Tolls to pay

       

Rosa was road ready and in better condition after all the tender love and care the night before. We were mentally prepared for the horrible roads that we had encountered previously to continue as we headed to Oaxaca. 

If you don't speak Spanish, you might read Oaxaca as ox-a-ca or something similar. We did until we arrived. It is actually pronounced wa-ha-ca. 

We took the periferique road east around Mexico City towards Peublo. The toll roads cost us a small fortune, but they were fabulous! At one stage, Sol described the road as delicious! We had paid for tolled roads in the past and, to be fair, they should have paid us to drive on them. The verdant fields we were driving through were a stark contrast to the bellowing smoke stacks and industrial wastelands that were forever crawling forth from the mega city. 

A picture of the delicious road.

        

Most tolled roads here, you pay when you are about to get on, something we had grown accustomed to after paying 20-30 tolls this way. Mostly costing 25-70 pesos. 

After 4 hours of delicious roads with nearly no traffic we expected to pay the usual way. We went to go through the next toll and they asked us for a ticket. Sorry... What ticket? it became clear very quickly we didn't have what they were asking for!  We had missed a machine that dispensed tickets at the beginning of the highway...... We were directed by a policeman to park near the toll booth. We were asked to pay 380 pesos as what seems to be a maximum fine for losing your ticket on this road. We showed our previous toll from that morning trying to prove where we had joined the delicious road and after some negotiations we were able to have the previous toll deducted from the fine reducing the damage to just 320 pesos.  Phew! Sorted...

Skye took over driving in the afternoon, same as the day before. After a morning of nice roads we expected the same in the afternoon. As we got higher in the mountains, the roads got more winding and the two lane highway became a dual carriage way. This was particularly dangerous as oncoming cars saw fit to over take slower trucks on blind corners. The views were beautiful but we thought it would be the last views we would see given the risky driving around us!

        

Some of the view:

        

We got closer to Oaxaca, and were a little bit worn down but the overly enthusiastic drivers and the constant monouvering. Thinking we had seen the last of it, we didn't realize we were just about to go off road... literally. We had chosen our final destination through the driving travel app iOverlander. The place was hidden just north of the city of Oaxaca. We drove for 2km on dirt roads and topes (of course) and finally found the place. 

        

After paying 200 pesos per night in the rock climbing place and snobby place, we were surprised to be charged 300 for a campsite with no power and no showers!! As there were no other visitors, we were able to negotiate showers at no additional cost. We declined on the extra 300 pesos basic breakfast option, choosing to have a protien bar from our own stash. 

 It is actually a very pretty stop, but there are lots of mangy street dogs, lots of mozzies and bugs which made the stay less than comfortable. The saving grace however is the aloe plant (sábila), ubiquitous in these regions, which we put to work on Sol's angry looking sunburn. Aaahhhh.  

View from our camp:

     

Pic from near our campsite:

                                  

One more day of driving and we are at the beach!

Only days 3 in Mexico.......and.....

We slept very well at the rock climbing retreat. The mountains were cool at night and we were serenaded to sleep by crickets. As you can see the view was amazing and the pool was just the perfect temperature.

      

Our goal, the beach, was a few days drive off. We set off for Santiago de Queretaro an 8 h drive from our current campsite. 

                               

We had found a hotel that offered Parking for RVs and camper cars. We rang ahead and they said they had room for us. 

We took off at sunrise, ready for a long day. The morning drive was pretty good with excellent toll roads. 

We stopped at a restaurant off the highway which had great Barbacoa but weird art, stuffed animals and some weird art on the menu. 

                         

We were half way there, 4h to go and we could relax!  Then, BANG! A pole jumped out in front of Rosa!!!!! She was injured!! 

       

Luckily Sol is MacGuyver and he was able to put her back together, we only lost 30 minutes! She looked a bit odd after some duct tape was added, but it worked a treat! 

Rosa actually looked worse than this as Sol had put the bumper back on by the time I took this picture.

Looking a bit sore and sorry we still drove the 4 hours to the hotel at Santiago de Queretaro. 

The roads for the next 400 km were horrific (we have since worked out that road conditions are specific to regions. Stay clear of Guanajuato and San Luis Potosí States) So bumpy and so many pot holes! Not really what you need when the bumper and headlight is duct taped on!! To make matters worse locals were driving at 90 + miles an hour in the right hand lane impatient to force us into the left hand lane where the pot holes were. So it was a toss-up between driving crazy fast and losing the fender and light ( and probably us in the process ) or slowing down a naviagating the luna surface on the other side. We managed to dodge the mother of all pot holes, it was half the size of our car and a foot deep. That would have been the end of Rosa! We realised pretty quickly if you follow the locals you dodge the potholes, as they drive the road daily. 

