I’d like to start out by thanking all of you for your prayers and well wishes for our newest hiccup. We REALLY appreciate them!
We finally got back on the road at 1:30pm. Praise the Lord!!! The brakes work fine and we had absolutely no problems other than more normal crummy roads ahead of us. Because of our late start our target was Villahermosa, about 300 miles due east. We had fairly decent roads ahead between Veracruz and Minititlan, mainly Autopista (toll road). It did have several stretches of bad road interspersed with the good but for the most part we were able to drive 50mph. Many of the highways reminded me of Chicago highways after a particularly bad winter. Lots of pot holes and rough pavement and plenty of those god awful speed bumps. We decided that it will be too soon before we see another one but we know that we are in for plenty more of them tomorrow.
We were pleasantly surprised when we entered an Autopista just east of Villahermosa that wasn’t marked on the map. This was one of the nicest roads we’d encountered so far, with very little bouncing. It was well marked, with reflective markers on both sides of the road and the same reflective lane markings that you find on the American highways. Boy was that ever nice! Since we were on such good roads we decided to drive as long as we could into the night to make up for some of the time we’d lost this morning. So our new goal was Emiliano Zapata, about 80 miles further east of Villahermosa. We did encounter some light rain though. The 1st inclement weather on this trip. Today was the warmest temps we’ve seen. Until today the temp has been between 60-65 degrees. Today was 70-75 and finally shorts weather!
So here we sit at 10:30pm safely tucked away in a corner of a PEMEX station with the truckers who are also spending the night. Our goal tomorrow now is Chetumal which is right at the Belize border and a trip of approximately 350-400 miles. We can see the light at the end of the Mexican tunnel now and are getting excited! All in all we were making pretty good time. We did stop once, fairly early on, to check the wheel hubs to make sure that none of the brakes were locked and found everything working perfectly.
In this portion of the trip state signs alerted you when you entered the next state, much like in the U.S. We knew that Mexico was broken up into states but until now Kevin and I thought there were only 2…the state of confusion in which we most often found ourselves when we had made a wrong turn or found ourselves hopelessly lost and the state of panic, which was less often but more nerve wracking and happened when something was wrong with the trailer or the road was particularly bad and we were bouncing all over the place! And, as if the speed bumps aren’t enough to panic us, we hit stretches of road with absolutely no lane markers at all. Some in stretches where the highway was 1 lane in each direction too. The worst was when we experienced that at night and in the rain.
One of the things we had read about on a web page about driving in Mexico was that we would find ourselves at a military check point. Lots of soldiers on both sides of the road and all very heavily armed. The check points appeared after some toll booths and others were in the middle of nowhere. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for their placement. We never felt frightened or intimidated though since I don’t have anything that I’m not supposed to. We found all of the soldiers to very pleasant and outgoing. At some check points we were simply questioned as to where we were coming from and going to, others where they checked our papers and did a walk thru of the trailer looking for contraband, and still others where they simply waved us through. It wasn’t a bad experience at all.
No internet tonight so I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to post this.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Driving to Belize - Day 4 (Part 1)
Special note: The mechanics just pulled up. They said they would be here at 11am and it’s 11:09. Not a bad start. Let me stop for now and see what’s up.
Good news on the repairs! They have all but 1 of the parts and that one part is one of the 4 electric brake controllers. So we may only have 3 trailer brakes and might have to use the manual control. They don’t seem to be concerned about it. They are doing a very good job of cleaning and repacking the bearings on all 4 wheels which will be one less thing to worry about. We’re trying to contact my cousin Richard who’s wife grew up in MX for some translation help to insure that it is indeed the case. So we may be on our way in an hour or so! THANK YOU ANGELS!!!
Normally I do my blog write up at the end of the day but today is different as we may be stuck at the PEMEX station waiting for the mechanic to show, hopefully with parts. So I’ll be blogging as I get the chance.
I slept in this morning but Kevin was up around his normal time of 6:30 and went for his walkabout. There is an espresso shop right here at the gas station, which is nice. I’ve missed my regular 6 shot espresso. I don’t have them every day but do have them quite often. Where Kevin is on a caffeine high from his 1st and only coffee of the day I feel absolutely no effects. Sometimes I wish I did. I can go immediately to sleep after enjoying my brew. Along with the espresso I had a banana nut muffin. He had a croissant with egg and cheese. All were quite good. Much better than the crummy meal we had last night at the diner here. Maybe it was because they only served sandwiches after 7pm, maybe not. It was the 1st bad meal we’ve had.
In the past 3 blogs I have failed to mention something that is very scary to see on the road. Most Mexican semi trucks are pulling 2 full sized trailers. Not the shortened version that you see on American roads but the 50 foot versions. They seem to travel in packs and the wind flow around them as they pass by is easily felt by us and the trailer. Nothing dangerous but we have to keep our eyes open for them in the side mirrors just to be sure.
Since I have time today, and since I have my journal right next to me (I don’t normally for some unknown reason) let me tell you of some of the sights we’ve seen.
