Driving to Mexico with Mom

On December 9, son Andy, dog Buddy and I took off in my Honda, loaded to the roof, and the roof carrier laden with two huge duffle bags, 20 seven-foot lengths of screen framing and a 12-foot bamboo shade. Andy had a week off from his job as a Neuroradiologist/Interventionest with RAPA in Little Rock, and offered to drive down with me. (Well, it didn't exactly go like that.) We drove from across Texas, crossed at Loredo, stayed in Saltillo, Zacatecas, Aquascalientes, and then drove into Chacala on the 5th day. Here is Andy's somewhat distorted version of the trip.

Saturday
Ann, Andy and dog, Buddy, leave Hot Springs at the crack of 9 a.m. Stop to let dog pee at 10:30. Andy eats a Big’n’Tasty and immediately regrets it. Ann takes over driving. First gas stop in Texarkana. Ann pops the question to Andy, “Are you buying the gas on this trip?” She decides this is a good time to eat her cottage cheese mixture and take her pills. Andy takes over driving. There goes Dallas, Austin, San Antonio. Get gas again. Buddy runs around a field by a gas station. We see a tall dog run across it at an impossible speed. Ann is sure this is a coyote. We check into the Day’s Inn at Lytle, TX. We eat fair Mexican food. Eight channels on the TV – not too bad. We sleep.

Sunday
Up at the crack of 9 a.m. We head for the border. Over the bridge to Loredo Neuvo, we stop at the customs center to get our passes and car tags. It’s like a DMV, but Ann’s been here before, and we breeze up to counter Uno and start filling out our visitor passes. Ann makes a mistake on one line, puts her home street where the city goes. So naturally she tears up the form and goes to the window for another. Unfortunately, the form is government property, and they aren’t amused she tore it up. They will not let her into Mexico. Well, after she begs, maybe they will give her a new one in two hours. After she begs some more, they fill one out for her and less than an hour later, we are on our way (after getting lost briefly in Loredo Neuvo.) Outside the city, we meet the real Mexican customs, the one that keeps tourists from entering the interior without passes. Buddy does his part and tries to squeeze through the crack in the window to kill the officer. The officer’s sense of self-preservation kicks in and he waves us on through. That night, we end up in Saltillo and get a nice motel room.

Mexican motels don't allow dogs inside. Buddy sleeps in car.

We head to the Plaza and walk around.

Doin's at the plaza in Saltillo

They have a great cathedral.
We try to enter a market, but Buddy attacks a Mexican man, so we have to leave. Did I mention that Buddy hates Mexican men?

A really cool parade we saw walking back to the car.

Monday
Up at 8, stop at Starbucks on the way out of Saltillo, and off to Zacatecas, a silver mining town at 8,000 feet that has been around since the 1500s. Five slaves a day died during its peak years, so says Lonely Planet, which I read to distract myself from Ann’s driving. Boring drive, but we pass the Tropic of Cancer; there is a monument, but a man is urinating next to it, so we keep going. We get to Zacatecas mid-afternoon and walk down to the Plaza. It has wonderful architecture, and a great cathedral with an outdoor concert for that evening. We can’t eat in a restaurant with a dog, and so Andy takes the dog back up the Italian-mountain-style streets, a thousand foot climb, to the car and when he gets back down the mountain, he finds Ann has adopted a class of kids.

They interview us in English (reading haltingly from a written script) for a class project, take lots of pictures of themselves with these Americanos, and off they go.


This is a pleasant, cool evening. We hike up the hill to our room and settle for the night. Tomorrow, we drive to the beach! But wait, where is Ann’s laptop? Probably where she left it, under the bed in our room back in Saltillo! Andy says nothing, but circuits in his brain sizzle and fuse. Ann calls the motel in Saltillo, but the clerk is uncaring and doesn’t know anything. Unless we show up in the flesh, Ann will never see it again. It would be worth it to Andy to just buy her a new laptap, but Ann hasn’t backed up her hard drive since 1988.

Tuesday (early)
Back on the road to Saltillo, only four hours in the wrong direction. But before we can even begin, Ann loses her credit card just as she is preparing to pay the motel bill! Oh, no! But she quickly finds it, after I pay the bill, and we leave at 7:30 a.m. Back across the Tropic of Cancer! We pass through two military checkpoints. Buddy does his part to try to eat the soldiers, so we get quickly through. After driving like hell, we get back to Saltillo . . . the motel has the laptop! (The maid had found it and stored it in her closet.) OK. Back to Zacatecas! We cross the Tropic of Cancer for the third time. This time we stop for pictures.

We reach Zacatecas only 25 hours after arriving the first time. We drive past it to Aguascalientes and stop for the night. Only 12 continuous hours of driving to get two hours closer to the beach! The best thing about this day: Had we left anything in our room in Zacatecas, we could’ve swung by and picked up it later in the afternoon! The Best Western in Aguascalientes has nice motel-style rooms, but they won’t let us stay because of the dog. The desk girl informs us the only other choice in town is the “lovers” motel where you pay by the hour, and she can’t recommend we go there. Thanks! Ann begs and they let us in. Ann picks who gets what bed. Unfortunately, she picks the one with bloodstains on the spread.

Wednesday
We head out at dawn for Chacala after letting Buddy take one final crap in the garden at the Best Western (their fault for letting us stay) and go down the mountain to Guadalajara. The smog is incredible. Ann drives at 80 mph. Andy takes over later and drives at only 75 mph, although he makes some harrowing passes to make up for lost time.

This drive is the most beautiful of the week, past volcanoes and lava fields, over green mountains and through lush valleys. Finally, we descend through the jungle to the beach. Chacala at last! It is only 12:30 p.m. as we pull up to the house.

It looks great.
Ann, do you have the keys? What keys? She knows she saw them back in Hot Springs. We go find Juan, our caretaker, working at another house in town, and borrow his. Ann makes a mental inventory of all that has to done before Tim arrives with his family in week. Andy votes to put it all off until Tim and his family arrive. Juan shows up and he and Ann have an exhausting two-hour conversation about everything. We go to the beach, walk around with Buddy and then have dinner at a restaurant on the sand with Ann’s friends. Back at the house at 8 p.m., Ann wants Andy to continue working, but he refuses and works on the blog instead.


A note on driving in Mexico: Andy loves driving in Mexico. It is an unholy mixture of capitalism and anarchy, where you can go as fast as you want, do anything you want, take any turn you want, all for the sake of getting there first. The only limiting factor is your own bravery, or lack of it.

A typical road sign.
There are the road challenges, like skull rattling speed bumps (topes) in the middle of the highway, armed soldiers, potholes to swallow you whole, left lanes that abruptly end at cement barricades. For entertainment, freshly crashed semi-trucks line the roads (OK, we only saw two), and crazy drivers pass you on blind curves.

Thursday
Up and cleaning (watching the maid clean.) ( Ed note: speak for yourself.) Organizing boxes, carrying stuff. A walk on the beach.


Friday
A little beaching and lots of work.

A happy dog.

Saturday
We drive to the airport in Puerto Vallarta and I return to my home in Little Rock with actual walls and windows.

Our reward.