Another Crazy Spot

When we are on the road we like freeway test stops in the US as easy uncomplicated free places to spend the night in our van. In Mexico truck stops serve the same purpose and some are really nice with showers and washer/dryers while others are barely passable as a place to stop.

The truck stop in Los Mochis was of the not very nice category filled with broken cars, dust dirt and rows of trucks coming and going at random. Los Mochis is the mainland connection for trucks going to and from Baja by way of the ferry on the coast. We decided to park outside the truck area in the alley behind the 24 hour restaurant. As usual no one  bothered us or even spoke to us. Might as well have been on I-75 in a rest area.

The hot dog lady blasted corrida music into the night. Corrida is a ballad style supported by thumping tubas telling of the heroic derring-do of narco -traffickers endemic to Sinaloa State. With the doors closed we couldn’t even hear her musical joy.

We got up at first light and while I walked Rusty (and dutifully collected his egg and disposed of it lest you imagine I think Mexicans should step in it) Layne cleared the decks for travel and made us coffee and tea to power us into the traffic flow. 

We took the toll road which by now you know is called the “Cuota” and which cost us $17 from Los Mochis to the state capital of Sinaloa which is Culiacan, and slightly beyond, close to Mazatlan. The rates at each tollbooth seem totally random.  My buddy Robert asked me to include a map of our travels, thus:

I’ll be honest because I always try to be at least that. The drive down Highway 15 was pretty boring even though it is Mexico! Layne denies it but she dozed off twice as we listened to a Carl Hiassen novel (Hoot, downloaded from the Libby app). The countryside was miles of corporate farms growing an ocean of corn -no surprise- with mountains looking hazy and insubstantial in the distance. The road varied between ghastly potholes and stretches as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Totally at random.

I love driving in Mexico. Compared to the stress and aggression in the US Mexicans take care of themselves. When rejoining the highway you drive the shoulder to get up speed and if you need to ride the middle to avoid potholes and no one is around you do it. On two lane roads people pass as they see fit and if you want to help keep hard to the right and use your left turn signal to tell them it’s safe. No tailgating, no inability to pass, no resentment if you do pass. It’s easy.

In cities it’s more complicated but people will give way if you need to change lanes. Parking spots are narrower and shorter and tighter to get into so I appreciate the tight turning radius of front wheel drive.

After we shopped at Costco, and we like to offset Mexican food with familiar food, a subject for later, we set off from Culiacan for the beach. The state capital is modern and reeks of prosperity. American fast food, a big Ram/Dodge/Fiat dealership and two Starbucks, both resisted by my wife, show it off as a city in touch with the world, like it or not. Away from the glitz you can enjoy a different pace of life as we like to, between shopping expeditions. 

The iOverlander app, our camping Bible, showed a much enjoyed RV campground on the beach with full facilities and a pool. Layne overrode  my objections and we headed for our first opportunity to pay to sleep in Mexico. Guess what? They didn’t answer our horn, our calls or our text.

When using iOverlander, in the US or anywhere in the world, it’s necessary to have a back up plan as the spot may have changed since the last visitor posted about it. Half  an hour down the road according to Google maps there was a spectacular free campground overlooking the ocean. You be the judge.

To get there was a bit of a faff. Here’s how it works: you look at iOverlander and find your spot with a description and sometimes a picture. At the bottom it offers you a chance to open the location in Google maps. Easy. Then you set the mapping, turn off the Internet to save gigabytes, and off you go.

For a while we felt like we had turned down a rabbit hole picking our way through sand and dried mud.

Then we popped back out into the freeway. Just like that. I kept following the blue Google line. For a while after we turned off the freeway again we had pavement. That dream shattered soon enough.

It was apparent the village of Barras de Pixtla had been hammered by heavy rains. The government answer was to throw down pink gravel and hope for the best. Layne was not excited to be sitting alongside the voids that appeared from time time as we squeezed the elephant past the broken bits.