All through the mountains we’ve seen farm after farm after cattle ranch. It’s kind of funny to see the manner in which they plant their crops. For one some are on the steepest incline you can imagine. There is no way they can do anything with a tractor to make their farming chores easier. They have to walk it. From the steepness of the incline I can only imagine that their plowing, planting, and harvesting is done behind a horse or mule. Plus, something I’ve never seen but must have some agricultural significance is that they tend to plant corn in between the rows of citrus and banana trees. It could very well be that it’s just maximizing their crops.
I’m not sure when I’ll have internet access next but more later!
Good news on the repairs! They have all but 1 of the parts and that one part is one of the 4 electric brake controllers. So we may only have 3 trailer brakes and might have to use the manual control. They don’t seem to be concerned about it. They are doing a very good job of cleaning and repacking the bearings on all 4 wheels which will be one less thing to worry about. We’re trying to contact my cousin Richard who’s wife grew up in MX for some translation help to insure that it is indeed the case. So we may be on our way in an hour or so! THANK YOU ANGELS!!!
Normally I do my blog write up at the end of the day but today is different as we may be stuck at the PEMEX station waiting for the mechanic to show, hopefully with parts. So I’ll be blogging as I get the chance.
I slept in this morning but Kevin was up around his normal time of 6:30 and went for his walkabout. There is an espresso shop right here at the gas station, which is nice. I’ve missed my regular 6 shot espresso. I don’t have them every day but do have them quite often. Where Kevin is on a caffeine high from his 1st and only coffee of the day I feel absolutely no effects. Sometimes I wish I did. I can go immediately to sleep after enjoying my brew. Along with the espresso I had a banana nut muffin. He had a croissant with egg and cheese. All were quite good. Much better than the crummy meal we had last night at the diner here. Maybe it was because they only served sandwiches after 7pm, maybe not. It was the 1st bad meal we’ve had.
In the past 3 blogs I have failed to mention something that is very scary to see on the road. Most Mexican semi trucks are pulling 2 full sized trailers. Not the shortened version that you see on American roads but the 50 foot versions. They seem to travel in packs and the wind flow around them as they pass by is easily felt by us and the trailer. Nothing dangerous but we have to keep our eyes open for them in the side mirrors just to be sure.
Since I have time today, and since I have my journal right next to me (I don’t normally for some unknown reason) let me tell you of some of the sights we’ve seen.
All through the mountains we’ve seen farm after farm after cattle ranch. It’s kind of funny to see the manner in which they plant their crops. For one some are on the steepest incline you can imagine. There is no way they can do anything with a tractor to make their farming chores easier. They have to walk it. From the steepness of the incline I can only imagine that their plowing, planting, and harvesting is done behind a horse or mule. Plus, something I’ve never seen but must have some agricultural significance is that they tend to plant corn in between the rows of citrus and banana trees. It could very well be that it’s just maximizing their crops.
I’m not sure when I’ll have internet access next but more later!
Driving to Belize - Day 3
Kevin did all of the driving today. He says it keeps him busy. Me, I'm enjoying the scenery and trying to navigate as best I can but you win some, you lose some.
We're both pretty frustrated with things that happened today but Kevin more than me. I'm keeping a positive attitude and know that sooner or later I'll reach my destination. He's on a schedule though as he has a flight home on Thursday from Belize City and the trip is taking much longer and is tougher than we both imagined.
Today we hit the very worst roads imaginable, where we could only travel at 20 mph for very long stretches, and some that we could actually do 50 on for a short period of time. We found that driving in Mexico is not for the feint hearted because at times you find yourself driving in the left lane up hills or around curves because of the road conditions, never knowing what kind of traffic is coming at you. And you have no idea what speed bumps are until you drive in Mexico. They are EVERYWHERE and in great numbers and in the places you least expect to find them. Some are small and others nearly tear the under carriage of the car off. Sometimes there are 2 or 3 and sometimes there are as many as 10 spread over a half a mile. Of course that brings you almost to a stand still while you are trying to navigate over or around them.
The road signs are so bad too that we are constantly making wrong turns and having to back track to the direction that we should have taken in the 1st place. We've met so many very helpful truckers that have corrected the errors of our ways. It takes a while though because of the language barrier. Having a good map of Mexico would help but the best I could find was a Rand McNally folding map that does not have half of the cities / towns marked on it that the traffic signs list. So that's our major problem or was until tonight. More on that later though.
While we are making wrong turns we have been nowhere near as lost as we have been in Matamoros and Tampico. There we drove down streets that never seemed to bring us to where we wanted to go. At times we were sure we'd hit a dead end and have to back up a good distance. So we were always lookeing ahead to where we were going and judging street width and available turning room. Today it was just a matter of driving to the next exit. Sometimes quite a ways and sometimes not too far. It's just frustrating though as it adds time to an already long trip. According to an itinerary I’d been sent the entire drive should take 4 days. Well we’re on our 2nd and almost a half day and only ½ way there.
We stopped at a roadside stand in the morning and bought some fresh fruit and had them open a coconut for us to eat and drink. We also found a really good place for lunch. We drove through some beautiful mountains today but that was a bit disconcerting because at times we travelled all directions of the compass even though we should be driving mostly south and southeast. We also saw the Gulf a Mexico a few times. Now that we thought we'd see quite a lot because we're traveling so near the coast. But today was the 1st day for that.
