17 November Pátzcuaro to Zihuatanejo

Sunday About five hours today, no stops until Zihua so we made sure the dogs got a good stroll, the snack pack had the requisite apples, water bottles were full and we set off at 10:20

We know this area quite well so rather than return to the toll road directly by backtracking or going through (or around) Pátzcuaro to the toll road we proceeded north through the lakeside part of the town on the libre to Uruapan for roughly 20 kilometers then joined the toll road. This part of the libre is very pleasant and quite a pretty drive. Then there is a steep climb to the highway and many Looooong steep downhills.

God forbid a truck loose its brakes here, it is usually several kilometers between runaway lanes. The last one actually leads trucks through a toll booth! Our rig clears the booth with about 5 inches clearance for each mirror, I can't imagine a runaway doing 100 Km/H or more getting through!

Forty five minutes after leaving El Pozo we were on the 37D towards Lázaro Cardenas. About an hour and a half of mostly downhill though not nearly so steep. Fuel use should be better than average! The highway was in surprisingly good shape considering the about of flood damage done to the area during hurricane Manuel. The worst bits were some of the expansion joints on the bridges.

The road had had some emergency repaving done and some of the bridge approaches had washed out.  It will need a proper repair job soon but they did a remarkable job to get the road open. It had been closed for almost a week. 

At 1:35 we paid the last toll at the exit to Zihuatanejo and we were southbound on the 200, about an hour from the town.

There had been a lot of road damage here too, especially the bridges and culverts but repairs were well under way and almost complete.

For the last couple of years there has been a push on the widen and straighten this section of the 200 but of course much of the work has been delayed due to the hurricane.

This bit still needs a little work:

Then we were back on the completed part and arrived in Zihuatanejo a little after 430. We intentionally overshot- our turn by a block in order to fill up with diesel. We just managed to get into the pumps leaving the back end of the jeep on the sidewalk and hopefully enough room to make a U turn back onto the highway.

Traffic was light so we were able to turn into the north bound left lane and easily get over to make the left around the roundabout. At 3:05 we arrived at El Manglar RV Park where the restaurant staff came out to welcome us home.

Odometer: 100641Km,  5,882 Kilometers since leaving three weeks ago to the day. Time flies when you're having fun!     (About 3,675 miles for the metrically challenged.)


Much more to come but that will take another post or two. Just to say we've been here since November 17th!