Cd Victoria to Puerto Escondido

Saturday, November 22. Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico

So we made it! Again there are road stories, naturally. We left off in Ciudad Victoria on 'the rack', the bed with no apparent mattress. After the uncomfortable night with little noticed actual sleep, we hit the road a bit late again. After looking at the map decided to take the inland route through Ciudad Mantes, Ciudad Valles, and on to Pachuca all on varius grades of windy mountain roads, rather than drive the 'extra' 40 kM to Tampico and take the coast road. We've taken most of these roads before, and enjoyed the views and crazy curves, so south it was, Thursday morning, on Highway 85. The route was slow and curvy as expected, but relatively free of topes and problems. At a small town called Tamazunchale, we chose to leave Highway 85 to catch 'a shortcut' over to Highway 105 at Huejutla de Reyes, and save a few kM going south to Pachutla. The shortcut turned out to be badly paved, twisty, as expected, with lots of topes so it seemed maybe not such a good idea, but we were comitted by then. We made the turn at Heujutla, a bit concerned we might not make Pachuca by night, but with no other real options. Going continued slow for a couple hours, until we came to a line of cars and trucks stopped on the entry to a small town. I still don't know which one.

Eventually Liz and Sophie went to see what was the delay. It was a strike/demonstration of some sort, a couple trucks across the road at a critical point with no alternate route, and a bunch of guys having a rally. She came back with Sophie and we sat. And Sat. About 5:15 I went down to see if I could learn anything. Two cops were there from the other direction but were doing nothing. I asked what was the issue and one pointed to a sign on a sheet draped over the blocking truck. I memorized key words to translate back at the car, which came out to be something like "Our Demand: Respect for the Agreement". This didn't seem to answer my question, for all we know it's a sign they keep around for whatever occasion. In any case, a few minutes later (coincidentally, to be sure) people started running up the hill toward their vehicles and it was clear that, whatever it was, was over. At this point there are vehicles in both lanes on both sides of the roadblock so things take a while to sort out, and the net effect is that the last two hours of daylight have gone and we are in the MOFN (middle of nowhere), as night and rain start to fall, on a twisted mountain road populated with pissed-off, reckless, long-delayed drivers. It wasn't too bad being the car following a tractor-trailer rig through the (now) fog and rain in the now pitch dark on a bad curvy mountain road. But then he pulled over to sleep and I had to lead the 8 or ten drivers behind for a while. It was like playing a video game with really lousy graphics as I had to drive with less and less information until I was just hoping to glimpse one of the roadside reflectors or the (sometimes) painted stripes on the center or edges of the road to tell me which way we were currently curving. Finally I glimpsed a place to turn off, and did, leaving some other fool to lead the pack. I became the last car of a samller group, and we never saw the new leaders again, so either they made it or drive off a cliff without a trace.

Eventually we came to the largest dot on that part of the good map, Zacualtipan, and not finding any highway hotels we headed downtown. We saw a hotel sign or two, but not the actual hotels, until on the way back down to the highway spotted one, and checked in for 300 pesos, parked the car and resumed breathing. The two flights of glossy marble stairs up were wet with condensation but we didn't fall and brain ourselves on the steps and settled into a cold hotel room, happy to be alive. What a day. 12 hours in the car and about 320 miles.

Friday worked out amazingly better. We got another late-ish start but the road immediately got straighter and faster (not to mention day-lit and visible). Now that we could see more than 10 meters we noticed we were heading into and out of a deep canyon, w1th amazing views. The road got better and we were in Pachuca ahead of "schedule". We discussed various options at that point but it appeared the possibility of getting to Oaxaca that night was back on the table, and we went for it. The roads and navigation from Pachuca to Cuidad Sahagan to Apizaco to Tlaxcala all went without a hitch on progressively better highways until we were cruising down the toll highway from Puebla to Oaxaca, and arriving in time to actually see the art exhibits there. Several times recently we had managed to get there to late or on the wrong day so this was a bonus. We toured the Contemporary Art Museum, the print institute, the steets, had a drink at the zocalo (square) and dinner a few blocks away. Sophie was napping in the car till we got there and drove out of town to a roadside hotel a few miles along the way to Puerto Escondido. That made three nights (all three nights) in Mexico where we each night failed to follow the first rule of local driving...don't do it at night. Our luck held out.

Saturday started well and we were headed to Puerto. 131 over the Sierra Madre del Sur was in rougher shape than last year, but passable enough for us. We stopped for breakfast, finally, at a place in Sola De Vega, where we had been well served before, but were somewhat disappointed at the current state of cleanliness. Breakfast doesn't seem to have made us sick yet, though. We pressed on to Puerto Escondido for a mid-afternoon arrival. By now we've unloaded the non-tool stuff, moved into our poolside apartment at Derek & Christine Tompkins place, and had a nice fish dinner upstairs with them and a bit of beer and wine. all around a good start to our time in the warm winter sun here.