While passing through Tuxpan we made our usual wrong turn. Driving along the highway we looked for a likely place to start a series of right turns to get us back in the right direction. We didn’t find one so started looking for a place to make a u-turn. We saw a couple that were marked no u-turn and kept looking. We finally found one and Kevin made it without disturbing traffic. As he straightened out a cop walked out into the street and was saying something about the illegal turn we made. Of course we knew we didn’t and the stories we’d heard of cops looking for a payoff came storming into our minds. Kevin asked how much the fine was and the cop, in his almost non-existant English said US$100. “You gotta be kidding!” came flying out of Kevin’s mouth. “No kidding” said the cop in whatever language he was speaking. It sure didn’t sound Spanish to us! I was trying to get Kevin to calm down because it was Sunday and I sure didn’t want to spend the night in jail until court opened on Monday. Kevin pulled some bills out of his pocket but didn’t realize that there were 2 $20’s stuck together. Me I’m telling him we had “no mas dinero”. He kept insisting it was $100 bucks. There was no way we were giving him the hundred. He finally settled for the $40 and we were on our way much the worse for wear. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again. If it does we’ll be sure that we know exactly how much is in our pockets and it won’t be more than $20.
Tonight, as were found ourselves headed in the right direction after a wrong turn, we pulled into a PEMEX station for gas. PEMEX is the national gas station in Mexico and the price is always $ 1.93 a gallon. While we still had over ½ a tank I like to fill up whenever we have a long stretch of highway ahead of us. We have not had any trouble finding gas stations but better safe than sorry! Anyway after pulling up to the pump and asking the attendant to fill it up (all gas stations are full service which is nice) the attendant pointed to the trailer. Kevin got out and noticed that there was smoke pouring out from the left rear wheel of the trailer. I noticed that the paint was bubbled on the hub. He started pouring water on it to cool it off. Boy did it sizzle! I had him pull forward a bit and turned a hose on it. We were lucky it did not catch fire while we were driving! God only knows how long it was heating up but, once again, our Angels were protecting us. Had we driven much farther it very well could have burst into flame and everything in the trailer would have been lost. That would have been terrible.
Along the highway I'd seen signs for first aid and auto repair that said to call 047. So out came the cell phone. One of the attendants sort of knew what was going on so I asked him to talk to whoever answered and tell them where we were. It actually got more involved than that but he took care of it, giving them my car information and the like. He hung up and said someone would be here in a few minutes. Well a car pulled in and came over and 2 guys hopped out. I had looked up the words "brakes" and "smoke" (as in “Where there is smoke there is fire”) and was waiting for them. They understood and started pulling the rear wheel off. I immediately thought that the bearings were the cause. Kevin thought brakes. When they started pulling apart the wheel tons of brake pad dust came pouring out. Well it turned out that we were both right ... The mechanic said that he could not get parts until tomorrow and was hoping that he can even find the parts here in Mexico. So who knows how long we may be camped here waiting for replacements. We're talking full time to our Angels and know that they will come through for us because they have so far. Thankfully this station has free Wi-Fi so we can give you all an update. While we were sitting here eating a rather terrible dinner a small group of Americans walked in and we started talking. The main guy is in the Army Infantry and stationed at Ft Sam Houston TX. I mentioned our mechanical problems and he made a call for us. He's fluent in Spanish, and that's a definitely plus here in Mexico! He's trying to help us locate parts and a back up mechanic. Funny thing is that he and his party are also headed to Belize to deliver a car.
We certainly have to keep our spirits up and know that we will prevail!!! Sometimes it's a little hard to do though. Maybe more tonight because it's been such an exhausting day and we're so punch drunk. Maybe all we need is a good night’s sleep. Let’s hope so...
We're both pretty frustrated with things that happened today but Kevin more than me. I'm keeping a positive attitude and know that sooner or later I'll reach my destination. He's on a schedule though as he has a flight home on Thursday from Belize City and the trip is taking much longer and is tougher than we both imagined.
Today we hit the very worst roads imaginable, where we could only travel at 20 mph for very long stretches, and some that we could actually do 50 on for a short period of time. We found that driving in Mexico is not for the feint hearted because at times you find yourself driving in the left lane up hills or around curves because of the road conditions, never knowing what kind of traffic is coming at you. And you have no idea what speed bumps are until you drive in Mexico. They are EVERYWHERE and in great numbers and in the places you least expect to find them. Some are small and others nearly tear the under carriage of the car off. Sometimes there are 2 or 3 and sometimes there are as many as 10 spread over a half a mile. Of course that brings you almost to a stand still while you are trying to navigate over or around them.
The road signs are so bad too that we are constantly making wrong turns and having to back track to the direction that we should have taken in the 1st place. We've met so many very helpful truckers that have corrected the errors of our ways. It takes a while though because of the language barrier. Having a good map of Mexico would help but the best I could find was a Rand McNally folding map that does not have half of the cities / towns marked on it that the traffic signs list. So that's our major problem or was until tonight. More on that later though.
