MORDIDAS, COFFEE,
AGAVE, STORMS AND TIDAL WAVES
Both of us
woke up way to early this morning. We
both alternated hitting the bathroom around 3am and then couldn’t quite get
back to sleep. At 5am, we gave up and
got up and started getting ready. We
were out the door and on the road by 530am.
It was still raining but not as hard as the day before. We stopped for gas and Lorie got me my first
coffee since last Wednesday. To say the
least, I was hyped up on caffeine almost all day but have a headache now. We made our way around Queretaro and out to
the toll road that would take us around Mexico City. For some reason google redirected us through
this little town, but when we came out we were going under the highway I wanted
and past all the traffic backed up. We
went up the side and ended up jumping the line from where we would have
been. We should have listened yesterday
when it wanted to redirect us and we would not have sat in traffic all day. The
rain finally stopped and we were making good time until we approached a toll
booth.
A transit
officer flagged us down and made us pull over.
I showed him my import permit for the jeep and had the permits for the
trailer. He informed me that according
to their program “no hay circula”, I could not be driving on the highway on
that day. I continued to question him as
it was my understanding that this only applied to driving within the Mexico
City limits and not on the toll highways.
While he was typing a translation back to me, I looked it up on google
and supposedly it did apply to the state highways as well. Well shit, I had not read or heard anything
about it being the whole state. He was
telling me that I had already committed the offence and the penalty would be
$4000 pesos plus the cost of a tow and impound.
Of course I’m not letting that happen.
I asked him if I paid the fine did I get a ticket and receipt of payment
or is he looking for a mordida. He
laughed. If I wanted to pay it, I would
have to go to some town god knows where and I would still have to pay the
impound and tow fees. Then I asked what
the mordida would cost and it was $100 USD.
He said he would give me a safe passage ticket so that I wasn’t bothered
by others. I don’t agree with paying the
bribes but I also wasn’t going to let them hook everything I own up and tow it
away, while leaving the 3 of us on the side of the road. So, he wrote his note on a hot pink sticky
note and I gave him the money and we were gone.
The next toll booth we went through, I was stopped on the far side and
gave him the note and it worked. Away we
continued. Of course, the whole
conversation was caught on camera. He
tried to move out of frame and Lorie moved him back into the video. She also made sure that when she handed him
the money that it was visible and not completely discreet.
Off we went
and I missed an exit and ended up taking a detour through another town. Mind you it was supposedly shorter. Lorie was busy snapping pics along the way
and found fields of agave and then she decided to go shopping for jeans on the
side of the road. She wanted to stop as
they were only $10 and she could make cutoffs with them.
We hit
Veracruz and the weather was changing.
The view coming through the hills and down the switchbacks were not as
nice as it would have been in the sun but at least the rain didn’t really start
until we hit the bottom. When we got
past Cordoba the road turn to shit. It
didn’t matter which way I tried to avoid the potholes and bumps; I still hit the,
the poor dog was going insane due to the noise and bumps. During all of this we encountered torrential
downpours to further decrease the speed we were travelling. Finally we were
about a kilometer from our turnoff and another stoppage. This time an accident and a pretty bad one
at that. It was a double trailer that
jack knifed in the road and the cab of the truck was hanging off the side
completely off the engine, as well as a car and an SUV. I hope all are okay.
We finally
got to our exit but now it is dark. The
road into town was fairly narrow (at least in the dark and downpour it seemed
that way) as well as marked with topes (speedbumps). I crept along with my hazards as it was near
impossible to see. We finally got into
town and there was flooding everywhere.
I hit one section and a tidal wave of water flowed over the front of the
Jeep and all around us. It scared Lorie
the first time I did it and any other car backed off.
We got to
our hotel and settled in, both of us had a hot shower and I made my rounds of
phone calls and started this. Tomorrow
we should hit Progreso by dinner time but we are starting early again.
So, until
Sunday morning (as I don’t thing I will be writing tomorrow night)
Hasta
luego.
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