Friday 13 Aug
Mexican border - San Carlos
In the morning we had nasty hot dogs for breakfast in front of a McDonald's, because KFC was still closed and we needed to wash up.
Then we drove to the insurance comp. we'd already scouted out yesterday. At AAA they claimed that if insurance from them costs $10/day, then at the border it'd be something like $15/day. We were pretty horrified by that, because we need to have the car in Mexico for about 45 days (including the time spent in Cuba), which means the insurance would cost twice as much as the car.
Luckily!!! it turned out that $15 a day is rubbish and insurance for 20 days cost us $84. (We'd even been considering a rental car a little while before!).
The insurance was written up for us by a tiny little poof with a high-pitched voice, he was pretty nice.
In the guidebook we'd read that at the border you have to pay some sort of fee for the car, and it can only be paid by the car's owner with his own credit card. Apparently with that card he then guarantees he'll take the car back out to the USA, or they'll charge him something off it, or whatever. Well, and that poofy little insurance guy confirmed this rule to us. That supposedly the only chance is for us to go back to SF and for Martin to sell me the Sršáň (about 1000 km). See, the car's in Martin's name and I've got the credit cards. It looked really promising:-)).
So we drove to the border to try and push through. It confused us a bit that we drove into Mexico and nobody even stopped us. We drove about 25 km along a fenced 8-lane motorway, not a soul anywhere. Only then came the barriers, that was the toll for the motorway. Only after it the first customs men, they just quizzed us curiously and then let us through. Another 3 km or so on there were finally a few administrative buildings. We shuttled between the photocopier, the visa department and the dept. for temporary import of cars. In about 1.5 hrs we were, surprisingly, done for (both physically - from the heat - and paperwork-wise - thanks to the inattention of the young lady who took the card. She simply didn't notice the car belongs to somebody else:-)).
A chunk of rock fell off our hearts, it landed with a proper thud.
And then just a boring 360 km heading south, heat, cacti and scrub, a motorway with no turn-offs and no towns, just a barrier and a toll every 100 km ($15 altogether). And heat and heat and heat and ready to croak. The Tropic of Cancer is coming up fast.
The only salvation on the horizon was the prospect of the sea.
We stopped at the end of the motorway in the little town of Santa Anna, because we needed petrol and besides the road led right through it. Petrol was significantly dearer than in the USA, but on the other hand we discovered an internet café at Czech prices. We mailed everybody straight away, only we idiots forgot about Jeff.
The café had air-con, which was the first positive temperature sensation since leaving SF.
Before the internet we also checked out, through the shop window, a very young teacher who was teaching about 6-year-old kids there how to handle computers, then the bank, to see if they'd change our cheques into dollars and dollars into pessoss. Nope, only till 15:00. Well, and Spanish is a real problem.
In the guidebook we read a great thing, that in Mexico they use a few stones instead of a warning triangle. Now and then you can see a road sign saying \"don't leave stones on the road\" :-). When we were trying to slip away from the cops in Santa Anna, suddenly there were 3 chunks of rock on the road in front of us and a broken-down car ahead of them! => fit of laughter.
Towards evening we finally reached the sea, and right onto the beach at that. Unfortunately the sea was 30°C, which was 10 less than the air, but it still wasn't refreshing. We marinated in it like pickles in brine and lasted maybe 2 hours. Then we found a hose by the hotel with unsalted water, but unfortunately hot. We gave ourselves a proper wash there, it was already dark and deserted by then.
While it was still light I managed to photograph a decently big pelican as it lounged about on the beach some 1.5 m away from me.
After the bath we finally felt like humans, without a coating of sweat and filth. It lasted about 15 min. The night was one of the worst of my life (comparable maybe only to the night in a mosquito hatchery by a lake somewhere in Finland). Suffocating heat, 100% humidity, sweat, mosquitoes, just gross. And on top of that, at about three in the morning we were woken up by the cops (as in the fuzz…), they asked \"Espaňol?\" Martin answered \"errrr, nou, errrr no comprande\", they said \"no comprandero?\" and buzzed off.
Saturday 14 Aug
San Carlos - Rosaria Tezopaco
In the morning I managed to fall asleep for a while and when I woke up Martin had already been marinating in the brine for half an hour. (Read: in the sea) I ran after him, because it was unbearable anywhere else. The rule that it's cooler towards morning simply doesn't apply here. We stayed marinating in the brine until one in the afternoon, we got out for maybe half an hour altogether.
By the time we finally dragged ourselves to the car to do something, we were both burnt to a disgrace and heatstroke was on its way. Only one goal - an air-conditioned pub and cold drinks.
So we've been sitting here for 4 hours now, alternately drinking, dozing, watching girls and chatting about that hell outside. We'll probably have to stick it out here till dark, we're already outdoing each other over who's got more burns- This is an American holiday area, so it's expensive here. But we'll have \"una pizza mexicana mediana\". Martin's already ordering it after an hour-long consultation with the Spanish textbook. The bastards don't write in there how to say \"One pizza on two plates !!!\"J
Well, that \"pizza mediana\", i.e. a medium pizza, was so big that the two of us couldn't finish it. We've been here another hour and it's still an unbearable scorcher outside. I had to go to the car for different shorts, because the previous ones had a hole the size of a Mexican dollar on one arse cheek (how come a dollar, when they've got pessoss here? Lim. Joe was confused!) and on the other cheek an asphalt stain the size of Brno! That heat nearly knocked me outL
We've discovered that they serve cold water for free here, so we're making full use of it. It's Saturday, the post office and banks are closed, we can't go out in the sun, so we've got nothing to do. We'll probably sleep here tonightJ
Martin went to the ladies' loo to lay a cable and when the waitresses saw him coming out of the ladies', they decided to take the \"Out of order\" sign off the gents' after all.
In the end we did manage to kick ourselves out into that scorcher, and we shouldn't have. Before we'd even driven out of town I got a solid migraine combined with seeing spots and a churning stomach. To get through it I crawled into the back (even though it was just my turn at the wheel) and slept.
I was only woken up by insanely loud live Mexican music in a huge car park in front of an even bigger hypermarket. The windows and the floor were shaking, and on top of that, as soon as Martin stopped, the temperature inside climbed towards boiling point, just the ideal environment for curing a migraine or heatstroke, or whatever it was. And to top it all off I had to keep watch in case some groping Mexican hand nicked something through the open windows.
Martin had been inside for a suspiciously long time, so I got out and waited outside. Then M. came out saying I should go and pay by card and the trolley is parked among the T-shirts by till 25. I found it straight away, only it was missing \"something green\". I shoved my way through a brutal jam of shopping Mexicans with hordes of kids to the fruit and veg section about 200 m away. The swarthy young women stared at me so much that I checked myself over to see whether I was naked or something. In the end I at least untied my ponytail, but it didn't help.
Loads of about 15-year-old girls and boys on rollerblades, with helmets and pads, were weaving between the trolley jams. Then I stood in a queue for 3 hrs with 3 people ahead of me. Every one of them wanted to return, exchange or complain about three things or whatever, and those youngsters on skates kept weaving through the crowd with it, back and forth. Just before my turn somebody smashed a 1-litre jar of fruit purée at the till, so they were still cleaning it up.
I paid by card no problem, everything was about a third cheaper than in the USA. Hopefully it'll get even better (watermelon 6 CZK/kg, canned Pepsi 9 CZK)
The air-con in the shop brought me round quite a bit (I was in there for over an hour), so I was able to drive again. We asked the cops for directions (communication of the errr, mmm, hand, foot J type) and following their instructions we headed inland, along a secondary road towards Chuhuahua. The original plan was to find some accommodation with a shower as soon as possible, which on that secondary road ought to be cheaper.
We covered about 100 km before we even found any settlement! It was dark as a b…, holes in the road you could catch a giraffe in, nothing on the map of Mexico, people speak only Spanish (unlike usL) and on top of that the guidebook forbids driving at night. At one point we even reached some hydroelectric plant, where about fifteen soldiers came running out at us, some with rifles. Luckily they only wanted to give us directions, which they weren't much good at in English. Things really are bad with us and that Spanish, hopefully we'll do something about it.
So from the power plant we drove 20 km back (dead end…) and headed towards Chuhuahua (hopefully…). Again it looked pretty desperate, because the road did get better, but in 60 kilometres we didn't meet a living soul (apart from a few cars coming the other way), let alone a settlement with a hotel.
Luckily we eventually reached the little town of Rosaria Tezopaco. It was pretty lively there, folks standing around in front of the little bars and cruising around the square, loads of pretty girls like at a show.
On the square we pulled up by a little bunch of youngsters around a truck and asked about a hotel. One of them spoke microscopic English, but in the end they jumped into the truck anyway and led us there.
For a room with two beds, air-conditioning!, a B&W TV and above all a bathroom they wanted 200 pessoss. We offered $20, which is 180 p., and that was readily accepted. We probably overpaid.
We paid up right away and set off with our new mates from the truck to get beer. The shop was already closed, so we jumped into the truck bed and headed off somewhere for bottled beer. We drove somewhere along a dirt track completely outside the village, darkness, potholes and one shack. They all behaved terribly mysteriously, because, as it later turned out, alcohol mustn't be sold after half nine.
We bought 2 litre beers for $3, and besides, the lads had a truck bed full of cans and ice.
Then we drove off somewhere through the village again (it was pretty bumpy in the back…) and conversed quite briskly (hand, foot, Spanish, English, a bit of Italian..). Keko is a lawyer in a town not far from here, his parents live here. The owner of the battered Datsun 4x4 truck, nicknamed Rota Rosa (red rose, probably because he blushes), drove us to his parents' place. There was a big booze-up going on, loads of people and beers. First we shook all the right hands, had a few beers and then they even invited us to dinner. One of them spoke decent English (he looked like the dad of the family, but he was 25 and still studying food chemistry). He explained to us what and, more importantly, how people eat in Mexico, and we immediately got a portion of everything (flatbreads, beans, eggs with bacon, brutally spicy vegetables or sauce. On top of that they gave us some sort of soup made of fish eyes, or something. Some kind of pulse maybe?)