It had to happen and of course we drifted off course. Suddenly Google was wagging a finger at me for going off course. “That turning was a road?” Layne asked me indignantly. “Are you sure?” Bloody hell no I wasn’t sure. Nothing much made sense. We turned the beast around in an open space that appeared by magic as though everyone misses the turn and needs to pull a u-turn there.

Yes, it was worth it, the stones, the dirt, the sand, the sense of being lost as our home lurched down a narrow road to nowhere.

We might be here a bit. A friend might join us. We’ve already met some locals and we’ve seen mysterious lights in the night. Oh dear me who knew living in a van could be so much fun? 

Weekend At The Beach

A quiet Saturday birthday for Layne that we shall celebrate with first world bells and whistles in our next large city. Sunday we plan a make and mend day with much cleaning and reorganizing and a swim if the sun is stronger and the sky is clearer than it was Saturday. Monday we plan to be on the road driving through Huatabampo picking up some supplies whose location we already know.  That makes it easy. Monday night sleeping at a truck stop in Los Mochis before moving on to Culiacan for a visit to Costco and a night there or at the beach. Next post on Tuesday morning I hope when I have something to write about. 

Rusty The Toreador

It was another of those busy days yesterday that occasionally punctuate the drifting days of not very much happening. It was shopping time in the city of Huatabampo, the town 30 minutes inland from the beaches of “Little Huatabampo” (Huatabampito).  

The village was empty but we stopped to feed a couple of hungry puppies and an adult dog who seemed less hungry but glad for breakfast anyway. 

The plan was to do some shopping for perishables and I planned to load a few pounds of  kibbles for hungry dogs we meet along the way. There aren’t as many true strays as you might imagine but like poor Mexicans themselves their dogs, who live outside, don’t always get as much to eat as one might like. Tips for the humans and kibbles for the dogs are what we factor in to the already modest cost of living.

We passed the RV park at the entrance to the village and the two large trailers parked and plugged in. The RV park is right at the end of the asphalt so they don’t have to negotiate the dried mud and sand of the village street. 

The inland is long and straight and filled with topes (speed bumps) in the inhabited stretches. I spend the drive carefully watching other traffic to see when they come to a stop. It’s a total pain watching for unmarked bumps in the road. 

On our way back to the beach the shacks by the side of the road we’re coming to life yo accommodate weekend beach traffic. For farmers and ranchers Friday is just another work day: 

We followed Google maps to the Ley supermarket in Huatabampo to start our shopping. It was a good store with fresh vegetables and lots of variety. $27 for everything including kibbles for strays, Indio beer and so forth. 

While Layne sorted the shopping I took Rusty for a walk. I put him on a leash and made a spectacle of us as a leashed fog is only held back because it’s dangerous. In this case I leashed him because there was lots of traffic and he was more relaxed while secured to me. 

I may have looked odd walking while tied to a dog but there was a dude across the street taking some water for a stroll. 

That was a reminder we had a 15 gallon hole in our 35 gallon tank. Google maps got us here. 50 cents for each five gallon jug. 

The employee’s brother lives in San Jose California and we discussed the relative merits of life there and in Huatabampo. Bruce’s idea of using a hose to siphon the water works a treat.  

Layne saw a flour tortilla shop down the street so we walked there and bought a pile of tortillas some hot and some cold for a buck fifty. A quick snack showed they were as good as ever. 

The plastic screen was designed to separate customer from employee. Everyone wore a mask and the employee held our tortillas and passed us our change all while using a plastic bag as a glove. Mexicans are getting vaccinated as fast as they can but wearing a mask even on the street is totally normal and non controversial. 

Rusty got busy practicing to blend in like a local. 

He snuck down an alley to drop an egg and sniff around. I wonder what goes through his mind facing new smells and sights. The van is definitely his home and secure place. 

