Every day as we are driving, I see things and think, "Oh, I want to share this with my friends!", "Sure wish Mom could see this." or "Wouldn't __________love this!?!" However, Mr Carlos Slim (owner of Telcel and one of, if not THE richest guy in the world) doesn't seem to have as much of Mexico covered as he claims to have - or else, we're just in those remote spots, but I have had trouble even posting bits from my phone. But then - by the end of the day - and in this case, 2 days - I've forgotten a good part of it.
So, I'll try to remember the good stuff and perhaps whine a bit to you with the not so fun. (Don't worry, Mom - nothing too bad.) Remember - yes - I'm a whimp! And frankly, I don't do all that well with "adventure". I am a little bit free spirited - as long as there's a plan :), but Bob doesn't do "plans". Hmmmm...anyone besides me see a problem there? Let's just say...Bob is God's way of keeping me in prayer.
Actually, on Monday - after a pretty good night's rest- in spite of the hard beds, alarms going off, street noise and Bandido thinking it was play time - we actually had a pretty good day. The roads all day were amazing - well, at least we paid for them to be - and most of the time they were. But really - they were flat (hold on to that thought), straight, gorgeous. The toll booths are almost works of art - the bathrooms, really beautiful. Remember, this is coming from someone who has lived and traveled in Mexico for the past 14 years. I KNOW Mexican bathrooms - and these were just nice!
The scenery throughout the day was breathtaking. We kept seeing places that reminded us of other places we'd been - tall mountains, deep valleys. Lush green in shades from lime to forrest. Rushing rivers, fields of crops, lovely.
We are Auto, not Moto
2 lanes but wide shoulders
Giant sized lakes
It is so difficult to capture the height and grandeur of the mountains we have seen - they also look more distant in the camera - but they really were huge and majestic...all the way to Tuxtla Gutierrez.
And then there was the "let's try and find a room tonight" game that seems to come after us every evening. Once again, we looked and looked - went into one hotel after another - and - after I once again asked my FB peeps to pray, we got a hotel - this one especially modern and included a separate room with a jacuzzi tub. Sure felt good on these bones!
Today is a new story. We left at 8 a.m. and only had 241 miles to go, so figured we would be into Tapachula by noon or so, be able to get some laundry done and take care of some last minute business, then be on our way to Guatemala the next morning. Well...I forgot to look at the thing on my phone that tells how many hours it will take to drive those 241 miles. It. took. ten. TEN! We didn't have to pay very many tolls today - nope. We did get to see some blow me away scenery - each day, getting more and more beautiful! Today we wound through the mountains, sun shining through the canopy of trees that covered the roadways, little quaint villages with people dressed as if they were from the early 1900's. It was almost as if we'd gone back 90 years in time, but they built a highway for us to drive on for the tour. We even saw tropical flowers - like the ones you'd pay 10 bucks a stem for. I couldn't even find pics of them, it was so cool. Wild, on the side of the road. I wanted to get out and climb amongst them!
Looks like California restaurants
Lots of little booths on the roads selling peaches, strawberries, bananas, pineapple and home made pots and such.
Home made Cinder Block
A little casa
Slow traffic
Canopied roadways
Watching the world go by
Pretty turq. sidewalks in Mtn Village
A wee bit crowded here
Things we have been noticing here in the state of Chiapas - Short people (but very friendly), clean roadsides, homes, etc....Lots of the little taxi's (that red thing), and houses hanging off the side of the mountains - little tiny houses. The colorful sidewalks ran through several of the towns high in the mountains - turquoise, pink, red - all with white curbs.
Did I say high in the mountains? Well, yes, I did. We wound and wound and wound through the mountains today- or should I say UP - often going no faster than 25 miles per hour - narrow roads, with a mountain on one side of us and a sheer cliff on the other (unless, of course, they had their house hanging off the edge of that particular cliff. I was always grateful for those.) I did pretty well with it, though could rarely bring myself to look over the edge at what was below - until - we got so high that a cloud decided to sit itself right on top of that particular mountain that we were driving. Talk about praying! I was scared to death - and would have rathered pull off to the side in one of those great little towns and waited until the clouds passed. Oh, and did I say it was raining? And we were in the lane on the OUTSIDE of the road, staring down the cliff? Oh, and that other cars and trucks were passing on this narrow 2 lane road on the corners??????? Come on, people! NOT good! Before we made it back down to the bottom, I was doing one of those, I-just-want-out-of-this-car things. Have to say though - even though I'm not thrilled with doing that, we saw some pretty incredible stuff today.
This little thing next to the road? There were lots of these - just the small shack, precariously perched on the edge. But what a million dollar view they had!
One of many interesting signs we saw. First, NVO Sonora, then Nogales, Buenos Aires and more. 
This shows just a glimpse of how they grew their crops on the side of very steep hills. We could see open spaces planted with corn, mostly - and they MUST have planted it by hand and have to tend to it, etc. I honestly don't know how they do it. The hills would be extremely dificult just to climb, they were so steep.
And one last thing - news flash!! We now know where the tope (toh-pay, Mexican Speed Bump) was invented. Right here in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. It MUST be so - because they certainly had a LOT of practice. Today was a day where just when you thought you might be able to speed up - you know, to like 40 - another tope would be there threatening to tear your car apart. Many times they were only 50-70 feet apart. There were big wide topes, tall sharp topes, worn down topes, half topes, painted topes, unmarked topes, topes of dirt, topes of concrete, topes of old tire tread, topes of rope, vibrador topes and on and on it goes. My personal favorite was the just-painted-on-the-road-but-nothing-is-really-there tope....we'd juuuust be getting on some speed, and we'd see something in the road - smart enough to slow waaaaaay down...maybe even screech our brakes a bit because it snuck up on us...and then everyone who lives in the area would drive right around us...and we would just laugh.
Good night all. Tomorrow is another day. We are spending the night in Tapachula, right on the border of Guatemala - 2 nights worth - and then will head to Guatemala. We have to do some laundry and are still waiting on our insurance papers for South America, so are hoping to get that all done tomorrow.
I have no idea when I'll get any internet again. We may buy a sim card for each country we go through, so that we can perhaps at least send a post to Facebook, so you'll know we are still with it.
We really aren't worried about the people - everyone we have come in contact with has been so nice. Please know that if anything were to happen (although I wasn't real thrilled with the possibility of flying off a cliff), we know who our Redeemer is, and know that He lives, and as long as we are in His arms, we are safe. Maybe not on this earth - but for eternity, yes.
"How precious are My children who are awed by nature’s beauty; this opens them up to My holy Presence." -Jesus Calling by Sarah Young
This has been our privilege for the past several days.......
Good night
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