We knew the road from Tampico to Tuxpan was supposed to be bad, and it was, but we had forgotten how bad it was south of the Emerald Coast. Each day we seem to naturally get up earlier and earlier and this day was no exception. I was really missing the great coffee we had when we left Ciudad Victoria – it is odd, in a country FULL of excellent beans, how incredibly awful the coffee can be, so the most excellent (and strong) coffee brewed by the receptionist in Ciudad Victoria more than made up for the partay of the night before. Well, for me anyway. When in Texas, Jamie and I had stumbled upon a Target sale of Starbucks instant coffee and I got 2 packets (with 3 servings in each packet). I was wishing this morning on the rainy Emerald Coast, that I’d bought more. We had the kids up by 7:00 and we were on the road before 8am. That, hands down, is the earliest ever. We seem to be having the luck of driving out of the rain by the end of the day but overnight it catches up with us and we start the next day in, I assume, the rain we’d out-run the day before.
We were starting to get low on pesos and I knew that the day would bring MANY toll charges. We hadn’t visited a grocery store since Texas but were kept in mandarinas from the vendors roadside. I really don’t sweat the food issue much in Mexico as you can get anything from packaged candy to freshly made tamales at each of the topes. And you hit a LOT of topes. There are also many taco stands and restaurants (sometimes just a person’s house) roadside. We’d stopped at one of those yesterday – cheese was being made in the backyard from their herd of goats and the kitchen served both the house and the “restaurant”.
It took us 2.25 hours to go the first 61 miles and I was a bit worried but knew we had lots of toll road ahead to (hopefully) make up for the slow going of the Emerald coast. Jamie also managed to find a stash of pesos he’d forgotten about and I was able to relax about having to find a bank along the route and we could concentrate on getting to Frontera. We weren’t really sure we’d make it and I honestly have NO IDEA how all the RVers put such huge mileage in on this coast. I can’t imagine it is fun or anything other than heart-stoppingly stressful. We saw many sights we’d remembered from years past and also many many pilgrims.
The feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe is HUGE in Mexico and the first week of December is dedicated to pilgrimages made from near and far TO near and far and sometimes to the basilica in DF. We saw so very many people making their pilgrimage; on foot, on bicycle and sometimes supported and sometimes not. It rained pretty much all day long and we really felt for the poor pilgrims.
We existed on tope food and peanut butter and jelly and were famished and looking forward to dinner on the plaza in Frontera. About a block before we hit the plaza, however, the traffic came to a standstill. I could see that the plaza was absolutely choked with pilgrims and pilgrim support vehicles and all manner of festivities. I finally had Jamie and Pike head over to the hotel to see if they could secure lodging. We were all really looking foward to the 3 beds – 1 king and 2 queens – the boys and I had had on our last stay. Unfortunately, the hotel was locked up tight (probably due to the noise and festivities) but Pike found us a marvelous hotel right next door with a lovely sitting room and view of the plaza AND internet! It took a while to be able to move the car and unload it and eventually park in secured parking, but by nightfall we were eating tacos al pastor on the plaza and enjoying the plaza festivities. There were carnival rides, religious paintings and clothing, popcorn, elotes, crepes, christmas decorations, jewelry, fruit stands, clothing, fake flowers – pretty much anything you could imagine – for sale along the plaza. We wandered a bit, then hit the panaderia and super for supplies for the next day. We were close enough, we figured, that we could be home the next day and we were going to go for it.
