Mexico City – Ciudad Guzmán (700km (435 miles), final total 6630km (4120 miles))
David, Mai, April, myself and another Mexican girl that we had met who lived in Puebla set off about 4 o’clock on Day Twenty-Two. At about 4.30, the car died, right in the middle of Mexico City. Luckily this happened right in front of a Sears mechanic, so we pushed it in and waited. As always seems to happen the worker turned the key and it started as if nothing had happened, I then took a 20 minute test drive and the car behaved itself perfectly. We got going again, however, fifteen minutes later the same thing happened; the car was overheating. In retrospect we were really lucky that it stopped on a road with virtually no cars on, and we were able to neutral it over to the pavement and wait. Some mechanics noticed us and diagnosed the problem, a new part would be needed to make sure that the engine cooled sufficiently. The part, allegedly, cost about $2000 pesos and more for labour, but I am ridiculously impatient so the Mexican girl and I went with the mechanics whilst they towed the car to their house/business to fix it. My three other companions departed, the plan being to meet up with me again later.
The mechanics lived in a fairly rough district of Mexico City (we heard gunshots) but as usual they were very hospitable and bought us pizza and gave us drinks. Granted, probably as they were just about to rip us off for the car, but kind all the same, and we spent about 4 hours in relatively pleasant conditions talking to their mother. Unbelievably, she had got married at the age of twelve and had had her first of about six children at the age of thirteen. And, in typical Mexican woman fashion, she was separated. Whilst I’m on this subject, religion really is the cause of the majority of life’s problems, and in Mexico more than any other country I have visited.
At about 1.30am the car was fixed and we said goodbye. I was going to stay at my female Mexican companion’s house for the night. But we received another setback when after 30 minutes the car broke down again with an identical problem. Cursing the mechanics and utterly lost in the dark, intimidating world of the suburbs of Mexico City, we chugged along -breaking down every half an hour- towards what we hoped would be her colonia.
At about 3.30 I was starting to get pretty annoyed at the Mexican girl who not only did not know the way to her house but also talked in an annoying chilango accent from Mexico City, using the word “guey” (dude) every other word. She had me reversing down motorways, or doing 10-point turns in the middle of onramps, and it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. We did however reach her flat after much blood, sweat and tears, and I went straight to bed.
In the morning I thought for about 5 minutes as I normally do and formulated a very stupid plan: I was getting this car back to Guadalajara if it took me until next Christmas. I had run out of money and the only option was getting home, in any shape or form. This however did mean parting company with my travelling buddies who I had shared so many fond memories with, but I would see them again, and another minute with the waster chilangos would have been too much to bear. So I set off and started the 350 mile drive to Guadalajara.
I was making decent progress when the car over-heated for the first time. It happened, however, at a very inopportune moment: at the head of the queue in the toll road, with 25 honking cars going crazy behind me. I took a very mellow viewpoint on this, as it wasn’t my fault and there was nothing I could do, other than wait 5 minutes until the engine cooled down a bit. I managed to get it out, and proceeded to trudge on bit by bit up to Querétaro.
But things were looking grim. The car was overheating more frequently, and Guadalajara was still 300 miles away. Every time I broke down a new mechanic would tinker with something, to no avail, until I met some older guys who charged me $200 pesos to take out a part that was blocking the flow of water to cool the engine. The work of the mechanics in Mexico City had been necessary, but there was still a problem, and from then on, the car overheated no more.
So I drove from the northern borders of Mexico City to Guadalajara without one single stop in about 6 hours, absolutely petrified that the car would break down again. I didn’t even rest in Guadalajara, instead preferring to ‘blitz it’ straight through to Guzmán. I was treated like a long-lost friend when I arrived, ate well, and went to sleep for about 15 hours. A thing that a good trip should always do is remind you how much you appreciate your home, in this case my Mexican home of Zapotlán el Grande. There really isn’t anywhere else as special as ‘The Guz’, in my eyes anyway, and it felt great to back, despite the adventures I had had.
The trip had ended prematurely, yes. We had plans to go to Puebla, the ruins of Teotihuacán and Tula, plus some other cities nearby such as Guanajuato and Aguascalientes. But this was probably the best month of my life anyway, and not visiting these places means that I have an excuse to come back and visit them again (incidentally, a day after I arrived I was offered $10,000 pesos more than what I paid for the car, which I duly turned down, such is my love for it, the stories and memories it has given me, and my desire to explore Mexico more times in the future.)
So…my final words of wisdom? Travel. In fact, go and plan a trip right now. Travelling is just the best thing you can possibly do, full of new cultures, adventures, different people and unbelievable experiences. And Mexicans are lucky enough that they don’t need to even cross borders; it’s a vast, beautiful country of which I didn’t even touch the sides.
Nicky Bremner
