Merico: Travel Traumas -- And How!

Due to a dearth of pics on this trip,
I will share a few of my favorite
spring flower pics with you.

Jacaranda tree in Mexico spring.

 After leaving you hanging as to whether we were ever leaving Valles de Juarez, I will continue my story. (I tried shortening it, but it just didn’t make any sense.) 

When told the pickup was finally done, we arrived at noon to pick it up.  Six hours that day, we waited. . . .  insurance wouldn’t release it, pending. . . What!?  That we needed to verify we were carrying U.S. insurance coverage at the same time?!?!?! We retreated home in despair.

The campground’s owner’s son is a lawyer, and the next morning his lovely secretary, Laura, called the insurance spokesman for us.  Turned out, the company was only waiting to learn we had insurance before entering Mexico. Whew!

Back to Sayhuo once more for the fourth day in a row.  After two more hours waiting, we finally left the repair shop with the pickup. Two miles away, Mike pulls over.  “Drive the pickup,” he told me, “it seems to have a shudder and noise.”  Indeed!  Back to the repair shop.  Four hours later, another part, and we headed home.  It was getting dark.

Fifteen miles later, the pickup began a horrible screeching noise. Brakes locked up?  We parked it in a man’s yard in this small town, and headed home in the Tracker.  The next morning, Mike and Sal went back, then on to Sayuhayo, for another part.  Local mechanic put it on.  Started out again.  They got 15 more miles.  Mechanic at a third shop worked on it for several hours with several test drives. Late that afternoon, after leaving early in that morning, they finally drove in to the campground.  Fixed?  We can only hope. . . 

We did an additional test drive that night, then loaded the camper for an early morning start. But, the next morning, we were forced to stop after only 10 minutes — right in front of the last mechanic’s shop. Another part, and three hours later, we were finally on our way. Six weeks in this small town!

The original repair work was alright.  But, what had happened was a bearing went bad in the middle of the drive shaft, possibly when it was removed to do the original repair work.  The only replacement bearing available was for a F450 Ford; not a GMC.  It was close, but it required several “fittings” to get it right.  Then, once we added the weight of the camper, the noise and problems began again.

Two days later were in Cd. Valles, about half way across Mexico — without incident. Very good friends agreed to keep Mollie—and give her twice daily insulin shots.

Two days later, we flew to Cancun to meet six friends for a week in Akumal.  We were met at the airport by other friends with whom we stayed for two very pleasant days in their RV.  Unfortunately, on the morning we were leaving, our hostess became very sick with a reoccurrence of a very nasty virus, the one criss-crossing the U.S. all winter. We quickly left. 

In Playa del Carmen that day, we met four of our U.S. friends and spent a lovely day being tourists, before the last two friends flew in the following day.  At four AM the following morning, Mike woke me.  He was coming down with the virus — and with his asthma, always a very serious problem.

To avoid giving it to our six friends, I hustled Mike back to the airport in Cancun and Cd. Valles for the week. We both remembered how sick our friend was the previous morning, and how, a few years ago, a serious cold had gone through our group in Belize.

Mike’s trip back did not go smoothly.  His plane was delayed and he missed his connection.  He spent the night in a Holiday Inn in Mexico City.  He finally made it back to the camper late the next afternoon. His next week was very miserable and lonely. 

Our house in Akumal for the week was fabulous!  Stunning!  The remaining seven of us truly had an enjoyable week.  We went snorkeling 3 different places and days, visited two different Mayan ruins, ate in seven different restaurants and thoroughly enjoyed visiting at “Happy Hour” around the pool with beer and gin and 

tonics.

The final night we had dinner served
by our cute little Mexican maid.

L to R:  Annette & Joe, Marnie & Tom,
and Jackie and T.J.

They all flew back on Saturday.  And I spent $40 on a ten minute taxi ride to my hotel for the day/night!  I was to fly out early Sunday morning.  

