I have been back for just shy of four weeks now and usually when I travel, I have some type of “culture shock” or revelations. In this case they are revelations. These are mostly comparisons between Mexico and the United States. They are also similar to what I have experienced in the past coming back to the US.

Police Corruption – it’s present, but not the norm

While we got stopped several times by the myriad of different types of police in Mexico, I was actually only harassed one time. Yes it was stressful, but I got out unscathed. I was warned about the police in this town and their ties to the cartels, so it’s not surprising.

What is important to note, is that on our last day in Mexico, traveling from Saltillo to Eagle Pass, TX, we pulled out of our hotel, but there were large orange cones in the driveway. These can mean anything in Mexico, so I simply had them moved and we drove onto the boulevard in front of the hotel. Except that it was crowded with pedestrians, joggers, and cyclists. Evidently, they close many roads every Sunday to traffic and let the people “own” the streets and use them for exercise and just getting out without having to worry about the traffic. A novel idea.

It was closed however, and as I was turning right to get off the boulevard at the first intersection, I got waived down by a young police officer. I knew this could be problematic, so I preemptively opened my window and before he had a chance to say anything, I greeted him and asked him how to get off this boulevard and explained the situation. He asked for my license, told me what I already knew and then told me to pull over to the street I was already turning onto. After about 5-10 minutes, he said he needed to give me a ticket, but it was obvious he didn’t really want to, so I asked to talk with his supervisor. About 10 minutes later his supervisor pulled up in a pickup truck and I got out and talked with him for another 10 minutes. Again taking the initiative to state the obvious, then I asked him if he could escort us out of the city as we couldn’t wait for the road to open as we had an appointment with Banjercito at the border for paperwork. He too stated he should give us a ticket, but then I asked again for an escort and he obliged. Escorting us about five miles to where there would be no more road closures, he turned around and waived us on.

In our travel stories, we don’t talk about the good interactions with police too much, but every other interaction I had with them, whether it be on the street walking and asking for directions, asking for questions about their town, or being stopped for standard inspections – was a positive experience. They are there just doing their jobs.

I got harassed only once out of the twenty or so interactions I had with the police in Mexico. The one time I got harassed, it was in a known cartel collusion area, I was warned, and I was driving a foreign vehicle. In the end, they let me go my way without any issues other than 60-90 minute delay in my day, and it really didn’t impact me other than the time I was stopped.

So, while we are warned and talk about police corruption in Mexico, and it most definitely is present, they are in the minority and most police officers are just doing their job and are happy to talk to/with you. They are people too.

Mexican vs US Drivers

In Mexico, driving has you on your toes. I wouldn’t say it’s dangerous, and from my anecdotal experiences driving over 25,000 miles in Mexico over the years, I would venture to say that Mexican drivers are actually better drivers than those in the US. Here is why I have come to that conclusion:

In Mexico, you will encounter topes or speed bumps on every type of road from cul-de-sacs, to country lanes, to boulevards, to major national autopsists or toll roads. They can be anything from white lines painted on the road way causing vibrations to jolting six inch tall asphalt tire/suspension-destroying humps that are unmarked.

On the contrast, there are also potholes on every roadway in varying states of decay, depth, and diabolical properties that will give you spinal compression fractures as you are launched out of the pothole and back onto the roadway for a final suspension-misalignment treatment.

There are also the narrow (think country lane) two-lane highways that have no shoulder, but instead have a 5-500′ drop off on one side and immoveable trees encroaching on the highway so you can’t use the entire lane. As you encounter these narrow lanes, you must add the pot holes and topes. So you see oncoming traffic swerving all over the road in front of you playing chicken at 100-120 kph (60-70 MPH).

The speed limits are subjective. The reality is that the road conditions dictate the speed limit plus some. If you go any faster, you will destroy your car.

We also have animals to contend with… dogs, chickens, donkeys, horses, cows, etc. My favorite [sic] are the pigs in the trucks being taken to slaughter. The pack so many pig in the trucks with open siding (just barriers to keep them in) that you can smell the pig trucks for miles before you reach them to over take them. As you are over taking them my suggestion is to do so as the fastest speed possible (well beyond the safe speed for road conditions). The reason for this is that if you take your time in passing these trucks, of the 200-300 pigs on board, of the 10% or so that have their asses pointed to you, one of them will inevitably defecate or urinate all over your vehicle.

