Driving North

We left the campground after a fabulous get together Saturday night with all the overlanders except the French; why they sat apart and ignored everyone else I couldn’t say! There was lots of laughter and travel stories at the multilingual table and it was all great fun. I hope we meet at least some of them down the road. 

It was a long Sunday of driving. We are alive after it all and are making tracks north as we have a date with family members who have rented a house on the coast. 

We did stop to enjoy some spectacular canyons and mountain views which in the States would be turned into a National Park. 

The road was actually quite pleasant and when the smooth asphalt reached the level plain we had hopes for decent mileage, to get the road done and arrive after a fast hard  day behind the wheel. 

Then we hit a roadblock. We still have no idea what it was about but it was just one of those Mexican political protests that interferes with the lives of the working class. On this one we were saved a lot of waiting by toll officials who stopped traffic at a toll booth and directed us to get off the freeway. He said go through the village and on the other side you’ll find the non toll highway. Kind of but it wasn’t as simple as he suggested! 

Follow the locals, Layne said but I lost faith and figured the two cars in front of us weren’t quite local when they drove off in a ruinous dirt road into the desert. I didn’t create a route on the electronic phone map but just read and followed the street plan laid  out by Google. I did get us into a narrow alleyway (above) but by the time I figured our way of the village turning this way and that, but I was pleased to see the red sedan and the white pick up truck that took off in the wrong direction on the dirt were now behind us turning out of a side street. Pretty satisfying for the gabacho from far away who didn’t know what he was doing! 

Then we settled in to make up for lost time. Fat chance as Palm Sunday was apparently protest day. We got caught in another snarl caused by an unseen roadblock far down the highway. The cars got on the shoulder and drove past the big trucks to an exit that led to the free highway. One truck decided to block the shoulder to the gringo van while I was asking a couple of locals parked in the dirt alongside the freeway how to get out. Oh they said: “He’s blocked you!” Drive the dirt they said pointing to their own van parked next to the field alongside the freeway. So I did, by finding a spot that allowed us to drop safely to the dirt and drive forward alongside the 18 wheelers stuck on the asphalt. I stopped next to the offending truck and asked him why he was offended by me? I may be a foreigner I said but I have good manners unlike yourself. He looked away and said nothing. Then we were gone through the dirt and back on the bumpy free road. 

It was a good day. We didn’t get very far and when we found a gas station to park for the night it was dusk and threatening rain. We buttoned up and ate dinner in our home. More driving tomorrow of course.

Clean Teeth, Clean Rugs

There is a delightfully cosmopolitan group of children sheltering from the hot midday sun in the RV park, and they are playing under a shelter set to one side for communal use. A great deal of jumping around and waving is involved but what they're up to is complicated to follow. They speak a mixture of French, Spanish and English which is usually suppressed by loud cries of "Français! Français!"

Layne felt well enough to carry out a dental cleaning appointment in Oaxaca at  a dental clinic of that name staffed by a dentist who graduated from dental school in Michigan and speaks fluent English. In the general scheme of things getting your teeth cleaned doesn't require much conversation and the process was mostly similar to what we did at home, signing papers as it was our first visit, and then waiting to be taken back. That's where things got different. 

Full protective gear, much use of disinfectant and and an unusual piece of headgear when being worked on. I sneaked a picture while they were out checking my X-rays, which revealed no problems. And my gums are also fine thank you.

Layne went first and took great delight in telling me all about it when I got back after walking Rusty and was waiting to go in. They charged us a little less than $60 each for a tooth cleaning carried out by the dentist himself. The dental office felt just like any such facility you might use in the US. Dr Angel Gomez told Layne (she's more chatty than I am) he has regular Florida patients who come to see him for all their dental work. We have had our teeth cleaned all over the world and at a cost that would make you grind your teeth with envy.

I saw this poster which looked like it was in excellent shape for a concept that went out of style 30 years ago. I had about 45 minutes after I dropped Layne off and found a street parking spot (Score! Free!) so the plan was that I would walk Rusty around Old Town Oaxaca. 

Street art is all over the place and the sidewalks are mostly pretty good so I could look around as Rusty walked head down nose on high alert. Sometimes the sidewalks played tricks on us.

I had no idea where we were going but I am determined to hit some tourist attractions before we leave the campground. Layne keeps protesting she's a thousand percent better after her heat exhaustion thing. A former math teacher should know better inasmuch as that's either a) impossible or b) a theoretical one thousand percent of zero is still zero. Either way she needs to take it easy after heat exhaustion. Getting her teeth cleaned seemed as much activity as she needed so my exploration of Oaxaca was within a few blocks and they looked like this pretty much.