Over dinner inside we got to know the rest of the family (pretty daughter!) and then we said goodbye and shot off in the truck back to the square. It was Saturday, so the cruising of the dolled-up girls carried on like a parade.
We got talking with a bunch of local hotshots (jeans, horses, Mex. hat, white shirt with ….. chest hair, a truck or a jeep.) They were a laugh and we knocked back another solid dose of beers.
Before we knew it all the local beauties were gone. They also drove us all around the outskirts of the village over potholes and rocks, I think they were looking for some willing girls. In vain.
We ended up on the square again, only trucks were driving around by then and the cops in their service truck (a chase). The cops are pretty laid-back here, e.g. Keko's brother turned up in a car he'd nicked in Oklahoma, still the original plates, a broken window, and on top of that he'd supposedly been doing coke for 3 days straight, and well, the cops were cool with it.
At about four the beer and the money ran out, it was our turn. I'd had enough for today (the aftermath of the heatstroke), Martin went with them for more beer and they partied till dawn. At the hotel I had a shower and, what bliss, cold water was running!
Sunday 15 Aug
Tezopaco
The only one in the whole village I didn't take to, quite the opposite in fact, was the \"receptionist\" at the hotel. Under his nose he had something a decent person would hold a handkerchief in front of, considering it a moustache, the manners of a butcher's mutt and not a word of English.
When Martin came in the morning, the room locked, he rang for him to open it (he didn't give us any keys, he had none), he just hammered on that door till it almost fell off its hinges. So with a splitting head, after 2 hours of sleep, I had to get up and open.
The next scene was around nine, I guess. He hammered again like an idiot, and when I let him in, he babbled something in Spanish confusedly for 10 minutes, then gawked stupidly for five minutes at how sick we were and then finally cleared off.
He came again at eleven, I just ignored him, and when the first splinters started flying Martin opened the door for him and fell asleep again. He babbled something again, probably wanted to know whether we'd be staying another night. And yesterday he clearly told us we had the room till two, the idiot L I yelled at him in Czech, told him to f… off and fell asleep.
At about half past twelve I got up and found out a few things. In the car there is:
a) 85 0C
b) the fridge left on all night, hence
c) the battery is toast
d) all the food stayed outside the fridge L
Luckily Keko and Rota Rosa were nearby and willing to help. We moved about in that awful sun like divers on the seabed (hangover), we hooked the jumper cables (as you can see, the perfect complement to a car fridge J, see last year's diary from Africa) up to the truck, but Sršáň nothing. It took me about 1 minutes of reconnecting and cleaning (deadly in that sun!L) before I worked out that someone had to rev the truck up hard. Meanwhile they (mainly Milouš with the moustache) were already digging around in my engine and taking the distributor apart.
Then luckily it caught, I grabbed my shaving kit and toothbrush, left Sršáň locked and running to charge up, and escaped certain death by frying into the air-conditioned room. The aircon here makes a racket like the cooling on a threshing machine, but it works!
Once I'd shaved and done my teeth, I went to check on Sršáň. The battery was fine by now, but the thermometer showed 2700F, which I don't know how much that is, but probably quite a lot. The needle way past the red, round the corner, and a green geyser around the radiator. The choke had stayed on, unlike the fan!L
I opened the bonnet with a glove, grabbed the fridge and the food and legged it back to the aircon. A hangover in hell is not a good combination. (BTW, Mexican beer, unlike in the USA, is pretty good.)
By then Martin had come round too, he was worse off than me, so we just lounged about in there.
Then Milouš came again, and even though last time we'd told him we'd be staying another night, now he'd definitively pissed us off and we told him we're leaving at 2!
Then we did our laundry, had a c…, packed and at about three we really did venture out into the hell outside and the hyper-hell in the car.
We didn't get far, just onto the main street, where we first found shade for Sršáň and right after that for ourselves. It was a sort of snack bar with a terrace onto the street, we sat there, had 2 Cokes, watched the goings-on, wrote our diaries, studied maps and said hello to the locals. That lasted us till about 5 o'clock.
Then hunger drove us into bigger shade round the corner on the square, where we scoffed half a chicken and stuck sun film on the front side windows too (banned in the USA…).
It had been agreed with Keko and his mates that they'd come at five and we'd go for a ride on horses and shoot something with rifles.
At about six they really did drive past, but they just waved and, as we found out later, buzzed off home to a town about 150 km from here.
We sat there a while longer, until the sun went down and the dolled-up local beauties started parading again. We wanted to find Keko, but all we found was his house, his brother in front of it and a few kids. We stopped for a chat and it lasted (damn, my favourite pencil has run out) until dark. We taught each other Spanish and English, we were given water (we didn't drink that), then an apple (we ate that), I photographed the kids, grasshoppers as big as a pig that the kids were carrying in their hands, their beautiful daughter, who then turned out to be the sister-in-law, the mother of that little kid running around there (she looked about 15) and so on.
After dark we went for another walk around the village, to check out the beauties. We came across a hostel full of people, blaring rock music from a live band roaring out of it. We wanted to sneak into the concert, but it was a mass.
People were singing, stamping to the rhythm, clapping and so on. Everyone was decently dressed and during the sermon they were good as gold.
I tried to photograph it, but a 3-second exposure with the camera propped against the door frame is probably not up to muchL
During the mass a crazy wind kicked up, lifted all the dust in the whole village into the air (there's asphalt only on the main street, but covered in dust) and cut visibility to a few metres. Behind the hill above the village there was a brutal thunderstorm, lightning after lightning, but no rain anywhere. We walked out past the village so I could try to photograph some lightning. I set a 30-second exposure and tried it several times from the bonnet of a parked wreck of a truck. I caught something, we'll see.
BTW, I'm shooting like a devil, 2 films a day, because Safeway in SF had a sale and a film cost 45 CZK there. I bought about 20 of them.
After the storm we had another soft drink (peach juice) at the other end of the village (there were only 2 girls left there, whom we assessed as unsuitable for conversation J).
We went to sleep in the car in front of the house of Keko's brother Robert (that's the one with the stolen car, but he's decent and kind), which he approved and allowed.
Even at one, as we were lying down, all their kids were still running about the street…
Monday 16 Aug.
Tezopaco - Yecova
In the morning I woke up with a shock. Something was tickling my cheek, so I shooed it away, I open one eye and right in front of it a disgusting bug of this size is crawling:
I flicked it away and squeezed myself out of the car, totally awake. Martin was already chatting with the locals sitting on the kerb (with them, too).
After a while they invited us into the house for breakfast, which was a pretty serious gesture of friendship that we duly appreciated. During breakfast we met a whole load of other relatives the house was hiding. All decently dressed, getting ready to go home from a family celebration that had just taken place.
For breakfast there were eggs with bacon, beans and tortillas. I liked it.
As for household equipment, they had everything necessary (incl. a microwave), just in a fairly Mexican state. Straight from the kitchen a door led into some sort of dusty shed, but it was relatively clean in there.
After breakfast we cleared the field for the next batches of breakfasters and went off with Robert to his office. It's about 45 m away. He works at the post office, imagine that!, on a computer! J
On an old piece of junk he sends telegrams by some sort of telnet. He gave us paper, envelopes and stamps too, so we wrote letters and sent them (the postman weighed them on a balance scale and stamped them with a metal stamp, that was all he had in the room J). Then we said goodbye, swapped addresses and cleared off towards the mountains and Chihuahua.
We drove through the mountains all day, narrow twisty little roads up and down, the first 30 km passable only by a digger (holes), here and there a cow or a horse or a herd on the road, occasionally a horse's carcass being gnawed by dogs, run-over dogs (generally in Mexico) beyond counting.
At one point some insect the size of a coconut hit my elbow sticking out of the window (at least that's how much it hurt), I bellowed like an ox and jumped out of my skin. Luckily I was fine, but I think the first thing that flashed through that insect's head at the moment of impact was its own arse J
At about two we reached the first civilisation (a petrol station and 4 houses), got petrol (only just) and went into the dodgy local pub for food. After a desperate attempt to find out what they had, we gave up and ordered it 2x. For a change it was tortillas, beans, eggs with bacon and rice..
Even with the soft drinks it cost 59 Pessos for both of us (we didn't have more anyway), which is something over 200 CZK. Not great, and on top of that petrol here costs over 20 CZK/l, which is quite a lot. Unfortunately even in lousy Mexico we'll have to go hungry like poor Czechs. And we thought it'd be super cheap here and we'd live it up like kings. Bollocks.
On Wednesday, 18 Aug. 1999, at 15:28 local time, we crossed the Tropic of CANCER on road no. 49 about 10 km before the town of Fresuillo in Mexico. Hooray. Unfortunately we both feel lousy (the runs, stomach, head, tiredness, heat…), so no celebrations are taking place.
Then we carried on through the mountains again, and we came across a lovely mini-waterfall to the right of the road. It looked gorgeous and clean, so we talked ourselves into believing there's no bilharzia in it and that we could have a bath. At that moment we couldn't imagine greater bliss than a bath in a mountain stream and a shower under a waterfall. After more than a week of bathing in our own sweat and grime and the heat, it was almost like an orgasm. On top of that the water was cold, which not even the water at the hotel was. We splashed and did our washing there for about an hour. It was fenced off with barbed wire, but you could climb over and there wasn't a soul far and wide.
After dark we drove on to some little town in the mountains, got petrol and scoffed some more little fish from the US supplies, because we'd rather thrown out the rest of the chicken. We had a good laugh at the expense of the local yokels and drove on again.
At night we came out of the mountains and slept before the town of Camargo, hidden behind a heap of piled-up dirt.
Tuesday 17 Aug. Camargo - Gomés Palacio ?
In the morning we drove into Camargo to get some cash and buy new spark plugs. The thing just won't go at all, especially on hills. We also needed food and drink. (In the morning Martin also \"adjusted\" the ignition timing, which will push our consumption up by 6 litres over the next two days!!)
On the way we easily came across a car parts shop and changed the plugs right there in the street (they even lent us a plug wrench).
Before that we'd changed a 100$ cheque into pessos with terrible obstructions, exchange rate 9.20 PS/$.
