Well, we made it. The final leg of our Mexican adventure. I have wanted to go to the Yucatán Peninsula ever since I found out that most of my favorite parts of the movie Romancing the Stone were filmed there. I imagined mountains with monkeys and handsome expats of questionable character around every corner.
Mexico keeps getting better. With every new destination and experience, we fall more deeply in love with this country. When we first crossed the border in Baja, we figured we would spend a couple of months getting to the bottom of Mexico. Now it is looking like we will be lucky to make it out before our six-month tourist permit runs out! Chiapas, the southernmost state in Mexico, is full of beautiful sights and we could probably have spent our whole six months in this one state if we wanted to visit each one. Instead, we just had a really spectacular two weeks.
The beach was calling our names. We could hear it loud and clear. We just had to get there. I may have mentioned that we are not the best at getting an early start on our big driving days. This was no different. Lucky for us there are plenty of nice places to stay along the road between the city of Oaxaca and the coast.
Scott and I had been bouncing around Mexico like a pinball for a while. We were enjoying ourselves but looking forward to when the pinball that is us bounces off the beach again. We hit that beach in a tiny town called Las Casitas. It is located on the Gulf of Mexico just a smidge north of the city of Veracruz.
As we continued our exploration of Mexico our next desire was to visit the ruins of Teotihuacán outside of Mexico City. We were trying to escape the weekend crowds at the Grutas Tolentango, where we had been camped out for a couple of days. Unfortunately, the crowds were unavoidable. On Sundays, the site is free to Mexican citizens. This means that Sundays are incredibly busy. If we had driven down to visit the ruins we would have arrived just in time for the busiest day of the week. Mondays are no good either. They are closed on Mondays. That left us with no choice but to kill some time before heading down to the ruins.
A trip of this scale is not easy. It challenges me daily. Scott and I are a study in intimacy, tolerance, and growth these days. I have been forced to let go of the iron fist of control over my life. Or at least loosen my grip a bit. As humans, we are, by nature, selfish creatures. Even those of us who would be described as having generous dispositions have their limits. We like it when things go our way. When two people live in close quarters (like a truck) they rub up against each other a lot. And not always in a good way. We both like to have our way. The biggest fight we have had on this trip was Continue reading “Concrete Jungle to a Lazy River”
I have wanted to visit the monarch butterflies in Mexico as long as I’ve known about them. When I was a teenager my best friend, Crystal, had two older sisters who were attending college in Santa Cruz CA. I was lucky enough to get to tag along on a ton of their family trips. In fact, for a number of years, I’m not sure I let them go anywhere without me… Anyhow, one time the family was visiting Santa Cruz to check in on one sister or another when we stopped in at Natural Bridges State Beach to see the butterflies hanging from the eucalyptus trees.
Continue reading “We Visited the Monarchs!!!!!”
So far, we have been pretty lucky with our automotive woes. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a well-placed bungee cord or a handy welder. But now we have a problem that just might stop us in our tracks. Or rather, keep us from turning along our tracks. We hit a significant pothole.
Continue reading “A Bump in the Road – Steering our Way Through Michoacán”
Our ride on Baja Ferries ended much as it began. With Scott and I taking the role of last people to check out of the cabins and last truck off our parking level and even last passenger trolley to leave the ferry terminal. We are nothing if not consistent. The free plastic-wrapped pastry and
I try not to complain about anything having to do with our travels. I really do realize that we are living a charmed existence and our woes are negligible. I learned this lesson when I tried to get sympathy from our friend Justin while we were back visiting in Chico about how
Continue reading “Further Adventures in Baja California”