I’m guessing it’s not permitted to have an uneventful journey inside Mexico. At least that’s been par for me this year. For instance, the mind/body crunching I received at the hands of that speeding truck the first day in the country.
After the hospital in the desert I badly needed to recuperate and get off the painkillers. I still couldn’t move much so I got to the house of a friend and collapsed. The town was relaxation-conducive, and beautiful.
Though untrue, one might believe San Miguel de Allende isn’t “Mexico” at all. You could say the same for Cancun but you’d be meaning something quite else. The mostly Indian populace, including the children, smile and greet the gringo, and seem genuine in their friendliness.
This huge, ancient city stretches for miles, up and down mountainsides trodden by the soldiers of Maxmillian way back. No McYellow arches mar the landscape and in fact NO building, old or brand new, is allowed to be constructed in other than classic 18th or 19th Century styling. So the vision is of a great Arabian or Castillian capital of yore which will catch your breath as you first come over the rise from Queretero and start down the steep cobblestone hillside (only cobblestones are allowed, no cement!). Large Mexican trucks couldn’t negotiate these dropping-twisting streets even if they were permitted to.
The weather is probably the astounding feature of S.M.A. Of course the Altiplano (high mountain central plateau of Mexico, utilized by most ancient peoples like the Aztecs as well as the Spaniards as their kingdom’s life and ruling center) is famous for its moderate climate but modern days have brought clouds of toxic pollution to many if not most areas (Mexico City, Monterrey, Saltillo etc, etc, etc.) Here, however, far from the nearest industrial city of Queretero, clear skies rule.
They say there are 360 days of sunshine per year! I haven’t seen one of the 5 others as yet, but I’ve only been around a couple of months now. Though with every cold front blowing down from the U.S. the evenings turn chilly (50 degrees average in those times, prompting fine sleep patterns, at least for me; the Indians huddle in their blankets and catch cold easily) the days invariably return to the normal 75, even though there’s a 15 degree difference from the shady side of the street to the sunny. The policeman here is pudgey and friendly. People mostly use him to ask directions. Today I was startled, turning around to thank whoever had “blessed” me when I’d sneezed and it was one of them.
I’m not really inferring that the rest of Mexico is filthy with smog, crowded with unfriendly faces, or ridden with crooked ferocious cops, but with the monstrous growth of industrial megacities in the country, sometimes…
The chilly nights finally got to my bones, which were feeling better but craved the hot beaches to the South. So I headed for the bus station with a stop at a cafe for juice and a read of the local paper. Spying a VW van for sale I reassesed my plan, and, long story shortly, bought the vehicle and headed on down the highway.
All seemed fine, until an hour out, in the middle of nowhere, without a place to pull off, the motor stopped, following a sickening “pop” from the dash accompanied by a large spark and smoke! Coasting down the long grade I luckily spied a 12 foot siding and made it in. After spending most of the rest of the day walking back and forth miles in both directions I
located a mechanic who fixed the appropriate wire. I was off again, but since I only had another 4000 kilometers to go decided not to get excited.
When I reached the 4-lane road through Queretero it was smooth sailing, though the tolls were excruciating; final calculations revealed the cost to be a peso/kilometer (10 cents
per kilometer!)
Mexico City was the next hurdle. I’d never made it through this mega-monster without getting lost in it, plus getting rousted by the local constabulary. This trip wasn’t different. After being lost for 3� hours, and nearly through the worst, they got me at a traffic light. They had me red-handed for a change; no seat belt on! I hadn’t even located or looked for it yet.
The first of the three, “Vodka Breath”, leaned in and showed me fine print in his book saying he could take my license plate if the fine wasn’t paid promptly. He took my driver’s license and said the fine was 1200 pesos ($120!). I pleaded poverty so the second cop leaned in and said 600 pesos would do today. I whined: “take my plate, I’m broke!”.
And the third leaned in and said softly: “300 pesos and you’re on your way.” At this point, glaring at the tough faces I decided to pay up and get away…
Finally through this mess I was again on the tollway, barrell-a…ing down the mountain toward Veracruz. I turned at Cordoba and stayed on great, nearly empty highways until Minatitlan the next day.
The roads here became 2-lane again but were smooth and the truck traffic was light. I started losing a lot of oil and had to stop and have the whole engine removed to replace the main oil-seal just after Villahermosa; otherwise the van was running well.
Two days more and I was in Chetumal and decided to take a respite from the driving stress. I hopped a plane to San Pedro Island in Belize and chilled out for a few days on the beach. The water was still too cold to enjoy but reminiscing with old friend, Cap’n Roberto made the time go by nicely. He has probably the most interesting vessel in the country, the ‘Winnie Estelle’. A Maine-built motor-sailer brought down in the 1920′s, she’s 65 feet and completly rebuilt with the local exotic hardwoods. He has the best day-diving trip going and has a web page: http://ambergriscaye.com/winnieestelle/
Back on the road from Chetumal up the “Mayan Riviera” to Tulum is still 2-lane but soon to be upgraded for the millions of tourists clammering up and down. The beaches here are the best in the world but crowded with sun-lovers from all the world over. I knew by email from Coyote Carl, an inveterate Mexico-traveller, that he was in a “hidden” camp-site just North of Tulum. It WAS a beautiful stretch of beach but there were still hundreds of white bodies adorning each nook and cranny. I spent the night talking with he and his family then headed up towards Cancun, bypassing the over-rated Playa del Carmen and Puerto Morelos.
“The nest of snakes”, as Cancun was known to the Maya (the meaning became clear upon the arrival of the modern hoards, say the locals) is everything that Miami and St. Tropez could never be. Over 100 miles of the whitest powder-sand beaches on the planet stretch alongside crystal-clear turquoise water the whole way with this City centered near the top. It’s neatly segregated into the ‘hotel zone’ with its 200,000 migrants per day from world’s capitals and then the ‘real’ Mexican town inland, which supports the resort games with its own 200,000 workers from all over the country.
Since I had no real plans, AND a bad case of ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’ (bad stomach and ‘runs’); I bought a ticket for Havana…