Turns out this next campground/4 star hotel (The Flamingo Inn) was a bit classy. With Rosa duct taped within an inch of her life, the guy at reception didn't really want to serve us. We said we had called ahead and confirmed we could stay. He wasn't impressed. His colleague was nice and pushed him to finish the transaction. He took our 200 pesos as though it had contracted some terrible disease and threw it into the register with a grimace. We spent that night putting cable ties on Rosa's bumper as we couldn't risk another day of driving those roads if the bumper and light weren't sound. 

We didn't take any pictures of the fancy place because we were busy and they weren't nice. 

It was ok, but nothing on the previous two nights near the mountain. 

Next stop: Oaxaca, a town which sounds nothing like it is spelt! 

Searching for La Posada en El Potrero Chico.....

Happy to be legally in Mexico, but with not a cent to our name and our cards weren't working, we had a few more things to work out. 

Still at the permit place, we went back to the less than helpful information guy and asked him where a bank was. He got out a map and directed us a few streets over. We drove around for 10minutes and it turns out he doesn't know where banks are either!  We ended up finding a bank in a supermarket and wifi at the near by McDonalds and got our bearings. We were ready for phase 2, driving to our first stop 2h south, La Posada en El Potrero Chico, in a small town called Hidalgo. 

                               

You can drive your US car close to the border without a car permit, but if you go further than about 20km, there is a car permit check. We got to the car permit check with all our documents ready, and...after everything...It was closed. We just drove on through!

Turns out the roads on this route were ok, although we only occasionally had painted lanes, so you just has to guess!

        

We drove the tolled roads to Hidalgo, we arrived an hour or so before sunset which was a close call due to our no driving at night rule. We got to the address we had found on the Internet for the camping site, this is what we saw!  Really?! 

        

We panicked and asked a few locals for directions and still couldn't find it!  Most of their directions, included a tope count. 3 topes, then right then 4 topes, then...... 'What are topes?' You ask? Well, in our car they are usually premised by an expletive as the sole purpose of a tope seems to be to remove the under carriage of your car. Topes are speed bumps, but not council sanctioned entities, they are made of anything from rocks, wire, cement, old ripped up tires, rebar, anything the locals can find. They are then placed in front of stores, houses where kids play or anywhere else they want you to slow down. They are often not marked and quickly blend in to the backdrop of the road. Our discovery of this danger has since enforced our no driving at night rule. Assisting in looking out for these is now the passengers job in our car. They are not always in 'logical' places. We have come across them on highways marked for a speed of 90km/h forcing a screeching halt to save Rosa's tires and undercarriage. It is often helpful to be following a car on the road to see when they are coming up, often people will put on hazard lights to help others behind them or simply not see it and crash into it. Either way, we like to be behind people when driving when we can!

The sun was getting lower in the sky and we still had had no joy from the help of the friendly locals. When suddenly, we had the petrol light in the car go on!  Aghhhhhhhh!  We went down the hill and got some gas, we asked the petrol guy as he was filling our tank (yes! Service stations here are still full service) about the place and despite his little to no English and our crap Spanish, he directed us and we found it successfully! We arrived just as the sun set behind the mountains. Phew!

This is where we ended up. ( Needless to say, we stayed two nights! )

            

Crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico

We drove south from San Antonio to Laredo where we planned to cross the Rio Grande to Nuevo Laredo in Mexico. 

                              

         

We had read that you could pay for the tourist visa and car permit with credit card, but they had also said it helps to have some US$ in Mexico. The USA is very much a card culture, so we had rarely used cash. Before we left San Antonio We got out some money just in case. 

We drove the few hours to the border, we knew we wanted to cross the Rio Grande on 'Bridge 2' we didn't know what that meant exactly, but we knew what to look out for. We headed through Laredo which didn't look too 'sketchy' as we had heard that border towns are dangerous. 

Picture of Laredo, full of fast food. 

      

Halfway through the town on the main highway the signs indicated we were heading to Nuevo Laredo!  We were on our way! We got out the passports, car titles, insurance, and copies of each ready to speak to the US customs and then Mexican customs. Our electric windows were working and ready, to wind down for each lot. We were ready, ready! 

