickup truck :| which reminded me that we saw 2 horses in the back of a pickup truck the other day, with a rope across the back in place of a tailgate. those horses must have the balance of mountain goats!! 

we've also noticed that nobody here tows trailers - they will have pickup trucks with a 10 foot pile of turnips in the back, or an actual auxiliary structure built that makes it 20 feet tall piled with all manner of goods, but no trailers. strange!

7 pm update:

we are here! oh my god this place is beautiful and when i retire from overlanding myself i'm going to open a place like this. i'm going to try to upload some pictures tonight because their wifi is awesome (and the showers ACTUALLY HOT!!!!!1). i'll take some pictures of this place in the morning and upload them, but suffice it to say, this is my dream life. and mom and dad, you guys would love this. seriously.