Driving The Topes

We are at 18 degrees north latitude, about six degrees further south than Key West, and this is thoroughly tropical. In the trees overhead there are occasional flashes of red in the canopy as excessively noisy macaws (parrots) make their ungainly way around the campground. I’ve been shit upon twice (so far) on this journey by pigeons, and I can say I am not looking forward to finding out how hard parrots crap on the world below them. So far, so good. 

We drove here Thursday from our overnight stop on the road just south of Veracruz and as usual the drive was short in terms of miles but filled with things to see.

Our stopping point on Highway 180, the coast road was a small Pemex where we filled up with gas and asked if we could spend the night. “No problem” he said and we parked in a corner of the lot under a street light which gave Rusty the opportunity for an al fresco dinner. 

We both really enjoyed this stop at a lovely gas station lost along the dunes of an undeveloped coastline. Free beach parking all to ourselves. We ate a fresh salad from Costco in Veracruz with roast chicken and drank boxed white wine which they sell in the Supermarket called Soriana. It is amazingly light and drinkable at three bucks a liter. Not sweet and produces no headaches. 

In the morning Rusty was ready to walk and we crossed the highway to the beach. 

We are at the bottom end of the Caribbean Sea here. East winds predominate which means the waves and any debris they are carrying are pushed up onto the shore along this coast. Under gray overcast skies with a sea mist hanging over everything the effect is that of a wild, lonely and barren spot. It felt rather splendid to wake up and be alone in this place. 

There are some few North American travelers who drive to the Yucatán fleshpots from Texas and in a normal year one might expect to encounter Europeans up from Guatemala, 300 miles away, or landing their trucks at the port of Veracruz, but Covid stopped all that and the normal traffic is only now slowly resuming. 

In the meantime we have these places to ourselves, shared with locals who are of a kindness that takes us by surprise. And then there are the normal perks while driving through Mexico. We stopped at a tope (speed bump) and bought two pizza sandwich type things for breakfast. Warm and spicy they were delicious. I doubt locals pay $1:50 each or two for fifty pesos but we assume we get the gringo rate and it’s a tax we don’t mind paying. Layne found a fifty peso bill ($2:50) and traffic calmly drove round us as we stopped in the middle of the road (!) to make our purchase. Breakfast on the go! 

When driving across Mexico you usually get two choices and one is the Cuota which means Toll and is marked on the map with a “D” as on this map showing our progress roughly from Orizaba to Lake Catamaco: we took 150D from Orizaba marked heavily with my thick red line. Down the coast we took 180, a Libre (Free) Highway. 

The toll roads are faster and may or may not be two or four lanes. The two lanes usually have shoulders so slower traffic like us rides the shoulders thus allowing the faster cars to pass in the “magic third lane” created in the middle of the road. Tolls can be expensive too so that’s a consideration. Fortunately toll roads also run through towns so you still get to see a slice of life. However main roads that aren’t toll roads take you right into the communities, and you get to see traffic jams, roadside stops and people and dogs all living their daily lives.  

“Stop!” The Admiral shouted, not for a tope but for a fresh squeezed orange juice. A big cup for three bucks. 

I monitored Rusty meanwhile as he always likes to stretch his legs when we stop. 

There are also a lot more checkpoints on the Libre highways and we passed three on Highway 180 bringing our total since leaving Arizona at The Naco border crossing m, to 25 and not one of them has stopped us. Not one single solitary person has checked our papers in the past three months. Make of that what you will the next time a gringo tells you Mexican police are on the make with foreign tourists.

As noted we buy and eat street food. On this trip we bought pineapple juice, delicious it turns out with a shot of Mescal and not at all sweet. We stopped to buy 15 gallons of water to fill our 30 gallon tank and a motorcyclist came by. He spent two years in Miami and two years in South Carolina but lived in Latino communities and never learned English. But he sold delicious meat and cheese sandwiches and to my surprise Layne agreed to fork over a buck fifty for one. Delicious.  

Oh and I was forgetting the head. We were so startled we drove past it and had to make a U-turn.

As is usual in Mexico there is no signage, no explanation, no nothing to say why this modern representation of a colossal Olmec head is here. 

