Blog seven already? And seven weeks too, ten thousand
kilometres, sounds like a lot but it doesn’t feel like it. Perhaps it will
eventually. This new life feels normal now, perhaps it is normal… No ok it’s
not, we are still weird to you immobile people with dishwashers, hot water but
no wheels.
Where were we? Oh yeah, laundry drying in the breeze. That
all dried up and we made our way on to Grutas Tolantongo, a big holiday spot
with hotels, restaurants, camping and the like. We read that it can be extremely
busy, with thousands of people camping beside the river. With that at the back
of our minds we trundled down into the canyon paying 300 pesos ($20, £12),
descending 1500ft in 5km where we found just about nobody. Parking next to the
river, and yes it is a warm thermal river, we had the whole area to ourselves
with all the facilities clean and empty and some lovely rapids to watch debris
float down. 
Now we will attempt to describe a moment, one of those that
sticks with you, with our bestest words and limited… ermm….. vocabulary.
The sun has set leaving just the bright moon casting a cool
light over the water and mountains. There is a slight breeze but you’re leaning
back in the warm flowing water, up to your chin, with each foot wedged against
a rock, the rushing water against your back keeps your head above water
suspending you effortlessly in this teal blue pool. It passes round you and
gushes down over the rocks creating a backdrop of white noise. Occasional
flashes of light in the bushes as the fireflies dance around, seemingly
co-ordinated as a single brief glow here sets off a dozen over there. More bugs
buzz around, but often become prey as swooping through the darkness are a
couple of bats calling out sonar squeaks, one passes over your head so closely
you feel the air rushing off the wing. The stars are out, but down the valley
you can see a storm with frequent lightning strikes illuminating your calm
surroundings, the thunder distant and feeble in comparison to the flowing
water. Could you be any more relaxed? Yes; the water warms slightly, ahhhhhhhhhhh.
But this place gets better, and yet again arriving in the
week day off season pays dividends. We set off towards the grutas (caves) that
are the main attraction of this resort. The first is small, you quickly pass
through a cool waterfall and duck your head as you walk into a narrow
passageway from which warm, almost hot, water is continually pouring out. A
hundred metres in and the depth increases until your sat inside a natural hot tub,
with minimal light making its way down the tunnel it is quite surreal. The
GoPro tried its best.
Next is a much wider cave, more like a large cavern with
waist deep water throughout and gushing water pouring down from the ceiling
with such force it was stupid of one of us to try and stand under it…
And then we happen upon the coolest part, a brief flash of
light illuminates at the back of the caves, a semi hidden opening in the
shadows. The water flowing out is so fast it takes all of our swimming strength
to fight our way in, scrabbling at the smooth rocks for bonus traction. Once
inside, it widens and the water slows, with plenty of room to swim around in
the darkness with only an occasional bump into the walls. A gross looking rocky
growth spews water from three places, like a big runny nose in the corner.
Eventually we give into the water currents and are flung out of the hidey hole
back into the cavern.
On our way back home we spot a partying cactus, I think his
favourite song just came on.
After a sneaky extra night in this paradise, we climb back
out the canyon and take the short route across the mountains. Google maps says
2 hours to do 50km, pfft ridiculous, the road is smooth. And then it isn’t
smooth and 3 hours later we finish 50km… But what a road, crudely carved into
the hillsides it snakes on and on with huge drops over the edge of the narrow
rocky road. Don’t look down.
Westy Rick stops to mourn a fallen comrade, if only it had
water cooling perhaps it wouldn’t have burned.
Sometimes the traffic is chaotic, makes no sense and you
just have to roll with it. Here we found a gantry being clumsily lifted across
the road, and small vehicles were allowed down our absolute favourite ever
detour. Straight through a field, pushing bushes out the way as we went. The
photo doesn’t show the worst of it as we were too busy laughing and trying not
to collect too much foliage as we bumbled through.
Some more culture for you, advertising is spread out for
various events painted on walls or houses making good use of dead space in a
colourful and interesting way. We even managed to catch one of the “artists” in
the act, still wearing a hoodie to keep the hoodlum appearance going strong.