While we are making wrong turns we have been nowhere near as lost as we have been in Matamoros and Tampico. There we drove down streets that never seemed to bring us to where we wanted to go. At times we were sure we'd hit a dead end and have to back up a good distance. So we were always lookeing ahead to where we were going and judging street width and available turning room. Today it was just a matter of driving to the next exit. Sometimes quite a ways and sometimes not too far. It's just frustrating though as it adds time to an already long trip. According to an itinerary I’d been sent the entire drive should take 4 days. Well we’re on our 2nd and almost a half day and only ½ way there.
We stopped at a roadside stand in the morning and bought some fresh fruit and had them open a coconut for us to eat and drink. We also found a really good place for lunch. We drove through some beautiful mountains today but that was a bit disconcerting because at times we travelled all directions of the compass even though we should be driving mostly south and southeast. We also saw the Gulf a Mexico a few times. Now that we thought we'd see quite a lot because we're traveling so near the coast. But today was the 1st day for that.
While passing through Tuxpan we made our usual wrong turn. Driving along the highway we looked for a likely place to start a series of right turns to get us back in the right direction. We didn’t find one so started looking for a place to make a u-turn. We saw a couple that were marked no u-turn and kept looking. We finally found one and Kevin made it without disturbing traffic. As he straightened out a cop walked out into the street and was saying something about the illegal turn we made. Of course we knew we didn’t and the stories we’d heard of cops looking for a payoff came storming into our minds. Kevin asked how much the fine was and the cop, in his almost non-existant English said US$100. “You gotta be kidding!” came flying out of Kevin’s mouth. “No kidding” said the cop in whatever language he was speaking. It sure didn’t sound Spanish to us! I was trying to get Kevin to calm down because it was Sunday and I sure didn’t want to spend the night in jail until court opened on Monday. Kevin pulled some bills out of his pocket but didn’t realize that there were 2 $20’s stuck together. Me I’m telling him we had “no mas dinero”. He kept insisting it was $100 bucks. There was no way we were giving him the hundred. He finally settled for the $40 and we were on our way much the worse for wear. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again. If it does we’ll be sure that we know exactly how much is in our pockets and it won’t be more than $20.
Tonight, as were found ourselves headed in the right direction after a wrong turn, we pulled into a PEMEX station for gas. PEMEX is the national gas station in Mexico and the price is always $ 1.93 a gallon. While we still had over ½ a tank I like to fill up whenever we have a long stretch of highway ahead of us. We have not had any trouble finding gas stations but better safe than sorry! Anyway after pulling up to the pump and asking the attendant to fill it up (all gas stations are full service which is nice) the attendant pointed to the trailer. Kevin got out and noticed that there was smoke pouring out from the left rear wheel of the trailer. I noticed that the paint was bubbled on the hub. He started pouring water on it to cool it off. Boy did it sizzle! I had him pull forward a bit and turned a hose on it. We were lucky it did not catch fire while we were driving! God only knows how long it was heating up but, once again, our Angels were protecting us. Had we driven much farther it very well could have burst into flame and everything in the trailer would have been lost. That would have been terrible.
Along the highway I'd seen signs for first aid and auto repair that said to call 047. So out came the cell phone. One of the attendants sort of knew what was going on so I asked him to talk to whoever answered and tell them where we were. It actually got more involved than that but he took care of it, giving them my car information and the like. He hung up and said someone would be here in a few minutes. Well a car pulled in and came over and 2 guys hopped out. I had looked up the words "brakes" and "smoke" (as in “Where there is smoke there is fire”) and was waiting for them. They understood and started pulling the rear wheel off. I immediately thought that the bearings were the cause. Kevin thought brakes. When they started pulling apart the wheel tons of brake pad dust came pouring out. Well it turned out that we were both right ... The mechanic said that he could not get parts until tomorrow and was hoping that he can even find the parts here in Mexico. So who knows how long we may be camped here waiting for replacements. We're talking full time to our Angels and know that they will come through for us because they have so far. Thankfully this station has free Wi-Fi so we can give you all an update. While we were sitting here eating a rather terrible dinner a small group of Americans walked in and we started talking. The main guy is in the Army Infantry and stationed at Ft Sam Houston TX. I mentioned our mechanical problems and he made a call for us. He's fluent in Spanish, and that's a definitely plus here in Mexico! He's trying to help us locate parts and a back up mechanic. Funny thing is that he and his party are also headed to Belize to deliver a car.
We certainly have to keep our spirits up and know that we will prevail!!! Sometimes it's a little hard to do though. Maybe more tonight because it's been such an exhausting day and we're so punch drunk. Maybe all we need is a good night’s sleep. Let’s hope so...