Back to the other animal hazards, they are usually not in pastures or tied up. So they roam the roads freely. After all, it’s easier to walk on a road than through rocks and brush. When they are tied up, they are tied up so close to the road, that they will often be laying down on the road and sleeping – until you get close then they will suddenly jump up and run to the end of their tether – in the middle of the road.

Now let’s get to city drivers… traffic lights – pshhh – who needs them. Painted lane lines on the street… pshhh, let’s make our own lanes… blind curves, narrow streets, topes, potholes, livestock… you get the picture.

Now here’s here it gets interesting. Mexicans learned how to drive in these conditions. They are ever-alter and rarely distracted with cell phones, eating in their cars, putting makeup on, shaving, reading, autonomous driving cars, etc. They are reactionary drivers and they are good at it. They take it in stride. For the most part, it’s all part of the commute and just another day.

Because Mexicans are reactionary, offensive, and then finally defensive drivers, they are good drivers. They know how to avoid accidents. In all of the miles we drove this past summer, we saw… TWO accident. The first was where a double gasoline trailer driver fell asleep and ran off the road into a muddy field. There were two tow trucks there trying to extricate it out of the field. The second one was bad, it was a single vehicle accident where the long haul truck driver… fell asleep and the truck went off of one of those aforementioned embankments, overturned and was completely destroyed. The local townspeople were there collecting free cans of Coke and doing the highway department a great service by cleaning up the mess.

In contrast, I have been back in the states for just under four weeks and I have seen countless accidents on the freeways and have only driven about 800 miles. The other thing I have seen is road-rage. People are angry… They want to take it out on anyone. A delivery van and Dodge Charger racing down the freeway weaving in between traffic, driving on the shoulder all because the Charger “cut the delivery driver off”

Because of all the strict traffic laws and the threat of citations, people in the US mostly obey the laws. Because of this, they have time to be distracted. They are on their phones, eating fast food, shaving, having their Teslas drive them, etc. They have forgotten how to drive. So when there’s something out of the norm, they don’t know how to react. The results are no reaction and an accident, or over reaction and an accident.

Because of this, I have come to my subjective conclusion that Mexican (and for similar reasons, most other countries in the world) are better drivers than those from the United States. We pretty much suck at driving. Even good drivers in the US are bad drivers in Mexico. We just don’t have the skillset to be reactive drivers and pay attention – it’s more important for us to answer that text, eat those fries, and put makeup on instead of driving.

We departed on this journey in mid-May with the intent of seeing much of Mexico. To add to the previous trips and to get an idea for areas we would like to settle. In this respect, this journey did not disappoint.

Now that we have been on the road for 14 weeks, we are now headed back north and then west. We are caught going through the desert and the southwestern US in August, the trip will be hot – triple digits all the way, and fast – to avoid the heat, we (I) will be driving 8-12 hours per day for a week. It will be brutal.

Things Learned

One of the things that we learned, or re-learned, is that it’s no fun traveling on the coast and desert in the middle of the summer. The first three weeks of the trip we experienced 100º+ on a daily basis. There was a time where my inverter had problems and the air conditioning didn’t work – brutal. Then when we got to our destination, we stayed inside where it was cool, only to venture out at dusk. What we learned was that to travel and enjoy the coast and the desert, one must travel during the winter months. We knew this already, but due to schedules, etc. we were forced to live through it again – and reinforce what we already knew.

Another thing that we knew – and this is subjective, is that the RV parks are, for the most part, just fine to stay in. Sure there are issues, but after being on the road for 14 weeks, that should be expected. We had power, water, and sewer hookups most everywhere we went, and when we didn’t, it wasn’t a big deal, we found solutions.

Police corruption is a thing! However, between the two of us, only one bribe was paid (within 100m after crossing the border, Gary paid out). One big caveat, we are now headed north to Texas, and I would expect 2-3 stops and possible searches on a daily basis. This is not corruption, this is the Mexican Government and Cartels (for where there are no police for reasons unstated) making sure people are not smuggling things north. I expect there to be x-ray machines, manual searches, and canine searches. I do not expect corruption.

