Day 4 Coatzacoalcos to Playa del Carmen

Day 4 Rise and shine...4:38 am. Let’s go! I stumbled over to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face and holy cow....what are these black things under my eyes???? What do I do, I look like I’ve been beat up! I searched for some eye cream...I got nothing. No close up shots of me today! I threw on my blue jeans, a tee shirt, ball cap and flip flops, helped Dave load the truck and off we go. No coffee, no breakfast, no nothing. It’s going to be a great day! The drive this morning was pretty boring because it was still dark outside and there was not much to see. We did see a large big rig turned over on its side with so much fruit covering the highway. Everyone seemed okay. The sun did not come up until we reached Villahermosa. Filled up with gas, grabbed the worst coffee ever and on the road we went looking for hwy 186... Found it. By my calculations, we only have 611 km to reach Chetumal, which should put us there around 12 or 1:00 pm today. I’m starving. We’ve eaten nothing in 24+ hours except a pp&j sandwich that I made driving down the road. Maybe we will find something soon. Driving down 186 was really no different than some of what we’ve experienced over the last couple of days but maybe I really took notice this morning. It’s about 8am and we are still in the state of Tabasco; the children are off to school. Hwy 186 is a 2 lane hwy, a lot of which is under construction so the road in many places is very dangerous. What you see though is many open air shanties that these people call their home. I’d be very surprised if any of them had electricity. This sight made me realize why so many Mexican Nationals want to leave Mexico to seek a better life. The conditions were deplorable, the people looked sad and what concerned me the most was that the Mother’s would walk their children miles down this main hwy to go to school, cars exceeding 100km with many trying to play chicken while passing other drivers. I know that these are daily life tasks for these people and they may or may not think twice about it but as an outsider, my heart goes out to them because I know that there is danger there. Not intentional danger, just very high risk for a tragic accident. We have not experienced any rain today; I really hope that it stays clear. I haven’t been able to check the bed to see if it’s ruined or not and I will wait until I reach Playa to do so. Why put a cloud on my good day because there would be nothing I could do about it anyhow. Just north of Chetumal, about 400km, we come to a checkpoint. Took out the passports and visa expecting them to look over them but they didn’t. However, they wanted to see in the back of the Tahoe. Now I don’t remember if mentioned before or not but in order to get to the back of the Tahoe, you have to take the bikes off the rack; the bikes that are rigged to the rack. This is an ordeal and they did not care. There were at least five military and police watching in anticipation on what they were going to find. HA...you find nothing, I want to loudly say. Instead, I waited in the car like a good little wife in a culture where the man makes the rules. Besides, I did not want Dave to get into trouble because he could not control his wife from running her mouth. God I am such a thoughtful person. hehe. We finally find a Pemex to stop at and get a little snack...my belly has not forgotten that I’ve not eaten yet and it’s 9:30am. So the only thing that this whole in the wall Pemex station sells is coke, not diet coke but the real life, sugar-laden, make your teeth scream coke. Ok...I will have a coke. They also sell junk food such as chips, cookies and a couple of other things. Where are the nuts? They would hold me over until Chetumal when we find decent food. No nuts. Okay, I will take a coke and a bag of ruffles; not baked ruffles but the greasy ones. 3 chips, a drink of coke and I am on a sugar high for the day. Can’t do it; it was not good. I’ll wait for Chetumal. Three miles later, another check point. We stop. The military asks where are you going. Playa del Carmen we say. Okay...buh-bye. Much of Hwy 186 is under construction just past Escarcega. We were cruising along following a van and a Volkswagen was following us...we were making good time and it was quiet entertaining for the three cars to try to keep up with each other. But then we looked down at the gas gauge..1/4 tank left. Oh no!!! It’s exactly 157 km from Escarcega to the nearest Pemex. Then one appeared right before our eyes just south of Xpujil. Be careful here though, they are sneaky! The little boy washing my windshield was trying to distract me while the other two men were looking in the car, eyeballing what they wanted. UGH...no problems with this kind of thing until now. And there it was; hwy 307! My heart was pounding and everything just looked so differently than the rest of the country. It had the feel of the place I love and the smells that are all too familiar. STOP THE CAR!!! Right before my very eyes was the first sign of the sea.. Who cares if it was the lagoon in Bacalar; it was still Caribbean water. There were ribbons of deep blue against the teal; the colors that make the water so beautiful. I knew I had less than 3 hours to Playa. Once I arrive, I will check into our hotel, find a margarita somewhere and listen to the sounds of Playa. This has been a wonderful trip and I am thankful that I was able to do it. I’ve seen some of the most beautiful countryside and some of the worst, too and there is nothing that I would do differently. The way that I look at it; Total cost for the 3 nights hotel with tax.$374. Total cost of gas to get to Playa.$480. Driving through Mexico with my best friend. Priceless. So that’s my trip...My 2300 mile journey. Thank you for sharing it with me. If you ever have the desire to take a journey of your own, wherever that it might be, I hope that you will take the time to do it; I have a feeling that you will not regret it. A couple of must have items if you make this drive: Rainex for the windshield Windshield wiper fluid Windex and squeegee so that you can clean the bugs off the windshield Toliet paper, paper towels and hand wipes A compass if your vehicle does not have a built in one. This is probably the most important as you WILL get turned around. However, as long as you can see that you are going either in the south, east or southeast direction for 90% of the trip, you are heading in the right way. Pesos. Even OXXO does not take dollars until you get into a more of a tourist area. Here's a link to all of the pictures from our drive to Playa. I have not attached comments or tags to them yet but will do it soon. http://s236.photobucket.com/albums/ff31/macanded/Drive%20to%20Playa/

