Watch out for the Federalis!

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Sorry for not posting for a few days but the internet is becoming increasingly difficult to find the farther down we travel. we passed through mex city today and are currently in a small town on the outskirts of oaxaca. I am going to start with day 3 and catch up within the next few days. We are hoping to cross into Guatamala tomorrow so stay tuned. Also, I cant upload photos right now but will shortly. And I have some good ones!

Day 3

Today has been our most hectic day yet. We ended up breaking almost every mexico travel rule in the books. It all started innocently enough. We were passing through Mazatlan minding our own business and looking for Mexico Highway 15 when we spotted blue flashing lights behind us. We were about to have our first federali encounter. His name was Ignacio and his excuse for pulling us over was the classic speeding one. He explained to us that he was going to hold onto justin´s license and we could follow him back to the station, pay the 900 peso fine (about 70USD), and then we would get his license back and could go on our way. We figured this hole story was to establish a starting point for our negotiations. he wanted 70US. We countered with an offer of 30US that we could pay on the spot. he said no deal and told us to follow him to the station. He was playing hardball against two inexperienced gringos. We followed him for a few blocks, and discussed our next line of attack when all of a sudden he pulls over and motions Justin to his window. He now asked for 50US but justin countered by showing him his wallent which only had 40US in it. Ignacio accepted our offer, but we couldnt help but feel that we could have payed much less. Federalis=1, Gringos=0. Next time we would be prepared.

By this time it was about 5PM and it starts to get dark around 7PM and we had much ground to make up. We hopped on the Cuota (toll road) and soon hit our most expensive checkpoints to date. Oh yeah, and our fuel tank was almost on E. We had to pay our last toll of the day with a mix of US dollars, US coins, paper Pesos and Peso coins. It was pathetic. So now we are completely our of dinero and are not even close to our destination. We were forced to take the notorious free roads (1), at night (2), With no money (3), and almost no gas (4), and it started to rain. We had single-handedly broken the four rules of travel in Mexico in one sitting. But it turned out that the Libre roads weren´t half bad, and we found a gas station that had an ATM just in time. so no harm, no foul...This time. We ended the night in Los Mochis about 3 hours behind schedule.

I´m almost out of time at this internet cafe but will fill you in on Day 4 and 5 shortly. (hint: Federalis=1, Gringos=1) I hope this blog isn´t too dry.

Adios,
Andrew Velasquez

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