As for corruption, in order of degree, EDOMX – the State of Mexico – are the most corrupt. There they told me they were going to impound the bus for “smoking” – all the while we were passed by cars with blown engines, trucks billowing smoke, etc.

Next would be the State of Hidalgo – here is where Gary’s truck and trailer were: too big, too long, too heavy. He agreed to everything they asked for: to pay a fee, to have license confiscated, to have to pick up the license on Tuesday, then Wednesday, etc. The only thing he asked for was a receipt. That frustrated them to all get out. The police officer got tired of standing in the rain trying to get an edge, but Gary didn’t give him one.

Finally, the state of Sonora. It’s supposed to be a “no hassle” zone for foreign plated vehicles, but they got Gary with a “radar” gun that was probably never calibrated and decades old. They got him at the border, he was following me, but they liked how he tasted more than me. As we were just entering the country, Gary chose to pay out. Now he would do it differently.

The Good…

There are so many things that were good about this trip and that are good about Mexico. They are too numerous to mention here, but visit the rest of the blog and you can read about them there. However, I do want to say that after everything, I WILL BE BACK. The people, culture, art, food, history, geography, etc. are amazing. I love cultures from Latin America, and Mexico is near the top. I cannot say enough good things about Mexico and the things we have seen and done here. Some of my posts may seem negative, and sure, we find things that are less than desirable, but they are far fewer and far less important than the good things we have experienced.

Relocation

One of the reasons for this and previous trips has been to scout out regions where we feel we would like to relocate in a few years. Our goldilocks zone is the altiplano or highlands, between 1500 and 2500 meters in the mountains. Luckily for us, this is the majority of the country – from Durango in the north, all the way to the Guatemalan border to the south – on the interior of the country.

Our other key points of concern are:

• A mid-size city – 150K-1mln people
• An international airport within one hour
• decent infrastructure
• culture

We previously identified five areas where we would like to visit. They included Morelia, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Puebla, and Guanajuato. Of the five, my personal top two would be Cholula in Puebla and San Cristobal de las Casa in Chiapas. I can see at least two more trips to validate them.

Closing

I don’t think I will be posting any more on this blog unless something exciting happens between here and home. I would like to thank all of you readers who followed along as your involvement helped me document this trip for revisiting in the future.

San Miguel de Allende

Mineral de Pozos

MdP is a PM near SMdA – about 40km. It is another mining town, but this time it is located in the high desert. Much of the agriculture are nopales. They say this is a large dairy area, but I haven’t seen any cattle.

This is a very small town, the city center is about six square blocks, and from what we could tell, there’s not much else to the town. The first thing we did was to bump into a gallery of pre-hispanic musical instruments. This was a -really- cool gallery, we were encouraged to pick up all displays and play with them – and to buy them if we so wanted. We wanted… After talking to the proprietor about the different instrument makers, etc., I bought two instruments. One is a rattle made of seed pods from Flor de Maguey. This one sounds like a babbling brook, rain, or water. It’s really cool and fun to play. The other one that I bought is a rain stick – made from mesquite and cactus spines. Inside, the little rocks fall on the spines and since none of them are the same, each spine sounds a little different. You can hear the individual drops of rain from this instrument.

This is a very small town, the city center is about six square blocks, and from what we could tell, there’s not much else to the town. The first thing we did was to bump into a gallery of pre-hispanic musical instruments. This was a -really- cool gallery, we were encouraged to pick up all displays and play with them – and to buy them if we so wanted. We wanted… After talking to the proprietor about the different instrument makers, etc., I bought two instruments. One is a rattle made of seed pods from Flor de Maguey. This one sounds like a babbling brook, rain, or water. It’s really cool and fun to play. The other one that I bought is a rain stick – made from mesquite and cactus spines. Inside, the little rocks fall on the spines and since none of them are the same, each spine sounds a little different. You can hear the individual drops of rain from this instrument. Alongside my Hopi flute, they go quite well.

