When we woke this morning, we found our car completely blocked in by other vehicles. I’d already planned to leave later (6:30am) as the sky would be starting to get light then and I felt the roads would be better to travel then, but seeing all the cars made me wonder if we’d ever leave Coatepec. I’d also had a horrific night of sleep as Kilo was growling and barking at any noise from the street – our bed was practically on the sidewalk and it sounded like people were inside our room at times, so I decided to leave the TV on all night as he wasn’t even supposed to be there to begin with.
Waiting for people to show up and move their cars, I asked the boys what they thought of scrapping our plans for travel and just high-tail it for the border and warmth. They were non-commital, but I decided finally to take Real de Catorce out of our plans and do less kilometers each day. Six hundred klicks is just not comfortable daily. Four hundred is do-able, leaving early each morning, and the 2 days we were to stay in Real de Catorce we’ll use on the road. So we left Coatepec thinking we’d just drive as long as we were comfortable and get wherever we decided to get to. I rememberd from earlier travels in the areas we were going that there was another area of balnearios (water parks) some 150km or so before our planned stop. So we figured if we got to the balneario great. If not, we’d get there another day or go to a different one. I expected that we’d do horribly today – the roads didn’t look good, not many opportunities for cuotas, and the route, once we’d crossed over from Xalapa, is the route all the trucks use to bypass Mexico City.
The drive out of Xalapa over the pass was amazing. Pine forests, dairy cows, cheese sold by the roadside – it was all amazing to see. On the other side we found 3 volcanos. We could see Pico de Orizaba from Xalapa but once we got to the bajito we found 2 more. It was a surprisingly easy drive day – so very different from yesterday that I’m thinking I can do this again. We had enormous road construction; one lane roads, dirt roads, potholes, new road – it ran the gammut – but it was amazing scenery and I didn’t get lost once. It was like a game – the map many times did not reflect the road I was on, and sometimes the signs were just completely gone, but we didn’t get lost and stopped at the very first balneario we came to. The balneario cost is $100/person, so we’ll wait for tomorrow to go, the hotel has a view of the balneario, the room is miniscule, but who cares, IT IS WARM but not hot, I got laundry done, it is WARM, there is a nice breeze and life is good.
I’m not exactly sure what we’ll do tomorrow – if we’ll stay another night or head for a different town after spending the afternoon at the balneario – but I’m feeling much refreshed after the cold of Veracruz. Now we’ll go see if we can find ice and internet and I’ll post the last 2 days pictures and post.