We had a toll to pay of about two dollars to cross bridge 2, no worries, we had cash! We paid and moved on, so far so good!

We got to the US section, we saw lots of armed police, more battle ready than ready to stamp our passports. They all looked at us, no emotion, and waved us through, they didn't even speak to us. No passport check. We thought it was strange and we desperately looked for a sign telling us what to do as we're getting nothing from the army types.

We had to keep going, as there were cars in front and behind us, we followed the crowd and crossed the bridge. Usually, we see what there is to see crossing a bridge, the passenger has to tell the driver all about it, as they have eyes on the road, but this time we were a bit stressed and looking for any indication we were crossing correctly. 

A minute or so later we were winding through another checkpoint. The people here were also more battle ready than stamp ready, a different uniform, but the same large, mean looking guns being carried around.... We looked again for the stamping office, or some one willing to give us any indication of where we show all our photocopies for processing..... Nothing, not even a nod or a smile. Maybe we were just meant to be happy we weren't pulled over by unhappy soldiers carting massive guns?

Then....all of a sudden, we are driving in Mexico! Wait...... what?! Are we in Mexico!? How did we get through? Doesn't someone want to find out how long we are staying or the purpose of our visit?

A bit of panic set in, we are illegal immigrants in Mexico!!!!

The back streets we were driving through, were not the nicest looking with shanty type buildings, we didn't feel like getting out and asking for help, then we saw a blue sign saying 'car permit' with an arrow, we saw another and another, and after 5 minutes of driving we were at a fenced car park for the car permit. We didn't know if we could get this processed as we were illegally in the country. Could we get our car permit if we didn't have our tourist visas?

We saw a line of about 10 cars. This must be where you get the permit, so we waited in the line with our originals and copies ready, only to find out it was the line for giving back your permit!!!

We finally parked the car and went inside. We saw an information booth just in the door, the guys smiled at us. We asked 'hablas ingles'? hopeful this guy would set our nerves at ease, his response was less than hopeful. 'No'. 

We then saw a sign which had the process to get your car permit, 4 steps.

We went to step 1 with all our docs, fully prepared to be sent back to the people with guns to get our tourist visa. We met a nice old man who took our passports and made some joke about lots of kangaroos, he gave us a form to fill out. Turns out, he was the tourist visa man. He processed us giving us 180 days in Mexico. Phew, we were not illegals anymore! We asked him how much and he signaled that we paid at the end of the whole process.  He told us to go to número dos! We had passed the first level!

Step 2, we walked up to a guy in a booth and he looked at our stuff for 2 seconds and waived us to step 3. 

On to step 3, it was photocopying! Nup, we were good thanks! We were waived to step 4. On our way to step 4 we had a Mexican lady ask us where we got our photocopying done. We told her we did it before but step 3 had photocopying. She thanked us and eventually met us in the line up for step 4. 

We started chatting she was from Mexico City but had been living in Chicago with her American husband and 2 kids for the last 10years. They were all moving back to Mexico to live, Playa del Carmen (take that Donald Trump!).  We exchanged email addresses and spoke a bit more until we were called up to pay and have our car stuff validated. 

All the docs passed with the lady serving us and we had to pay US$402 total. We gave our visa card and it didn't work, we gave another card, didn't work..... 5 cards later and nothing..... We counted out our cash and we were $4 dollars short!  We asked them where the ATM was at the establishment.......they don't have one!!!  We didn't know what to do, they had all our documents processed and were holding our passports, but we didn't have enough cash! We were cursing our last beer the night before in San Antiono (although much deserved and needed after the day we had had!). We were so close to being legal in Mexico, what were we going to do?! Would $4 be the end of our Mexican adventure?! 

Sensing a problem, the lady we helped with the photocopies and had been talking to in the line came up to us and graciously offered the $4. It was such a lovely gesture. 

We were then given the permit certificate, our visas and a sticker to put on the car window, we were done!  We had not a cent to our name in a dodgey town in Mexico and our cards didn't work, but we were legal in Mexico!

Not 1 hour into our Mexican adventure and we were already relying on the kindess of strangers...

San Antonio

We spent our last night in the USA in a Holiday Inn in San Antonio, Texas. We were tired from the longer than expected drive and cranky as we had no success at the embassy in Houston. 

