Our Drive Back to El Salvador

August 2004

Wednesday July 28, 2004

We have arrived at the “Irie Oasis” in Tucson, actually the home that Karen and Dick of Irie (and their German Shepard – Soda) have set up in Tucson.  They have moved ashore and returned to the work world for a time but are welcoming their past cruising friends to stop and visit.   A friendly oasis it is, as they have found a place buried in an old citrus grove.  With lots of palm trees as well and many types of birds as well as bunnies you really feel like you are in an oasis.  Bill finished up his work at Unisys on Tuesday morning and by later in the afternoon we had packed up the car for our return trip to El Salvador.  Then this morning, we headed down to San Diego to pick up our new dinghy at Downwind Marine and purchase a few other last minute items that could still be squeezed into the already full car.  After tying the dinghy to the roof of the car we continued south to Chula Vista to say our good-byes to Bill’s mother and then headed east.  We arrived in Tucson at the Oasis just before midnight.  A short visit with Dick, who was still awake waiting for our arrival and we fell into bed. 

Thursday, July 29, 2004

This morning Bill unpackaged the “boat toys” that had been shipped here for us.  He then removed the dinghy from the roof of the car with Dick’s help.  We could again get into the trunk of the car where I stowed the new toys and checked on all my previous packing.   Bill and I ran a few errands in the early afternoon but returned to the Oasis in time for an afternoon nap.  Pauline, Sundancer II, flew in to Tucson and rented a car.  She arrived just before dinnertime.   Sandy and Bill, Sirius, also drove over to join the fun.  Sandy and Bill have sold Sirius and are now living in their motor home in a Tucson motor home park.  Dick barbequed chicken for us and all enjoyed the dinner while our visiting lasted well into the night.

Friday, July 30, 2004

Bill and I drove over to visit Sandy and Bill at their motor home while Pauline and Dick went “dumpster diving” for carpet scraps.  Ray arrived tonight on a flight that got him here just before dark.  After a few beers we again enjoyed a long dinner visit.  Ray and Pauline are having Sundancer II trucked back to the Pacific Northwest from San Carlos and are here to ready the boat for the trip.  They have established a home base back in Canada and Ray is again employed.

Saturday, July 31, 2004

Saturday morning started with carpet cutting.  The carpet that Dick and Pauline had acquired yesterday was moved to Dick and Karen’s lawn and cut into long strips about 2 feet wide to be used for wrapping the mast and other boat parts as protection during transport.  Ray and Pauline then loaded up their rental car and headed south to San Carlos where the boat sits in dry storage.  Dick, who is heading off on a business trip in the morning, spent the day getting clothing ready and packing.  Bill spent much of the day on his computer.  Karen and I took a walk through the surrounding citrus orchard returning with a bag of grapefruit that Karen turned into juice.  We then lazed around and visited much of the rest of the day away. 

After dinner Karen pulled out her log of their boat travels in Baja while I brought mine up on the computer.  We spent several wonderful hours reading to each other from them.

Sunday

Dick left early for the airport to start his first business trip of the “working world”.  Bill spent the day working as well on a project that was not quite finished when we took off.  This freed Karen and I up to do some shopping.  Our first stop was a used book store where we both found books that we could just not live without.  Then we spent several hours scanning the racks at her favorite Salvation Army thrift store.  Karen found nothing worth purchasing but I found a great travel dress.   I like to wear dresses when traveling in the Latin American countries as I feel out of place in shorts and do not like to wear long pants in the hot climates.  Since all my travel dresses had been left on Lanikai I had looked for one just before leaving S. California with no luck, so was real happy to find one here.  I also picked up two boys t-shirts for Victor and Herson. 

Tuesday August 3, 2004

After a day of rest and last minute downloads by Bill we took off in the early Monday evening heading east toward El Paso, Texas.  We stopped at the Sirius motor home to say good-bye to Sandy and Bill on our way out of town and made it as far as Deming, New Mexico, before we stopped for sleep.  Today we continued on to El Paso where we managed to find Mexican car insurance, top up the fuel tank and eat before we drove across the border.  After an inspection of our trunk contents by the aduana at the boarder we wandered out way thru Ciudad Juarez and on to the 30km check point.  There it took Bill 2 ½ hours to get the paperwork done.  The visas were quick but getting the car permit at the bank took forever. 

