"The Drive" Part 2 of 2

The second half of the drive through Mexico, although a safe region, was difficult due to the dark of night and heavy rains.  What was supposed to take 14 hours took 25, and we only stopped briefly a few times to fill up on gas and use the bathroom.  Although stopping for the night was discussed for a moment, everyone agreed we wanted to get home.

Here are more pictures of mountains. Yes, there were lots and lots of them.

 

On Mexican roads there are not a million fast food restaurants like the U.S.  In fact, I don't remember seeing any chain restaurants at all.  Although, where cars are stopped there are lots of people with baskets of snacks, fruit, juices, chips, etc.  This is not limited to places where you stop and park, if there is a known bottleneck they will walk right through the cars in the road.  Here is a pair of trucks from one rest area.  I used to be nervous with so many people coming up to me to sell things, but now I don't mind at all.  It actually is quite convenient to have a drink and snack right at hand (at a very fair price) when it's hot and you are hungry.  If you don't happen to want or need any, a polite "No, Gracias" is fine.

Once we were in Veracruz, we hit a traffic jam. And in Mexico, everything is bigger... plants, cockroaches, sandwiches, and traffic jams.  The sugar cane farmers, in an effort to get attention from the government, were blocking off the interstate.  Since we had been driving for 20 hours at that point, we stopped, turned off the car, and took a nap for a few hours. (A little more on this in a future post.)

As the sun started coming up, we could see the top of the "Pico de Orizaba."  It is the top of the volcano, the highest altitude point in Mexico. It is also visible from our house.

The sun rising over the mountains:

 

Literally, in the clouds!

 

 

I'm sure that everybody stuck out there wanted to get home, but I think we were at the top of the list.  Papi and his Dad started walking through and getting cars to move up and back so we could weave through and get to an exit.   We took a long, scenic, bumpy "back route" to the house.   Finally, home sweet home.