Rescuing the Jeep 1 - The Trip North

When we last left the Jeep, it was safely abandoned at a mechanic's shop in Fort Stockton, Texas. To quote myself:

"So we moved all the important stuff into the Murano, and packed the Jeep with the items we could live without for a while. Told the mechanic to look the Jeep over and we'd call him on Monday to find out what was wrong. In the mean time we'd head south with half our stuff."

We actually ended up calling Charles the mechanic on Tuesday. Good news! He said he had tightened the flywheel and the car was running again. The bad news was that this probably wasn't our only problem, but Charles either didn't have the tools to figure out what the real problem was. So we took the good news and hoped the Jeep would at least get us the 200 miles to the border before it konked out. It had come 2200 miles already, what was another 200?

We left Tuxpan around 3 in the afternoon. We brought Luis' nephew Felipe so he could drive one of the cars once we were back in Mexico. I probably could have handled the majority of the drive in Mexico, but there was Guadalajara to consider, and the long hours Luis liked to drive, plus anything else that might pop up. So Luis felt better having Felipe there to drive.

Around 1 or 2am, we pulled off the highway at a city called Saltillo. At a gas station Luis asked for a close hotel. The attendant gave us directions and we pulled into a rather fancy looking hotel. It had an odd layout which I didn't figure out right away. Each room had a garage attached to it. The price was also very high, but we were all exhausted and figured one night at an expensive place was easier than getting back on the road to look for a cheaper place. So we pulled the Cadi into a garage, the hotel attendant flipped the circuit breakers for our room on, and we closed the garage door and went into our room for the night.

It was quite spacious. There was a small sitting area with two chairs and a table, two beds, a bar-like area with a room service menu, a sink area, and a large bathroom with a toilet and a big stand up shower. There were heavy curtains over the windows, which Luis pulled closed, and a lazy susan type thing that would allow food and whatnot to be delivered to the room without having any interaction with the person who was delivering it. There was one piece of art (or rather "art") on the wall. That was what explained it all to me. It was a 1980's style print of a naked woman.

Ok, let me add this up. A garage so you don't have to be seen getting out of your car. Heavy curtains so no one can see into your room. A private delivery system so even the hired help don't know who you are. And a print of a naked woman on the wall. I turned to Luis and asked, "This is where men bring their mistresses, right?" "Yup." In the morning I found that along with the shampoo the hotel left a condom. And the menu included condoms and cigarettes. Cool, we're staying in a "by the hour" hotel. I was too tired to care at that point.

The next morning we were back on the road. The temperature had dropped as we headed north and it was about 7 or 8 degrees centigrade (about 45 degrees farenheit). I saw a news program later in the trip and found out we were in the middle of a cold snap that hit the middle of the country and the southern US. None of us had heavy coats, but it was ok for the moment.

We hit Ciudad Acuña around 2pm. We met up with Luis' friend Tavo, had some food, and worked on getting the Cadi legalized. We called Charles in Texas and found out he closed in about an hour. Not enough time for us to get up there. So we paid the bill via credit card (a whopping $65) and asked him to leave the key in the car, we had another one so we could get in.

Legalizing the car was a process I won't claim to have understood. It involved going from office to office asking for the best deal. It's not like one place is the only place to legalize a car. There are a bunch of places and each will give you a different offer. Tavo thought he could get us a better deal than we had heard, so we decided to finish the process the next day. Ever since we had parked the car outside Tavo's office, men had been walking up to Luis and asking how much he wanted to sell the Cadi for. It was like flies to honey. Cars like the Cadi were rare in Mexico and those guys who dealt in cars knew what it was worth. The best offer we got was $2500. We considered it, but needed to go get the Jeep first.

We left Felipe in a hotel, gave him some cash, and had Tavo drive us across the border to rent a car. We got a car - a nice Ford Focus - in Del Rio, Texas around 5pm, said adios to Tavo and headed back into the southern Texas scrubland.

continued....