A few streets further on there was a supermarket, I guarded the car and photographed beautiful Mexican girls while Martin went shopping.
In some other town we came across an Inet café and emailed home again. The connection was considerably worse than last time, more the fault of the Czech servers. (30PS/hour)
We found out that this part of Mexico is pretty unin
Here I probably originally wanted to say uninteresting, now I'm testing a new pencil.
So, uninteresting, and that's why we're doing a brutal transit to Mexico City. There we'll do the rounds of the embassies and work out the plan and the order (Guatemala, Cuba, Yucatán, USA).
In the town where we emailed, Martin also molested some travel agency and found out that a trip to Cuba, including accommodation in a * for a week, would be about 500$ for two.
We drove right into the night, after dark only truckers are out and they're pretty rough. A couple of times they nearly swept us off the road, no other cars to be seen at night.
On top of that, in Mexico there are a couple of completely perverse customs, e.g. the left indicator while driving means \"You can overtake me\", the right indicator means he'll stop on the right shoulder and wait until everyone has passed. Horrific.
The roads we drive on here are pretty varied. At first we used toll motorways, but that's about 5 $/100 km, which is pretty steep. So now we drive on the free secondary roads, which can mean 300 km absolutely straight as an arrow, at a speed of 130 km/h (even though the limit is 50 - 90 km/h), just pure bliss. Or it can mean driving through a building site, a detour across a dusty (and when I say dusty, I mean visibility of 3-5 m! L) field at a speed of 20 - 30 km/h. Sometimes also the occurrence of mammoth traps (holes, Span. bachos) and a hundred percent always the occurrence of rather less than more marked bumpers, which are speed humps across the road inside villages. You can manage not to slow down in front of them maybe once at most, since their height and steepness will rip off both your axles and knock out all your teeth including the upper right wisdom tooth that hasn't even grown in yet. Luckily the truckers know about them, so we always brake in a skid right behind them. They've got that rail welded onto the back of the trailer that would nicely mess up our Sršáň's smile. Luckily it brakes like the devil and goes like a slug (mostly).
For the night we stopped at a truckers' (read: lorry drivers') snack bar, which apparently also served as a brothel. For company we had one of the omnipresent stray dogs, he looked pretty carnivorous, but in the end he finished off after us the rind of a half-scooped-out melon!
Wednesday 18 Aug.
Gomóz Palacio - Leon
In the morning Martin woke up and got up earlier as usual, but this time he didn't wait for anything and drove off with me on board. By the time I came round, he'd already been in the bushes with the runs about 3 times. He looked like he was dying, so I grabbed the wheel and let him doze. After about an hour I got the shits too. All day we were like zombies, migraine, the shits, belly ache, heat and so on. We didn't eat, we just drank a gallon of juice. As mentioned above, crossing the Tropic of Cancer went by without any celebration. We didn't see anything interesting along the way, except maybe loads of filthy crappers at the gas stations.
In the evening we rattled our way somewhere where there was an unfinished house, a shed, a high wall and an old boy and old girl watering the flowers. We had a terrific chat with them (errr, well bubla espaňol errr bueno casta, hmmm, errr, buenas, nochas…), got water (aqua purificata) so we'd have something to wash our hands with after the diarrhoea attacks, and I drove another 120 km or so. (All day we took turns sleeping and driving, so at night I could still drive, at least it wasn't hot any more). Again we slept next to some sort of something, backs to a fence with three dogs behind it. We slept great, it's not hot at night any more and no mosquitoes either.
Before going to sleep I mysteriously zigzagged through the town of Lagos de Moreno, as big as Prague. I don't know how, but it spat me out exactly onto the road out that we needed. There wasn't a single sign in the whole centre!
Thursday 19 August
Leon - Cd. Hidalgo
In the morning we drove into the city of Leon, we needed to get some cash and some grub. At one bank they sent us to Bankomer, which is a bank where, after the usual obstructions, they cashed our cheque.
With money in hand we found a supermarket, tasted all the free samples, bought loads of food (after the diarrhoea we were starving) and hauled it all to the car. There we tried out our new plastic baby bottles for drinking (Coke) and somehow never got round to the food. Another frantic search for a crapper.
Then we drove on, all sour, because we'd just worked out the fuel consumption for the last two days: 14.2 and 14.5 l/km !!!L.
In the end we figured out that it started after we reset the ignition timing with our \"expert ears\". So what it needs is a proper garage, which here means a dusty patch of ground with a few jacks and a makeshift roof, sort of like a bus station.
Anyway, somehow we drove and drove, heading for Morelia. Suddenly a scene like out of Svěrák's Jízda: \"Hey, haven't we seen that hill over there already?\". \"No, that's just a similar one …. But that house over there that looks like a train, we passed that about half an hour ago!!!\" So during all this wandering it was only the second time round that we noticed an original Chevrolet service centre. Sršáň is a Chevrolet, needs tuning, and on top of that we're lost. In we go. (BTW, in the USA and in Mexico the Opel Corsa and Tigra are sold under the Chevrolet badge, the Opel Sintra is sold here under the Oldsmobile badge and I saw an Omega here as a Cadillac!!)
For 60 PS they adjusted our timing, even though at first they thought we wanted the clock fixed J (Eng. timing = předstih).
Another interesting thing was that in a garage where they were working on about 15 cars at once, we paid for the job straight into the mechanic's pocket, on the instructions of the pretty lady manager.
Third time round we finally hit the turn-off to Morelia, the car still drives just as crap. In the whole of Mexico there's only one kind of petrol available (Pemex - state monopoly) with an octane number of 87, which in our terms means about 83. And Czech unleaded is 95! So basically we're running on water, and that means our three-litre six-cylinder goes like an old Škoda 105. On top of that we've probably wrecked its catalytic converter and when that's clogged it just won't go.
We reached a smallish town that looked seriously medieval. Narrow stone-and-clay lanes, loads of kids sitting about on doorsteps, a little lad pissing out of a doorway into the street, a car parked in the living room with a tablecloth and food on the bonnet, a sleeping (or dead?) dog under a car wreck, loads of wrecked trucks and other cars, houses either unfinished or already half-collapsed, a repair shop spilling out into the middle of the street, kids working, somebody standing on every corner, gawping and doing nothing, open sewers, stink stink stink. Everybody stared at us during our walk like we were Martians, but the moment I pointed the camera at anyone, they hid.
Luckily the car was left untouched. Everybody in the whole town had something on display for sale in front of their house, but we never saw anyone buy anything… For a Central European a really powerful experience.
We wandered out of the Middle Ages back towards Morelia and after a while we came across a lake. We turned off towards the lake into an avenue of cacti, onto a road made of enormous boulders. I needed to go with the diarrhoea again, unfortunately I didn't quite manage it with one fart. Luckily the lake was close (at least I thought so…).
I carried the diarrhoea off into the bushes J, it was on a hill and in the middle of the act I see two locals waving at me from the valley while grazing their goats.
Then I photographed two flowering cacti the size of a full-grown cherry tree and we headed back to the main road, since according to a local old boy's advice this road doesn't lead to the water.
The next turn-off to the lake led through another medieval little town. Cows were grazing on the square, again heaps of kids lounging about everywhere, donkeys or horses grazing. Along a clay-puddle-stony dirt track we pushed our way down to the lake, followed by a gang of local hooligans on bikes.
Equipped with a towel, soap and spare underwear we got to the water. A thick growth of some sort of water lilies, brown muddy water and the curious looks of the local gawkers made us abandon the bathing plan. Martin just sprinkled the cacti in the bushes behind the car with another dose of mustard J
So we gave up on the lake, there was bilharzia in it anyway (for the uninitiated, bilharzia is a parasite that lives in the standing waters of southern countries, burrows into your vein, swims to your liver, breeds there and eats the liver from the inside. Practically incurable… L).
At the next gas station I washed my pants J and with a sponge and water from a bottle I cleaned my sweaty, chafed a…, I mean buttocks, rubbed raw from the endless diarrhoea.
Then we got a bit lost again, but in the end we found mountain road no. 15, which goes to Mexico City for free. Now we've been at a gas station for several hours, I spent about an hour trying to find the source of the annoying whistling in the car, which at every start warns us for about 20 secs about the unfastened seat belts and every time it stalls about the key left in the ignition, and which DRINKS MY BLOOD like crazy!!! After an hour I didn't manage to dig it out (it's pressed deep inside the dashboard), but I did successfully disconnect it. I'd already taken half the car apart because of it. Meanwhile Martin is finishing off the diary from the border crossing, me just the bits in black.
The whole time two girls from the gas station staff have been watching us with hawk-like curious eyes. They'd obviously like a chat, unfortunately they don't meet the basic language and weight criteria. Besides, we're both a bit shy (they more J).
Unfortunately it was only at about half twelve at night that I found out that the gas station also includes a pub. We decided to go for one anyway, but again we ran into the Mexican anti-alcohol law banning the sale of alcohol after half nine. She was only willing to sell us beer to take away, but what interested us more was the company inside. The crews of logging trucks gather there (we're pretty high in the mountains now and it's all sawmills here, the trees grow like in Bohemia, they raise cows, I just feel at home).
So we sat there over a Fanta and planned our next move.
Then we went to lie down, but we kept chatting away till gone two and had another good laugh.
Friday 20 August
Cd. Hidalgo - Mexico City
In the morning things somehow got away from us and we only left the gas station at half eleven. Sršáň, it seems, is running worse and worse. We've changed his plugs, had the timing adjusted, checked everything and still nothing. We just can't come to terms with the fact that a three-litre six-cylinder runs like a scooter on the local crap petrol. The last thing we came up with that could be the problem is a clogged catalytic converter. So let's gut it then. In the end we stopped in a village at a local workshop (see photo) and laboriously explained what needed doing. They wanted 80 smackers for it, so we haggled them down to 60, which is 240 CZK. While we were stuffing ourselves with tinned peaches, they deflowered our catalytic converter with a tyre lever right through, so it definitely can't be clogged any more. Of course, Sršáň doesn't go one bit better L.