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Driving to Belize - Day 2
More terrible roads, possibly even more ambiguous signage, and more terrible drivers. Our plan was to drive as far as possible past Tampico before daylight ended our driving day. Tampico was approximately 300 miles and we figured to make it by around 2pm. Kevin offered to drive because i could not keep my eyes open. As soon as we started off I was in dream land. I slept for about 20 minutes and was thankfully wide awake. Again, as in Matamoros, the signage in Tampico was terrible and we got hopelessly lost for about an hour. Kevin stopped at a cab stand and I could see lots of confused looks due to the language barrier. Finally Kevin thought he had the directions to put us headed back south. One of the cab driver ran over and offered to lead us for 100 pesos (approximately $ 8). It was the best we've spent 100 pesos so far! We were finally crossing over the river and out of Tampico. Around 5pm We decided we better find our safe spot to spend the night before the sun went down. We landed in Ozuluama and Kevin negotiated us a spot behind a small motel and shower privileges and right near a rather good restaurant.
After showering we headed down the road a bit to eat. We were told by someone in a shop on the way that the restaurant had free internet so we dragged out laptops with us. Their window said that they did too but it was not working. The menu consisted of 70 pictures of dinners, much like many Chinese takeout restaurants around home. With dinner ordered and more beer in front of Kevin we sat looking around the place at all the religious decorations. They had some very nice unique wooden crosses as well as still having their Christmas decorations still up. The food was good and we were stuffed when we left the restaurant.
Off to sleep now. He's in the trailer and I'm sleeping in the bed at a -1 star motel ...
After showering we headed down the road a bit to eat. We were told by someone in a shop on the way that the restaurant had free internet so we dragged out laptops with us. Their window said that they did too but it was not working. The menu consisted of 70 pictures of dinners, much like many Chinese takeout restaurants around home. With dinner ordered and more beer in front of Kevin we sat looking around the place at all the religious decorations. They had some very nice unique wooden crosses as well as still having their Christmas decorations still up. The food was good and we were stuffed when we left the restaurant.
Off to sleep now. He's in the trailer and I'm sleeping in the bed at a -1 star motel ...
Driving to Belize - Day 1
My trailer axle was finally repaired by about 1:30 and we were on our way. Finally! We both felt that today was going to be lucky for us and we'd actually cross into Mexico. For me it's been a long time in coming what with all the other hiccups and my step mother dying. We headed to the border To obtain my temporary vehicle paperwork. After spending almost four hours getting the paperwork, and going through a very cursory search trailer, we were finally on our way. We left the U.S., entering Matamoros MX, via the Veteran's International Bridge at about 6:15 pm central time.
Their highway signage leaves a lot to be desired. We are light years ahead of Mexico highway for easy navigation. After a few wrong turns, and some initial frustration, we finally found our way onto Mex101 and some very bumpy highway, if you can call it a highway. You have to be very Cognizant Because of the road surface there are many pot holes and you have to be equally aware of the traffic around you in the cities Because the drivers will force their way into the smallest spot, seeking a quick ride to where ever they are going. Of course in Mexico, as in the U.S., no matter how fast you drive, the traffic lights keep you within a few car lengths of where you were in the pack. Interestingly their traffic lights work a bit differently than ours. When the light is about to change network the green light flashes several times before the amber light comes on for about 5 seconds. So you have to beware of the age of the light and be ready for it to change quickly for the highway As they have this very narrow right lane separating it from a normal sized left lane by a dotted line same as in the U.S. You are supposed to keep as far to the right as possible, but there is no way to put a normal sized car in that lane let alone a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a nine foot wide travel trailer. Cars that pass you want to use the left lane traveling at breakneck speeds. Very unnerving to us Americans.
We drove south for approximately one and a half hours, headed for Tampico, and hit an immigration check point where your passport, visa, and temporary vehicle permit are checked. My paperwork was fine but poor Kevin did not have a visa. Having traveled in Mexico numerous time he's never been anywhere that required one. In the section of the country we were in it's required to have a visa when you plan to travel more than 70 kilometers from the border. In our halting Spanish we asked where we could get one for Kevin. The answer you ask? Back at the border crossing in Matamoros. Yes one and a half hours back the way we came and as close to the border as we could get without crossing back into the U.S. Kevin was understandably upset! Me I took it as just one more hiccup in our trip. So back to Matamoros where we started. We had plenty of time to get back before the office closed at 9pm. We did have one almost disastrous mishap on the way back. I pulled as far over to the right as possible to allow traffic to pass and failed to see a steep drop off. The right wheels of the Jeep and trailer dropped down and I, in my moment of panic, jerked the steering wheel hard to the left. Obviously not the right thing to do but I was tired. The trailer jack knifing began but I was able to get it under control and off the highway in a safer spot. We both jumped out to see what damage I may have done, and wondered if it would necessitate being towed back to Brownsville for repairs. But my Angels have been working overtime these past few weeks and successfully pulled my butt out of the fire eleven o'clock with no damage. Within minutes we were on our way and I drove more slowly and carefully so that we could get back to our original starting point.
Back at the border I was sure there was parking on the Mexican side that would allow us to go into the office and get back on the road without any trouble. I was right. But I did manage to make a HUGE mistake gringo before we got to the office. I stopped at a group of soldiers looking to see if any of them spoke so I could ask Español directions. What came out of my mouth though was, "You speak Spanish?" (Do you speak Spanisch?) Of course they all started laughing even though I tried to correct myself. I think they were still laughing 20 minutes later when we were headed back on our way.
