Driving in Mexico

If you have driven in Boston, you have a head start.

Now that we have driven across Mexico to Guatemala and Belize and and back, so many people in the US want to know how safe we felt. We can tell they have images of roadblocks, bribes, and worse in their minds. We hate to disappoint them, but the scariest thing about driving in Mexico is the boring old road safety. Chaos Kelly put it best, driving in Mexico is chaotic. Driving on a twisty, two-lane road such as Highway 180 from Tampico to Veracruz is a test of driving skill. In Mexico, tractor-trailers with two full sized trailers are common. This means they are climbing hills at 15 or 20 mph, and their brakes are marginal going downhill. All the other drivers get frustrated trying to pass these long vehicles, so they do so around blind curves.

It's bad news when a double-trailered truck such as this needs to back out of a toll plaza because it doesn't have the toll:

There are rarely any shoulders on the roads, the lanes are narrower than we are used to, and pedestrians walk on the edges while traffic whizzes by. Stray dogs dart in and out of traffic, horses, sheep, and chickens regularly are on the side of the road, and motorcycles overloaded with people (like four people on a motorcycle) cut you off. These are just a few reasons we don't drive at night.

Toward the end of the trip, we did realize there is some order in the chaos. There is no texting and driving. Drivers are not wishy washy. After a while you develop a rhythm, and can go with the flow.

Roads

The roads range from excellent (especially in the Yucatan penninsula) to pothole ridden. In one case on 180 the the two lane seemed to open up into a newly built 4 lane divided highway, except two way traffic appeared on both sides of the median. After several kilometers, we passed a nice orange rectangular sign which said "Carretera Final". Our Spanish, especially at that time, was bad enough that we didn't know that means "Highway ends", and it didn't look like any of the other highway warning signs we had seen. A short time later, the nice, new side of the road suddenly ended, with a bumpy dirt track to connect it back to the older two lane road. It's a good thing we were not going to fast or we might have ended up airborne on this track. We saw another stub of a new road end with a big drop off, without so much as a warning sign. This is also why we don't drive at night.

Topes

Topes are speed bumps. You will cross a ridiculous number every day. Most are fairly well marked, but a significant number are just a strip of black asphalt across the road, so they are very hard to see, especially if they are in the shade. It seemed every small town or road side stand would put up a tope, that way you had to slow down and could check out thier merchandise. We hit the bumpstops on a few of these when we hit them too fast. Another reason not to drive at night.

Navigation

We decided to go down the east coast of Mexico, so we drove 1200 miles from our house northwest of Tucson to Brownsville in two days. Forget about that in Mexico. Our longest day was 650 km, which is 400 miles, and it was incredibly long. Don't do that.

We did our route planning with a Riese and a Michelin paper map of Mexico. Our Garmin Nuvi with the Mexico maps was very helpful and surprisingly good, although the default "3D View" did cause some martial discord since it is very confusing which direction the map is pointing. Switching it to 'North up" made it match the paper maps and restored martial harmony.

The roads signs were confusing at first. For instance, we were on our way to Ciudad Victoria, and when we saw this sign we took the ramp to the left.

That was wrong. The sign meant to bear right, THEN turn left at the next intersection.

Checkpoints

We complain about Border Patrol checkpoints in the Tucson area. They have nothing on the ones in Mexico. In the 300 km (180 miles) between the border and Cuidad Victoria, we went through several checkpoints by the Mexican Army, the Policia Federal, and other entities. If you are convoying with someone, make sure you have ground rules for getting through these. On our first day in Mexico, we went through a checkpoint and our friend got stopped. We pulled over at the convenience store just past the checkpoint. Our friend didn't see us, thought we had driven on, and took off like a bat out of hell. He was quickly out of range of our handheld 2-way radio, and our cell phones didn't work. We took off after him, but it took 10 km to catch up. After that, we made a rule that the first one through a checkpoint would always wait a short distance up the road for the second one. Which proved to be helpful, since the people at the checkpoint always knew someone was watching.

South of Ciudad Victoria, the checkpoints became rare until we got to Chiapas in the far south.

Graham Jackson gave Kelly the advice that a smile goes a long way when it comes to checkpoints. He was so right. Kelly waved and smiled though all of the checkpoints, and we rarely got pulled over and got a lot of smiles and waves back.

Female-owned vehicle

Having the Range Rover titled and registered in Kelly's name turned out to be a boon. While Kelly was getting the vehicle permit, it was a relatively straightforward process involving making copies of her application. When our friend, Jon got his, they made him take his application to another window, pay to get it copied, then stand in line again. Coming back from Belize, he had to pay for the vehicle tire fumigation and Kelly didn't. Use Latin American chauvinism in your favor, let her drive!

Clean windshields

There is no excuse for a dirty windshield. In addition to every filling station being full service, there are people standing at red lights who will clean it for a few pesos.

Take-aways

1. Don't drive at night.

2. A smile goes a long way.

3. Slow and steady, 300 miles is a LONG day.

4. Have fun and remember you are on vacation!