But who could do this to a poor innocent bay window T2?!
Sacrilege!
We
stumbled upon a strange laguna, with deep blue clear water surrounded by
strange white rocky growths outside a small town. We stopped for lunch, and had
a quick dip in the slightly salty cool water whilst managing to be right in the
way of a film being shot up the hill by a group of students who had travelled
alllll the way from Mexico City for this one shot. Whoopsie.
We’d been camping at 7000ft ish, but found a spot on our
favourite app that said you could drive up, and camp at 13700ft… what a
challenge, may as well find out if we suffer from altitude sickness now. The
road up was intense, steep, rocky and unrelenting. We tried to take it steady,
but stopping was awkward but mostly boring, so we climbed and climbed and
climbed. The last section was extremely rough and at this altitude the air is
60% the density of sea level, so we were down to almost half engine power. Clambering
over some rocks took a run up, and the altitude and radiator heat seemed to
make the fuel expand or evaporate until we could hear it bubbling in the
expansion tanks. But it was worth every second when we reached out camping spot
near the top waaaaay above the clouds. Here is more pictures than you need but
we took so many it seemed wasteful not to share them with all two or three of
you readers.
Spot the van.
It was windy, the clouds whipping over the crest behind us
and forming as they passed back down the mountain. One minute it blazing
sunshine, suddenly it’s raining then back to sunshine before you know it. But
it couldn’t last, the sun set and it got pretty cold. By far the coldest we’ve
camped in just a few degrees above freezing inside the van, so we donned
thermal layers and perhaps all the bedding at once and managed to keep cosy.
Waking up a few times, we were in the clouds for most of the
night until early in the morning when it was extra extra cold. Walking around
in flip flops trying to capture the majestic view of a bright moon above a
hundred towns stretching out between volcanoes almost cost a couple of toes,
but who would believe us without a photo?
Back to the coast, but to the Atlantic for the first time
where the weather is still too hot and the sea still too warm. So we dipped out
toes in it, turned around and headed back inland towards Oaxaca over a gorgeous
mountain pass through what felt like a rain forest. Within 30 hours we had gone
from 13700ft, down to sea level then back up to 9000ft. 
Another example of a typical camp spot, we duck off the road
to follow some old tracks into the trees almost getting stuck again. After some
Austin Powers manoeuvring (what looks like ground in front of the van is most
certainly just long grass) we parked up and fought off a million, billion,
trillion mosquitoes as it rained and rained and rained. Still better than the
coast. 
There will be some of you saying sure, it’s all good knowing
how the smelly humans are doing, but what about the poor vehicle which became
the unfortunate host to these parasites. Funny you should ask, there has been a
couple of incidents that have given us a scare but fortunately Westy Rick remains
intact and rearing to go. Our first complication was climbing the mountain,
with a constant fear that something wasn’t put together right it is common for
any arduous drive to end with Steve sticking his head under the van to make
sure nothing is about to fall off. Well this time the inspection came back
negative, as both coolant and gearbox oil was dripping from the back, and weird
bubbling fuel at the front with lots of petrol smell in the air. Taking the
fuel cap off relieved some pressure and ceased the bubbling, but this continued
once replaced so that was ignored for a while. The coolant was remedied with a
few turns on the clamp, but the gearbox was leaking from deep within the guts
at the join between engine and gearbox, the torque converter seal. Terrified,
we have been watching it since but believe it was due to high temperature,
slightly over filled, low air pressure and climbing uphill. It has stopped now,
so we sleep easy again. 
Until we didn’t see a tope (massive speed bump). It was
getting dark, we were following traffic through a town looking at the
interesting things, people, animals, houses etc on a new smooth concrete road
and then suddenly, too late, there it was. The front rode up, the back squatted
down and bang, something smashed into the concrete. It was the sump, that
lovely box that holds all the engines vital oil had come crashing down onto the
tope. Buckled, but not broken, the seal remains unbroken and we continue
onwards with a renewed fear of catastrophic engine failure, oh this is the
life!
Amazing what you can do in a week, including a solar powered
hair cut (in a hurry as the rain came rolling across the hills!)