So back over the same crappy roads but with a bit less traffic. Our plan was to return to a spot just before the check point and find a safe spot to spend the night. Just yards before the checkpoint was a restaurant where it looked like we could find a good meal. I almost said a "Mexican" restaurant but here they are all Mexican. Another gringo mistake I would think. So we ordered bisteak with potatoes, refried beans and salad. Since Kevin had been beating himself up the entire trip back to the border and back to the check point I was ready for a beer to calm himself. Needless to say they had a quart bottle that really did the trick! Kevin asked the restaurant owner if it was ok to leave the car and trailer on the shoulder of the road for the night. He offered us a spot in his parking lot, nicely and safely out of the way of any traffic. We finally went to bed about 11:30
The highway noise was pretty loud though but did quiet some during the night. Kevin wears ear plugs so was bothered a bit less than I but I was out within a few minutes. We both got up about 6:30 and were back on the road by 7:05.
Their highway signage leaves a lot to be desired. We are light years ahead of Mexico highway for easy navigation. After a few wrong turns, and some initial frustration, we finally found our way onto Mex101 and some very bumpy highway, if you can call it a highway. You have to be very Cognizant Because of the road surface there are many pot holes and you have to be equally aware of the traffic around you in the cities Because the drivers will force their way into the smallest spot, seeking a quick ride to where ever they are going. Of course in Mexico, as in the U.S., no matter how fast you drive, the traffic lights keep you within a few car lengths of where you were in the pack. Interestingly their traffic lights work a bit differently than ours. When the light is about to change network the green light flashes several times before the amber light comes on for about 5 seconds. So you have to beware of the age of the light and be ready for it to change quickly for the highway As they have this very narrow right lane separating it from a normal sized left lane by a dotted line same as in the U.S. You are supposed to keep as far to the right as possible, but there is no way to put a normal sized car in that lane let alone a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a nine foot wide travel trailer. Cars that pass you want to use the left lane traveling at breakneck speeds. Very unnerving to us Americans.
We drove south for approximately one and a half hours, headed for Tampico, and hit an immigration check point where your passport, visa, and temporary vehicle permit are checked. My paperwork was fine but poor Kevin did not have a visa. Having traveled in Mexico numerous time he's never been anywhere that required one. In the section of the country we were in it's required to have a visa when you plan to travel more than 70 kilometers from the border. In our halting Spanish we asked where we could get one for Kevin. The answer you ask? Back at the border crossing in Matamoros. Yes one and a half hours back the way we came and as close to the border as we could get without crossing back into the U.S. Kevin was understandably upset! Me I took it as just one more hiccup in our trip. So back to Matamoros where we started. We had plenty of time to get back before the office closed at 9pm. We did have one almost disastrous mishap on the way back. I pulled as far over to the right as possible to allow traffic to pass and failed to see a steep drop off. The right wheels of the Jeep and trailer dropped down and I, in my moment of panic, jerked the steering wheel hard to the left. Obviously not the right thing to do but I was tired. The trailer jack knifing began but I was able to get it under control and off the highway in a safer spot. We both jumped out to see what damage I may have done, and wondered if it would necessitate being towed back to Brownsville for repairs. But my Angels have been working overtime these past few weeks and successfully pulled my butt out of the fire eleven o'clock with no damage. Within minutes we were on our way and I drove more slowly and carefully so that we could get back to our original starting point.
Back at the border I was sure there was parking on the Mexican side that would allow us to go into the office and get back on the road without any trouble. I was right. But I did manage to make a HUGE mistake gringo before we got to the office. I stopped at a group of soldiers looking to see if any of them spoke so I could ask Español directions. What came out of my mouth though was, "You speak Spanish?" (Do you speak Spanisch?) Of course they all started laughing even though I tried to correct myself. I think they were still laughing 20 minutes later when we were headed back on our way.
So back over the same crappy roads but with a bit less traffic. Our plan was to return to a spot just before the check point and find a safe spot to spend the night. Just yards before the checkpoint was a restaurant where it looked like we could find a good meal. I almost said a "Mexican" restaurant but here they are all Mexican. Another gringo mistake I would think. So we ordered bisteak with potatoes, refried beans and salad. Since Kevin had been beating himself up the entire trip back to the border and back to the check point I was ready for a beer to calm himself. Needless to say they had a quart bottle that really did the trick! Kevin asked the restaurant owner if it was ok to leave the car and trailer on the shoulder of the road for the night. He offered us a spot in his parking lot, nicely and safely out of the way of any traffic. We finally went to bed about 11:30
The highway noise was pretty loud though but did quiet some during the night. Kevin wears ear plugs so was bothered a bit less than I but I was out within a few minutes. We both got up about 6:30 and were back on the road by 7:05.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
My Angels have saved me once again!?!
You are not going to believe this, well maybe you are at this point...
Kevin and I are sitting in the exact same room at the exact same hotel on South Padre Island that I checked out of yesterday when I went to pick him up as he flew into Brownsville! So get a cup of coffee, smoke 'em if you got 'em and I'll fill you in on how my Angels have saved me once again.