         

The hotel was tired and sorely on need of a revamp, however they did have a working business centre where we were able to do printing and a million photocopies. As we now had to do the car permit at the Mexican boarder, we had read on blogs, they can ask for any type of ID and other information, (insurance, car titles) and for multiple copies of each. We also needed to download OpenStreetMap maps (free) of Mexico and Central America for our Garmin GPS (Nuvi 52). We were able to do both. 

We went to bed ready, but not knowing what to expect. We were a bit apprehensive about crossing the boarder and discussed staying one more night in San Antonio to ensure we were 100% prepared. Because the hotel was so crap, we bit the bullet and left for Mexico the next day. 

Next stop: Mexico (we hoped!!)

Houston, we have a problem.....

Houston, we have a problem, well two problems actually;

1) the Mexican Embassy 1pm rule

2) your traffic sucks

We drove 5 hours to Houston from New Orleans, an extension of the same highway we drove from Tallahassee. 

        

We drove through Houston to try to get the vehicle permit before the Mexican boarder. The vehicle permit is a deposit you pay and get back when you leave Mexico. We think it is to dissuade people selling there car in Mexico, apparently you can get more for your car there than in the USA. According to all the blogs, it is easier to purchase before the boarder which is apparently, a bit of a free for all. 

We rang the embassy ahead of our visit, they confirmed they did the permit and for our car it was $usd300. We said we would come the next day, they said they shut at 4pm. What they didn't say is 'we don't offer this service after 1pm'!!!!!  Of course, we arrived at 1h30pm and were told that they cannot help us today but they assured us we could do it at the Mexican boarder.

The day was not lost as we were able to catch up with Kunal Karan, our old housemate's (Rohan) brother as he is doing an internship in Houston. We went to a great Texas BBQ place that he recommended. Delicious!

                         

As our goal was San Antonio, we were ready to leave Houston, we headed off, only 3 more hours and we could take a rest from the road! 

How wrong we were! We were stuck in Houston, in traffic, for 2 hours. Crawling along on a highway..... It was super frustrating, and we found at the end, it wasn't due to a crash, it is just that they have a 6 lane highway each way as their main route through town and people are zigging and zagging all over the place to get on and off at their exits!! As you can see the are a crazy number of exits!!

      

New Orleans

The drive from Tallahassee to New Orleans was one straight highway the whole 6 hours. It was a good way to test how Rosa would go. We put some much needed air in the tires and off we went! Half way, we stopped for petrol and we realised we hadn't checked the oil!!!  Despite the previous owner saying it had been recently serviced, it was bone dry! We bought some oil, and were able to remedy the situation at the truck stop before it became a problem! Phew!

        

We were lucky enough to stay with the amazing Tiff & Stu who have two Boxer fur babies Mardy & LB. They live very centrally in New Orleans so it was never far to wherever we went.  

We were in New Orleans for 2 weeks, waiting for the updated title for the car. This gave us time to relax, order things online, and fix a few things on Rosa. 

One main thing was the electric windows weren't working. This was problematic for the frequent tolls we were about to encounter in Mexico, if we were pulled over by the cops and it was just generally annoying!

Sol did some research, ordering of parts, and a few trips to the auto store later, we had reconditioned and correctly reinstalled the motors in all for doors.  We are now safer and much less frustrated! 

Other things that Sol fixed were, changed oil, car door switches, air filter and some other things. This made us feel like Rosa was more ours and we knew how the car worked. 

Here is LB helping Sol research. We used the packing stuff from amazon deliveries as well as door stops to help the window stay up when the mechanism was being worked on. 

        

Early on in our stay we visted Bourbon Street, and we were not so impressed. We expected jazz on every corner and in cool bars. The reality is pumping techno music, bachelor party style groups of people and buy one get one shots. This is only one street of the French quarter though. The rest is beautiful and there are a lot of Jazz buskers. We spoke to one saxophonist busker who told us, Frenchman Street is the place to be for Jazz. He was certainly right. If you go to New Orleans go to Frenchman. 

Fun thing about New Orleans, you are always served in plastic 'to go' cups. You can walk from one bar to another carrying a drink and no one cares!

Bourbon street: 

                                 

The French Quarter: 

                                  

         

                                        

         

                        

Cool bikes in the French quarter: 

        

For Sol's birthday, Tiff and Stu took us to a lovely traditional place called Galatoire's for dinner which was on Bourbon St then we had a few drinks on Frenchman street listening to Dana and the Boneshakers, what a great group!!!! 

    

                                          

Next stop: San Antonio via Houston.