Driving Mr. Dewey

Veering inland for the first time since arriving in mainland Mexico, we left Puerto Escondido around 9am Monday morning for Oxaca City. Somewhere around 8 hours and 1 million twists and turns later, we have arrived. Let me explain a bit more. Imagine the windiest (wind – not the breeze) mountain pass you’ve ever driven. Now, triple the amount of S curves, take away the shoulder and guide rails, thrown in a speedbump or 10 every quarter mile, add a bunch of goats to the road, and there you have it – the highway to Oxaca. Since I’m prone to getting car sick as a passenger, I was designated chief driver for this trip. Lucky me. It turns out that Dewey (our car - named because we're always asking someone "Do we...?") and I did just fine for the first few hours, while Ben played DJ for us. But after switching driver’s halfway through the day, the fun began.

we honestly saw this sign at least 200 times

somewhere along our drive "tope" turned into "reductor"
(both mean speedbump)

a mountain man enjoying the Sierra Madres

we had to hurry past a few monsters on the road....

and slow down for livestock several times

Let’s just say first off that we have been really fortunate on our drive. We haven’t had to undergo any major searches, been lost too badly or even been pulled over yet (knock on wood). So when we hit a road block (not sure why?) about 50 km outside of Oxaca we didn’t get too upset. Instead we turned ourselves around, got out the map and stopped to ask the police (who were sitting on the side of the highway) for directions. A super nice officer actually drew us a map of where we needed to go and we were on our way….or at least we thought. A few minutes later when we saw flashing lights behind us we thought our luck had changed, but no – it was just the police wanting to show us the way. Image that? Our own personal police escort driving us the wrong way down 1-way streets in some little unknown Mexican town. Sure it took us an extra hour or 2, but at least we didn’t get lost!

our hand drawn map

and personal escort service

Finding the RV park in Oxaca was another story. Turns out the one and only has been converted into a new hi-rise building. Guess we’ll be sleeping in a hotel again!

(On a side note, I discovered these wristbands that are supposed to help with motion sickness at REI before we left. Honestly, they have really helped me – much more than the elastic bands that you can find in drug stores.)