A Birthday to Remember

Welcome back everyone!  I feel like its been... well 3 days and it has.  Though 3 days driving through Mexico and all her glory feels like 3 weeks to us.  WiFi has been No-Fi for us, so we apologize for not keeping up, but we ARE NOT DEAD... I repeat we are not dead.  One day gone and our family and friends are ready to call the US Embassy!! Regardless, welcome back to the fun and we do appreciate all the love, concerns and well wishes.

The past 3 days have been quite interesting, but let's focus on November 15th for now... Abasi's 35th birthday... a birthday he WILL NOT forget!

So we woke up in Matehuala, Mexico in route to Puebla, Mexico which is about 7-8 hours away.  We were dead set on finding the allusive "Arco Norte," which would circumvent us around Mexico City and put us out on the other side, safe and sound.  The thing about Mexico City is that though many people find it unsafe, like a majority of places both in the United States or Mexico, most of the danger is at night.  Even with that being said, danger isn't the main issue in Mexico City for us.  It is one of the, if not the largest, cities in the world and with that comes pollution, more cops, traffic and oh yea more cops.  We have read that there are laws now dictating certain driving times or days for locals to cut down on air pollution and improve air quality, depending on their license plate numbers.  As Americans, or foreigners in general, we are at a higher risk of driving on the wrong days and being hassled, so why bother?

This Arco Norte they speak of, is supposed to go right around Mexico City, on a highway made for kings.  Reading about it, we knew this was exactly what we needed.  Well turns out what we needed was solid directions.  There aren't any actual signs that say "ARCO NORTE" on the highway and as Abasi puts it you need to know somebody that knows somebody, who's been on it personally.  The sign you have to look for is Puebla Cuota... but nobody tells you how far it is down highway 57, heading TOWARDS MEXICO CITY.  And the directions we found online were vauge at best and terrible if we're being honest.

In truth, I (Krysta) said we were going the right way the whole time.  I had a feeling, a gut feeling, that we were not going the wrong way.  However Abasi felt we were getting to close to Mexico City, with it approaching in a mere hour or less.  Feeling I had navigated wrong and worrying we were headed straight into the belly of the beast, I told him to turn around if he feels we were going the wrong way.  After all it was his birthday and he can get us lost if he wants to, no?

So we turned around on highway 57, heading back towards Quateraro… a pretty big city for all intents and purposes.  Not only had we hit some traffic heading toward this “Arco Norte”, but also after turning around we hit more traffic.  This was disconcerting because we were losing daylight as it was and still hadn’t gone around Mexico City.  We certainly didn’t want to sleep in Mexico City or its proximities, especially if that meant driving around looking for suitable hotels in the dark.  After finally getting back to where we (he) felt we had gone wrong, we started again, first stopping to ask for directions.  Just like every time before, the gas station attendants had been more than willing to help us and after grasping the new directions, we headed on our way.

To only God knows.

Turns out we may have gotten the right directions for the wrong route from this particular guy because when we asked for the route around Mexico City, he sent us this way.  Granted it WAS a way around Mexico City, but because the Arco Norte is less known then most highways in Mexico, this was not the road we were looking for.  Instead we were sent down some East-Bum-Farmland road, driving into dusk.  It was entirely the wrong way and we felt it, both of us this time.  So we pulled over again and asked someone else for directions.  This time we needed to know how long until Puebla to ensure we were headed the right way, and when he replied 4 hours, I almost cried.  We were 4 hours away from our destination and a solid hour away from where we knew there were hotels behind us.  With darkness fast approaching we asked if there were any hotels down the road and he assured us yes.  Again, correct information, but not what we were looking for.  The closest hotels were NOT THAT CLOSE and when he said hotel, he meant some village motel that we couldn’t possibly stay in with absolute certainty of our safety.

So we made the difficult decision to turn back.  We didn’t want to keep on driving.  We had promised others and ourselves that we would not drive at nighttime, but in reality what were our options?  Pull the car over and the 2 of us, with Bentley and Gemini, sleep on the side of a country road with the bulls, horses and chickens… doubtful.  So we did the unthinkable… we turned around… in the dark.

We got back to the city within 40 minutes and after stopping at a gas station to buy dog food, only to settle for puppy chow, we found a hotel and settled in for the night.  Unfortunately, the hotel didn’t have Wifi to call our loved ones, and the loved ones with us (the dogs) weren’t allowed in the rooms.  However with it being night out, not really knowing where we were and being down right exhausted, we decided that the locked gate parking lot was safe for the dogs and we were right.

Now if you remember this was Abasi’s birthday and though I knew we would be traveling, I still wanted to have a nice dinner and a cocktail to celebrate with him, unfortunately we too had to settle with a bag of pistachios and a bottle of tequila.  Feliz cumpleanos! 

Birthday Boy

Follow the Parrot... 

Snow!

Snowcapped mountains in Mexico!

Tomatillo likes Modelo too!