I happened upon a tourist site totally by accident, the House of Culture a  former convent built in 1730. The Mexican revolution was not kind to the church which was seen as allied to the Spanish. It was expropriated in 1863, bought back by the bishop in 1890 and turned into a cultural center. That wasn't all because in 1933 they all gave up on the project and the building was abandoned until 1963 when they restored it, declared it of historic importance and it is what it is. 

Oaxaca is packed with this stuff, not to be too Philistine about it. Dogs have no souls so they can't go in and we've had enough of Rusty chewing through his leash to join me perforce in photographing interiors.

I found a man selling apples so I bought too many. It turns out 2.2 pounds of small apples is quite a lot so I promptly dropped one, gave one away to a man minding his own business in the park across the street then I ate two and suddenly the kilo seemed more maneagable. I would be grateful if no one points out to Layne I ate fruit with uncleaned skin on it.

I watched the gate go down for a man in a mobility chair who needed to get into the pedestrian zone. Mexico is badly built for wheelchair access though they do try to modify their ancient buildings and occasionally obtuse sidewalks. I like the street names in braille which I think is rather cool and also convenient for those of us who can see and want to know where we are. An "invidente" is a "non seeing" person.

There was no one walking in the middle of the pedestrian zone so Rusty and I walked there by ourselves leaving the sidewalks busy. It wasn't that hot for either of us in the sun.

I have a CPAP plugged in on a shelf above my bed which I have found produces much more restful sleep, no peeing in the middle of the night (a known positive side effect for reasons unknown to me) and it allows one's wife to sleep as snores are suppressed. However it does require the use of distilled water to keep the airways working and that has been a bit of a faff in Mexico. Pharmacies sell it, but as ever of course, not all of them. I scored big on my walk stopping at each one I saw and asking for "agua iniettabile" which is distilled water extra sterilized for injection use. Its quite widely available where distilled water, less pure is much rarer (and cheaper!). I got a month's supply of the more expensive stuff in three smallish bottles. We are knocking off the chores in Oaxaca, I tell you. 

If all else fails you can send a nice wreath:

A mobile command post to offer us a "Safe City" though I have to say I never felt unsafe anywhere in old town Oaxaca, while walking around. Perhaps this is why!

We have a rather heavily loaded sliding pantry door that keeps popping one of it's two locks and we secure it before a drive with a strip of gorilla tape. However this is unsatisfactory so we went on the hunt for a Ferreteria, a hardware store, which we abbreviate to a "Ferret Shop"looking for little bronze eyelets we could screw carefully into the wood. The idea is to string a bungee cord across to help hold the sliding door in place.  The owner of this store had none but he directed us to the one that did. Pretty nice as always in Mexico.

The second ferret shop had a stainless eyelet and that was good enough for Mrs B so we bought a couple and a can opener that would replace the fancy one we brought that she can't figure out to work and stuff like that. If you break an appliance in Mexico someone sells spare parts, often broken down from malfunctioning blenders or irons or whatever it is. It's an amazing small economy.

She also bought a lime squeezer which seems like critical kitchen equipment in Mexico. I also noticed another store selling Stock Island Nikes, the ironic name given to white boots used principally by Keys commercial fishermen. These are about $14.

On the way home I was entrusted with the awesome responsibility of spotting a roast chicken outlet as the chef is still feeling a little poorly. She did walk a few blocks while I was having my teeth cleaned ultra sonically but three blocks and she was dead. Starvation or roast chicken was on the dinner menu.

I asked Layne to pick up some radishes, a common side vegetable in Mexico and delicious, and she ended up getting some cactus too on the theory that after her cooking class she knows how to cook them.

Rusty knew at this point roast chicken dinner was on the menu and was making sure we loaded his share (his and I might add some for... 

...the stray dog at the campground gate). Perhaps he was looking at the dog food billboard. Indeed, some people do feed their dogs (mascotas) in Mexico:

We picked up our laundry in the village of El Tule on our way to the campground, where we had left our rugs for a wash or dry clean as needed. They did a brilliant job I know, because Layne was very happy.

Back at the ranch in the small RV row we now had a lone Frenchman in a four wheel drive Sprinter (a Hymer Grand Canyon more precisely), a Mexican couple in a Ford Transit, a couple from New Hampshire in a medium large Overland rig, along with the Catalans in the Delica and the Germans in the yellow Volkswagen and Alex and Denise from Lichtenstein at the end of the row in their Overland machine. We tend to say "Buenas Dias" when we pass unless we are sure of the correct language. It seems more polite to default to the host country's language. Unless you are too tired to notice:

Campground Life, Oaxaca

We've been at El Rancho RV park since Monday, and we're parked in a large compound 30 minutes from downtown Oaxaca. I've actually spent rather more time within the four very high walls of this place than I first intended but therein lies a story and lots of conversations. 

