Today was a super long day of driving. We left Tampico a bit late, because we attempted to do laundry. However, after an hour in the dryer the clothes were still sopping wet, so we just had to dress in nice sticky clothes. We have officialy delved into the Mexican food, much to the chagrine of all readers, starting out with breakfast tacos at the stand outside of the gas station an hour outside of Tampico!! Holy lord, TOPES!!!
I had heard about them from other people, but just assumed they were referring to the poor road conditions...not so. Most of the 10 hour trip today we could not go over 25 mph due to these large topes (speed bumps) on the highways. Jared did the driving and basically developed a system so we did not bottom out on every one; however, almost all of them are not marked, so you just drive along and suddenly have to slam on the brakes and try to maneuver in a diagonal direction over them. Then the fog set in. We climbed 6,700 feet through the mountains, and sometimes visibility was barely 30 feet. Also, an interested factoid, apparently many people here do not use their headlights, because they believe it wastes gas...? So that was also a bit difficult in the fog.
Lastly, when in a small town outside of Mexico City, it started raining...a lot!! We have a large amount of items strapped to the roof of the car, which allowed rain to literally stream in through the windows soaking all of us.
I tried to grab a bottle to catch some, and the water was brown
brown; Clint described it as looking like dip spit. Ug:
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| Rain water |
At one point we thought the car might flood from the level of water rising. Ha...then at an intersection all of the lights suddenly went out, and Jared, being a newly initiated Mexican driver, joined the foward march of every single car in this large insection; but we sped through it like pros! Also, had a near death experience, when Jared masterfully and completely idiotically sped around a small car, minivan, and large truck at the same time on a blind curve in the mountains. Oh! Also, almost got struck by lightening! We all discussed how today felt like 3 days crammed into one. Finally exhausted we arrived into Mexico City. We have yet to develop a fool-proof system of navigation. Initially, we attempted to take pictures of Mapquest directions, but only the written part and a lot of streets are not named, then we attempted to take pictures of the map as well, but those are not labeled well either. Today we had to resort to an amazing GPS gadget Jared got in the Marine Corp. We are staying at this super groovy hostel. It looks like it is straight out of a movie. Dreadlocks, mini guitars, big guitars, black lights, old school jams from to 60s, writting all over the walls. When we walked in after dinner, they offered us jello shots, which shockingly we all refused.
They do have a great computer area though, which is why I am able to write a good amount finally. A quick note about police and federales. Everyone has been so helpful. On the road we have been waved through all of the checkpoints, except two I believe, where (as I noted in an earlier post) they just chuckled when they heard what we were doing, and when I speak to police officers on the streets they are very polite and helpful!
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