Nov 22 Westward Ho! Calderitas to Villahermosa

From here on we would be really just heading to Zihuatanejo, our winter home. We would make a few stops but most would be just stopovers for the night.

We left Yax Ha Resort in Calderitas at 10:00 AM, the staff ready with a long forked pole to raise the telephone, internet and cablevision wires so we could safely pass beneath! On the way out we remembered to take this photo of an hotel/restaurant that we had seen yesterday on the way to Chetumal for groceries.

Half an hour later, already through the city we were halted at a military check point and waved through after a few questions.

At 11:30 we were stopped again, this time for about 10 minutes by customs who had a pretty thorough look around then waved us on. 15 or 20 minutes, just across the Campeche border we were stopped a third time, again the military for a little over 10 minutes.

The highway continued mostly straight, a few low hills, lots of lush green vegetation. a few villages, not much of anything.

One thing we have noticed here and for that matter throughout Mexico is the somewhat anachronistic mixture of old concrete and brick houses, sometimes incomplete, topped off with a satellite TV dish. Most (though not all) of these small homes were in very good repair and brightly painted.

At 1:50 we arrived at the impressively named “Centro para Concervación de la Vida Silvestre” – Centre for the Conservation of Wild Life – a few kilometers east of the city of Escárcega.

This is a private rancho, who's young owner had dedicated a large part of his property to be kept wild. It is home to deer and peccaries, racoons among others, none of which we saw, though the dogs were quite interested in what might be in the surrounding forest.

The only animal life we saw were a couple of horses who apparently spent the night with us. Trekker was again quite interested—we think that he had never seen a horse lying down before! He seemed happier when it stood up!

There are cold water showers in rather primitive enclosures and a sewer dump station.

Interestingly the garbage and recycling was very well organised, separate containers for Organic, Plastic, Glass and Metal.

The owner plans to bring water and electricity and perhaps a sewer drain to a few sites. At the moment there are no sites laid out, there are a few water taps here and there but the connections are much smaller than standard! There is also 120Volts at who knows what amperage available in a small shed.

The road in and out though could do with a little work. It was a bit tight in places, the approach to the inner gate and 90 degree turn was partially blocked by a stack of 4x4 posts. The owners little wood shop was just off the lane. The turkeys, chickens and peacocks managed to keep out of our way. In all though it was quite a pleasant stay.

We had a decision to make before we set off today: Continue to Villahermosa and backtrack westwards from there towards Miatitlan before taking the newish toll road to Oczocoautla OR turn south just before Villahermosa for Palenque (which we had visited before and wouldn't mind seeing again) and take the mountain road to San Cristobal del las Casas which we had seen before and wanted to see again.

The road from Palenque is narrow and very steep and twisty with nowhere to pull off for a rest. Also at times there are road block that can cause long delays. The final point against is that the only RV Park in San Cristobal has reportedly closed and we didn't really want to park overnight in a shopping centre or leave the RV there while we toured the city.

In the end, the decision was easy:

We were on the road again by 9:20 next morning, enroute to Villahermosa . We had no sooner turned onto the highway when we noticed some sort of delay up ahead and and realised that it was another check point. This time the police were not too interested in us and waved us on, though Art did ask the the herd of cattle ahead of us had all the right papers. He got a laugh from one of the officers who assured us that they did! Since we were already stopped outside the large Pemex we took the opportunity to make a quick fuel stop before carrying on.

That was about the highlight of today's drive. A couple of cheap tolls totaling under ten dollars, a half hour lunch stop along the roadside about 1:00 PM and then were through Villahermosa and arrived at El Recreativo El Gordo y San Pancho by 3:00 PM.

We were greeted by Capitán again, delighted to meet his old buddy Trekker. We dragged an extension cord through the office window as we did last time and topped up the water tank and just relaxed for the rest of the afternoon

We woke in the morning as the brick makers were back at it! After breakfast Art took his camera over and asked if he could take some photos. He chatted with the two workmen for a few minutes. These guys work from 6:30 AM until dusk, about 5:30 PM and make thousands of bricks a day.

First, several 5 gallon buckets of sand are carried over to and tipped into the cement mixer. Cement and water are added, the mixed concrete poured onto the concrete floor.

From here it is shoveled and packed into steel molds and vibrated in short bursts. Then the molds are raised leaving the bricks standing on edge on a large wooden tray which they then carry off to the stack to dry for a day.