There are two youngsters from Barcelona, Catalans they said with a laugh, (not Spaniards!) and I talked to Alex and Carlotta the evening of their arrival but they have interior work to be done to their van so in the morning they zipped past on their way to the mechanic; thus I snapped a picture in case they don't come back before we leave. Not supposed to happen but its always a possibility in this life on the road. The van is a Mitsubishi Delica four wheel drive. Much admired in Europe but the first time I've seen one. It looked quite compact.

On the road we often look for wild camping spots, especially in the US where camping is crowded and expensive and I feel like I'm in a trailer park. In Mexico we enjoy wild camping as well but when we visit a city or a tourist attraction we like to be able to park in a place with facilities where we can stay for a few days, do chores like laundry, fill the water tank, empty the porta potty and so all that. Plus we can drive into town, park the van and use it as our downtown base. For attractions where Rusty's not welcome, museums and so forth we leave him in the van. If its hot we can run the rooftop air conditioning. Then when we're done we drive back to the campground and resume life in our spot.

Rusty likes campgrounds as he doesn't have to worry about street dogs and he pretends he's in his own yard. He moves from shade to sun and sometimes under our van and sometimes under a bush. He knows we will be driving again but he takes full advantage of the pauses. He enjoys town walks because there are lots of smells we let him spend time on plus there aren't street dogs in the big cities, which is much more relaxing for him.

An older German couple moved in next door with a bright yellow VW van, a more modern model than the traditional Kombi, but communication is a bit tricky as he speaks only German and she speaks some English, though I think she is a bit shy. I blast my few words and phrases I know in German and am unafraid of making a fool of myself which I think helps them feel less shy. Their dog is eleven years old and has some back trouble but I really like how he just jets off across the lawn with a weird lumbering gait and doesn't give a shit about being nearly crippled. Rusty likes him too so they pee together companionably.

Two youngsters driving a Belgian registered older Toyota Landcruiser were next door our first night, but they left the next day. They are actually Dutch and speak French as they lived in Brussels ( a French speaking city)  and also excellent English, so we chatted a fair bit. I was surprised we had a lot in common despite our age difference, our attitude to travel particularly.  Like most Europeans in this area they shipped their van to Veracruz and are heading to South America so we hope to meet them again next year. 

When we do meet new people Layne opens her notes page in her iPhone and writes down nationality and type of vehicle (yellow jeep or Class C RV or white truck, nothing too technical) and their names so we know who they are. Last night two large RVs arrived and parked in the family section of the park. I spoke to the two little girls as their parents parked the RV in the dark. I was walking outside to feed the stray dog at the gate and they wanted to pet Rusty.

"You're from Virginia?" I asked looking at their tags...No she said, and she was maybe ten years old with her younger sister. 

"I'm from New York. My sister is from Ecuador, our Mom is from Brazil but our Dad is the one from Virginia." Go figure. No problem I said as long as we all keep talking and we laughed. I enjoy meeting people with lives more complicated than my own.

The photo above is the same as the one I used at the top of the page. From the left there is a US Promaster, possibly  a factory built  camper by  Roadtrek, and the owner is a single American woman, who is less a traveler and more a long term resident who drives a small Nissan sedan called a March. I have never  spoken to her but she waves as she drives by and she has a different life goal obviously than a couple of nomads like us. 

The yellow van is owned by a retired Australian couple. Guy came over to chat and he told us they have been on the road for a decade but had a difficult start as they bought the van from a custom builder in Australia and it came with a raft of problems. Apparently the pop top roof is still giving them issues as they plan to ship the van home to Australia from somewhere on the West Coast. Possibly Long Beach in the US or Vancouver in Canada. Those kinds of decisions can be predicated on cost, availability of ships or the difficulties of the required documentation which vary from country to country. Flexibility is the Overlander's friend.

The Vermont registered Class C RV next to the yellow Australian is owned by a French family who live in Colombia and are traveling in Mexico with a New Mexico registered van which is much smaller and handier than the full sized RV. You can register an RV in Mexico for a ten year permit and their idea is to leave the big vehicle here and use it as a vacation cabin!  He enjoys the fact that I speak French so we chat when our paths cross. You just can't assume anything when you see a license plate! 

Finally the big truck at the end of the line belongs to Stefan and Petra two Germans who have been on the road for eleven years. They have lived here a long time, more than year I think, and Petra makes it her job to feed the packs of dogs who are not strays but are not well fed, in the street outside the campground. They speak good English and are a fund of information for the rest of us. Petra below talking to the campground caretaker:

In the photo below there is a Swiss registered RV that has been parked and not occupied since we got here. Petra's dog Mandu is walking past it.

Mandu made himself known to Stefan and Petra when they were in Katmandu eleven years ago and decided he wanted to live in their truck with them and here he is. Rusty and he acknowledge each other but aren't friends even though they look like brothers.