You all probably know that I've been downloading movies, TV series, and audio and ebooks like a madman for months now in anticipation of using them as entertainment when I finally found my spot to settle down in. I have them all on a 1 terabyte external hard drive (well actually on two 1 terabyte hard drives because the other is a mirror image of the 1st in case something happens). Now hold that thought!
Kevin and I arrived at the border, on the U.S. side, and were politely questioned by the local county sheriff's department and Border Patrol about what we had in the trailer. They decided to do a routine check. Absolutely no big deal because, like the good citizen and international traveler I am, I don't have any contraband products, too many cigars (thanks to Kevin not smoking and our allotment being double because there are 2 of us), too much liquor, or anything else that I shouldn't be carrying. During an outside walk around one of the officers noticed that the left front trailer tire looked tilted. No kidding it was! Checking it we found that the tire was worn to the metal tread bands on the far inside of the tire. Well, knowing that we were about to hit some pretty iffy roads in Mexico, and having about 1800 miles ahead of us I decided we better have it checked out. We drove to a truck repair shop that I had seen on my travels in and around Brownsville. They looked at the wheel, replaced the tire, and then told me that the axle was bent. I don't know when, where, or how it happened but it did. So I told them to fix the axle and we'd stay the night because they wouldn't be done until 5pm. Kevin and I decided to head back to South Padre Island and visit a bird sanctuary and a turtle rescue facility that we'd seen the day before when we went out there for dinner. He and I packed for the night and I went looking for my hard drive case (holding both of them) and I COULD NOT find it! Crap!!! All that work and now they were gone!? Thinking I, and saying it to Kevin, "I wonder if I left it at the hotel?" Nah, I couldn't be that careless or forgetful. Din,g ding, ding wrong answer! When we got to the hotel desk I asked if they had a black hard sided case and showed him it's twin. Out he came with it! Now I don't know what's worse, having more work done on the trailer that's holding me up from crossing the border or having more work done on the trailer to prevent me from crossing the border and finding out days later, when it was too late to do anything about it, that I couldn't find my hard drives. I always looked at these delays to my trip as my Angels watching out for poor old Rich and not letting me do anything until it was the right time for me to do it. I am a very firm believer in my Angels guiding and protecting me. Those of you that know the story of Angels All Around and our journey finding a store front and all the good works that it allowed us to do know that. And if you haven't heard the stories please go to http://www.angelsallaround.com/ourstory.html and read about it.
I just called the repair shop and learned that the trailer won't be ready until noon tomorrow. Poor Kevin has a return flight from Belize City to Phoenix next Thursday. Leaving tomorrow will not give him time for the photo ops he was anticipating and still get us to Dangringa Belize. He's going to call American tonight to see if he can extend his trip through the following Sunday. He's using frequent flier miles so extending his trip may not be an option. I'm praying that it happens though as I want to see him enjoy his trip and us not be so rushed to get where I'm going so that he can make his flight.
We had a great time at the bird sanctuary and turtle rescue and Kevin was as giddy as a kid at the almost 100 pictures that he took while we were at the sanctuary. He does some kind of photography that used 2 low end out of f-stop focus, 2 high end out of f stop focus, and 1 perfectly focused pictures which are then merged into a single photo using a software program that he says turns out incredibly sharp pictures. It will be interesting to see the results when he's finished.
Trust me when I tell you that I'm not demoralized in any way but now we're waiting until tomorrow to see if we can successfully cross the border and be on our way or if my Angels have something more in store for me...
Kevin and I are sitting in the exact same room at the exact same hotel on South Padre Island that I checked out of yesterday when I went to pick him up as he flew into Brownsville! So get a cup of coffee, smoke 'em if you got 'em and I'll fill you in on how my Angels have saved me once again.
You all probably know that I've been downloading movies, TV series, and audio and ebooks like a madman for months now in anticipation of using them as entertainment when I finally found my spot to settle down in. I have them all on a 1 terabyte external hard drive (well actually on two 1 terabyte hard drives because the other is a mirror image of the 1st in case something happens). Now hold that thought!