Day 3 Tampico to Coatzacoalcos.

Day 3 Tampico to Coatzacoalcos.
9-7-08

6:30 am and it’s time to get up. My body just does not want anything to do with getting back into a car today. Can’t we just take a day off from driving and stay here today? If Tampico was nice or not so crowded and had a decent beach, I might entertain that thought but today is the day that we are going to try to push ourselves through to Villahermosa, 683 miles.

No breakfast for me, I was too tired to think about eating. Forget the vitamins, too! I just need a cup of coffee. I checked out of the hotel, paid my ridiculously over-priced bill of $182 which included the room, free happy hour from 6-7 pm, free internet, very bad Italian food and a couple of margaritas and hopped in the car for the day’s journey. A journey it was...at first. We were lost on how to get to 180 heading south and we drove for an hour trying to get out of this city, which I will be polite and call a hell hole. Finally we stopped to ask directions and found a Mexico Mapsco! A real life Mexico Mapsco! WOW! We hit the jackpot! Opened it up and there it was...all the directions that I would ever need to navigate my way around Mexico. http://www.guiaroji.com.mx/ (so that is what is printed on the book). It was raining pretty hard this morning, harder than I thought because many streets were flooded or completely under water. Maybe Tampico just does not have a good drainage system.

When finally finding the Hwy that we were supposed to be on, we came upon a toll. $28 pesos. Cool...must be a pretty good road ahead. WRONG! After about 5 miles, I began thinking, “I paid money to drive THIS road???” Not only did we have to contend with not knowing where we were going but also tons of potholes, enormous topes and flash flooding! It’s going to be a great day.

One thing that gets your attention going down the road south of Tampico is men hearding their goats to the roadside. Why, I wonder? Why does it seem as though all of Mexico’s goats, cows, pigs, horses and chickens eat at the roadside? Is this mere culture since there are so many roadside taco and pollo asado stands?

The 2nd checkpoint was about 1 ½ hours south of Tampico in Naranjos. We pulled over...we know the drill at this point but the Police did not ask us to see our papers. What? Don’t you want to check them out and ask where we are going and why there are two Gingos driving through Mexico? Well I was not going to force my papers upon anyone but what do they want? Word of caution...ALWAYS act like you do NOT know Spanish, even to say hello. After the Policeman spent 3+ minutes trying to tell us he wanted money and beer, he gave up because we kept saying that we did not understand. Whew...got out of that one.

Cerro Azul is a cute little town with a decent sized population. It’s a pretty remote town but everyone seems to be in a hurry. This can’t be Mexico! Where in the world are they rushing off to? Are they late herding their goats, have curfews or are they just anxious people? Regardless, the mountain views are spectacular and half of the town in located in a little valley. There’s a military camp on the south end of town off of 180 and this is one of the very few towns that post big yellow highway signs with arrows pointing to the over-sized topes. I bet this town would be a lot of fun during festivals but there is not any place here that I would want to stay for the night though.

