The rundown on our Mexico transit, part two

[A DATW Land Rover loads onto the Sea of Cortez ferry at La Paz, Mexico.]

La Paz to the Sea of Cortez ferry

Stymied by paperwork on Sunday, Nick, Nancy, Justin and Neil roll into La Paz to get our vehicle permissions translated into Spanish and notarized. Neil (who is the sound man for the film crew) is an essential part of this process, as he speaks excellent Spanish. In an expedition that is often chaotic, Neil’s interpretive skills add a needed dose of competence and clarity to our Latin American transit. Those of us not involved in the paperwork pass the day in the ferry parking lot, hanging out with La Paz locals at the taco stand. One of them, an older gentleman named Hector, is so inspired by the company that he decides to board the ferry with us to Mazatlan. Unfortunately, Hector’s presence on the ferry results in one of those awkward cross-cultural travel moments -- as we gradually come to realize that Nancy’s natural friendliness toward Hector has unwittingly led him to believe that romance is forthcoming. As Hector gradually discovers that Nancy is not interested in being his lover, he begins to drink -- and as he begins to drink, he starts to get belligerent. The team manages to create a protective buffer around Nancy as we all watch a Spanish-dubbed version of “American Pie 2” in the ferry’s TV room. Saddened and angry, Hector drifts away. I get a surprisingly good night’s sleep on the deck, using Colin’s hammock. The stars over the Sea of Cortez are fantastic.

The Sea of Cortez ferry to Mazatlan Mazatlan has been slated for a much-needed rest day. On the advice of some young American surfers we met on the ferry, we drive north through Mazatlan and set up camp at Cerritos Beach, which is known for good waves. In the afternoon, I get a surfing lesson from Neil, our resident wave-rider. This is only the second time I’ve ever been surfing (the other time being in the Mergui Archipelago of Myanmar, where the waves weren’t so hot) and I’m plenty green in the surf. Neil is a patient instructor as I wipe out on my first half-dozen waves -- and unfortunately I’m seized by some vicious leg cramps before I can properly ride the surf in. (With Neil’s help I hope to better master the art of surfing once we get to El Salvador or Costa Rica.) After dinner, I take a chair out to the edge of the surf and enjoy an activity I’ve been deprived of in all these recent days of driving and planning and paperwork: I stare out into space, thinking of nothing in particular.

[Above: Rolf hangs out at a tequila tasting room in Tequila, Mexico.]

Mazatlan to Tequila

Faced with making up three days on a tight itinerary to our shipping date in Panama, we wake up at 5am and head inland to the town of Tequila. This stretch of mainland Mexico has a lovely landscape – not the stereotypically dusty vision you see in Sergio Leone movies, but a lush land of orchards and canfields and volcanic mountains. We roll into Tequila at mid-afternoon, and – in a detail that thrills and astonishes me at the same time – the first thing that happens as we roll into town is that a small boy flags us down and offers us an actual shot of tequila for $1. We turn him down and continue on to the Jose Cuervo plant, where we have planned to take a distillery tour for the DATW education website. After our distillery tour, we do some “tastings” at some other tequila merchants. Indeed, not unlike wineries in the Napa Valley, one can wander the town of Tequila sipping various gourmet tequilas. After a bit of tasting, I buy a jug of “Jesus Reyes” tequila for the simple reason that this name translates into “King Jesus”. Let us praise King Jesus tequila! Drinking aside, Tequila is a lovely little town of brightly painted brick houses that open up onto the street – and we happen to be there the day before their November 20th La Revolulcion holiday. As we walk the streets, young women ride through the town on horseback wearing traditional dresses, and little boys walk around wearing red sashes, huge sombreros, and painted-on Pancho Villa mustaches. And, on top of it all, we get to shower and stay in a hotel for the first time since Loreto. It’s a good thing, too – since we have one of the longest driving days of the expedition tomorrow.

Tequila to Teotihuacan Before this day ends, we will have covered 463 miles, and the misadventures contained herein are too numerous to detail in one brief blog entry. To skip to the central action: After a full day of driving, we are waved off the road at a police checkpoint near Toluka. We’ve passed through many police and military checkpoints since entering Mexico, but this wait seems particularly long. As it turns out, these police want to escort us all the way to our destination at the pre-Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan on the other side of Mexico City. Since we are all nervous about driving through this intimidating megalopolis, we are thrilled by the idea of a police escort all the way there. We put a cameraman in one of the police vehicles and start off on the road. After about 20 minutes, however, we are passed off to another, different, “Policia Estatal” squad – and then to a third escort. Our progress toward Mexico City is painfully slow as we switch escorts from precinct to precinct – and to make matters worse, our fourth escort police car breaks down before we’ve even reached Mexico City. Too embarrassed to radio ahead, the police send us into the city on our own, where a toll attendant gives Neil (our best Spanish-speaker) erroneous directions that send us all the way back to Toluka. Three hours later, our second approach at Mexico City (where road signs are painted over with gang graffiti, or nonexistent altogether) lands us smack in the middle of the city, where we drive, lost, past midnight. At one point, giddy with frustration, we joke about writing a fictional account of Teotihuacan for the education website and just driving on to the Pacific coast. Then, when we finally get into the northern suburbs of Mexico City, we are pulled over by the traffic cops in the district of Tultitlan, who claim that we changed lanes without signaling. The penalty for this horrible offense, they tell us, is to pay them $100 on the spot for each vehicle (apparently, it was 4-for-1 day for traffic cops in Tultitlan). This is a classic police shakedown in this part of the world, so we send Neil in to charm them out of fining us – which, using the our Parkinson’s Disease charity cause – he does with flying colors. Ironically, the first thing we did after leaving the scene of the crime was to (A) run a red light, then (B) notice that the police car was missing a headlight and did not appear to have functioning blinkers. The rest of the ride to Teotihuacan was not nearly so eventful – though it took two more hours (with speed bumps placed at about 20-meter intervals the whole way), and when we finally found a hotel at our destination, half the channels on the televisions consisted of porno movies.