We stopped for the night 100 km further into Mexico at Villa Ahjumado.

Wednesday August 4, 2004

We continued our drive south through the desert today.  The desert was quite green and not hot until mid afternoon.  We had a large lunch at a restaurant near Jimenez but since it was still only mid-afternoon when we finished we continued on toward Torreon stopping for the night at a wonderful little motel with a swimming pool in Bermejillo.  We drove into the center of the little town to find an ice cream and finally had success at the nearest Pemex station.

Thursday August 5, 2004

Today was another long day of driving but sometime in the afternoon we climbed to higher cooler temperatures.  We passed through lush farms and the natural countryside although still being mostly desert plants was lush and green.  The cacti were huge!!  We drove through the little town of Rincon de Romos to find an ATM with the hope of also finding a motel there.  No luck on finding a motel but the trip through the town with its grande topes (big speed bumps) caused the tail pipe on the car to hang down quite low.  We finally found a motel for the night about 10 km from Aguascalientes.  The one we pulled into was a “push button” motel.  It had a garage with an electric garage door that we could close.  Perfect for sneaking into with the girlfriend!! The room itself was actually two rooms and a largish bathroom.   Bill enjoyed the sitting area as a place to type on his computer.  I crawled into the big chair and read then moved on to the big bed to watch some television.

Friday August 6, 2004

This morning we crossed out first 1000-mile mark from the Texas boarder.  It was a short day in distance traveled as we only made it to just outside Morelia where we found another motel room with an attached garage.  This one did not have the fancy garage door just a canvas curtain but then the room was only 230 pesos while the one last night was 350.  Since it take 11.5 pesos to make a dollar both rooms were quite cheep.  This room also had a two person tub Jacuzzi that we both enjoyed although the water was not real hot.   Bill found an electric outlet in a small alcove with a table to set up his computer.

We did not get to the motel until just before dark as we had spent 5 hours at an auto shop in Valle de Santiago.  The tail pipe continued to bug us as it scraped any high spots in the pavement so Bill, leaving the divided road, took off on the road through Santiago with hopes of finding a muffler shop.  We were almost out of the town when Bill spotted this mechanic’s shop.  We stopped to ask for help and the mechanic said that he could fix our problem.  The timing was right as the “topes” in Santiago had loosened the pipe more.  It turned out that the tail pipe was toast although the muffler was still good.  Bill with the help of the mechanic purchased a new tail pipe that they modified for our car and installed.  Then it was decided to do something to raise the back of the car as the tire bumped the wheel well whenever we went over a dip.  We had too much weight in the car due to the many books and other stuff that we were carrying south.  After waiting for the stores to reopen after siesta, some rubber shims were purchased and installed.  They raised the back end of the car about an inch.  The ride after that was much better.

Saturday August 7, 2004

We got a later start this morning, as soon after leaving the motel just before reaching the autopista to Mexico we stopped at a street-side venders for breakfast.  We chose the spot because of all the trucks parked nearby and what a breakfast it was.  There was only one item, well cooked goat meat in a wonderful sauce served with fresh cooked tortillas.  Bill and I each had a cup of coffee as well.  It was a super start to what should have been a short day but proved to have its unique excitement.   We took the autopista (mostly toll freeway) to Toluca then, after wandering the city streets were on the road south to Tenango where we took off on side roads toward Cuernavaca.  It went up for a while then made the long climb down.  The road was good, except for the big topes in each of the little villages until we were almost to Cuernavaca.  The pavement then just ended suddenly leaving us hopping over a rocky track for a few miles until the pavement just started up again.  In Cuernavaca we ended up on city streets where we continued to follow our noses down and east, in heavy traffic, hoping to met up with the Acapulco to Mexico City autopista.  On this highway, we headed toward Mexico taking the Cuautla turn off.  We ate dinner at a Vips and continued on finding another of those push button, one night stand motels.  This one was more expensive costing us $36 for the night and there was no Jacuzzi.

Sunday August 8, 2004

Today was the day of the Topes.  We drove from Cuernavaca toward Oaxaca stopping for the night at the little town of Nochixtlan just before we picked up the autopista that ran from Puebla to Oaxaca.  The road we traveled was not a bad road except some sections of lots of pot holes and the many topes, big speed bumps that many times scraped the bottom of the car as we crossed at a dead stop.  Every little town seemed to put out their own topes; some were wide enough that we passed over them with out smacking the car bottom but many were short and steep - those we scraped over.  The road worked its way down through the mountains.  We started the day in Pine forests and ended with cacti.  We found a pleasant family run hotel for the night.  Mama cooked us a nice dinner.  No air conditioning needed as it got quite cool after sunset and we were glad for the blankets on our beds.