I sure wished it would stop raining; it’s hindering my ability to take pictures.

There are tons of auto repair shops along hwy 180 between Tampico and Tuxpam. I am quiet surprised that the people of this town are not living like Kings, in large houses, each with a staff of eight! The roads are so terrible between Tampico and Tuxpam (which is a semi-large town), that I am certain that these shops do ALOT of business.

We are doing pretty well on gas considering the monster load we have in and on top of this truck and climbing all of these mountains; averaging about 16 miles per gallon with a fill up in Dallas, San Antonio, Matamoras and Veracruz. I did not realize that Mexico was so mountainous. I took a picture of a mountain that had clouds on top of it...we were at eye level to it and you can actually see the clouds right in front of us! It was amazing. I would literally say that I could reach the sky and touch the clouds. It was very cool.

On the south side of Tuxpam we took the toll road. $26 pesos. FINALLY, a concrete road with no issues!

Military check point (some are police check points and some are military) and toll #3. $30 pesos. There were tons of people pulled over at the military check but they did not ask us to pull over. Probably because they did not want to deal with two gringos from the US that would not understand anyhow what they were asking...better not to waste time on us. PERFECT...so we kept driving.

Toll #4 in Gutierez Zamora. $18 pesos.

We have been anticipating on getting to the point on our drive in which we could actually run alongside the coastline and see the Gulf of Mexico. I heard rumors that there are beaches and waves crashing and you could see this going down the road. I was excited to know that we finally arrived in Costa Esmeralda, the town that would begin our short drive along the coast. BUT...IT WILL NOT STOP RAINING ENOUGH FOR US TO SEE ANYTHING!!!! We can barely see 5 feet in front of us much less see the Gulf that is 50 yards to our left. UGH...Oh dear Lord please do something. Finally, the next adjacent town, Casitas. Lots of small hotels and restaurants on the beach. Some hotels are nice, some are rundown but there’s a Best Western and a new hotel under construction (I did not get the name). I’d stay here for a night if I’m passing through town.

Military check point...are you kidding me...these guys are not leaving covered shelter; it’s pouring down rain. So we keep driving.

All along the hwy of 180 south of Tampico you see banana groves with bananas hanging from the trees that the workers must have just picked. There are orange tree groves everywhere and many wild orange trees just growing randomly. Do banana peppers grow on trees? I swear I saw a tree, only one though, that had the biggest light green peppers that you have ever seen hanging from it. I could not get a picture since Dave was so cautiously passing a big truck at the same time as we are going down a two lane road. Oh, that’s not the only time that he has done this...He figured out that he should just closely follow this ADO bus that would just start passing big rigs on a mountainous two lane road...What was going to happen to us...the bus would take the impact of the oncoming car, he said. Needless to say, I thought my life was ending on numerous occasions today...I thought I’d better say more prayers for me and definitely needed to say more for that idiot bus driver. Just as I was beginning to feel sorry for the bus driver because I thought he was an idiot and he was probably just having a lapse in good judgment today, he pulled into a roadside bar! The last thing is IDIOT needed was a beer! Fine...he was on his own!

Toll #5 in Nautla. $18 pesos.

4 pm and finally a break in the clouds. Thank God because this rain is making me want to take a nap! Besides, this rain has worked its way to my headboard on the top of the truck that is not only wrapped in plastic but also moving blankets and secured with duck tape. Oh I hope it’s not ruined! We will have to lug it inside tonight, unwrap it and try to salvage it.

So we came upon a town called Santa Ana with an old Mexican guy standing in the middle of the road selling what appeared to be fruit. “Let’s buy some”, I say, “I think that they are yellow cherries”. Who knows how much they were so Dave gave him $50 pesos, knowing that should cover it and we drove off. I opened the bag in excitement as I LOVE fresh cherries and I don’t recall ever having a yellow one. I popped one in my mouth, anticipating the pit to be there when all of a sudden I grabbed the trash bag...spit, spit, spit. UGH, what is this???? These things taste like crap! Here, try one. Of course Dave was a chicken (he is not a fan of fruit anyhow) so now I am stuck with this bag of yellow balls of God knows what, trying to pass themselves off as cherries!

