The Incredibly Wonderful People of Mexico:
After posting about our bad experience with the Mexican police officers in Mexico City we received a couple of those "Mexico is rampant with corruption" comments. While I'm sure there's plenty of corruption in Mexico, we've barely experienced it.
Contrary to what our soon-to-be Fear Monger In Chief blabs, the Mexican people are warm, welcoming, helpful and hospitable. While Belize is our goal, Mexico is extremely tempting. We've stopped at more than one park that is a shell of its former self because of media hype about how unsafe Mexico is. Again, we have not once worried about our safety or security. We take walks in the local communities. We drive the truck on excursions. And, there isn't a single time we've been out, driving or walking, when we haven't had multiple people smile at and wave to us. That just doesn't happen in the States.
European Friend Update:
Ian & Penelope, of Australia, are trekking onward toward Belize. They're still at altitude (7,000 feet as last reported) and Southwest of us. We're only getting snippets from them currently, but hoping to spend some time with them in Belize before their December respite to Australia.
We heard from our new German friends, Michael & Achim, the other day. Michael has started a blog and it's wonderful. Being that he is a photographer by profession, his blog is mostly pictorial and speaks for itself. His verbiage is in what he dubs the asteism (sarcastic) style - quite entertaining. The blog is in German, but God bless Google Translator who does a fine job of converting the entire blog in one swell foop. It reminds us of some truly amazing places in Mexico that we're missing, since tourism isn't our primary objective, but as Arnold would say, "We'll be back." Here, I hope, is the translated version of Michael's blog: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Feinalterfreund.wordpress.com%2F&edit-text=
And Speaking of Google...
How did anyone ever traverse Mexico without the internet? We are woefully inadequate when it comes to technology, but had we not finally gotten the Google Maps Gal to speak to us, we would have been totally screwed. Add to that the ability to virtually check out the tricky intersections in advance via Google Street View and our drive days have been totally made possible by Google. Not fans of the corporate giants, but big fans of Google, presently.
Moving Forward:
Getting out of the No-Tell-Motel was a bit challenging. We only had to unhook and rehook the truck up twice on the tight exit from the motel. A half hour or so of nightmare city driving and we had a relatively painless drive to the coast. Type in, "Isla Aguada, Campache" into Google maps and you'll see the little strip we occupied. Not really an island, more of a long peninsula - lagoon on one side, open ocean on the other. Harley would have loved it.
Humans are drawn to the water - kind of fascinating when you think of it. We're land mammals. In any event, if we're at the beach on a weekend, we will be inundated with families. Freedom Shores, our current location, is no exception. The beach visits by the locals extended into Monday, as well. It wasn't until right before our departure that I realized the allure of this section of beach was the palm trees Thelma has planted on the beach. All the locals flock here.
This is an interesting park. Designed by Bill, a quadriplegic, and husband of our hostess, Thelma, as a park that allows total access to those with physical disabilities. Unfortunately, Bill passed 5 years ago and like our first stop in Mexico with Edgar, Thelma is lost without her life-long partner. Notwithstanding, she's obviously a strong woman and continues to move forward. As stated previously, the media in America has largely killed her RV biz, but she has a thriving hotel, restaurant, and beach area.
We were the only ones there on Friday, but then the weekend arrived and the primal call of the sea brought the yoga retreat gals on Saturday, their families later that night, and Sunday through Monday, 80 plus locals of all ages, rotating onto, and off of, the beach, right in front of our RV spot. No one was rowdy or excessively noisy, but all the traffic was like being at a water park.
We had planned on leaving Monday morning, but a late night, Saturday storm brought to light a ceiling leak near the rooftop AC unit which soaked all of Laurie's clothes below and, upon further inspection on the lower level, we discovered the water pump was also spewing under the couch/lower level bed. Consequently, Monday turned into laundry/repair/patch/dry out day.
Monday night, we met Kieran, from Australia. Kieran is bicycling through Mexico on his way to Panama. He started in BC, Canada, biked down the continental divide to Texas, flew to Mexico City and biked to Isla Aguada where we met him. Gotta love these Europeans. He's being tempted with an offer to sail out of Cancun for a couple of months, but still plans on hitting Belize, so we're hoping he looks us up. We got an email from our French friends today. Unfortunately, they're already south of Belize so we've missed them. Safe travels Marc, Juliette, Max & Rafael!
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| Talk about a tiny tent. |
We had a pretty smooth, 5 hour drive to Xpujil today. We're in the heart of the Maya forest of Calakmul. We sense many archeological temptations surrounding us, so we'll research it tonight and, perhaps, explore a bit tomorrow. Then, off to our final destination in Mexico - Chetumal.
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