We carried on towards Mexico City and somehow I felt like sleeping, so I crawled into the back. Before that we got stuck in a traffic jam, regulated by cops (posted about every 10 m along the whole length of the bottleneck) and that's where we started boiling over. Right in front of us a truck rammed into a bus, everybody started honking, steam was pouring out of our engine, cops were running up, just a solid mess.
So we fixed the non-working fan, got out of the jam and I went to sleep. I only woke up when Martin was asking cops on the outskirts of Mexico City about a cheap hotel. In the first one they wanted 160 PS, in the second 170 and in the third, pretty luxurious one, 240. We asked some more cops whether there could be anything cheaper. No.
So we went to the one for 160, it looked pretty shabby, but each room had its own garage. Unfortunately, full.
The next one was the one for 170, Hotel Arcos, that one's pretty luxurious, big bathroom - super clean and well equipped, big TV and generally up to standard. Even a spot for the car right in front of the windows. So we took it. The whole complex is closed off, guarded, each room is actually a little terraced house.
The first thing we discovered in the room was that the TV has two porn channels! We gawped like crows at that. One is soft, the other one pretty hard. I'd never in my life have believed anyone could show stuff like that on TV.
We did a proper load of laundry again, each of us showered for an hour, then we lounged around in bed, stared at the TV (guess at what J), wrote our diaries and ate.
Saturday 21 August
Mexico City
In the morning we decided to stay one more night, so we paid and set off into the city on foot. That turned out to be a good idea, because not only does everything run every few minutes, but on top of that the bus cost 5 PS for both of us and the metro, any ride you like (9 lines), only 3 PS for both of us!
We didn't really know where to go, we just wanted to find the Internet and find out something about Cuba.
We went to the Pino Suárez station, where, when they were digging it, they hit a Mayan pyramid, which can now be seen there.
From there we set off on foot to the Zona Rosa area, which is a sort of cultural-shopping green centre with lots of little pubs and shops.
We were hungry again, first we rejected Pizza Hut for 60 PS, and then we went into some Mexican Tacos something. On the menu they had dishes for around 15 smackers, so we thought we'd have something. They brought me something I hadn't ordered, so I sent it back. They charged us for it anyway, I complained and in the end we paid for it anyway. Swines.
As for the food, it was two little flatbreads with cheese and bits of chicken in between, about the size of a pancake. But with it came five bowls of hot sauces in three colours, onion and tomato salad. Altogether for 73 PS!L
Then we did the rounds of a few travel agencies and found out the options for Cuba. The cheapest ticket is a return for $292 per person and by the looks of it, no boats are running. What's cheering is a ticket to Los Angeles for about $250, which would save us the slog back through the whole of Mexico, plus we'd save time and probably money too. The only problem is that at the border we signed that we'd come back with the car, otherwise a terrible fine. Our car is worth more than double here than in the USA, and we bought it in the USA for 1/3 of the price. The thing is, no Mexican is allowed to drive an American car, which is a problem. But we can definitely rely on the local corruption.
Finally, after consulting in a luxury hotel (the only place where anybody was able to hold a reasonable conversation in English) we found an internet café, this time for 39 PS/hour. We occupied 2 computers there for an hour, then Martin left the map behind and we had to go back for it. Martin still feels pretty rough, he diagnosed himself with tonsillitis and started on antibiotics. So we got on the metro and headed for the hotel. We rode past our station, which cost us a horrendous 6 CZK extra. Then we queued in an awful line for the bus and it took us almost to the hotel. In the queue we were drooling terribly over the whole roasted little fish they fry there, but we had no money left.
On the way from the bus it was pouring again, but I've got umbrellas.
In the evening we ate the last of our food supplies and then just loafed around.
Sunday 22 Aug – Mexico City
Since morning we've been stuck in the hotel for two reasons. Martin is treating himself and we have no money. The banks are closed and the remaining dollars in cash we're saving for Cuba. Withdrawing from an ATM is expensive and pointless when we have loads of money in cheques ($).
It's one o'clock now and we're getting ready to drive to a supermarket (we haven't seen one around here) and buy food, try to pay by cheque or card. On top of that we have nothing to pay the hotel with, hopefully they take cards…
They don't take cards, hopefully we'll find a supermarket that takes cheques and gives us change in pesos…
We hunted for the supermarket for more than an hour, wandering along the slip road to Toluca and around it, nobody was able to help us. In the end we found an ideal giant hypermarket, URRERA, and as we were terribly hungry we bought a terrible load of grub for 200 PS. Just as we wanted to get out, a crazy downpour with hail started, which seems to be the rule at this hour in Mexico City. A jam formed behind the tills, but we had to shove our way through the till, otherwise we'd have keeled over with hunger. Of course they didn't take the cheque, we paid by card.
Right behind the tills we wolfed down a filled baguette, it was probably the best one I've ever eaten. Crocodille isn't even in the same league, no comparison. They just didn't have to stuff those boiled beans in it…
When the rain eased off a bit, we withdrew 300 PS from the ATM so we'd have the 160 PS for the hotel plus a reserve.
Then we just walked in that drizzle with about ten bags full of grub to the car, cleverly parked a kilometre away.
At the hotel we unpacked everything, but no further feast took place. That baguette with everything imaginable in it (mainly beans) hit me on an empty stomach so hard that I fell asleep. Of course to the sound of the smut on TV, as belongs to the local colour.
I came round about 9, had a proper shower, a second heavy-calibre baguette (I didn't enjoy it at all any more) and wrote about 10 pages of the diary and 8 A4 pages of a letter. Then I switched off the smut and after a lot of tossing and turning fell asleep.
Monday 23 Aug – Mexico City – Tultitlán
In the morning we got up at half eight and started packing hard. We left the car in front of the hotel and set off into the city to sort out 1. plane tickets 2. visas 3. presents 4. letters etc.
We took the metro somewhere into the centre and after a solid march found the Czech embassy. The consul only talked to us standing in the foyer, but she called some steward for us who supposedly would know more about our problems. He knew bugger all, but he tried. He rang a few people and so on. We wanted to know how to legally leave a car temporarily imported from the USA (Sršáň) in Mexico so that we could fly back. We didn't learn anything more than we already knew. Only that we don't need visas for Guatemala. The best thing will be to sell the car in Guatemala, come back by bus and that's it. Or sell it here and then report to the cops that it was stolen… Stupid, eh? L
Then we set off to wander round the centre a bit, I needed to buy a silk nightie, which turned out to be a terrible problem. So at least I bought a silver ring.
Plus we were looking for the main post office, because Martin should have a letter there at Poste Restante. Following directions we found, with great difficulty, some grubby post office, but it wasn't the right one. That one is half a city away. At least I sent my letter for 8.60 PS. Then we decided to split up, Martin would go looking for the right post office and I would go and buy the tickets from Jorge at the travel agency on Reforma Ave (BTW, one of the main streets here is called Avenida Presidente Masaryk!!)
A Mexican woman gave us directions, she offered on her own and above all she spoke excellent English! A miracle… She also told me I'd get the nightie somewhere in the Suburbia mall, which is just near our hotel.
So on the way to the travel agency I first got hassled by a Mexican who claimed he was a boxer, that he was going to LA to box and needed to practise his English. That he'd show me the way and so on. In the end he turned out to be a shoe shiner dragging me off to his little cart… Unfortunately he took me back about 300 m from my direction, which in my knackered state was a serious matter J
Then I stopped at American Express, which was supposed to be an oasis of civilisation and English. Bugger all. They didn't speak English and wanted to change my cheques only into pesos and I needed dollars for the tickets.
In the end I got to Jorge at the travel agency and finally sat down. For over two hours we discussed what to do with us, what tickets and for how much, what to do with the car and so on.
In the end he got the cheapest tickets ever, to Cuba and back with Cubana Air for $332 and a connecting flight to Los Angeles for $210. First he went with me to the bank to change the cheques, but that one only takes cheques until 15:00, for some Mexican reason, and it was 15:15 L
We went back to the travel agency and Jorge found out from his boss that he could accept those cheques himself. I paid for Cuba with cheques (they even gave me change in dollars) and for LA by card. Then I wanted to book tickets from LA home as well, but I didn't have the tickets from Prague with me.
A knackered Martin came back, Jorge invited us to join him for Tacos, but we preferred to say goodbye and had KFC. Then we rushed back to the hotel to the car for the tickets so we could book the flight home, plus the tickets to Cuba were only due to be issued at 19:00. BTW – Martin did find that post office in the end, but there was bugger all there for him (for me too) and on top of that he nearly got into a fight with them because they wouldn't sell him an envelope. They sell them, according to some mysterious Mexican rule, in front of the post office and not at the post office J.
So we drove to the car, Martin grabbed the tickets and headed back, while I said I'd have one more go at that nightie.
I drove to the mall and pulled into the guarded car park. (a seemingly unimportant sentence…)
In Suburbia they had squat, and hellishly expensive at that, so I wanted to clear out of the paid car park. I drove up to the barrier and lo, the first three hours of parking cost 1 PS! Good news! The worse news was that I didn't have even 1/100 PS on me! I patted my pockets for a while and then handed him a dollar. He was surprised, but took it. I expected him to give me 8 PS back, as is usual, but nothing. I argued with him for a bit, then took the dollar back and waited to see what he'd do. Behind me a queue of 10 furiously honking cars, in front of me a raised barrier. I expected him to wave me through, but instead he waved at the assistant cop (there are as many of them around here as telegraph poles) and he shooed those ten honking cars a few metres back. Then he waved at me to reverse and go and get change, which I did in amazement.
In the end I found 2 PS in the glovebox in the car, but since I was already inside, I wanted to try my luck in the hypermarket in the rags department. There I finally found something that vaguely resembled what I'd been hunting for all day and decided to buy it. Oh well…
Of course, as usual, it started to rain, hail hammering on the tin roof so that you couldn't hear your own words in the hangar. I paid and in a moment of ceasefire ran to the car. I wrote an accompanying letter and put everything in an envelope. During that quarter of an hour it got totally dark! Here in the tropics it happens in a flash.