Just north of El Viajon, right on the coast, sits the CFE plant (Mexico’s electricity provider). What a view they have; one side mountains, one side the Gulf of Mexico

Toll #6. $30 pesos

Now we are coming up on Veracruz...should we stop and stay here tonight?

Toll #7. $37 pesos

Hello Veracruz. WOW, this city is flooded! Bad drainage I suppose. Goodbye Veracruz; let’s try to push through as far as we can.

Toll #8 $70 pesos.

Wait a minute...you have to pay to get into Veracruz AND pay to get out of it, too? And does it seem as though tolls are more prevalent the further south we drive? I wonder what it would take to own my own city?????

Toll #9...good gosh, maybe I should take more pesos out of the bank!

So we are traveling down 150, south of Veracruz and the roads are great but we are beginning to feel the effects of being in this car too long. I’m getting a bit grumpy and I am ready to find a place and call it a night. Our goal though to try to make it into Villahermosa tonight and on to Playa tomorrow...so I thought. We pulled over to top off the tank with gas and asked where hwy 145 was. In my attempt to understand the directions given to me in Spanish, we realized that we had past our exit by about 30 miles! YIKES! Okay...don’t get mad, it’s okay. We just turn around and head back..no problem. Back through toll and finally find the exit. perfect. Now we need to make up some lost time. Let’s get to Villahermosa as fast as we can. Fast was not the correct adjective for this road.

Toll # 10 $150 pesos!!!! Holy cow! This road better be fast and awesome to drive down. By this time it was dark and we were doing something that we said we wouldn’t; we were driving at night. Tip...learn target driving prior to driving in Mexico and be especially careful as the higher the toll fees, the worse the roads (so it seems). This one was bad. Now to their credit, they appeared to be working on them but I guess we are in Mexico and everything is in Mexico time.

Toll #11 $140 pesos! WOW, $39 usd on 30 miles of stretch. Oh well...we were on the expressway when we could have easily taken the scenic route again. No thanks. The expressway only allows you to exit in about 9 places from once you hop on to the time you reach Villahermosa.

By this time exhaustion has kicked in and we just want to find a place to stay. As much as we want to keep going, we’ve been on the road for 14 hours, of which three of those hours were because we were lost. We stop in Minatitlan because the Mapsco says that this is a city of 100K-500K people. Perfect, we should be able to find a hotel here. We drove around the city for about an hour and it was not much bigger than Playa. All I can say is that most of this city is very dirty so when we finally found the highway again, we headed to Coatzacoalcos, which is a city about the size of Cancun. When we first arrived in Coatzacoalcos, it looked very clean; it was almost midnight. At last, a Best Western; this should be okay. We pulled in, went inside and paid for a room...$70 usd. The security guard took us to our room and said not to worry about our car, the stuff on top or the bikes because he was going to be there all night and would watch it for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you was all that I could say.

We got into the room; very dated but appeared to be clean. No big deal. Dave went across the street to get water while I stayed behind to shower. I turned on the water on in the shower and guess what...No hot water! You’ve got to be kidding me! I still need a shower and I am not in the mood to attempt my very poor broken Spanish to the front desk to explain that I need another room. Cold shower it was and now time for bed. Off goes the bedspread (ugh...in a hotel like this, they probably do not wash them often), keep one light on just in case, and closed my eyes. I have to say...a little freaked out but when looking back on it, the room wasn’t THAT bad.

Our drive to Playa- DAY 1

Noon...right on time. This is the time that we anticipated to leave Dallas.This is a very large accomplishment for us since we are the couple that you see running to their flight, yelling down the corridor to please hold the plane! I think that we were right on time because we were truly excited about starting this journey. We had a countdown...3 days and a wake up, 2 days and a wake up. Well last night we only had a wake up left to go and we were completely ready. No last minute, oh my God stuff to do today other than go into work for a few hours. It was nice to be prepared before this morning. Everything was done. The Tahoe was loaded including the tightly wrapped headboard for our bed and the black rooftop cargo bag that was to ride on top. Lets just say plastic wrap and duck tape are great things to have laying around the house! Okay...we looked like the Clampits but who cares...we were ready to get on the road (coming from someone that cannot stand to be locked in a car for more than 3 hours). We measured the top of the truck to the ground just in case we came upon a bridge we had to go under. 2.5 meters. So we hopped into the Redneck mobile, of course the Redneck himself was behind the wheel (Dave), we said our little prayer that we always say right before a trip then headed off to the Freeway.

