Southwards we went (otherwise this blog would be falsely titled), travelling on the toll roads to cover
maximum distance and beat the coastal heat. The driving is pretty uneventful
and the roads very quiet. We rocked up onto a deserted plot of land, didn’t get
stuck again, and decided to brave the waves. The water was actually refreshing
at this, our second and last night for a while on the beach and we even had sea
views! It was still f’in hot. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Finally, inland we travelled and mountains we climbed. Given
how much desert we’ve seen further north, inland Mexico has proven to be
incredibly green and lush. We’ve been told that the winter is very dry and the
green turns to brown, but we’re mid rainy season which explains the frequent
storms.
Oh and the rain.
The toll (quota) road and the free (libre) road intertwined
the whole way while we stuck to the more interesting libre road with only those
in a hurry hustling along beside us on the fancy smooth tarmac. We’re quite
happy slamming through potholes, some of which you can see go down through 3 or
4 layers of bad repair after bad repair. Just after crossing the Tropico de
Cancer (whatever that translates to) we found our very own camp spot at 9000ft,
up in the clouds and blissfully cold.
This camp spot was our first contribution to our cheatsheet,
the 1 and 0s that have come to be our tourguide and bible. “ioverlander” is an
app that allows fellow travellers to bookmark locations against a map,
detailing safe spots, hidden gems, dangerous roads and any other useful
information to benefit those unwise enough to bumble through a country without
having first been smart enough to make a proper plan. Like us.
As it is the rainy season, we’re finding plenty of bodies of
water, it is unfortunate they’re normally dirty from all number of sources so
taking a dip seems to be a no-no. We carried on inland coming out of the
mountains to rolling hills, but still at a cool 7000ft and camped at the back
of a waterfall car park. I know you’re less impressed at the spots we’re
finding now you know we’re cheating, but meh.
We met a great local family here with perfect English, they
gave us advice, invited us to dinner with them and were just as unimpressed
with the amount of litter as we were. The girls complimented our bonita cocina
(beautiful kitchen).
More exploring, more traffic problems.
Much of the nice places in Mexico haven’t been developed
into the kind of tourist areas we found in the States, and of course Canada
too. But we found one, a lovely semi desert place with stunning rock
formations, soaring eagles, scampering lizards and toilets that aren’t a hole
dug freshly in the ground… A man on the gate charges us 100 pesos ($7,£4) for a
night and we make ourselves at home as the only campers in a facility for 50.
Lizards were hassled
Shower bags refilled
Suspension checked
And rocks admired
And then we went here. And then here. And then here. Switch
it up would you guys.
Fine.
A donkey rolled about in the dirt. Then got creepy.
Another night, another storm and another rude awakening.
Eventually we stopped driving from hidden campspot to hidden
campspot and actually tried to take in some culture. We stopped in
Aguascalientes and visited the National Museum of Death, which seems to be a
big deal in Mexico, which we remember from the opening of a James Bond film.
Who says we’re not well learned. Our other cheat is Google Translate with the
ability to offline augment English-ish words over the camera view of Spanish
gibberish.
More driving. Such a chore in these conditions.
Now, in contrast to the original beach photos whereby we
told you how nice it looked, how terrible it was, here is the opposite. A murky
looking overgrown shallow river, but what the camera doesn’t tell you is that
it’s cold outside, but the water is from a thermal spring!! Mmmmm toasty water,
cold beer and fireflies buzzing around. Later on the owner came to talk to us,
he was pretty keen for us to understand but we managed to completely fail to
grasp his simple Spanish sentence. I think we were meant to move, we didn’t, we
all smiled and he left.
Because we couldn’t help but wish for English conversations,
we set the satnav for Lake Chapala, a favourite retirement destination for
Canadians and Americans. Aka Gringos. We briefly swung by to get a feel for one
of the towns and managed to find a statue even more bizarre than CowBearPaddleboarder.
Behold, BigfootFIshforpantsStarfishhead. Does he need to unzip? Why does the
fish have that look on his face? So many questions… Probably don’t want to know
the answers.
But otherwise it’s a pretty area and we start to spot
retired gringos in every café, shop and pharmacy. We head up the hills to make
camp and attempt to catch some rainwater to top up our drinking supplies, and
power the solar panel with pure rainbow.
This part of Mexico has a much better feel to the coastal
areas, still plenty of stares but people overall seem more content and better
off than their sandy relatives melting on the coast. Our next couple of weeks
will be spent visiting the pretty mountain towns we’ve been recommended,
assuming we don’t decide to retire early and stay at Lake Chapala with the
weird Pervmaid statue.
Some Stats
Totals:
35 days on the road
8200km driven (20% of estimated total, minimum distance so
far could have been 4700km)
1066 litres of fuel consumed at an average of 22.2mpg
Daily:
232km driven average (estimated average expected to be
130km, need to slow down!)
10L of water per day consumed, around 7 drunk, 3 washing
dishes/teeth/face/misc
30.5L of fuel per day
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