Kevin and I arrived at the border, on the U.S. side, and were politely questioned by the local county sheriff's department and Border Patrol about what we had in the trailer. They decided to do a routine check. Absolutely no big deal because, like the good citizen and international traveler I am, I don't have any contraband products, too many cigars (thanks to Kevin not smoking and our allotment being double because there are 2 of us), too much liquor, or anything else that I shouldn't be carrying. During an outside walk around one of the officers noticed that the left front trailer tire looked tilted. No kidding it was! Checking it we found that the tire was worn to the metal tread bands on the far inside of the tire. Well, knowing that we were about to hit some pretty iffy roads in Mexico, and having about 1800 miles ahead of us I decided we better have it checked out. We drove to a truck repair shop that I had seen on my travels in and around Brownsville. They looked at the wheel, replaced the tire, and then told me that the axle was bent. I don't know when, where, or how it happened but it did. So I told them to fix the axle and we'd stay the night because they wouldn't be done until 5pm. Kevin and I decided to head back to South Padre Island and visit a bird sanctuary and a turtle rescue facility that we'd seen the day before when we went out there for dinner. He and I packed for the night and I went looking for my hard drive case (holding both of them) and I COULD NOT find it! Crap!!! All that work and now they were gone!? Thinking I, and saying it to Kevin, "I wonder if I left it at the hotel?" Nah, I couldn't be that careless or forgetful. Din,g ding, ding wrong answer! When we got to the hotel desk I asked if they had a black hard sided case and showed him it's twin. Out he came with it! Now I don't know what's worse, having more work done on the trailer that's holding me up from crossing the border or having more work done on the trailer to prevent me from crossing the border and finding out days later, when it was too late to do anything about it, that I couldn't find my hard drives. I always looked at these delays to my trip as my Angels watching out for poor old Rich and not letting me do anything until it was the right time for me to do it. I am a very firm believer in my Angels guiding and protecting me. Those of you that know the story of Angels All Around and our journey finding a store front and all the good works that it allowed us to do know that. And if you haven't heard the stories please go to http://www.angelsallaround.com/ourstory.html and read about it.
I just called the repair shop and learned that the trailer won't be ready until noon tomorrow. Poor Kevin has a return flight from Belize City to Phoenix next Thursday. Leaving tomorrow will not give him time for the photo ops he was anticipating and still get us to Dangringa Belize. He's going to call American tonight to see if he can extend his trip through the following Sunday. He's using frequent flier miles so extending his trip may not be an option. I'm praying that it happens though as I want to see him enjoy his trip and us not be so rushed to get where I'm going so that he can make his flight.
We had a great time at the bird sanctuary and turtle rescue and Kevin was as giddy as a kid at the almost 100 pictures that he took while we were at the sanctuary. He does some kind of photography that used 2 low end out of f-stop focus, 2 high end out of f stop focus, and 1 perfectly focused pictures which are then merged into a single photo using a software program that he says turns out incredibly sharp pictures. It will be interesting to see the results when he's finished.
Trust me when I tell you that I'm not demoralized in any way but now we're waiting until tomorrow to see if we can successfully cross the border and be on our way or if my Angels have something more in store for me...
Underway...shift colors!
It's finally happening! My cousin Kevin arrived in Brownsville yesterday and we're ready to head for my new home in Belize! Well almost... We're sitting in McDonalds using their free internet for the last time in the U.S. Not sure if McD will have it available out of the country. That certainly would be nice but I'm not counting on it. Plus I'm not planning on driving into any of the cities with my trailer attached because I don't want to get stuck on some narrow street or somewhere I can't easily turn around.
Kevin and I are trying to come up with a name for the trailer. He calls his the "Fun Hut". He's going to use "Beliz-a-bago" for his writings for now. Any suggestions?
So once we're done with the net we have to head back to Walmart, fill some gas containers, stow a few things, hitch the trailer to the Jeep then head for the border. Not sure how long the crossing will take because I still need the temporary vehicle doc and I'm sure they'll want to tear the trailer apart before letting us get on our way. In things we've read on the Mexican roads the first 35-40 miles are the worst in all Mexico. Lots of pot holes and bad road surface that will keep us down to 30-35mph, although I typically don't drag the trailer faster than 55 anyway. I figure that they want to make sure whatever you are driving and/or dragging is up to par or that they want to help their auto/truck repair shops are happily busy. After that it's mainly paved 2 lane highways and 60-70mph. We'll be traveling on MX180 for about 90% of the trip. Not sure how far we'll get today or where we'll stop for the night. All I know is that Kevin is drooling over getting real Mexican tacos and make some photo stops. Fine by me! And I think he's already thinking about extending his trip. Fine by me too! I'm hoping he'll love Belize as much as I do. he's looking for a foreign country to retire in when his time comes. Maybe we'll be neighbors!
More later but I'm not sure when! Adios!
Kevin and I are trying to come up with a name for the trailer. He calls his the "Fun Hut". He's going to use "Beliz-a-bago" for his writings for now. Any suggestions?
So once we're done with the net we have to head back to Walmart, fill some gas containers, stow a few things, hitch the trailer to the Jeep then head for the border. Not sure how long the crossing will take because I still need the temporary vehicle doc and I'm sure they'll want to tear the trailer apart before letting us get on our way. In things we've read on the Mexican roads the first 35-40 miles are the worst in all Mexico. Lots of pot holes and bad road surface that will keep us down to 30-35mph, although I typically don't drag the trailer faster than 55 anyway. I figure that they want to make sure whatever you are driving and/or dragging is up to par or that they want to help their auto/truck repair shops are happily busy. After that it's mainly paved 2 lane highways and 60-70mph. We'll be traveling on MX180 for about 90% of the trip. Not sure how far we'll get today or where we'll stop for the night. All I know is that Kevin is drooling over getting real Mexican tacos and make some photo stops. Fine by me! And I think he's already thinking about extending his trip. Fine by me too! I'm hoping he'll love Belize as much as I do. he's looking for a foreign country to retire in when his time comes. Maybe we'll be neighbors!
More later but I'm not sure when! Adios!