The roads on the east side of the Gulf of Mexico are way better than the roads on the west. However, despite the good roads, the five hours turned to six because we were stopped at another ag stop, where the officer inspected the trailer for poultry products. We’re not quite sure what they wanted, because even though the officer spoke excellent English, when he asked if we had any poultry products and we told him that we had eggs for breakfast, he didn’t care and sent us on our way. A few miles up the road we were stopped at our first military checkpoint. Up to this time, we’d been waved through the military roadblocks, but they waved us into an inspection lane for this one. We were asked to leave the vehicle, and they took about a half hour going through the truck and trailer. I took the dogs out because they were worried that Mel would bite, but as I was walking the three dogs around, Tom said that some of the soldiers working on the roof of a small building whipped out their cell phones and started taking pictures of me and the dogs; we assume Mel was the subject of interest, since he’s been the center of attention every time we get him out of the truck. They finally declared us good to go, and we were back on the road to Campeche, where we encountered our first real 4-lane superhighway, just like a US highway (except there are pedestrians, bikers, kids, and animals all along the edge of the road – so not quite such carefree driving as in the US).
We arrived in Campeche around 5:30, which was about right since we’d blown a good hour between the ag stop, the military stop, and a quick lunch stop. The Sanborn’s guide book recommended an RV park in Campeche and gave detailed directions on how to get there. The only problem was that the directions were based on the non-toll road, so they started at the other end of the city from where we were dumped off the toll road. We drove through the city, which is pretty big since it’s the capital of the Mexican state of Campeche, and drove along the beautiful malecon (waterfront boulevard), looking for the landmarks. Our first hint that something was wrong was that the directions said that the University should be on our right, and it was on our left. So, we pulled into a parking lot, Tom jumped out and got directions, found that we were indeed heading the wrong way, and got back in the truck.
Getting out of the parking lot was like some sort of videogame driving test (Tom’s says like a CDE hazard but no assurances that you are able to navigate the gates). It was all one way lanes with sharp turns at the ends, and cars were parked out of the spaces in spots that should have been open for big vehicles needing to turn. He only drove slowly over a couple of curbs and managed not to hit any vehicles, then we had to find a traffic circle to get ourselves heading in the right direction, and then the landmarks started to make sense.
We followed the directions to a T, and found that the RV park was in the middle of the city, and no way to get there except for some very narrow streets. Each of the tight turns seemed to have cars parked in key spots on the corners the made it necessary for Tom to do a couple of forward and back moves to get the whole rig around the corner without hitting any of the parked vehicles or scraping the tires too badly on the curbs. We asked directions a couple of times, and were assured that we were on the right track to the campground. When we got there, we started to turn down the street indicated by both the written directions and the directions we’d received, and saw a dirt pile in the middle of the street. By this time it was dark. A very helpful man told us to turn around, go around the block, and approach from the other direction. That direction had a ditch running down the middle of the street. Our only option at that point was to head up another one of the steep ramps that road engineers seem to build in a country that doesn’t get any snow, or turn around. Tinkerbell wasn’t up to pulling the rig up the ramp without a running start – almost impossible to get on narrow city streets – so Tom got out and went to see if he could find out where the mythical campground was.
He found the campground, but also found that the road had been dug up five days ago and there was no way to drive there. So, the owner came out, helped us get turned around, and told us to park on the street. It may not have been the smartest thing in the world to do, and it’s definitely not recommended in any of the guidebooks, but that’s what we did. And it was okay, just like it was okay in Virginia. We went in the camper and fed the dogs, and I started making our dinner. Tom was sitting in a chair by the door, and people from the neighborhood started walking by and checking out the rig. When they saw that we had US plates, everyone who knew a little bit of English came by to practice. So, Tom practiced his Spanish while they practiced their English, and by the time we were getting ready for bed, our neighbors-for-the-night were walking by the trailer and saying “Good night, friends.”
We had a good night’s sleep, with a few brief wakeups. One was around midnight when an old Volkswagon Beetle was trying to get up the ramp and found that it couldn’t do it without a running start. So they let it drift down and tried again, and still couldn’t make it up. So then they determined that they needed to turn around, right behind our trailer, which has the bed in the back, and from what Tom could understand and see through the slat in the blinds, the bug didn’t have reverse. They’d pull up a little, get out, shut the doors, yell and push, then get in and go a little bit forward, then get out and yell and push again. It seemed like it must have been at least an 8-point turn, but they finally got the bug turned around and headed back down the street away from the ramp. We laid in bed marveling at how miraculous it was that Tom managed to get the truck and trailer turned around in a spot that required that much work to get a VW bug headed in the opposite direction.
We also had a few wakeups because the neighborhood was full of dogs. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but all of Mexico is full of dogs. All the dogs in Brownsville were a good warmup, but Brownsville is nothing compared to Mexico as far as dogs go. They’re everywhere. Some are pets, some are working dogs, and some are just strays that get by okay because it’s warm enough and there’s enough food that they don’t starve – although it looks like it’s close sometimes. It’s been a little bit of a problem at a few of the places where we’ve stopped, because our dogs get all wound up when they see other dogs, especially loose ones, running around. The saving grace is that the Mexican dogs could give a rat’s ass about our dogs, and if any of them get a little bit curious, all we have to do is turn around and look at them and they generally turn tail and run. Tom and I have discovered that our Spanish skills are lacking, but we’re apparently literate in dog talk in any language. Anyway, every time we took our dogs out of the camper on the street, the neighborhood dogs would line up a little way down the block, and follow us, but they would always keep their distance. However, as soon as our dogs were in the camper, the camper would be surrounded. Needless to say, all of our tires were well watered this morning, and a few times during the night our dogs woke up and let us know that the other dogs were still out there. As we were driving north this morning, all three dogs were sacked out since none of them got a good night’s sleep the night before.
We were awake at 4 am, but set the alarm and tried to sleep til 6:00. By 7:30 we’d walked the dogs, eaten, packed, had the trailer ready to move, and we were on the road.
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