It was still pissing down, misted windows and black foil all around made it impossible to see out. I drove onto the motorway blind and got to the front of the hotel, where I was meeting Martin. I wrote the diary and Martin turned up with the tickets, including the ones home. Thank God. The poor guy was all splattered and hungry from it, so we immediately finished off the week-old pâté. According to one of the theories George of Poděbrady died of poisoning from spoiled pâté… Truly a royal death.
The next plan is to drive to the Mayan pyramids north-east of Mexico City. We have to thread our way through the city somehow, which is a problem even in the daytime. On top of that we mustn't drive until 22:00, because every day 20 % of the cars are banned from driving and today we're the unlucky ones (plate ending 5 and 6 L).
So we're waiting for the thunder and writing our diaries. I have to go and see if it has thundered yet. There was loads of lightning, as there is in Mexico every evening…
Getting lost through Mexico City and stumbling our way to the pyramids was a job for a murderer. It was supposed to be 46 km, we did 72 mi.!!
We asked about 50 people, and when we finally found the right road once, it was closed. Dark, rain, fog and above all terrible speed bumps on the road, mostly enough to stop you and unmarked. One of the advisers spoke decent English, drew us a map and so saved us a bit of the way. Once we asked the cops, they knew about as much English as we know Spanish, so they chose the path of least resistance. They simply got into the car and drove with us about 10 km through a tangle of streets and roads until they guided us onto the right road.
We kipped at one of the petrol stations, they're guarded by a cop with a rifle, decently lit and with a toilet and water.
The cop came to check on us with an uncertain step, firmly clutching an enormous rifle, and when he found out we were two lads who wanted to sleep here, he calmed down. He probably wasn't too calm at first, approaching a mysterious car (at one in the morning) that you absolutely can't see into through the window foil…
We slept great, temperature about 18 0C, normal humidity, no mosquitoes or other insects present.
Tuesday 24 Aug – Tultitlán – Teotihuacán – Popocatépetl (almost)
In the morning Martin had a chat with the cop, found out that the post office is 10 km to the left and we set off to the right. In daylight we found the right turn-off more easily, at night we'd overshot it by about 3 km.
We needed to change a cheque into pesos and send a present at the post office. We came across a bank in the first village, the runaround was a bit longer this time.
The post office, or some office which apparently serves as a marriage bureau, funeral parlour, telephone company and also a post office, we found in the next village. It was at least 10 km long and along the main road there stretched the whole way an endless row of car parts shops, scrapyards, tyre places and garages, both for cars and above all for lorries. Unbelievable.
Around the post office there was also a school with a big yard with hundreds of children in black uniforms racing around it and a smaller kindergarten with children in red uniforms.
Then we found the pyramids at Teotihuacán. This little map was originally an ad for one of the local pubs.
There were 28 of them there in a row one after another, this one was number 25.
For entry to car park no. 5 and at the same time entry to the whole little town we paid 50 PS for both of us. Discounts they had only for Mexican students, the mangy gits.
First we climbed the Pyramid of the Sun (del Sol), accompanied only by a handful of Americans. Luckily there are no crowds here like in Yosemite. At the top we had to get our breath back properly (the pyramid is 64 m high) and then we enjoyed the view of the whole of Teotihuacán. The city was founded around 700 BC, around 100 BC it had about 200,000 inhabitants and was one of the biggest on the globe at that time. Bigger than Rome. It consists of the Pyramid of the Sun, the Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl (well, what's left of it). Everything is connected by the Avenue of the Dead.
It was built by the Teotihuacán civilisation, the Aztecs moved in later. The city died out, nobody knows why, around 600 BC. The Pyramid of the Sun is built from about a million m3 of material, the inside of none of the pyramids is accessible.
We spent the whole day clambering around the pyramids and enjoyed it a lot. In the end we gave in to the charms of the ubiquitous vendors (ratio to tourists 1:1) offering all sorts of Mayan imitations and bought: Martin a turtle made of a mineral called obsidian and then me a ball made of the same stuff. It was sold to me by a granny with one foot in the grave, so we almost burst into tears over her. But after a long fight she came down from 100 PS to 75.
By the time we dragged ourselves back to the car, the regular evening downpour started, so we ate in the car (first of all we drank, we were completely dried out from the sun) and set off towards Popocatepetl.
The guidebook says that the climb up to the crater of Popocatepetl (5531 m a.s.l.) can be managed by a moderately experienced hiker in two days, which is our plan. A few people have already told us the mountain is closed because the volcano is waking up, but hopefully it won't be that hot (literally).
So once again, in the dark, fog and heavy rain, we set off along a narrow little road towards Tlamacas, which is the last settlement before the ascent of Popocatepetl. Unfortunately, after an endless climb up a narrow twisting road, we reached a crossroads where the way to Popocatepetl was blocked by nothing but high barricades covered with warnings about volcanic activity.
So we headed towards the other volcano, Iztaccihnatl, 5286 m a.s.l., planning to sleep below it in the village and find out in the morning how things stood.
Unfortunately, this turn-off is just a rough dirt track, full of potholes, roots and stones. The car doesn't shine more than it shines (after an unsuccessful attempt to adjust the headlights L), it's raining, fog, dark. After about 5 km of suffering we scrambled up to a terrible altitude, where there's nothing but a fenced building, a guard hut and a lighthouse. Outside it's proper dog weather, we parked in the yard right under the lighthouse. Luckily it's late enough that nobody noticed us. In the morning I have to find out how high up and where exactly we are.
Iztaccihnatl – Veracruz
In the light of the latest events (today is Sunday 29 August), Wednesday's and Thursday's events seem like trifles to me (given what came after), but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
So that morning under the Lighthouse, right next to the volcano, at an altitude of probably over 4000 m, in a storm and a gale, turned out to be the worst thing on this whole trip. I was glad I survived it at all. I have no idea why, but when it started to get light, I suddenly felt horribly sick. I was freezing until my bones cracked, I wanted to puke and crap and piss all at the same time, breathing was hard, and outside it was still raining. In the end I got dressed, dug out the umbrella (everything was in the compartment under the floor beneath our heads, so I had to wake Martin up L) and went outside. The car was standing right at the foot of the lighthouse, on a closed, fenced concrete patch in front of some garages. Still not a soul anywhere (only a lunatic would stick his nose out in cold like that)´. In the naive hope that if I took a crap I'd stop myself from puking, I picked out the least unsuitable spot. Then I went to a different spot to puke L.
My head hurt like hell and the cold was unbearable. The idea that for the last three weeks I'd been suffering from infernal heat was just as absurd as yesterday's rock-solid decision to climb the active Popocatepetl or Izztacihnatl.
I tried to heat the place up with the engine, but without much effect. I crawled back into the sleeping bag, then puked out of the window again and finally fell asleep.
Martin woke me up saying he felt a bit rough too (he had tonsillitis) and that we were going down then. He clearly didn't share my enthusiasm for conquering a five-thousander and my indisposition suited him quite nicely. I naively assumed he'd only drive down to the junction with the closed road to Popocatepetl, where we'd wait for my stomach to settle and then walk at least as far as the foot of the volcano. No such luck, I came round only on the main road down below the hill, heading for Puebla.
In Puebla we did our shopping in another hypermarket, around which about 20 parking attendants were scurrying about in the car park, and then another 5 soldiers with rifles turned up and positioned themselves at the exits.
Even though it was one o'clock and I'd slept the whole way, I still felt horribly rough. I wandered round the shop like a zombie and then I had to go and quickly find a toilet. After the shopping we drove into the centre and set off to have a look around. We were convinced we were on the main historic square, some kind of election campaign was going on there just then.
We asked about the internet, they sent us towards the historic centre! We never got there, on the way to the internet café I just photographed a gorgeous policewoman and a double Beetle – a cop Beetle and a taxi Beetle.
In the café, while reading 11 emails, first the nausea passed and immediately afterwards I was struck down by insane hunger, my hands were shaking.
They're not shaking now, I'm just writing the diary on the road in front of the border into Guatemala.
So, fortified by the feeling of contact with home (the internet) and a fresh roll with salami, we left Puebla, heading for Veracruz, where there should again be some Indians.
We decided to take a rest from cows, kids on bikes, dead dogs and above all speed bumps, so we'd take the toll motorway. After 100 km and 400 CZK paid we give up and spend the rest of the day getting lost (as usual) and in the dark looking for badly signed and unsigned side roads.
Around midnight I drive into Veracruz, Martin didn't feel like driving any more, so my last leg was 226 miles long. We're rewarded with two solid records. This morning we started at an altitude of about 4000 m and just before midnight we touched sea level! We also have our lowest fuel consumption of the whole trip (about 8.5 l/100 km).
The second record is also connected with the sea, it's the shortest time between two touches of the Pacific Ocean – 12 days.
We sleep at a petrol station, next to some little park.
Thursday 26 August
Veracruz – the ruins of Quiahutitlán
In the morning the shack next to the Hornet turned out to be a popular refreshment stand and the little park a busy street. When two blokes started crawling out of the blacked-out car at half nine, the people around the stand stared quite a bit J
We needed to find a bank and we wanted to have a look at the town. Unfortunately, in the centre Martin ignored a compulsory turn direction and since the place is crawling with cops, one of them nabbed us straight away. He took Martin's licence and disappeared. After a while he came back rattling on about huge trouble, the sheriff and prison, which he indicated with crossed fingers. In the end he cheekily crammed himself into our car (we don't have seats in the back!) and said we were driving to the station. We went round the square, stopped there and the haggling started like at a market. He wanted 100$, which he proved with some book. In the end we bargained him down to 27$, which still pisses you off !!!
It was already too hot for a tour of the centre, so we just changed a cheque at American Express and loaded ourselves into the sea. It was dirty and warm, but still better than the air. At least there were no people there. (When we drive through here again on Sunday, the beach will be packed!).
We lasted an hour in the water again, Martin invented a new game, making a whirlpool with your legs which in a few minutes digs a hole over half a metre deep into the sand! (under water). The beach had no freshwater shower, so we set about finding a hotel one, with a shower. We did find it, only the beach was considerably dirtier and not even the Ropáci would bathe in that water.
At least we had a shower and cleared off (On the beach in front of the hotel a bunch of guys were packing up a hot-air balloon!)
