The road stretched wearily between the blurry red taillights of traffic and the tall pines of the forest growing up as a fortress between us and Mexico City. The windshield wipers throbbed as a slow and steady heartbeat in the drizzle. The last dust of the Sonoran desert dripped down, comingling with the mountain soil at this high elevation. We paid yet another toll and sat in silence as traffic crept forward.
Since the highlands of Guadelajara (where we drove past – incredulously – hail.) it has rained intermittently, and we have welcomed it gladly. The desert took its toll on us, and on Berta (the Jeep). She’d been making a funny noise from the driver’s side wheel, and as much as I didn’t want it to be true, Ela’s ears had picked it out some hundreds of miles past. Now the slight clicking noise resounded in my ears every time I accelerated. We’d have to take her to the shop.
With another ~2,000km to go, and our resources already stretched thin, as we were driving through each tollbooth into the most expensive stop on our journey … let’s just say we were not singing show tunes in the car.
I played a game with the GPS application on my phone, which kept adding minutes to our estimated time of arrival. I just stared at it until the minutes decreased. Which they did. Little by little. A laborious game in which I was ultimately the victor – I choose the side of destiny.
Upon arriving at our friend’s house in La Condesa, the fatigue of the past week knocked us both into bed for the better part of a day. When we could muster the strength, walked around this marvelous, green, almost European-style neighborhood and enjoyed a proper coffee. Well-to-do businesspeople and young creatives populate the cafes and bars that line the sidewalks. Professional dog-walkers stroll the long trails of the parks past duck ponds, children in playgrounds, and elderly citizens doing their morning exercises. This neighborhood is, of course, but a slice of this vast metropolis, so i’ll dodge the issue of my inexperience and simply say, ‘Mexico city, what a place!’
We waited, not without nerves, for the diagnostic on Berta. We were somewhat relieved to find that it was but a small issue, fixed with some grease and by replacing a part in the wheel assembly. A couple hundred dollars more than we had budgeted for this portion of the journey, but at least it wasn’t a thousand.
Our plan is now to leave Mexico City early Thursday morning and make for the city of Oaxaca. The second half of our journey will present its own share of challenges, to be sure, but at least for these few days we have a lovely home to rest in, recharge ourselves, and catch up with old friends.
The jungle and the wildness of the deep south await us- but first, we will eat.
note – when we speak of resources being thin… we’re not kidding. If you feel so inclined… toss a few bucks into the hat, eh? https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/reverse-caravan–2#/