One of the attractions of Mineral de Pozos is all of the mines. There are over 500 mines in the municipality, most of them unbarricaded and ripe to fall in for any unsuspecting soul. We took a tour which have no regulation other than you must wear a hard-hat. Your safety is your problem, the guides cannot be responsible for you. If you only have three beers to take down into the mine, it’s not enough, you need more, etc, etc. Along with the mines is a Jesuit site to see. It’s ruins now, but it’s pretty incredible. Talk about open mines…

Dolores de Hidalgo

My wife texted me the other day and asked me to pick up some talavera pots. I asked at the RV Park office where to get some and the girl at the front desk pointed me to Dolores de Hidalgo – another Pueblo Mágico about 30km away.

Off we went, with the sole intention of buying pottery. When my wife sent me pictures of what she wanted, the pictures also had the prices in USD. When I got to the stores, I realized the prices were about 10-15% of the prices in the US. So I bought some pottery. The bus is full, my wife will be happy. The most challenging thing of the day, was how to fit all of the pottery I bought into Gary’s truck – the Ford Super Duty F-350 truck… I didn’t worry about it fitting into my bus – it’s a school bus after all.

This town was a little desert town. Not much about it other than the Talavera pottery. Except…

This town is where Padre Hidalgo, a Catholic priest who championed for the indigenous, meztico, and poorer Spaniards alike, cried for Mexican independence in 1865. While his movement was short lived due to his capture and murder, he is known as the father of Mexican independence. He is a much celebrated historical figure and his “Grito de la Independencia” was given in Dolores de Hidalgo.

Coming down from 9500′ in elevation, it was nice to settle once again around 7000′. Even though it’s still high, I felt I could breath a bit better.

This town or small city was quite nice. Located in the Goldilocks zone for climate. The City Center was about 20 square blocks and was extremely clean. The town is famous for Art, Cheese, and Wine. Of which I sampled and bought some of each. This is a town that I could live in. Colonial style architecture, clean, close to a major airport, not-too-small-not-to-big, lots of trees, etc.

This town is also the geographical center of Mexico. They are proud to have that distinction and celebrate it.

This RV park wasn’t really an RV park – it was another balneario and while there was electricity and water hookups, there were no sewage hookups. After camping for three nights, and staying here for three nights, we needed to empty the tanks. I asked the park management if they had a port we could dump into, he suggested the creek. Kind of a repeat of the conversation I had in El Chico. They finally got me in contact with a local septic pumping service who came out to assess the situation. He didn’t have a way to hook up to us, but he did help us identify the sewer man hole cover in the street and helped us dislodge it from years of neglect. The day we left, we popped the sucker open and dumped… quite the sight. We knew that this might be an issue/option for us and we were -mostly- prepared for it.

El Pizote did however, become the instigator in mischief… as the man hole cover was popped open, the hole went down about 5 meters. The walls were -covered- in cockroaches of all sizes. I prodded Gary to spray the coc… wash down the walls with his grey water. I’ve never seen so many cockroaches run into the daylight and onto the street before in my life. As I was standing a ways back to avoid the wonderful smells of Gary’s grey water, I was largely unaffected by the cockroach swarm. Gary and Rocco, on the other hand started dancing, stomping, and squealing like… While this story is true, as always, editorial liberties have been taken – take it for what it’s worth.

Bernal de la Peña

BdP is a small town about 20km outside of Tequis. It is a quaint little town with castles, a natural monument and pastries. It reminds me a little bit of Solvang, CA. We drove out to the BdP in the afternoon and were treated to a relaxing stroll around town to take in the sights and smells.

We parked on a side street and as always, I am first to hop out – many times before the truck has come to a stop. The first thing I noticed were all of the bakery smells wafting through the air. My natural reaction was first to salivate, and then to find the closest bakery, which happened to be around the corner.

The Peña is a tall natural monument that is the world’s third largest. You could see people up near the top, and I would normally want to hike it, but with the altitude, and… ahem… me being lazy, we opted just to stroll around town.

The fore-mentioned castle is actually a hotel and spa. I nice place from what we saw, I would stay here.

One of the attractions we ran across was the museum of masks. Very interesting collection of masks from around the world from many different eras…