In the guidebook I found a lake near the little town of Anton Lizardo, it was supposed to be a beautiful lagoon, so we set off there. We missed the turning and drove all the way to A. Lizardo, which is a small seaside town at the end of the road (it doesn't go any further), where there's a naval garrison.
On the way back we found the lake, it was a dirty, stinking green-brown swamp where the locals catch fish in nets. They tried to catch us with waving tea towels, into their pubs or onto a boat, in vain. And I tried to catch the local kids in my lens, they were shy. Then one more fisherman weaving a net and we drove off.
We headed north of Veracruz to the ruins of Indian towns, we drove past Zempoyala and only stopped at Quiahutitlán.
First we saw a rather interestingly shaped mountain from a distance, so we decided we'd climb it, seeing as Popocatepetl hadn't worked out. Then it turned out that the Indian ruins were on that mountain, so we turned off there. We drove about 3 km up a BPDT (badly passable dirt track) uphill, met loads of cows, bulls (not oxen, real bulls, they had everything!!), goats and other critters (also a family of native herders in a shack) and drove all the way up the hill to those ruins. There was one guard-guide there, he wanted 12 PS a head for admission, but since we were students he gave it back to us. Then he gave us a nice tour of those pitiful remains of pyramids and stone mini-tombs and tried to tell us something in English-hand-gesture-Spanish. The pyramids were the remains of a town of 15,000 Indians, a gorgeous view of the bay with a peninsula and an island, cliffs, the blue sea and above the town a sharp rock with an eagle's nest.
When we'd had a good look at the pyramids and at a lizard about 35 cm long (it hid from the camera L), we asked whether you could climb that rock. He said yeah, but not until tomorrow, because he was closing for today. So we explained to him that we didn't have time and that we'd climb up there today, after they closed. I don't think he got it.
We drove the car back down, dressed (mainly shod) ourselves in mountaineering gear and set off. Actually, rubbish, first we went for a swim on the fishermen's beach right by the village below the hill. One young fisherman came to chat with us in English, saying it was fine for swimming there.
Then we splashed about for a while again in clean sea, we toyed a bit with the idea of swimming out to the island, but the tide and the waves were rough.
So, having had our swim, we put on our boots, arranged parking with some locals, ignored one local cripple-beggar and explained to some other locals that we weren't going up to that Indian rock, which is fenced off and closed for today, but just for a walk along the road. So because of them we had to walk a stretch along the road, then climb over a ditch, a barbed-wire fence, a swamp and a plain full of thistles, two more fences and an animal mud wallow.
In the end we finally clawed our way back onto the path, sweating like horses, eaten alive by flies and thistles (one particularly poisonous one partly paralysed the tendon on my ankle L). Some bugs, they looked like green seeds, latched onto the skin on my legs. When I wanted to brush them off, they came away with the skin, blood spurting.
With terrible losses of sweat we clawed our way up to the Indians below the rock and the lizard was hiding again. Martin pushed for the route to the top on the right up the steps, so we set off that way. I in turn pushed for the route through the bushes on the left, which we came back to when the steps turned out to be a dead end. We crawled into the bushes, which later turned into pure jungle, including lianas, palms, gigantic spiders and fluttering bats. On top of that it was dark in there and a bat shat on Martin. After a while of suffering, the path trodden through the jungle led us back to the dead-end steps.
That was too much. We went back to the lower pyramids, got our breath back and I took a few photos.
So we set off back down, it was already starting to get dark and there were more cows and bulls on the path. Bushes on the left, bushes and a drop on the right and in front of us several unpredictable cattle. Luckily we probably didn't look edible enough. (Thanks for that coinage, Mr Neff J).
Worse was that as we were closing the first barbed-wire gate on the path behind us, it turned out that a sharp Mexican was following us at a sharp pace! When you climb over 3 fences somewhere and ignore the warnings of four people that it's closed, you definitely don't think someone's following you to ask what time it is. Round the first bend we accelerated from a discreet sprint into a headlong bolt. When we came panting down to the bottom, it turned out that another four Mexicans were waiting at the lower gate. Legging it across the field was now beneath our dignity, so we headed straight for a direct encounter. We said hello, so did they, and that was that. And there we'd been afraid they'd already called the cops on us. Meanwhile the Mexican behind us caught up, so we'd rather speed up again, jumped into the car and simply, rudely, drove off.
In the first village after about 5 km we turned off towards the sea, thinking we'd have another swim and kip on the beach. There was a barrier in the village, they didn't want to let us through and sent us round on the ŠSPC. Later it turned out it's a guarded little town built for the foreign employees of the nearby one and only Mexican nuclear power plant.
So we got down to the sea, it was already dark and a few nutters were running around the beach with torches looking for something. I went to have a look at what — I think I flushed a pair of lovers out of one of the reed shelters. It turned out the nutters are gourmets who, thanks to tonight's full moon, are collecting the crabs that have crawled out!!
I've never in my life seen such huge beasties and once we saw with what respect the locals hunt them, the urge to go swimming vanished pretty quick (plus all that salt in the sleeping bag.. L).
Instead we got the urge for hunting without weapons. I took loads of photos of those beasties in the water and on land and we tried fighting them with a crayon.
In the end we helped one local catch a few of them, which turned out to be the key moment of the next few days.
The local (about 55) introduced us to his son and his girl mate (28, 32), who weren't just terribly cheerful, but above all dead keen on making friends!
We gathered round the cars, there was a whole family of them (about 10 people), they pulled out sandwiches, drinks, put on some music and we started dancing. I ran around it all with the camera and the mood was excellent.
The young guy's called Genaro, he's a village teacher, his mate is Judy, she was the most cheerful one, giggling the whole time, the best dancer, and she even dragged Martin and me into some kind of jive dance or whatever.
Genaro speaks a tiny bit of English (about as much as we speak Spanish), then there was also Juan, he's a bit better.
The result of this little party (over 2 hours) was an invitation for those crabs at their place tomorrow, in the village of Los Idolos about 50 km from here. They kept checking whether we'd really come, as if they didn't know that when there's grub involved, we're never missing! J-
After a long goodbye the old folks left first, then we sat on the tarmac with the young ones and they drove off too (a new Corsa with excellent music inside (CD)).
Once the young ones had gone as well, we set out crab hunting, thinking we'd bring them some as a gift along with wine. For half an hour we combed the shore with a torch and found one grey giant and two small red ones. A pretty pathetic catch, but they'd already crawled away.
When we got back to the car, another friendship-hungry Mexican was already waiting there. They're really great, the way they start chatting with us straight away. This one spoke relatively good English, he invited us for a drink with his gang (family) and told us how he's a cook, he'd been in the USA, he's off to work in Italy, he's ISO 9001 certified, how Mexicans have no self-confidence and blindly admire the USA (he was wearing a Quick Silver shell suit and Nike shoes) and generally whinged about everything.
His monologue was only interrupted by the rain, we gave him our three … and crawled into Sršán. They jumped into an old Beetle and buzzed off too.
Friday 27 August
Cempoyala – Los Idolos
In the morning we wallowed in the sea and then had breakfast under coconut palms. Loads of holes 2–3 cm across were left in the beach, with mini-crabs scuttling down into them. Their giant mates were down there too.
We got rid of the salt with water from the jerrycans and set off towards more Indian ruins. They're called Zempoala on the map, Cempoala in reality. This time we didn't manage to talk down the entrance fee, the discount is only for Mexican students. On the other hand they let us drive the car right in among the pyramids (there was nowhere else to park).
We walked around among the pyramids on our own, they were considerably bigger and better preserved than the previous ones, but again noticeably smaller than Teotihuacan. After a while some local caught us sitting in the shade behind a pyramid playing choo-choo train on the walls and dragged us off to more hidden pyramids. He told us something about the paintings on the walls and then, hidden under a tree away from everyone, unwrapped his finds from a plastic bag, which he supposedly dug up in a field. They were clay figurines, probably pretty genuine. But we're suspicious types, so we didn't buy anything for 30 PS.
We also had a walk along the water channel running past (aaaah, the bliss of having your feet in cold water… J) and off we go towards Los Idolos, the vision of a crab feast before our hungry eyes.
On the way we just bought wine (as it turned out, „wine\" in Mexico means spirits). Using the sketch we easily found the teacher's house, they were sitting on the veranda in rocking chairs and cheered like mad that they could see us. They dragged us inside straight away, all thrilled, and in a moment food was served. Those beasties that were running around the beach yesterday and wanted to bite us were already on the table done a hundred ways. We got one giant whole in the soup, the others had their claws torn off on a dish with chilli and so on. The meat's excellent, especially the stuff from the claws (one is always considerably bigger), but digging it out of that chalky shell is a real labour. We got a little board and a stone hammer for it, Martin even cut himself.
After two hours of digging and agony we were sweaty and more full of the flatbreads that came with it than of the crab meat. But it was a delicacy.
After the meal we went for a walk down to the river, mainly so they could show us off to the locals I think J. We really are a massive attraction here, we greet everyone and everyone wants to get to know us. Los Idolos is a village of about 2000 inhabitants, completely off the tourist track, so you definitely won't bump into a white person here.
Low brick shacks, banana palms, donkeys, horses, trucks, sombreros, dirty kids running about, in almost every shack along the main road (full of speed bumps) something's being sold, dust and mud, meat in the butcher's hanging on a hook in the sun all day, tomatoes practically running already, and on top of it all the omnipresent adverts for Coca Cola and the Mexican beer Corona. I can't think of a single thing that would make this village different from a similar one in Libya, except maybe the language.
We sat by the river and chatted (me, Martin, Genaro and Juan (17?), we were waiting for Judy.
(at lunch there were both of the old folks, Genaro, Juan and on top of that Šáry, apparently Genaro's sister, terribly prim, maybe a bit dim, relatively pretty).
When they found out we liked the river (above the river they were riding a hand cart on a cable and measuring the depth) we drove off to see another one, with waterfalls too. We piled into the old folks' car (an about 20-year-old Chrysler), Judy and Genaro in the front, us and Juan in the back, and off we went. Surprisingly it was over 50 km to the waterfalls, on the way we stopped at some mates' place and got some petrol.