This dude spotted us and obviously supplements his farm income selling hammocks to other puzzled passersby as he strolled across the highway to us. 

A cab driver saw Layne and stopped to ask if she’d like him to take her picture thinking  she was alone. He did not, oddly enough, try to rob her. 

From Wikipedia on this town of 11,000 inhabitants:

The town is named after Ángel Rosario Cabada(1872-1921), an agrarian leader. Previously, the town was named El Mesón. El Mesón had been a small regional center of the Olmec or Epi-Olmec culture during a period between 400 BCE and 100 CE. Local farmers found the El Mesón Stela in the 1950s. 

And that was all I could find out with less than stellar internet service! 

It seemed silly to be traveling Mexico and not have a hammock. Layne paid  him $22 for a brightly colored sample and we shall see if we use it. If not it may get re-gifted as we aren’t carrying anything we don’t use.  

We drove up into the mountains looking for a campsite at a waterfall but Google maps took a vacation and led us like idiots into the back streets of Santiago Tuxtla (tooks-tla ) which annoyed me and I think the presence of a vast gold van driven by a scowling foreigner bouncing over topes and turning down alleys little wider than the van startled the local drivers just a little bit. There was a lot of effing and blinding about topes and Google and “why can’t they just…” It was a culturally  inappropriate moment that helped relieve the build up of stress. Neither of us got any pictures of that fiasco, we were a bit involved in getting through the alleys unscathed, but soon enough we were back on the Federal Highway looking for topes. Here’s one: 

Not all of them are well marked. You can barely see the one below: 

So you try to follow a local who  will warn you of the presence of a tope by flashing his brake lights and suddenly lurching as if for no reason. Notice what a huge four lane highway we are on and yet can’t drive it properly. It’s nuts I tell you. 

You get occasional topes on cuota ( toll) roads when they run through towns but the damned effing topes are the biggest incentive to pay tolls. 

We drive so slowly on these roads usually around 35 to 40 miles per hour scanning for topes and enjoying the scenery so we even got passed by a classic VW Beetle  filled with a waving friendly family. A random cyclist in the fast lane! Hence the ever present instruction to not drive at night. You never know what you might hit. 

Roadside lunch. A man and his motorcycle, fond memories for me of being on the road anywhere in the world and stopping to eat next to my ride. 

Pedestrians are everywhere some waiting for buses others crossing busy roads. Eyes open! 

We both noticed drivers in this region are much more aggressive than other parts of Mexico. There are tons of cabs here as poverty rules and middle class car ownership is lower. Consequently these red and white aggressive irritations are everywhere and they push mercilessly. Glad I’m driving a giant van which intimidates even them a bit. 

Tope! These random effing bumps are EVERYWHERE! 

The highway climbed out of the coastal plain and we saw mountains and suddenly a whole lot of greenery. We had the air conditioning running as it was 91 outside and the air was warm and sticky. 

Being passed by a 150cc working man’s motorcycle. I have no pride. 

It was very green especially as it isn’t even rainy season yet. 

We may have missed the waterfalls which we will now have to take a day trip to check out but we didn’t miss the turn off to the lake campground. La Jungla at Lake Catemaco. Up next…

Heroica Veracruz

There are cities in Mexico which are honored with titles in memory of their efforts in history to support the creation of the revolutionary independent state that was Mexico once upon a time. Veracruz is one such and it’s full title is as you see above “Heroica Veracruz” the heroic city of the true cross.

There is more than one fort in this heroic city and we weren’t able to see this little one as it was closed and naturally the big one was out of reach as we spent too long at the other sights. Silly us but Rusty was glad to be woken up by us after he spent a couple of hours napping in the back of the van. It’s not hot enough yet for air conditioning as the air is still quite cool despite the sun, but we put a fan aimed at his bed and he was happy to take a nap after his second walk of the day. One at the campground and the second around here before we dropped him off and walked to the museum. 

Our first approaches to Veracruz from our campground up the road took us by surprise. Lonely Planet says Veracruz is industrial and gritty and maybe it is but we found a charming waterfront drive filled with middle class activities, dog walking, jogging and exercising. Not too gritty at all! 