[Above: A young Mexican girl peeks in on our breakfast in a village near the monuments of Teotihuacan.]

Teotihuacan to Cuernavaca

Much like Giza or Angkor, the pyramids of Teotihuacan are an amazing site of ancient engineering that nobody should miss when they travel through Mexico. And (much as I did in Giza and Angkor) I will not report here about the ancient civilizations that built the vaunted Temple of the Sun and Temple of the Moon. After all, there are plenty of other websites to do that -- and I share Henry David Thoreau’s opinion that the present cultures surrounding ancient monuments are more interesting than the monuments themselves. Besides, after a pleasant breakfast in town and a brief walk through the pyramids, our schedule forces us back into the Land Rovers, back through Mexico City (where we are again pulled over by the police -- this time for having the wrong numbers on our license plates -- who let us off with a $10 bribe), and on to Cuernavaca, where Colin’s Mexican friend Rebeka puts us up in her family’s holiday home. It’s a welcome rest, though we once more arrive past dark -- and we’re due for more miles the next day.

Cuernavaca to Oaxaca There are certain frustrations to traveling through other countries in a four-vehicle, nine-person Land Rover convoy. A big one is that you are left with no time to yourself. Another big one is that the expedition team invariably calls attention to itself, rolling through places like a noisy, flashy (and somewhat oblivious) nine-headed monster. But the frustration that rears its head on this day is how a nine-person team can fritter away its time as its various members indulge their compulsions. Today, our plan is to drive to the southern Mexican cultural center of Oaxaca – a place I’ve been looking forward to seeing for a long time. According to our plan, we should be able to arrive there with plenty of daylight to spare. Unfortunately, three members of our team were out partying in Cuernavaca the night before, and we get off to a late start. Then, after a few hours on the road, a simple 20-minute lunch turns into an hour of roadside lollygagging as various drivers decide they need more cola, different snacks, or another toilet break. The volcanic scenery as we drive on through the central Mexico plateau is amazing -- and the drive itself is enjoyable -- but I begin to worry that we won’t make it into Oaxaca with much daylight to spare. Then, as if to mock my concerns, someone comes over the radio suggesting we take a group photo in front of the big cactuses along the side of the road. Somehow -- for reasons that still baffle me -- this activity takes forty-five minutes, and by the time we roll into Oaxaca, it is pitch dark. After finding a hotel, I manage to go out and soak in some of the music and nightlife around the central plaza of Oaxaca. It’s a pleasant evening (Oaxaca is another place I could see myself living in for several months), but I am beginning to wonder: Is this trip all about poorly managed road-time in the Land Rovers? Will I ever get to truly experience any of the places on the route, or will they all blow by outside the windshield?

[Above: A woman who sold us some mescal on the way out of Oaxaca.]

Oaxaca to Tapachula

We depart south out of Oaxaca with the intention of hitting San Cristobal las Casas in Chiapas, but soon realize that – since we are still three days behind, and we have a crossing into Guatemala planned the next day – this is unwise. We decide instead to hit the border town of Tapachula. The day brings us out of the cool mountain regions of Mexico, and into the tropical area that borders Yucatan and Central America. Paint peels off buildings, and palms sway at the roadside. A warm mist hangs over the valleys, and bats chase insects at sunset. The sun goes down in a smoky orange haze, and we arrive on the outskirts of Tapachula at night. We have crossed the length of Mexico in less than two weeks. Most of the team passes the evening by playing dice and getting drunk on mescal in their hotel rooms. We are exhausted, but more driving lies ahead. We cross into Guatemala tomorrow.

Help support our cause: Drive Around the World aims to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease research by taking four certified pre-owned Land Rover Discoverys around the globe following lines of longitude. Readers are encouraged to pledge small amounts of money per expedition-mile via a pledge form that can be found on our Parkinson’s page by clicking here. Everyone making a pledge of $10 or more to raise money for the Parkinson’s Institute will be put in a raffle to win an expedition-style Land Rover.