It was raining at the waterfalls, so I couldn't even photograph them. We climbed down to them along the riverbed after the rain and I waded about above the falls. They were pretty regulated, all concrete, but they fell into a lagoon from about 270° all the way round, so it looked nice.
We got to the next waterfall along an insanely washed-out ŠSPC, we nearly ripped the axles off. I suggested walking, but Genaro is about 100 kg and 175 cm, so he was sweating even just from driving. BTW, with my 195 cm I'm a right giraffe here, the average Mexican is 160 cm and everything here is built for that too. On the bus I practically had to kneel, and I duck under doorways rather than walk through them. Martin isn't much better off. So Genaro is the exception.
To get to the next waterfall we walked through a plantation of something or other, but banana trees, mandarins, oranges, coffee and loads of unknown fruits and other beasties were growing there too. Everything that could be peeled we tasted.
That plantation of something was covered with a net of wires, again at a height of 160 cm, so more suffering.
At the muddy waterfall a terrible argument broke out about how tall it was. Martin claimed 40 m, I said 7 m. He wasn't even swayed by my argument that a 7-storey block of flats is 18 m! In the end the locals agreed with certainty that the waterfall is 8 m.
On the way back we stopped in Oktopan again, this time for ice cream on the square. With great effort we explained to them that ice cream would fatally clean out our intestines and had, me a yoghurt, Martin a Coke.
The little squares of all the towns and villages in the whole of Mexico are practically the same, this one too had a concrete space in the middle with a bench around it, so there'd be somewhere to hold festivals, dances and courting.
Today of all days one traditional festival is being held here, the handing over of the crown between the three oldest old girls to some other old girls. It started with a parade of drumming kids, then an awkward half-hour of standing around, then speeches and a bunch of old girls had a sing.
Luckily we weren't the only ones bored by it, Genaro and co. were too, so at about half eight we drove back to Los Idolos.
We nattered away on the doorstep until night with loads of neighbours and relatives who took turns there, and before midnight we drove off with Genaro to the next village for dinner. It was one of those shelters in front of one of the shacks, of which there are loads here, and there on a grill with a pan an old girl and two daughters were frying some kind of flatbreads.
We tried 4 different kinds and voted the first one the best, so we ordered another five of those each. It's called Gordítas, it's a sort of flatbread (tastes like our potato pancake off the stove) filled with a mix of meat, vegetables, excellent (probably sheep's) cheese with some white liquid and the whole thing is terribly good! The best food in Mexico full stop. Genaro wouldn't even hear of us paying for it. It cost 58 PS for everyone (about 200 CZK).
For the night he took us to a neighbour of his, to a little lean-to house (1 room) in the jungle in the garden, unplastered bricks, a curtain instead of a window, corrugated iron roof, beaten earth floor, but a bed, complete with mosquito protection! They were terribly surprised that we were willing to sleep in one double bed.
It was hot in there, but without the accompaniment of a mosquito band we slept great. At Genaro's we of course had a shower.
Saturday 28 August
Los Idolos
We went back to the Genaros' for breakfast and it was worth it.
Several courses, gordítas (because we liked them yesterday!) fresh off the stove, coffee with milk and other goodies (bread with jam, now I remember J).
After breakfast they put the satellite on for us and let us choose the programmes. They've got some advanced satellite that always shows what film it is, the times, the language and so on. Even so we weren't that entertained, which they noticed after a while and immediately started thinking up a new programme. The whole time we've been here they've been touchingly trying to make sure we're not bored for a second, and they're doing a super job of it. Because we're hugely enjoying Mexican life from the inside, with everything that goes with it. We wash in their dirty bathroom with a pipe sticking out of the wall, we do our laundry on their concrete washboard, we pour water into the ditch running through the house, we eat their excellent food with them, we live through their traditional festivals, it's just beautiful.
So instead of the satellite we set off on foot up the hill behind the village, across a cane field, past gypsy shacks and banana palms. Genaro stayed at the bottom of the hill, we waded through the mud with Juan all the way up the hill to the little chapel and the chrome cross.
Meanwhile Genaro arranged with the gypsy women for them to bring us a whole bunch of bananas (complete with a disgusting spider) and they tore off a piece of it for us. They were the shorter, straighter and thicker sort of bananas, pretty good. Probably crossed with a yellow melon.
BTW, yesterday Judy ran into a tarantula somewhere in the house. But otherwise they supposedly don't exist here at all J.
After coming back from the hill we started doing the laundry. The women couldn't get their heads round the fact that we wanted to do it ourselves. I hope it didn't offend them, we just didn't want to take advantage of them. So we chucked our rags into some kind of laundry mixer, which has to be switched on with a stick because it gives you a terrible shock, and poured in some of the powder we carry with us, „For your tripJ\"
After a while Šáry turned it off for us, so we carried on by hand on the washboard. It's a sort of concrete tub, half covered, and the lid has grooves carved into it like a washboard.
While we were doing the laundry the whole family got dressed up to the nines (including Šáry, who up till then had looked like a maid) and got ready to go with us to the fifteenth birthday party of their friend in Santa Rosa.
We got ourselves done up too, white trousers, Martin a shirt, and we quickly hung up the laundry.
It's about 30 km to Santa Rosa, then we forded a swollen river spilled right across the road (max. 30 cm J), drove through a maze of muddy, soggy ŠSPCs and arrived at the place of the celebration.
Again the only concreted patch, this time out beyond the village. We parked nicely in the mud and waded across to the concrete. A birthday party (15th) on a slightly bigger scale than I'd expected. A square 60 x 60 m, chairs for about 300 people, a PA with 60 speakers like for U2, and the whole village and the surroundings were gathering.
At the head of the square a table for the birthday girl and the choir, a cake 1 x 2 metres with a bridge for the candles, excellent food for everybody there (meat and gnocchi-like dough wrapped in a banana leaf, baked, excellent!, tortillas, Coke, brandy, ice).
Before the party really got going, we set off with the choir, wading over to the local shop (an airy garage J) for a present. One from all of us.
Unfortunately, at the party our white skin, 2 metres of height, sandals and the camera made us the centre of attention. Everybody greeted us cheerfully and thought (like everywhere) that we were Yanks. We patiently explain to everyone that we're students from Europe. That blows their minds and makes us even more attractive. And mainly, I hope, more likeable.
The celebration officially started at 13:00, we arrived around two and at about six things started happening!!!
The dance floor emptied and the birthday girl stepped out in a ceremonial long white dress, a little crown in her hair, nicely made up and with her hair done. Around her four young men her age, in black ornate uniforms with little swords.
A digression – not long ago we praised the Mexicans for keeping their culture and not letting themselves be influenced by the West. On the radio, for instance, you almost never hear an English song! Except on Thursday the cook on the beach with his simile that Mexicans are like rabbits waiting behind the fence to get into the USA, and now another blow.
The birthday girl Yolanda and her four cavaliers took up their positions and out of the giant PA blasted – Whitney Houston! A completely traditional celebration in traditional clothes with traditional food, only with Whitney on top of it.
Anyway, a beautifully choreographed dance began, symbolising how a girl becomes a woman, how the young men court and protect her and so on.
It definitely went on for fifteen minutes, three different songs and a whole roll of film in my camera. I'm curious about all fourteen rolls I've shot so far, but about this one especially.
After this dance for the audience there was still a solo dance for Yolanda. The ladies formed a circle around her and the gentlemen, in a set order, and several ladies too, each had a dance with the birthday girl.
The free dancing started right afterwards. From the very beginning we'd been eyeing up the local beauties with a hungry, expert eye, so the choice had already been made. Martin pulled Šáryna out to dance and I dragged out of a circle of dancing girlfriends one local slim black-haired (how else) beauty in a light pink mini dress, whom I'd already contacted several times with a look and a smile. She was smaller and considerably younger than I'd thought, but during about 20 minutes of dancing we kept up a lively conversation. I N S P A N I S H !! Apparently she goes to secondary school and so on.
Everywhere in Mexico they dance one and the same dance, it's a sort of simplified version of jive. I got quite good at it afterwards..
When we got back to the table we were absolutely, totally soaked in sweat. It was almost dark by then, so people didn't have to hide in the shade along the walls anymore, but it was still hot and above all stuffy and humid. We were drinking a mix of President brandy, soda and Coke, which one nice Mexican – one of the organisers – kept coming over to top up for us.
So that topper-upper once came to have a toast with us and explained to us, with his wallet in his hand, that they don't take dollars here, only pesos. We immediately explained to him that we don't have any dollars, that we're Czech students!
We thought he was Yolanda's father, later it turned out he wasn't.
I needed to go and drain off somewhere, so I walked off the concrete and headed for the palms. My giraffe figure gave me away even in the dark though, so in a flash I was surrounded by chatty Mexicans.
About three of them spoke English, so there was someone to talk to. Everyone in Mexico who speaks English has worked in the USA. These guys as well. The oldest one spoke the most and he turned out to be Yolanda's father. When I said that Yolanda was beautiful, all his laughter vanished and he went red, so much that the others laughed at him. He worked in the USA for nine years, that's probably why he has the money for a party like this. Genaro did claim that every girl (not boys) gets a 15th birthday party like this, but 1) where would everyone get the money for it 2) with the number of kids in Mexico there'd have to be a party like this every other day at least J
Another one of the bunch was a kid of 19 who claimed he'd worked in the USA for 3 years!! That's what I call a childhood L.
I had to tear myself away from the friendly chat and run off among the palms and just then Juan came. Did I want to go home, he says! Of course, all fired up in the middle of a party, I don't want to go home! So Juan tactfully explained to me that the old lady wants to go home, because the old man is coming back from work and so the whole family wants to go home.
We tried to talk somebody into staying there with us, but nothing. So of course we went with them. They wouldn't all have squeezed into one car anyway.
Before midnight we went for gorditas again, this time not to the gypsy women in the next village, but on foot to Los Idolos just past the church. They were excellent again and Genaro again wouldn't hear of us paying. Now I also remember, when we were driving to the party, he rode with us in the car. I wanted to let him sit in the front, but he fought it like a lion, it looked like he'd rather walk than let me sit in the back! Given how religious everyone is here (a holy picture even as a sticker on the windscreen, inscriptions on truck bumpers etc.), they treat us according to the motto \"A guest in the house, God in the house\".