There are two other Swiss campers, one couple we met in San Cristobal, and there is a British truck with Neal a former policeman in Britain and his wife Pat,  retired with daughters in Britain and on the road for years in a big overland truck. They met the Australians in the yellow truck all over South America. 

Neal also pointed out a truck with an unusual license plate and said he saw them in Portugal a few years ago and never expected to see them in Mexico. I went to talk to the couple from Lichtenstein. That's a crazy home base as Lichtenstein is a German speaking teardrop sized country wedged between Austria and Switzerland with a population of around 38,000 people. They have a customs union with Switzerland so they must use Swiss Embassies around the world when they need help. Lichtenstein has four embassies and only one outside Europe which is in Washington. I doubt Mexican officials see many Lichtenstein passports...I went over and met Alex originally from Austria who met Denise and married her and moved twenty minutes across the border. He’s lived in Lichtenstein 20 years, left behind an adult son,  and got his pension so they are on the road.  He is so happy to be gone from that complicated expensive cold and wet little country! We laughed a lot together sharing our pleasure in warm weather while escaping bureaucracy. 

It just goes on and on and you will notice that aside from the one long term resident who lives her own life there are no US travelers... There is a really nice couple of women from British Columbia in a small RV across the way. A friend of theirs was driving down the street  and watched a puppy get tossed from a moving car.  She found a home with the RVers and she is a crazy little bugger bouncing around at the end of her harness, annoying Rusty who does not enjoy hyper dogs or puppies...And on the subject we come to the sad story of the campground. There is no happy ending yet.

She is a younger female about Rusty's size but not his 60 pounds. She's neutered and fed daily by campers including us of course right now, but she has no home.

I posted a these pictures of her on the traveler forum hoping that someone might pick her up and I confess I'd really like to take her but Rusty is the block. No way I'm stressing him out and I've tried to encourage love to blossom but it hasn't so far. Unlike many Mexican dogs she is friendly and clearly wants to live with someone and she loves getting pets (Rusty does not like me touching her so I have to be careful) but I can't see how we can get her back to Key West to a friend who might give her a home.

Before you get too sad her lot could be worse, she is looked after and will not go hungry. I told Petra I'd give her a break and feed the dog while we are here so we also bought a bowl to give her food morning and evening and not just put it on the ground. I give her treats and  keep her water bowl full, but I wish Rusty would take to her, I think he'd have more fun in Mexico with a built in back up on our walks, but there it is.

One more character lives at the campground and he's always got a smile. Cali is his name and he takes care of us, calls taxis, cleans the toilets and does it well. I joke around with him so we get along. I grew up in Italy around men and women like Cali, in polite circles they are called salt of the earth and in case you were wondering, their salt is of the rather more crude sort. He enjoys laughing about the trials of men and women living together. While Layne was away at cooking school we exchanged male pleasantries of a kind that make sure he keeps an eye out for us his new friends but they are rather sexist jokes that I don't need to share here.

He didn't pose for that picture when he was watering the lawn but I admired his Mexican machismo with such a flow and he cracked up.

Layne had a great time at her cooking class, working through the market in Oaxaca and then sharing a kitchen with a dozen other students where she learned how to use the vegetables and fruits and make sauces and so forth. She has promised to dictate an essay for this page with her pictures and I hope we will put it together in the next few days.

She has ironically come down with a stomach complaint and has taken to our bed aboard Gannet 2. This is a good place to be unwell but for me I spent yesterday here looking after Rusty while she was away all day, and today I am here looking after Layne, putting ice in her glass basically, while she recovers. As campgrounds go this is a pretty good one. But still I have seen a tiny fragment of the city. I shall save those pictures of Oaxaca for tomorrow.

She did tell me she catalogued her photos and notes last night before she got sick and that she now knows how to cook nopales (cactus) without making it slimy! We shall see.

On another note I incautiously mentioned to Webb Chiles my noted sailing friend that I wanted a serape, (sir-ap-hay) a wool blanket with a hole for your head that one wears rather like a catholic priest's cassock. It is actually a comfortable way to stay warm and leave your arms free. Layne said the place to buy one was Oaxaca and when she came out of the market she told me she'd found the perfect one, for just $23. You decide.

Bear in mind Layne took the picture from her death bed and it was a hundred degrees in the campground...but the inside is made of soft wool that feels really comfortable. I keep it folded on our bed underneath Rusty's bed. He likes to sleep in his bed on the floor by the open door and the serape is at my feet when I get cold late at night when temperatures plummet. It turns out it makes a perfect blanket ( with a hole) to sleep under. No wonder Clint Eastwood was always wearing one in his spaghetti westerns. It also got Webb's seal of approval though I doubt he'd be seen dead in one. I am a happy to be warm and if someone in the states mistakes me for their gardener I'll survive. I'd actually be flattered.