Monday August 9, 2004

Down, down, down we drove today.  After passing Oaxaca we fell out of the mountains down to the planes of Tehuantepec.  It got warmer and warmer as we dropped and the humidity rose also. We had a fairly strong cross wind as we crossed the low spot between the Gulfo de Mexico and the Pacific.   Today we also had to traverse many topes and many were even unmarked and in unexpected places so we both had to keep our eyes peeled out for them.  We spent the night only 250km from Tapachula and the Guatemalan border.

Tuesday August 10,2004

Today proved to be an interesting one.  After a fast drive on mostly autopista, we arrived in the outskirts of Tapachula just before noon only to discover that the head honcho for the border had died the day before and all boarder crossings would be closed the next day.  A friendly Mexican lad wanted to help us get across today and after much finagling we decided to let him do it.  The crossing probably cost us more $ but we got across with car papers in less than 2 hours.  The costs included the fact that we had not yet visited a Banamex to pay for our tourist card.  We paid that fee at the border and I am sure that it went into one or more officials pockets, but we did get the exit stamp in our passport! 

We drove into Guatemala as far as Quetzaltenango taking the steeper more scenic route through San Marcos.  The road was REALLY steep but the scenery was wonderful.  It got quite cool as we climbed, thankfully so, as we had to run the heater to keep the car from overheating.  We spent the night in a very friendly family run hotel that had a locked side yard for parking.

Wednesday August 11, 2004

It got quite cold overnight and the guidebook did not list many interesting sites in town to visit so after breakfast in the hotel we headed off toward Antigua.  This proved to be another interesting day as we traversed the secondary roads out of town finally meeting up with the major highway CA1.  We stopped at a little tourist restaurant along the way to take a break and enjoyed hot chocolate and a postre.   The highway was still up in the mountains but the general flow was downhill.  The scenery was still pretty and green with jungle where the rich land was not being farmed.  The trip was uneventful until we turned off the main highway on another secondary road toward Antigua.  Not far down the road we hit a rock just right and ended up with a flat tire.  One of the locals promised to stop in the next town and send some help but that never materialized.   After an hour and half of waiting we gave up and emptied the very full trunk to get at the tiny spare tire.  Bill easily switched the tires while I refilled the trunk.  He then tied the flat tire on the trunk lid and we started down the road very slowly with the mini-spare tire.  We found a tire shop right on the road in the second small pueblo that we passed through and in no time he had found the tear, patched it and replaced the wheel.  The little spare was too small to tie securely on the trunk lid so Bill tied it on top of the dinghy that was riding on top of the car.  We traveled the rest of the way into Antigua with only missing the correct road once.  A kind policeman led us onto the right road again after Bill asked him directions.  In Antigua we had no trouble finding our favorite hotel and it even has safe parking for the car.  Bill’s card would not work in the ATM near the plaza so he had to go into the bank to get Quetzals.  We wandered the streets finally settling on a dinner spot out of the many to choose from.  Bill ate spaghetti and I enjoyed a salad.  Bill sent out quick arrival e-mails at the attached internet café.

Thursday August 12, 2004

We got a late start this morning enjoying our time to sleep in.  Our week-plus’s worth of laundry were deposited with a lavandaria and we found a nice little restaurant for breakfast.  Then it was back to the hotel room to type up many e-mails and to get the computers set up for e-mailing from the slowly dying Libretto.  It still works - but for how long?  We did take a break mid-afternoon to visit the cookie store for a hot chocolate and cookie snack.  Late in the afternoon Bill got our mail sent out at the internet café while I picked up our cleaned clothes.  We ate Italian food for dinner at a restaurant near the Arch.

Saturday August 14, 2004

We have now spent three wonderful relaxing days here in Antigua.  We have both spent much time on our computers and I have read two books.  Bill did some real work and we both got many e-mails sent out to family and friends, as well as getting an update added to our web page.   Our plan is to get underway in the morning on the last leg of our journey and be in Bahía by tomorrow evening.