93.6: CAMPECHE: July 2008

• We've become experts on gas stations in Mexico. There is only one, you know. The oil industry has been nationalized. It is owned by the people of Mexico, allegedly. Pemex stations are large and their convenience stores (called OXXO) are well stocked and similar to anything we have in the US. But the bathrooms are another story. Many of them are pay toilets, 2 pesos will get you a grim little compartment, sometimes lighted, but you don't really want to see what's in there anyway, and sometimes supplied with toilet paper. BYOTP is a good rule.

• Road sign Spanish is one thing we're learning. In Texas the slogan is Don't Mess with Texas. In Mexico, they are more polite and the sign pictured says simply: Keep Clean the Road. These kinds of signs are everywhere, several per kilometer. Many signs are just chit chat and nothing would be lost if they were not there. Obey the Signs is my favorite. The signs you really need, like, the name of the road you're on, are missing, or really really tiny, or unreflective on a rainy night. We've learned to look for Returno a 2KM Carril Izquierdo which means there'll be a chance to turn around coming up in the left lane in two kilometers. We do that a lot.

• Then there's passing. Pictured is a major highway. It is used by trucks and buses and cars at all hours. The dashed white line is commonly, but not always, straddled by the slower traffic. If everyone plays nice and straddles his line, it's possible to get 3 abreast, two going one way, one going the other. But the bicyclist needs to dive into the ditch. They're out there, too, hauling their bundles of kindling, cut down with a machete. Its jungle, beyond the road.

• Look out for the Topes!! If we've driven 1200 miles, we've climbed up and over 5000 Topes. Speed Bumps. They are a way of life. Vendors stand on the topes and sell bags of tortillas. Little ladies in wheel chairs, sit, all day long, in the center of the topes, traffic swirling and grinding on both sides. Meanwhile able-bodied people solicit money. It's dangerous out there. The big double tandem trailer rigs come to a complete stop, downshift all the way, and then creep over the topes. Traffic backs up. Road rage is rare, fortunately, people live with it. Volkswagen Beetles get high centered and stuck on topes. We're talking the mother of all speed bumps when we talk about Mexican topes. Some of them are a foot high. Now understand that we didn't plot this trip to use the minor roads. We wanted to get across Mexico fast, so we're sticking to the major highways.

• While people don't seem to get angry, they are nonetheless aggressive on the road. We were waiting in line to pay a toll. Two lanes had to funnel down into one. We watched a fascinating scene where a truck refused to let a car cut in front. One would inch forward and the other would block. They see-sawed back and forth for two minutes. Finally a skinny brown skinned girl, maybe college age, got out of a third vehicle, and stepped in front of the truck. She directed traffic for 60 seconds, letting her own car and several others cut in front of the combatants. People cheered.