Puebla and Beyond

Monday March 14. We packed up and said goodbye to Olivia’s lovely house. Neither Stephan nor Billy were around, so we never got a chance to say goodbye and thank you to them. Local advice was to go to Puebla via Xalapa and Perote, as the back route to the south is too windy and rough. Mike chose the carretera libre, as it is more scenic to pass through all the little towns and the tolls on the cuota are expensive. We got to see the Cofre from the north side, then around to see Citláltepetl from the west side before we hit the highway. We had some trouble following the directions to Ron and Tere’s house due to construction and a key avenida that undergoes a name change, but after two months of driving in Mexico and Central America, driver Mike takes topes and reductors and navigational problems in stride. He is downright mellow now!

After refueling with a little cerveza, we went down to the centro where Tere and Ron are minding brother Charlie’s café in the evening. Mike and Sharman and Ron went out to see the Talavera tile for

An assortment of Talavera tile

which Puebla is famous, but found it was both too expensive for us and not the right design touch for our kitchen on the barge, so we didn’t buy it. We bought a couple souvenirs instead. We topped off the outing with churros from the stand at the zocalo and hot chocolate and beer at the café. Sharman was coming down with a cold and starting to whimper. We got home about 10 and Sharman took a nap while the others went out for the 2-for-1 sushi special.

Tuesday March 15. I slept most of the day, trying to shake this cold which has laid me low, while Mike and Ron and Tere ran car errands. It turns out that we had the wrong part number for our car, and the right fan is not available in Mexico after all. We will have to drive with it the way it is until we get back to the States. After lunch Mike and Ron and Tere took the van back to the guy who installed the muffler to ask him to check it; it was still good. Mike got a referral to a radiator shop to check that. The radiator guy, who was very good, determined that the radiator is fine, but the airflow sensor is malfunctioning, and that is the source of our overheating problem. So they spent several hours looking for the airflow sensor part to fit our van. No luck. Mike tried an improvised fix with superglue, but it didn’t work. So we just have to drive with it this way till we get back to the states.

A bit of advice to readers: if you are going to Central America, drive a Toyota. If you are going to Mexico, Volkswagen is a good choice, but make sure it is a model that is widely available here.

Wednesday March 16. Tere’s kids showed up early for half an hour before Tere took them to school, so we got to visit a bit. They are great kids: interesting, good looking, well spoken, good in school, active. I cooked French toast from the big loaf of whole grain bread we bought at the Mega Super the other night, and it was yummy. Worked on my blogs until it was time to go and I never got them posted. All that time yesterday wasted in bed!

Mike wanted to buy some floor mat he’d seen here but never found in the states, and he’d been given an address for the shop, but it took us 45 minutes driving around, using the maps, asking directions,

getting thwarted by construction detours or streets that don’t go through, to find the shop. While we are very happy with our purchase, the two-meter roll does not fit crosswise in our van. The only place we found to put it is on the table against the wall. I was already complaining that we have too much stuff in too small a space; now I feel like a hoarder with my stuff piled all around me. Every time I want a pair of clean underwear, or a cereal bowl, or the cooking oil, I have to move two things to access it. Around the corner we also found a modest, local shop selling Talavera pottery. They didn’t have any tile, but we bought some plates and cups that we liked.

We had more navigational trouble driving to Acapulco. The shortcut we were advised to take wasn’t signed the way I expected so we missed the turnoff and ended going through a town with narrow streets and lots of topes. We followed the street that maps.me showed going back to the highway, but when we got there discovered that it went over the highway with no access to it. Sigh. We asked directions, turned around and backtracked through town to another road that lead to the highway. Another half hour detour. In two more cases down the road we had to do a U-turn or make a mildly illegal maneuver to get on the road we wanted. The highway design is not intuitive and navigation is almost a full time job.

The toll road from Cuernavaca to Acapulco is expensive but fast and easy. Except for the construction delay and the toll booths. The terrain is interesting: it goes up through the coast range and down, down, down to the Pacific coast. There is an inverse correlation: as the elevation goes down, the temperature goes up.

Our first stop in Acapulco was an Auto Zone. We are still looking for the mass air sensor. It is not working properly and the engine is not getting the right mix: it hesitates sometimes. Highway driving seems to be okay, though our fuel consumption and emissions are bad. 

We drove straight to the waterfront in Puerto Marquez just south of Acapulco. All the restaurants were closed for the night—at 7:30 pm. At the end of the row a restaurant owner who was closing up invited us to park in his space where it is more secure and come by in the morning for breakfast. We bought two beers at the mini super across the street. We look forward to seeing what the beach looks like in the daylight.