Driving Central Mexico - Day 2 - Austin to Guadalajara

Leaving Monterrey in our rear view mirror we head towards Saltillo, a city of seven hundred thousand, founded by the Spanish in 1577, but we turn south before we reach it. We are now headed into central Mexico and we didn't know it at the time but we were about to peel back the veil of the 21st century. We were about to drop into a landscape where Biblical time, the early 20th century and the modern world exist side by side.

Like ancient travelers in the Holy Land we start to see shepherds. We see goat herders and sheep herders along the highway tending their flocks. Horses and cattle too. Farmers & families pound stakes into the ground along the highway and tie-off their animals for the day. There are no grounds crews along the highways here. No need. The livestock keep everything cropped and pruned. Sadly we twice saw horses, tongues splayed, twisted and lifeless laying along the edge of the road. They must have become untethered or wandered too close to the road when a lumbering truck raged by. This grazing arrangement seems dangerous for the animals and the drivers. I wonder to myself about it but people here live a subsistence lifestyle. They can't afford for the progress of a road to take their grazing lands. I was told the land belongs to the people not the government and they have the right to graze their animals wherever they want.

Ramshackle villages of painted adobe buildings huddle along the road. Most family homes are fronted by Cantina's where they make a modest living as purveyor's of food and drink. Wood fire cookers are permanently set up out front with chicken's grilling and smoke wafting into the highway luring travelers and truckers in by their noses. The buildings are all colorfully painted. 99% of the Cantina's are building sized Corona advertisements that make me thirsty.


















My intestinal scare in Nuevo Laredo and cautions about not eating road food keep us from stopping - that and the thought of dealing with a rural population who probably doesn't know a word of English. I looked longingly as we passed popular Cantinas with men grouped by the doors and sitting out front. How cool would it be to stop for a beer in an authentic Mexican Cantina... And then I thought of all the stupid Western's I've seen. Cantinas ...banditos, ...si, Cantinas, banditos .... we were in the middle of nowhere, I kept my foot on the gas.

Outside of these roadside settlements even more disheveled hovels of mud or plywood & corrugated tin structures sprouted on the parched landscape, solo or huddled in little groupings.





















During one stretch we passed a squatter group of snake hunters living in these plywood & tin homes who proudly displayed snake skins for sale at stands along the side of the road.
























Here's a video of us.





It was hot and dry and white here. I peeked over at the temperature gage on the trusty Subaru. It looked fine. I didn't want to break down here. How would we ever get help? I started to notice every mile the government had placed blue water barrels and emergency telephones. This desolate place must have taken a few lives in the past and shriveled them up to merge with the bone white landscape.

Thankfully, even in the middle of nowhere the clean and modern circa1970's Hess style PemEx stations were available. On the toll road we'd see one every hour or so.































We do the usual, stop, have the uniformed attendants pump our gas and use the restroom. This time we need to buy our toilet paper from a pretty little Senorita out front. 2 Pesos for a fist full. What if I need more? I don't want to come back out. Do I buy it now? Are Mexicans crinklers or folder's? 2 Peso's worth of paper turns out to be enough. Still afraid to eat and get sick we buy packaged foods. Granola bars, cookies and bottled water. We switch drivers and mount the road once more.

Back on the highway we still get excited every time we see the exotic shepherds and their herds. These are picturesque men weathered by the sun with their big staffs, over-sized white cowboy hats, western shirts and rugged blue-jeans. Sometime they are on horses but most of the time they are on foot walking or leaning on their staffs - their horse tied off to some fence or post or tree in the distance.

It feels odd to be on the modern highway, traveling at 75 miles per hour, passing through timeless towns of dirt, gravel roads and dusty buildings. In the car we're separate, we're removed from the dust & heat, the toil and the poverty. If this road hadn't bisected these towns they would be completely removed from the modern world. Other than this ribbon of road we're on there is no other concrete or asphalt or pavers in sight. The buildings don't front up to sidewalks and they are open to the air with no doors or window glass. I try to shoot video out the window but I feel bad like I'm gawking .... because I am kinda gawking, my mouth and eyes wide in wonderment. I feel like a visitor at a zoo. I stop shooting.


When we get down close to San Luis Potosi, a city of two and a half million people, we stop again at another PemEx. We are immediately swarmed by little kids who want to clean our windows. Feeling harassed after 10 hours on the road and agitated after being consistently swarmed by people with their hands out every time we stop Dorothy shoos them away. They are heart broken. I see their little shoulders slump and their heads fall forward as they walk away, eyes towards the ground, kicking rocks. But they circle around and hover nearby. They come around behind the car and look at me with their sparkling dark brown eyes and dirty faces. I dig into my pocket and give them some coinage. Their smiles could have lit that whole little town up that night. I shoo them off. No need to clean the windows. They go jubilantly skipping back to their father who was standing with some friends. They show off their booty and shyly look at me. I smile back.

Off to my left are two food vendors in semi-permanent wooden stalls. One is a Smoothie shack and the other a fruit vendor. The fruit is displayed in beautifully cascading arrangements and the colors sing, vibrant as neon. All we've eaten all day is packaged food. We've passed by Cantinas with chicken and lamb cooking on grills and cold beer while my stomach quenched and now twenty feet in from of me is real live fresh food. I give in to my Mexican food fears and walk towards the fruit stand. The fruit glistens in the sun. It's dripping and sweating in it's own sweet juices. I start to salivate. Oh this is going to taste soooo good. Maybe I'll have them make me a smoothie. A couple steps further and I see them - hundreds of flies swarming like dust mites in the sunlight. Oh man! Oh ...Damn! ....I turn around and go back to my packaged granola bar & bottled water.

We find food satisfaction further down the road however. As we skirt the perimeter of San Luis Potosi we spy a modern plaza with coffee & food shops. I spy a Subway sandwich shop. I'm so there. Fresh bread, meat & veg! We stumble a little trying to order and a couple of nice guys who speak English help us out. While we eat outdoors I speak with another young guy who spies our Florida license plates and yells "Welcome to Mexico!" Turns out he lived ten years in South Carolina. He says he loves to speak English but doesn't get much of a chance anymore. Sometimes he goes down to a town called San Miguel De Allende, where there are a lot of "white boys", to speak. I guess I'm a "white boy". They all ask us what we think of Mexico? What we think of the roads? They are surprised when we tell them the roads have been good.

And with all those good roads behind us we make the optimistic decision to not stop for the night but to continue all the way to Lake Chapala - our final destination. We thought we could be there in three hours. This was at 4:30. We wouldn't roll into Dorothy's new house until 11:30, seven dark hours later!

Next, San Luis Potosi to Lake Chapala.

To read about my whole road trip from the beginning - Austin to Lake Chapala Mexico click here.