After dinner Juan took us to his sister's enormous house, which wasn't fully finished yet, but there was already a bed, a shower, a toilet and holy pictures. There was no mosquito protection, but even with the humming fan we slept well.
Sunday 29 August
Los Idolos – Tapanatepec
In the morning we were meeting at half past nine in front of the church, we were going to Oktopan for mass, because Genaro plays the guitar there.
I woke up earlier, so I walked across the whole village to the car and greeted everyone nicely. The car was parked in front of Genaro's house, so they dragged me in for breakfast. During it Genaro had a proper row with his parents, I think (hope) it was about a broken guitar string.
The dolled-up parents then left for church and I stayed there with Genaro. Just as I was leaving to find Martin, he was coming up to the car. Genaro was already on his way out too, but he still took Martin in for breakfast. He wouldn't even hear of us driving to the church, where we were meeting, by car.
So we walked to the church, Genaro bought a string and tuned up and then we sat and waited and sat and waited.
I couldn't take it and went to the car for the diaries and the camera, and of course then they were waiting for me. An elderly truck came to pick us up, me, Martin, Genaro and three other girls – singers, we jumped onto the bed and set off for Oktopan, 30 km away. Riding on the back of a truck has something to it, a bit like being in a convertible.
We got to the church after eleven and at about 11:30 the mass began. A standard course of things, the priest then rattled on about the shallowness of northern (USA) culture, and when the whole church was singing, shivers ran down my spine. Genaro and the girls were pretty good even in the solos.
I've been observing here now (the Guatemalan border) that all the men in Mexico without exception wear long jeans!! My knees get steamy even in light shorts, they must have it like hell in there J
After the mass we went for a lemonade (the locals for a milkshake) and we finally managed to pay for something.
On the back of the truck I took some photos of the little girl who'd come with us and then we headed back. On the way the teacher! was throwing bottles and bags into the ditch and laughing his head off about it. Mexico…
At Genaro's we packed up our still wet laundry (it's terribly humid here and on top of that it was hanging in the shade), which stank like a sewer (all steamed up). We had a shower, gobbled down a piece of melon, exchanged addresses and said goodbye.
Just past the village we had to stop and search Sršáň, because we couldn't find the map we'd been showing everyone. Luckily it was under the seat, so we didn't have to go back.
All day we drove as fast as it would go (up to 160 km/h) towards Guatemala. The road was decent the whole time, and only when I took over at about midnight did hell begin. The term ŠSPC is completely inadequate. This was a proper tank training ground, holes like from grenades, now and then I even scraped the underbody. Average speed 15 miles/h (you can't see the km at night…) Martin was trying to fall asleep in the back, but just try falling asleep in the middle of a tank battle.
After thirty miles I gave up, completely exhausted and above all furious. (normally I do 150 – 200 miles at night!)
We slept at a Pemex (petrol station) again, this time there was a grumpy cop with a shotgun there, but on the other hand they had showers (out of 5 PS). He let us park right on top of the tanks, so we got nicely high on the fumes.
Monday 30 August
Tapanatepec – Tapachula (the Guatemalan border)
In the morning we kicked Sršáň into life again and pounded off towards the border. The landscape here is already hellishly green (banana trees, almost jungle) and on top of that laced with an unbelievable number of rivers, which at the moment only have water in a narrow strip of a riverbed up to 200 m wide, and pretty muddy and fast water at that. At one of them we stopped under the bridge for lunch.
The last town before the Guatemalan border is Tapachula, where we only filled up with petrol, not suspecting how closely and how well we'd still get to know it.
It's 18 km to the border, which we covered easily. It was worse with the border itself. Right in front of the Mexican barrier about 8 grown-up money changers threw themselves at us, pushing Guatemalan quetzals on us, waving bundles of banknotes. It was strikingly like the Tunisian – Libyan border. On top of that a few little brats stuck to the car, one particularly cheeky and pushy one was pulling Martin's window down with all his weight, even though it hasn't opened at all for 3 days! Martin was still pretty furious about him the next day. Since he'll be appearing in our story several more times, let's call him Krypl among ourselves.
So in the end one grown-up money changer convinced us in English that we'd need about 400 Q to pay for the vehicle sticker, and that he had a rate 15% better than the bank. We bought 450 quetzals for $70. Well, we got taken in easily. He claimed he had a rate of 7.40 and sold to us at 6.50 L
Then we passed through the Mexican barrier without any problems and Krypl kept running alongside the car shouting out his advice. He kept banging on our window and neither verbal nor manual threats helped.
We parked in front of the Guatemalan customs house, which we had to push our way to through crowds of pedestrians, money changers and pushy brats.
Martin watched the car, I went with the passports to \"Migración\". Krypl kept running around me. Once I threatened him with my fist in the queue in front of the window and yelled at him properly, he changed tactics. Instead of advising me what to do, he snitched to all the officials that we hadn't been to the Mexican \"Migración\".
It made absolutely no difference, because even though the lady consul in Mexico City had been assuring us we didn't need visas for Guatemala, that some sort of tourist card would do, the local clerk had a different opinion. Allegedly visas only, no such card exists, and we'd get the visas in Tapachula at 2 Oriente #44. So we turned around and for the first time drove back those 18 km to Tapachula. Finding the address of the Guatemalan embassy was about like hunting for a devil and St. Nicholas costume in Prague in June. Nobody had the faintest idea where that street was, we found 20 Oriente, 21 Oriente and still nothing. Then we just drove around in desperation and at last there was an intelligent-looking guy in glasses and a shirt, and he gave us directions, he even knew where the embassy was. The worst thing in this town is that only about every tenth street is signed!
We got to the consulate at about ten to five and they close at five. Luckily they were willing, there was some clerk, then a cleaning woman who couldn't read, and a guard. We still had to run off one street away to a copy shop with the passport and the form (they only had 1 original of the form J), but by quarter past five we had visas for $10.
We decided to make the next attempt at a breakthrough in the morning. The border doesn't open until 9.
We found a Pemex and arranged a place to sleep with the cop. This time he had a submachine gun. I chatted with him for about half an hour (in Spanish!) and tried to sell him Sršáň. The price grabbed him terribly again and he immediately told all the flunkies at the pump about it.
Another insert.
I'm sitting in the car in Guatemala City, there's an insane cloudburst going on and Martin has gone off to offer Sršáň somewhere at a car bazaar.
Just like the whole of Mexico, Guatemala City has no drainage either, so a downpour of these dimensions is a real disaster. A while ago we were driving down a street where there was honestly half a metre of water! The whole rim under water! And the engine was smoking like hell. Otherwise there are terrible torrents everywhere and people walk around dressed in plastic sheeting. In weather like this, selling a car in a foreign, Spanish-speaking city in one day looks pretty tough L.
Continuation of the insert, 24h later
I'm sitting on a blanket on the ground in a public car park, luckily with a corrugated iron roof above me, because it's pouring buckets again, for three hours now. It seems this is the regular afternoon „shower\" here, like in Mexico City. Only here it's more like a water catastrophe.
So I'm sitting on the ground with a pile of stuff around me that I've just chucked out of the car. Meanwhile Martin is walking and driving around with one buyer – a wheeler-dealer – to every possible office. It's about half two now, we caught the buyer at half ten in the centre at a Shell station. Nothing but running around since then. We've come down from the original 8OOOQ ($1100) to $500. It was already looking like we'd have to throw Sršáň off a cliff and report it stolen so they'd let Martin out of the country. Because tomorrow at seven in the morning we're leaving by bus for Mexico.
Continuation of the normal course of the diary.
Once we'd made such friends with the cop at the pump (he even admitted the possibility of letting us sleep in the station building!) we entrusted the car to his care and set off for a walk through nighttime Tapachula. First M. went alone, then he came back for me. It was already dark, so you could see beautifully into all the open, lit-up ground-floor flats. Quite a bit of filth everywhere and primitive furniture, but everyone had a telly (colour) and a video. Mostly they were lounging on beds, the brats playing on the floor, some eating or praying.
On the way we came across one open bar, so we went in. It was a big long smoke-stained room with light bulbs on the ceiling and a bar. The clientele was downright dodgy, a few rough-looking guys and above all quite a lot of women looking utterly worn out and plastered.
They all looked us over in considerable amazement, wondering what we were doing there, but they greeted us quite amicably.
We sat down on plastic chairs and a genderless waiter – waitress served us Corona beer very politely. When a better table became free he/she immediately offered us to move over and brought the drinks herself.
Meanwhile we were watching the goings-on in the place with undisguised interest. Several women were dancing by the jukebox and after a while it dawned on us that those crudely lascivious gestures were aimed straight at us and that those disgusting ladies were whores of the lowest possible category. All of them had (apart from dirty clothes and hair) a pretty solid amount of overweight, most also over-age. The oldest might have been around sixty. All of them, of course, brown-black skin colour.
Martin was completely out of it because one of them (the one probably most resembling a human being) kept looking him over with a lustful gaze and didn't even look away when their eyes met. Her companion occasionally threw a remark our way, it took us quite a long time to grasp that he was offering her to us. When we still showed no signs of understanding, they started throwing crumpled napkins onto our table in M.'s direction. Probably the local offering algorithm J.
Also, an elderly fat whore kept walking past us, stuffed into a blue mini-dress that shaped several solid sausages on her hips. She'd hike the miniskirt right up and while dancing she pushed her saggy tits out with her hands. Puke-inducing!
We finished our second beer and, since the attention paid to us had already exceeded the bearable level, we paid and cleared off.
We wanted to find a slightly better bar, which we failed to do after an hour of marching through town. We just got turned away from the bar of the Hotel San Francisco because we weren't dressed appropriately.
We came back to the pump nicely walked out and the cop asked us to re-park across the street, because the boss was there. But that he'd keep an eye on us during the night.
Because it had rained nicely during our walk, it wasn't so muggy any more and we slept excellently.
The continuation is Guatemala.
