Highway Robbery, Car repairs & the Mexican Pipeline

Renegade Camp spot in Playa Ventura

Punta Zicatela 

At our Cabana

Monday 3/5/12-

So this morning we drove into town to try to find someone who could fix our AC in the truck.  On the way into town we passed a police check point.  This is nothing unusual, these roadblocks are all over Mexico usually on the outskirts of town.  This time the officer pointed at our car in the line of traffic passing by and pointed to the side of the road.  It wasn’t really clear what he was signaling and there was no law that I knew about that we were in violation of so I kept on driving and watching my mirrors to see what he would do.  Sure enough he and 3 other police get into 2 separate cars and come after us with the lights on.

Well finally it happened.  Our first armed robbery in Mexico.  Not by banditos, by la policia.  I pulled over and 2 guys came to the window speaking fast Spanish to me, I told them I didn’t speak Spanish very well.  So one officer, in English, goes “Why you no pull over when I tell you?”  I reply in Spanish “Lo Siento, no se que quieres.”  He asks for my driver’s license and I give him a photocopy.  He tells me that he needs the original.  I don’t want to give that up because I know that once he has that he can get a whole bunch of money out of me to get it back.  I tell him no.  He threatens to write me a ticket for $90 US.  I gave the original to him and after he looked at it I grabbed both the original and the copy out of his hands and put them back in my wallet.  He told me to get out of the car. 

Now there are 3 officers standing in back of the car, 1 with a machine gun and 2 with only pistols, the 4^th officer is standing guard with his machine in front of our truck.  So as Marcie waits in the passenger seat I talk with the police outside.   One guy with a big gun is playing “Bad Cop” and saying that he can write me a ticket for having a scorpion in the car if he wants.  This guy seems like he wants to make a point that he can do whatever he wants and is a little pissed that this holdup is taking so long.  The other guy, “Good Cop”, is explaining to me in English “You are not in the United States, this is Mexico.  We have a different set of rules here.”  I reply “Yo soy solo persona y tu eres solo persona.  Yo no tango dinero.  Yo solo necessito un mechanico reparar mi camione.”

Well, they are just going to have to write me a ticket then, and take me down to the station so that I can pay it, OR… I can take care of this whole thing right there on the spot for $3000 pesos.  Now that is like $250.  I probably had $1800 pesos at the time.  So I tell them “No pago” and I walk back and open the driver’s door, lean in and hand my wallet to Marcie and tell her “Give me $500 pesos and keep the wallet.  Don’t give it to them, I love you.”  I go back out and walk up to the officer “Un reglo por tu.  Hoy necessitimos vamos a mechanico.”  He takes the money and says “Follow me”, and gets in his police car and drives away.  So I get in my truck and follow him to a backstreet mechanic who spoke really good English and fixed our AC for 200 pesos ($16 US).  So all and all with the police bribe of 500 pesos ($42 US) it cost about $60 US to get our AC fixed, in a roundabout way.  

~Jon

We then continued to drive out of town with a quick stop at the local Walmart for a few supplies (AC to 12V power adapter, and a few groceries).  A guy in the parking lot then tries to sell Jon some “mota” while the policia are parked in the same aisle of the parking lot.  Jon is a lot more conspicuous than the normal gringo because of his nice hair.  He lets the nice gentleman know that we are all set on the Acapulco Gold and we finally head out of town.  We go the wrong way for a little while and end up and the airport, so we turn around and try not to make eye contact with, car after car of policia and military. 

About 15-20km outside of town we start checking out any mechanico with a reputable looking shop (anything above a mud hut) that may be able to jack up our truck and fix our passenger side air shock.  We installed this before the trip to alleviate a little of the weight on our suspension.  However, the passenger side is a little crooked and after bouncing and jarring it slides off the strut and the bag deflates of air.  We thought it just needed to be set straight and have more air added and we would be all set.  After 2 stops at other mechanicos who recommend the very elusive “El Gato Mechanico” who speaks English from working in the US, we can’t find him!  So, we stop at another place that I thought said “Mufflers”.  It turns out these guys don’t do mufflers at all, they actually place new suspension leafs on cars/trucks.  What luck!  So, the guys there call a cousin of theirs who speaks English.  He arrives and we tell him our problem.  He tells them and the guys (3 adults and 2 boys under the age of 10) jack up our car with Jon and try to fix the problem.  After some inspection and conversing through our interpreter we find out that since our air shock has been deflated for so long a hole has rubbed in it and is now worthless as well as finding out that one of our 2 suspension leafs is cracked-Yikes!  Those dang topes are killing our car.  So, the guy first says he doesn’t have the one for our truck and they start calling around and discussing things in Spanish.  After about 15 minutes we find out that the guy can make us one and install it for 800 pesos ($66 US), so I tell Jon to tell him yes because that seems like a lot of work the price. 

The work begins and Jon and I then have to sit in the mechanico’s dirt workyard which is also a place where chickens are running around and dogs are throwing up.  Gross.  All of the mechanicos and their families seem to live there too because several kids come home from school and the matriarchal abuela (grandmother) is fixing up some tacos under the palapa.  She send one of the kids over with 2 plastic chairs for Jon and I and we try to catch some shade under a lime tree and wait the 3 hours while they fix our truck.  Its hot and dirty but it all works out in the end and we head on our way with a new leaf suspension and its only 3:30. 

We drive on for about 2 or 3 more hours and try to find a camp spot on the beach.  We head to Playa Ventura known for its white with gold-flecked sand.  I nix every spot that Jon wants to renegade camp because I’m still a little tense from the days adventures so finally he has to tell me to chill out and just picks a spot.  It was an empty beach lot next to a really nice abandoned house.  So it turned out to be pretty nice and we set up our camp kitchen and made some shrimp tacos and rice which were delicious. 

Tuesday March 6, 2012

Last night was the first that I had to put on bug spray.  We are now officially in the tropics and since we decided not to take a year worth of Malaria pills we need to be cautious about not getting bitten.  Now, we are on the road to Puerto Escondido.   

4 hours and one military checkpoint later we arrive in Puerto Escondido the place for catching the “Mexican pipeline” so we are told.  Maybe A. Brown or Gnarles can let us know about that but the water looks pretty calm right now?  We are told not to swim at the beach across from our cabana because of intense waves but Jon did it anyway.  The cabana is nice with a fan, mosquito net, sweet pool and bar area where all the local expatriate Americans hangout for only 200pesos ($18american).  We have enjoyed the pool and booked a tour tomorrow with our hotel friend to go swimming with Sea Turtles.  I am very excited about this and he guarantees that we will see them.  It will be nice even to snorkel but I really want to see some sea turtles.  Tonight cooking in to save some deniro  after our highway robbery yesterday.  Hasta luego. 

~Marcie