Years sho when we sailed Mexico flies drove us and just as they do aboard GANNET2. Worse yet we were starting to get used to the damn nuisances flying around our heads. On the boat we had bought fly papers that hung from the cabin ceiling in strips covered in glue. Flies landed and got stuck. They worked after a fashion. 

It was the devil’s own job to explain the concept in a ferret shop which didn’t carry “matamoscas” - fly killers. A customer twigged what I was looking for and put the name of a business into my Google map. It was a vet shop and sure enough they had the modern equivalent of fly paper. Nowadays they use two dollar packets of fly powder. We used a few grains on a piece of foil moistened with water and suddenly the flies were falling down dead, after one quick drink of the mixture. Relief! 

Time for lunch and I am proud to say I spotted our lunch spot. It was superb. We sat and ordered sopes which are thick toasted tortillas and in this case they were huge and came with melted cheese covered in cubes of grilled beef.

The men operated the sidewalk grill and the women organized the fixings inside the kitchen. 

She ladled our bean soup which was delicious full of flavor and filling. She also came to our table and showed us where the lime compartment was hidden under the green salsa bowl in the middle of the side dishes. 

It was an embarrassingly filling meal. We had never had such giant sopes before and these were piled high. As Layne wandered off to lay the $8 bill for food and Fresca sodas Rosario came by for a chat. 

He liked my name. “Miguel,” he said, “ like the archangel.”  “Yes,” I agreed. “The head angel.”  He nodded and hoped god would bless me. The cook, on her lunch break overheard our conversation and was nodding at her food solemnly in agreement. 

Time to go and walk off our lunch. 

The main square is named for Benito Juarez and is a shady public space in front of city hall which was besieged by a line of people for some unknown reason. Many years ago Layne and I saw a gathering in the street when we were visiting San Blas. It was dusk and we joined the crowd to see what was what. A lady came round  with cake and lemonade and made us more puzzled than ever. Eventually we asked what was going on and discovered that Zelig-like we had unknowingly been attending the wake of a well liked local woman. This time we sidled past the crowd without asking awkward questions. 

Further up the square Rusty met a local, one loaded with giant cojones. Rusty didn’t like him much and they parted barely on speaking terms. There were too many smells so I got the leash out and made a spectacle of ourselves again. Rusty on a leash makes for faster forward progress. 

This crowd was outside a bank so finally the penny dropped and we guessed Friday is payday. 

Roadworks! 

We drove back to the beach on the now familiar road in ninety degree sunshine and found our spot at the end of the dirt road above the beach. That was when I saw a cow ambling all by herself down the beach. As it ambled it swung and it was very soon apparent it was less a cow and more a bull. 

Layne was not keen to share the beach with the ambling bull so we waited. Rusty got out of the van and the minute he saw the huge black shadow he became a dog possessed. 

He barked and weaved his way toward the bull which had already shown signs of deep puzzlement. First he had come up off the beach and found a huge shiny box where there shouldn’t be anything at all. He paused and stared. And then this mad barking bundle of fur came out of nowhere and faced him down. He was not in the mood and turned away. Rusty was ignoring us but he had the bull’s full attention. Slowly the two ton lump of leather backed away into the dunes. Rusty sidled back looking for approval. He got that and a fair dose of puzzlement too. I never knew my dog would take his security duties so seriously. 

We went for a swim and Rusty stood on the beach keeping one eye on us and the other on his home. When we stepped out of the cold dark waters he saw we were safe and raced up the beach. We ambled after him and there he was, keeping an eye on the danger. Which ignored him and kept munching. My surprising dog. I am more impressed by him every day on the road. 

Then we got our visitor. Clemente came along to check up on us saying he is an officer in the Sonora State Police. That was my cut to whip out a Key West Police patch and we got along chatting away until his wife dragged him off to dinner. On leaving he gave us his number and said if you need anything don’t hesitate to call. Ok then. Nice guy. 

The sunset was spectacular as ever and a can of Indio and a plate of nachos saw us passing out in our recliners. A good day then.