Day 24 - 22 Jan - Guanajuato to Sahuayo, MX

Odometer: 125,914 Weather: sunny and hot

We were up early, packed and on the road, planning to spend the night in Colima…about 350 kms from where we started and 150 kms from where we finally stopped. It took us the better part of 8 hours to drive 250 kms and here’s the reason why: every city/town we went through we got lost and it took us sometimes an hour to find our way back to the right road. When you are going long distances, driving in Mexico has less to do with safety than road signs we are discovering. Mind you, we’ve seen the very best and the very, very worst of most of the places we’ve been but it’s extremely frustrating to be constantly lost and just as exhausting.
I guess Mexicans inherently know where they are and where they are going…there are no signs and just when you do find a sign telling you which way to turn, it will be the last sign you ever see for that location. On the toll road, there will be a sign for ‘Colima’….right at the exit, not before….so many times you slow down for the exit but by the time you read all the signs, you’ve driven by and have to turn around. Once you take the exit, you will see signs for places not even on the map that may be on the way to Colima but never again see the sign for that place. Mexico LOVES traffic circles and given the sign problem, they have been the bane of our existence. We have often taken every road off the circle trying to find the right road which means backtracking sometimes 3 or 4 times…and that’s just to get out of the small towns! Multiply that by 100 for the larger cities and….well, you can imagine.
Having said all that, people have got out of their way to help us, and although the language barrier is a problem, they will sometimes ask you to “wait for one minute…they think the person next door speaks a bit of English and can help” and away they go to find them. The main difficulty in all of this is that we know if we don’t get to our planned destination, the chance of finding an RV park is remote to nil. By the time we reached Sahuayo, we knew a hotel was a must…we were tired and starting to look ‘ragged’ and I’m not sure if the Gods figured we needed a break, but we sure found a wonderful spot.
As we were driving in…and dreading the thought of another traffic circle…Wayne spotted the Hotel Casahi on the outskirts of the city. Because we can’t leave the van on the street overnight, security at any location is a must and this place had it. When we drove in we were amazed at how lovely it was and when the girl indicated a suite was available, with a Jacuzzi for $48, we almost screamed Yes, Yes, Yes. We were not disappointed! The rooms are cavernous (see a video on Facebook) with a king-sized bed, Jacuzzi for 2, and more. We filled up the bath and moaned with pleasure at the luxury of so much hot water and space. Wayne found CNN and a couple of other stations in English so was in heaven.
The plan for tomorrow is to be on the coast at Barra de Navidad, (this is just next door to Melaque where Lee Frith from the cottage goes for the winter) and then on up to Puerto Vallarta but we’ve learned that making plans for a specific destination isn’t possible here.
The most important thing however, is that the journey is the adventure and it’s been amazing so far. We are both looking forward to settling for two weeks in PV but I know we’ll be anxious to get back on the road.