I forgot to mention the other day that on my way out of Merida (at 6:30am) I somehow managed to scrape the side of an urban bus in the very narrow lanes or so the driver claimed when he forced me to a stop and blocked the street to talk to me. He kept calling me “mamacita” and all I could think of was the “I Love Lucy” episode when Ricky’s mom comes to visit and Lucy calls her mamacita constantly. He must not have seen any damage or I was too much like a deer caught in the headlights from his mamacitas but he gave me a warning and off we all went.
Today was really an awful day. By the time we were finally in a hotel I was re-thinking the entire concept of driving in Mexico. It is really a very different aspect of traveling or driving here and is absolutely exhausting emotionally. Also, we arrived to Coatepec (to deliver the Warm Hands/Warm Hearts items from Wayne along with our donations) and while it may be a pueblo magico and full of lovely coffee, I was not feeling the love. Hotels are hard to find and when you can find a cobblestone street going the direction you want (many one way and 2-way that turn to one-way) it will suddenly end and traffic will be one-way and all oncoming. So you keep turning, it is raining cats and dogs, it is FREEZING cold (Kilo shivered the entire time we were in that town. I think he even shivered at night) and finally you stumble upon a hotel. Xalapa is some kind of time-suck for traffic and it takes FOREVER to get ANYWHERE in about a 100 km circumference of the city.
We left lovely Frontera (well, it isn’t lovely, but it is on a river (strangely difficult to get to – it seems to be all blocked off downtown)) at 5:30am and headed to Villahermosa. It was very foggy and very very dark and I realized that I will probably need to change my plan of getting up at 5 to be on the road by 5:30. It is just too dark at that hour and with all the road hazards it just isn’t safe. I only made one wrong turn in Villahermosa and was thanking the trailer gods that I wasn’t dragging the trailer through there. I am constantly thanking the trailer gods that I’m not dragging the trailer-just driving is hard enough and I can’t believe I ever dragged that trailer all over this country.
We had lots of cuota opportunities but after 700km, we were more than ready to stop. We finally found an exhorbitant hotel ($650 for a somewhat clean, cold and ugly room), made contact and delivered the donations and headed out for food. Jesse and I tried Zarza (I think that’s right) which, IIRC, is a corn-type of drink. I really really liked it – not sweet but very satisfying and we are so happy to be back in the land of handmade non-Maseca tortillas. Once the hotel figured out we had a dog (we didn’t hide him, but didn’t ask before hand either – just like in Frontera) they said we couldn’t stay. I figured (rightly, as it turned out) that once they had my money they were not going to refund it (anyone who lives here knows how ridiculous that is – no-one EVER returns stuff here – you almost need an Act of Congress to do so) so we finally came to an agreement that we’d hide him. It was a royal PITA and I decided I’m not doing that anymore. I had hopes to get coffee, but I just wanted to get through the night and get out of Coatepec and somewhere warm again. I really have no desire to go back there again.