However, the next day everything went wrong.  I had the taxi drop me at the wrong terminal — took another taxi to the right one!  Then I was informed I had missed my flight!  I had read the flight arrival as the departure time on my paper (Spanish) wrong.

I had no phone. No free wifi — I paid for it two different ways, but it simply wouldn’t work on my Mac.  I finally prevailed on the kindness of a young man at a kiosk and used his phone to contact my friends in Tampico who had driven two hours, one way, to pick me up at the airport and take me back to Cd. Valles.  I felt six kinds of awful and very stupid.  

It was a horribly long day with two flights and a bus ride, but I finally got in to Cd. Valles at 11:30 PM, glad to have Mike pick me up.

Mike was still quite sick with this horrid chest congestion.  He spent his time coughing and coughing, great hacking sounds.  Couldn't sleep — exhausted.  Of course the camper was a hotbed of germs, so I got it too.  Fortunately not as badly, nor so serious for me.

We needed to get home to Colorado. I was capable of driving which was good because the first day, Mike drove for 15 minutes before I made him pull over. He just couldn't do it.  We made it to Texas in a leisurely three days.

  

Our only problems getting to the states were getting very lost in Monterrey— a city we’ve driven around at least a dozen times.  We finally had to hire a taxi driver to lead us clear across town from the south side to the north!  

Picture me, following the taxi driver and Mike through unbelievable downtown traffic with this large camper, towing a car.  If I paused a second, 3 cars dived in front of me!  Mike keeps sticking his arm out the window of the taxi and waggling all five fingers, which was good when I was way behind in traffic, as I could tell which taxi to follow.

Down streets, around corners, 4 lanes of one-way traffic, then down back streets — all the time Mike is sticking his arm out and waggling fingers about every 60 seconds even when I was directly behind him!  I finally had the thought, “Gee, maybe he’s trying to warn me he’s getting kidnapped.” Of course, then I got the giggles every time he put his hand out!

At the U.S. side of the border, some idiot immigration officer sent me — minus Mike and the Tracker — through the “cargo”, not “RV” inspection.  It was so obvious  that I shouldn’t have been there.  I was surrounded by a couple hundred (and I mean this literally) semi-trailer trucks, all waiting in line. 

Only a very few were targeted for x-ray inspections — I was one of the five “lucky” ones.  Even the other inspectors were sympathetic and counseled me how to get around it next time, if it ever happens again.  Two hours later, instead of 15 minutes, I finally met up with Mike and we got out of there. We were both livid.

Welcome back!

A desert garden in Mexico that I loved.

The tone of my writing this winter has been far less ebullient than many past years.  Baja?  Many people love it.  We didn’t (except for our visit with good friends). 

Chumulco, at the town of Villa Corona? Great with the pools and some new friends — for a couple of weeks. Then we were ready to move on — but Mike got sick, so we stayed put for a month. 

Melaque/Manzanillo on the Southwest Coast of Mexico?  Way too hot and full of French Canadians, most who wouldn’t think of speaking to Americans or other Canadians!  Not even to nod "Hello."

Six weeks in the small town of Valles de Juarez, south of Guadalajara? The people were wonderful and we learned many things about a small town in Mexico, but again, we were ready to move on — and couldn’t.

A friend quipped that we must have had our astrological signs waaaaay mis-matched this winter to have encountered all the problems we did. It truly was a comedy of errors!  Mike says it rivals the Chevy Chase movie “Vacation”!

I will finish out this winter by saying, it is, on the whole, the worst vacation we’ve ever had.  That said, we love many places in Mexico and truly the people are wonderful.  We feel safe in Mexico, except for a few states where the cartel influence is too great for us to visit there comfortably.

We like traveling around, seeing lovely new out-of-the-way places, interesting towns, and meeting and talking with people. But perhaps we’ve been there, done that. . . so what’s next? 

Maybe . . . snorkeling in Roatan, Honduras, or a river trip on the Amazon in Ecuador??  Who knows. . . .