I even saw a Tesla negotiating the commute. Veracruz seems more like a modern industrial port city with some mild tourist aspirations than a gritty industrial city with no room for people like us. I find it rather interesting and then there is the history. 

Veracruz has a long and warlike history it turns out. Webb Chiles it was who reminded me that Herman Cortez landed here and began his conquest of Mexico. And there he was in the Naval Museum’s display:

Veracruz was the last hold out of the Spanish in “New Spain” and the nascent Mexican Navy in 1823 helped lay siege to the last Spanish garrison in the fort we signally failed to visit. The Spanish  hung in until 1825 hoping for relief from the Spanish Navy whose fleet got pushed back to Cuba by a fortuitous (for the Mexicans) hurricane, and Spain surrendered Mexico to the insurgents. Hence the title “Heroica” granted to the city.

Captain Pedro Sainz in a portrait depicting him as the sailor that kept the Spanish garrison bottled in the Ulua fortress in Veracruz. 

The Naval Museum is extremely modern and has a gorgeous layout of displays from pre-Hispanic times through the 19th century, a turbulent time for Mexicos most important Caribbean port up to the present. 

The displays didn’t fail to point out the importance of Veracruz in the war of 1846, pointing out Mexico lost 55% of its territory. An uncomfortable flash went through my mind thinking about Ukraine and Russia’s current land grab…Human history is a confusing morass of mixed motives and cruel ironies. 

The displays are quite fascinating in their use of technology and the details displayed. A diorama of the conquistador era of exploration: 

The piece of history that took me completely by surprise was the invasion of Veracruz in April 1914, by the United States! Who knew? It turns out some unarmed US sailors crossed into Mexican naval property in Tampico and were arrested. After their release and an apology from Mexico, President Wilson rather arbitrarily ordered a fleet of 44 ships to attack and take Veracruz. So they did as explained rather nicely in one electronic display.

The naval cadets in the building now housing the museum put up stiff resistance joined by citizens of the city (not Kyiv I should note but Veracruz) and were overrun in the end. The cadet barracks recreated in the actual building where the fight took place as recorded by a student diarist: 

The US occupied Veracruz for seven months and did relations with the US no good at all. To me this whole fiasco with attendant loss of life seems bizarre and I got the strong feeling some leaders do not want to learn from history. Pictures of dead Mexican civilians in the streets were unnerving. 

It was quite the walk through and it took far longer than we had intended. Hence no visit to the fort. 

We ambled back towards our sleeping dog and Layne got us on another detour, before we even got there.  

We stumbled quite by accident on a display of tapestries in a folklore museum  

It turns out a local Mesoamerican tribe in a community called San Nicolas has developed these cotton tapestries as a way to raise money to supplement their agricultural income. 

According to the notes only in Spanish the designs are based on pictographs, rock paintings made by the tribe’s ancestors. 

And they have developed a particular sewing technique that hides all the stitches. 

The closer I looked the more astounded I was. 

Pure chance we came across them! Meanwhile there is a Ram dealer in town so we decided now was the moment to organize an oil change for our Promaster. The price was high, $190 and no credit cards but I wanted the certainty of getting such a basic job done right. We had our last oil change at the Walmart in Del Rio for $70 and we’ve done 4800 miles since then. Veracruz is such a big city this seemed like as good a spot as any and the oil change will take us back to the land of cheap changes at drive through facilities. 

They checked the light bulbs and brakes and took care of us in a couple of hours and finished up by washing the van! Great service!

We sat outside at first because we didn’t want to inflict Rusty on nervous Mexican clients.

But they insisted we take a seat in the air conditioned waiting room. Then Layne saw a guy on a motorcycle delivering food to the employees and we ordered barbecued chicken and grilled steak lunches (Rusty got his favorite treat we carry aboard GANNET2). Mexico has a solution for everything!

We even got a hand from a parking control officer who helped us with the meter which was surprisingly hard to read in the bright sunlight.  You know what they tell you about Mexico? Don’t believe them, people are kind and helpful everywhere. We are going to put Mexico to the test visiting Chiapas next. Very dangerous they say. I’m only afraid we may not be able to resist crossing into Guatemala! But we have to go back to the States this summer.