A tough day in Mexico

 

No two days are the =same and today was of course no exception. We couldn’t leave our hotel on the beach too early because of pre-arranged telephonic communications (to you and I,  Zoom meetings). We departed at around 08:30 aiming for the food capital of Mexico, Oaxaca. This was a big ask, not only needing a long haul behind the wheel for each of the three drivers but also big climbs in the afternoon.

 

As the morning progressed the sun got higher and the temperature kept rising, at one point reaching north of 38C. the first problem was that Ham’s Lagonda lost all power. He pulled over to the side of the road and within a minute it had started and he was off again. A worrying moment. Chris slipped in behind him to act as wing man and within 30 minutes it had happened again, slightly more worrying this time. Again the car started after a couple of minutes and Ham set off down the road hoping to give the car a good run and hopefully sort the problem.

 

Then a more significant issue arose with Nigel feeling unwell behind the wheel. He pulled over and messaged Chris who turned around having messaged Ham who also turned around. They found Nigel on the side of the road feeling distinctly the worse for wear but after a few minutes and cooling treatment (an ice cold towel on his head) he felt well enough to drive the ten minutes to the nearest petrol station. After resting and cooling down we decided to head for the nearest reasonable hotel to take time and understand whether it was simply the sun or something more worrying. Apart from Ham getting separated and taking a 50km detour, Nigel and Chris got into some serious aircon, got some sleep and some lunch and before long Nigel had recovered.

 

We decided to change our route and miss the hills to get to Oaxaca instead staying low and heading for Veracruz. Although Veracruz has nothing really to lay claim to apart from being the port for Mexico City the route is faster, requires less climbing and probably will save is a day. The downside is that the road is littered with speed bumps and we know that as soon as the light begins to fade there will be no way on God’s earth that we will see them. One sure fire way of guaranteeing another broken spring.

 

We drive on until about 5:00pm and Chris saw the Hotel Franco, Nuevo Moreles on the side of the road, they have rooms that are clean and air con and before you could blink we were in. Would we find anything to eat? Even there we were lucky arriving at the only restaurant in town 10 minutes before they shut. A tough steak and mash and job done. Early start tomorrow morning.