We Drive from Mexico into Central America

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After many hours of waiting for our gas tank to be patched up with fiberglass, we were finally having our last lunch in Acapulco with our friend and Taxi driver Rafael. The mechanics had finished the work the night before and we were now just waiting around for the tank to dry completely before filling it with gasoline to see if it would hold. Rafael had drawn us a map of the quickest route out of the city and back onto the Pacific Coast Highway. Both he and the mechanic had warned us of an area coming up called La Vientosa where they claimed the wind was so fierce that it was known to flip over Volkswagen bugs and send them rolling down the road like tumbleweeds. Rafael was worried about us and volunteered to ride with us as far as the Guatemalan border where he said he could catch a bus back. Of course we wouldn't hear of it. If the car was fixed I was sure we would be alright. After lunch we went back to the garage where our mechanic was all smiles. He had filled the tank with gas and it was holding nicely.
I know what you must be thinking. Why patch the gas tank? Why not just buy a new one or find an older used tank to put on it. I thought you might be wondering about that because I had asked the same questions. But in Mexico, this far away from the U.S. border, there were no new or used tanks to be had. Patching it was our only choice at the moment, and it turned out to be a good job well done, as it would last us two years and give us no further problems until we headed back home on this same highway. Yes, we did drive our old Jeep Cherokee back to the U.S. two years later, and yes, the saga of the search for a new gas tank in Mexico continues, but that is another story for another time.

We paid Rafael and our mechanic and they saw us off and waved goodbye until we were out of sight. Just like old friends or family might have done. Four guys had worked for three days and into the nights on our car. When I asked for the bill, the mechanic had been embarrassed to charge me $90.00. He said he would have charged less but he had to pay the two guys who had helped him with the fiberglass. This was including all of the materials!
I gave him $160 dollars and felt like it wasn't enough, but Rafael assured me that our mechanic was very satisfied.

We were finally back on the road and headed towards the border of Guatemala. The road had now become a narrow passage that wound dangerously around steep cliffs like a black snake. The driving was slow and if we got stuck behind a big truck it was even slower. I was still not feeling well and coughing a lot. We made frequent stops, to rest and have lunch, and sometimes just to check out the towns and cities we were passing through. One of these stops had been in Puerto Vallarta not long before our gas tank mishap. Puerto Vallarta is a beautiful city nestled into the cliffs along the Pacific Ocean. We stopped on the boardwalk to take pictures and walk barefoot on the smooth boards and clean sand. We didn't stay long, but just as we were leaving the city behind, and passing the last few huge villas resting at the top of the cliffs, my daughter yelled for me to stop the car. She jumped out and told me to hurry up. I couldn't imagine what had grabbed her attention so completely. She ran back along the road about fifty yards and as I was running to catch up with her I saw the big sign that had caught her eye. It read, "Puerto Vallarta Bungee Jumping".
We walked up to the roadside tourist hut, a small three sided leanto, where a young man was sitting behind a counter. The inside walls of the hut were covered with pictures of the brave souls who had come here before us. The top row of pictures featured a young blond women in a harness and nothing else. "She's the only one to ever jump naked", the young man told us sounding proud of this fact. Judging by the women's hairstyle, what we used to call a "Flip", this naked jump must have been done in the late 1960's. While my daughter talked to the young man about the details of the jump, I wandered over to the edge of the cliff and took a peek over the side. We were about 100 feet up. "That's pretty high", I thought to myself, just as I turned around in time to see the young man pointing across the way to a gangplank leading up, and up, and up, to a platform that was so high, I could barely make it out. He was saying to my daughter, "We're 100 feet up and the gangplank adds another 120 feet." On the top platform, we were going to be looking at a jump of 220 feet down into the green waters. I started feeling uneasy on the way up the plank. As soon as we reached the top, my daughter started to put on the harness. This was happening too fast. I thought we were just going to have a look and then discuss and decide if Bunjee jumping in Mexico was such a good idea. I hadn't even been there to hear all of the details. I started to ask questions about how safe it was and had anyone ever been hurt doing this? And then I made a BIG mistake. I looked down over the side. I froze. My legs started shaking and I could barely speak. I remember thinking that if someone had offered me one-hundred-thousand dollars right at that moment to jump, I would not have been able to do it. My daughter was as happy and excited as I had ever seen her. I was just going to ask another question, to stall for time, when she walked over to the edge and jumped off. She hadn't even looked down! Maybe that was a good thing for her, but I was stunned, and I think I was still in shock as the young man started to crank the handle on the pulley to bring her back up. I hadn't been able to look down to see her hanging there, but I had heard her loud whooping yell of joy as she went flying down and I could hear her laughing on the way back up. Her eyes were shinning and she had a huge smile on her face as he pulled her back up onto the platform. She said, "WOW, can I do that again?" and the young man said, "Nobody's ever asked me that before. I haven't even jumped two times myself, but I guess you can if you want." And before I could even open my mouth, she ran over to the side and jumped off again. My heart was pumping so loud I could hear it in my ears, and I was sure the young man could hear it too. My legs were starting to melt down into the platform as he pulled her back up again. My daughter came back onto the platform full of so much adrenaline and energy, I swear she was glowing. She took me by the arm and held me steady when she saw the look on my face. As I clung to the railing of the gangplank and made my way slowly down, my daughter holding on to my arm to keep my knees from collapsing, all I could think was, "I hope our other adventures aren't quite so much FUN!"

Several hours after leaving Acapulco we found ourselves on a stretch of flat highway. I could see the mountains far off in the distance and there was nothing but flat scrub land between them and us. The winds picked up and the car started to blow around like an autumn leaf trying to hang on to the tree. The wind was loud and scary and my thought was, "La Vientosa." "Open the windows on both sides", I yelled to my daughter, and as she did that, it got louder, but the car became steadier. The wind was blowing right on through, instead of trying to push us off the highway. We rode like this for about a half hour and I was relieved to think that we had made it through the dangerous La Vientosa with no problems. Hours later, we had followed that road high up into the mountains and were slowly snaking our way along the mountain cliffs. I usually love to drive, but driving along a road with sharp turns where I could see the ocean a hundred feet below, made me very uneasy and I was driving like a coward. I was inching my way along and hoping it would get dark soon so I could no longer see over the edge.
It happened so fast I wasn't even sure what was going on. Suddenly, the steering wheel jerked away from me, and the car was out of control. My daughter had been listening to music and had her eyes closed but sat straight upright when she heard my scream. It was like we were being pulled back and forth on an invisible wire. I struggled to regain control of the car and for a moment I thought we were going to go over the cliff's edge. The next moment, I had control again, but the wind was blowing fiercely and I was working hard to keep away from the edge. Once again, we opened all the windows, and that helped. As we neared the bottom of the mountain I pulled our old Jeep over to the side of the road and stopped. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel for a second and took a deep breath. It turned out we had not escaped La Vientosa so easily after all.

We finally came to the border of Guatemala and were overrun by children jumping onto our bumpers and hanging onto our door handles. All of them hoping to be chosen by us as our "border crossing assistants".





The Journey / Travel With Me

A. Zudro a.k.a. Gloria

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