Travel Log 16: December 22, 2009 - Delayed by a Mexican Traffic Jam

 

We drove through the sister city of San Carlos, about 15 minutes away from Guaymas to check out what has changed since we visited last year. The hurricane which this area endured this past summer left its mark here. The main road through town is fractured, eroded and blocked off for repair. A detour road has been paved through the back streets. We also went just a few miles north of San Carlos to Playa Algadones. This is the beach which was a Club Med destination years ago; in fact, Adrian went to this Club Med in 1998. In recent years, the resort has been closed and the property just sits. Along the beach are many expat vacation homes and we noticed that several had been destroyed by the hurricane as well.

 

We left Guaymas on Saturday, December 19 with Las Glorias as our destination. Las Glorias is on the coast just south of the cities of Los Mochis and La Cruz.    We hit major holiday traffic on this day through the cities and through the toll booths. Every car was full of Mexican families heading home with "loot" piled high on car roofs and pick-up truck beds.  Going home to visit family at Christmas is a big deal in the Mexican culture.  People will deadhead (drive without stopping) for days to maximize their time at their destination.  License plates depict families coming from northern Mexican provinces, and many states in the U.S. -- mostly western and as far north as Washington State.  Driver fatigue is a real problem at this time of year and one must exercise even more awareness than usual on the road.  A popular road sign on Mexican byways is "don't drive while tired - your family is waiting for you".  It is not unusual to see a single vehicle accident where the driver has gone off the road.

 

We stayed overnight at Las Glorias and then headed out again for our final destination of Teacapan (tee-ah-ka-pan). This would be a very long day with our estimated arrival around 4:30, allowing one hour's lee-way before darkness falls at 5:30. I've mentioned before that driving at night in Mexico is not recommended. The fields along the roads often do not have fences or may have fences in poor repair.  The field animals are attracted to the warmth of the pavement after dark, making for a warm-blooded speed bump.  Also, the truckers drive at night and they drive like maniacs. If they stop for repairs, they put large rocks behind their tires to brace their trucks. Then when they pull away, the rocks are left on the road and very hard to see at night. Of course, we've never witnessed any of this, but the tour books all warn about driving at night, so we have taken their advice.

 

Our travel day went very well and we were on schedule until we hit south of Mazatlan. The lines at the toll booths were long and clogged and then we hit the mother of all traffic jams. As we passed the airport, just south of Mazatlan, we crawled along for two hours. In this two hours we made 6 kms. As we finally came to the reason for the jam, we saw that the usual 3-lane road south had been whittled to one lane for repairs. This whole drama was about three lanes of excessive holiday traffic trying to merge to one. Watching Mexican drivers merge was the only entertainment we had during this patch of travel! It reminded me of several dogs trying to eat out of the same dog dish -- pushing and jostling and forcing a spot to open up! Really, they pass within inches of us and each other. If they can't get in on one side of you, they go around the other side, even if it means driving on the shoulder, if there is a shoulder and if not, driving in the ditch to get ahead! Actually, they just do everything we wish we could do on the roads at home, but don't have the nerve!  Note to self...never, ever, ever plan big travel days this close to Christmas ever again!

 

At this point in our travels, we had passed all possible RV park possibilities with no other RV offering between us and our destination. We saw no other RV's on the road the whole day, until Mazatlan when we saw two older motorhomes, but they had not continued south to where we were. With no other RVers in sight, camping alone anywhere along the road is not an option for safety's sake, so our only choice was to push on to Teacapan. Night fell at 5:30 and we arrived safely at our park at 7:30, after being in the truck for 10 hours. We did have a small detour as we got lost briefly in the dark trying to find our exit from the north. We had been to Teacapan only from the south and weren't totally familiar with the northern access route. We found our way through the town Santa Rosalia to the Free Road Mex 15 with the help of a very kind taxi driver who led us through town. At another fork in the road as we stopped to look at our maps, a police car directed us as to the way to go. 

 

Throughout Mexico, there are "free roads" and "toll roads". The free roads tend more to go through small towns resulting in many speed-reducing topes (toe-pays) which are the mucho grande speed bumps we talked about last year. If topes aren't enough, there are also the vibradores (vib-rah-door-ays) which are a series of 10 - 20 small speed bumps about one-vehicle-length apart. This can make for very slow travels.

 

The toll roads are technically supposed to be easier to travel because the money collected allows for maintenance and repairs. Mexico is achieving varying degrees of success on the maintenance and repair front. Some of the toll roads are excellent to travel and some are not. The biggest problem is narrow lanes and zero shoulder with large drops off the pavement, or drops right down into a steep ditch. Most RVers stay on the toll roads unless they are very familiar with the area or are travelling together with other RVers for safety. Today was the biggest toll booth day for us, totaling about $70 Cdn for the day because of how many tolls we crossed. Usually it's about a $10 - $20 cost for the day.

  

The reason we ran into a problem this night is because we were driving on the toll road which had exit ramps built for Teacapan. Problem is, the connection was never built between the ramp and the roads on the peninsula. Literally the road to nowhere!  Our GPS, Lola, was trying desperately to have us take these exits, but we had to find our own way off the toll road and onto the free road for a short stretch which was, in fact, connected to the peninsula. (note after-the-fact: these linking ramps have actually been built, but our tour book was incorrect in its information)

 

Teacapan is located south of Mazatlan on the coast. Our RV Park is about half-way down the peninsula between Escuinapa (es-kwee-napa) de Hidalgo and the village of Teacapan (tay-ah-ka-pahn) which is right at the southern tip.

 

So here we sit December 22, 2009. An 8-mile stretch of perfect beach with no one to share it except a few RV parks and the small fishing village of Teacapan. The town of Escuinapa de Hidalgo is about a 30 minute drive away. They have some okay Mexican grocery stores. Between that, the fruit and vegetable stands and our freezer full of Costco food we'll get by just fine.

 

We have booked in here for a month, at the end of which we will decide if we'll stay longer or venture further south again like last year. Bailey is loving it here. We parked ourselves a little ways away from the general population so that she can just roam around outside and not bother anyone -- or steal anyone's breakfast pastry from their outside table, as she's been known to do! 

 

We are one of approximately 25 RVs here. We've been invited to a potluck Christmas dinner on the 25^th at 5:00 pm. Everyone is joining together and bringing tables, chairs and a bunch of food. We accepted the invitation whole-heartedly as this is our only chance to score turkey and stuffing!

 

Feliz Navidad!