What a great trip this is going to be. Dave did such a fantastic job loading and packing and securing that I had the utmost confidence that I was going to worry about nothing today. But then we got on the freeway, we could only go 65 mpg or the Tahoe would get squirrley since it was so heavily loaded. The truck sounded like it was going to fall apart! What was that noise and is it going to stop? Dave assured me that it was just the plastic that wrapped the headboard flapping in the wind. Was the headboard and the rooftop cargo bag going to fly off the truck? What about the bikes hanging from the back? After debating on whether or not to stop and check...the noise FINALLY went away and all was good. (Sigh).

We are driving down the road, enjoying the silence with our thoughts bouncing through our heads, not really believing that we are finally doing this when all of a sudden, my uptopia was interrupted. Why was there so much traffic at noon???? Why are we in a traffic jam??? I don't care if it is Dallas and it's to be expected; don't these people know I need to get to Mexico?

After what seemed like eternity, we were in San Marcus. If you know nothing about San Marcus, just remember that it has, what appears to be, miles of outlet shopping just off of the freeway. Every store imaginable including some of my favorites. If only I could just stop for a moment...I could save alot of money here. But the inevitable happened...Dave said no way! Damn the luck!

By 5 pm we were in San Antonio. God I need out of this truck and I need a drink. We got to stop at a gas station and get diet cokes. That's okay...Susango said she was drinking two for me anyhow.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff31/macanded/Drive%20to%20Playa/Redneckmobile.jpg

So we are driving down I-37, almost to Corpus, which by the way is the LONGEST, MOST BORING stretch of hwy that was ever built with nothing but mesquite trees to look at, when all of a sudden a small SUV with a rooftop cargo box and a man-made trailer came zipping by. I wonder if they are moving to Mexico, I asked. 2 seconds later, a minivan with the same cargo load on top and the exact same man-made trailer behind it passed us by, too. Confirmed...they MUST be moving to Mexico! I said, "let's keep up with them" but they were hauling butt. Us...well we are still stuck at 65 mpg! Future friends gone forever.

Still driving, I come to the realization that bugs must migrate north at night. Maybe they are migrating north because they instictively know that it is their duty to go north, to the colder states, to die off. I'm okay with that thought. I don't like bugs. However, I really wished they would have picked another day to go north because I am traveling south...perhaps I should think of it as my good deed for the day because I prevented a gazillion bugs from taking the time and energy to fly such a long way and allowed them all to splat all over my windshield! We determined that everyone that was pulled over on the side of the hwy with their hazzards flashing had also allowed them to utilize their windshields to expedite the dying process. Gosh we are such nice people for doing them that favor!

Finally made it to Brownsville. We had no idea where we were going to stay despite that I printed off a list of hotels in every major town/city that we could stay in all the way to Playa. We settled on a Hampton Inn. We were lucky to find this place. The room was $109 with free internet and breakfast but the best thing about it was the reservation guy at the front desk. He saw that we had two bikes on the back of the truck and insisted that we park up under the entrace way (the covered driveway area into the hotel where you drive right by the front door). That way he could keep an eye on our bikes for us while we slept. He sounded geunine enough and regardless of what happens, I still deeply appreciate the kind gesture.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff31/macanded/Drive%20to%20Playa/parkingspotfortruck.jpg

Bud Light in hand I think that at the end of this very long drive so far, I can say that I saw parts of Texas that I've never seen and I didn't bestow my vast knowledge of driving skills upon my dear husband. All in all, I would say that this was a very good day!

Tomorrow morning up at 6 am and off to the border by 7. Customs opens at 8 and I want to be in the front of the line with anxiety. We will be driving to Tampico. Let's just hope we get the green light.Tomorrow I will post day two with very detailed information and lots of pictures. Stay tuned...

The cargo trailer is loaded!

We have worked so hard getting rid of all of our stuff over the last year. I thought that we'd never get to a point to where it would all actually fit into our cargo trailer! WOW...it really fits!
Only a couple of weeks left before we head to the border. It's simply amazing how little one needs to actually live happily...our whole material life now fits in this little tin box.