Ten Days In Mexico [Part Four]

Emily’s uncle Manuel lives in the urban equivalent of the Batcave–or is that “Gruta De Murcielagos“?

Either way, it’s impressive.

All that’s visible from the city street (if Delicias classifies as a “city”) is a simple garage door. Once it opens automatically, you drive down a hallway paved with Mexican tile that’s at least as long as a football field.

At the end is a massive sanctuary with walls on all sides of at least 75 feet high, and naturally lit from above. You feel as if you’ve entered into the domain of some villain from an upcoming James Bond flick.

Finding the “secret entrance” to the home itself, we were met by Emily’s aunt Petra, who had decorated the decidedly unique home traditionally. She fed us well and showed us our room, which was easily the most comfortable and well-equipped guest room either of us had seen since…ever.

None of us remember hitting the pillow that night.

The next morning, daylight revealed swingsets, a trampoline and enough high-end barbecue gear to make Bobby Flay jealous.

So if Manuel had designs on taking over the world as the next Bond villain, at least he was going to do so in a “family friendly” manner.

Actually, Manuel was in the metal working business. His home was actually the left half of the massive shop that was originally designed to house his company’s operations. Suddenly everything made sense.

The next morning we took a tour of Manuel’s shop. The highlight was when he presented me with a special gift–my very own “disc”. You know, custom-made to kick up a whole mess of “discada”.

I nearly welled up.

If Emily held any fleeting doubt I’d actually schlep the massive, simultaneously round and pointy metal thing back to Texas with us, that was put to bed the moment I pronounced it my “prized possession”.

And no kidding, the “disc” is now parked in my garage between a two-stroke Aprilia and a Yamaha roadracer even as we speak. That’s elite and priceless company in the McKay household.

Then it was time to pack up and go to Las Boquillas De Camargo. What we’re talking about here is a natural hot spring that bubbles up from the ground.

And you swim in it. And it supposedly heals you of all your illnesses.

So just in case that’s true, they sell plenty of pork products and cerveza there.

Emily was enjoying herself immensely, until I spotted a water snake in her general vicinity. Whether the thing was minding it’s own business or not was immaterial. I’ve never seen the chick move so fast. In one decidedly feline leap from the boquilla she was done swimming for the day.

I told her she was sexy when she was mortified. She told me she felt better.

The next morning it was off to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon.

Getting there involved traveling what was easily the longest leg of the trip, through what could only be described as the “Mexican Outback”.

Heading south from Delicias you finally leave the massive state of Chihuahua only to find yourself in Durango.

You immediately realize that Dodge probably named their SUV after this place rather than some quaint little mining/lettuce-growing hamlet in southwestern Colorado.

After all, they have other trucks out there with names like “Tundra” and “Yukon”. Suddenly everything made sense as far as SUV naming conventions go.

Had the “short bus” broken down in Durango, Mexico, we would probably have been chupacabra fodder. When we finally found a gas station I was fully expecting Jawas to show up and try to sell us droids and stuff.

Except nobody was there…except a young, very sweet girl behind the counter. I resisted the urge to ask how long her commute was.

By then, after miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles (and coyotes), we were about to roll into Torreon, Coahuila.

Los Santos Del Torreon had just won the Mexican national soccer championship. That must have been what was on TV in the cantina back in Delicias the night before, come to think of it.

Everyone’s car had “Viva Santos” scrawled on the back window in white shoe polish. I wondered why the kids on the corner were still selling gum instead of, well, white shoe polish.

As I wondered, two kids about 9 or 10 appeared out of nowhere to perform the established ritual of attempting to clean our windshield despite 62 lanes of random traffic and impending nightfall. They ended up climbing on the hood of the “short bus” to get the job done. It was a brazen display of hard-selling that bordered on downright arrogance. As such, I immediately rolled down the window and rewarded the two kids with folding money. Hell yeah.

After Torreon, we took a deep breath and soldiered onward to Saltillo, about 250 miles further into the wild. It was nighttime.

The road seemed good, so we had gone for it. With no radio reception to speak of, we popped in a CD from a dating guru for the women’s market who has been hammering us lately to pitch his advanced series as an affiliate.

After 18 minutes the guy had yet to say anything other than how important it was to listen to what he was about to say. We turned off the CD and instead decided to listen to what each other was about to say.

Emily and I got to talking, and the time passed painlessly. So much so, in fact, that I had neglected to look at the gas gauge.

To my temporary relief, it looked like we had about 100 miles worth of Pemex’s finest yet to burn.

It was then I looked up, only to be confronted with a sign on the side of the road that read “Servicios 160km“.

I did the math. Oh &$%@.

All five stages of the grieving process swept through me at world-record breaking speed. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. Especially anger, though. I mean, who on Earth $#@&% builds a &#@%* major highway between two huge Mexican cities with ZERO gas stations for 100 miles?

Uh…Mexico, that’s who. Refer to Rule Of Mexico #1: “If something makes sense, do the opposite”. Or even Rule #2, which follows closely: “Expect even mundane stuff you typically take for granted to turn into a full-scale adventure”.

Once “acceptance” set in, I realized I was the brain-dead guy who was about to offer his entire family up to chupacabras, rattlesnakes, brujas, packs of gypsies, vultures and whatever other banditos were out there.

Rolling into Saltillo on fumes about 100 miles later, I’d never been so happy to see a “Pemex” sign lighting the landscape.

Even if it was roughly 100 yards beyond a roadblock hosted by your friendly neighborhood Federales.

Fine. Search the car, find what you want. Arrest me. Whatever.

Mexican jail sounded better than what had launched the the grieving process that had suddenly been lifted from my shoulders.

But the Federales couldn’t have been friendlier. They were looking for borrachos on this Saturday night, and we were decidedly not.

After being waved onward, we fed the thirsty beast.

And after Junior was finished, we filled the truck up with gas too.

We would see 15 more Pemex stations within the next five minutes. I promise I am not making this up.

Saltillo, Coahuila is a disarmingly nice place. Seeing as how the directions on how to proceed to nearby Monterrey took us from four-lane highway to a back alley, as usual, we were able to see more of the place than we bargained for.

All told, given the style of the place and the type of nightlife that was going on, we decided that Saltillo was like the Mexicano version of Austin, TX.

Except this time the road to Monterrey actually did turn into the road to nowhere. Somewhere along that path, inside the city limits, we actually ran into another “sobriety checkpoint” set up by local police.

Again, the guy was super friendly. After having me breathe on him (seriously), he was kind enough to direct us to the main road…accurately.

So we were finally on the last 40 mile section of road between Saltillo and Monterrey. There were bizarre little strobe lights marking the lanes in the road for at least twenty miles. Somebody’s brother-in-law must have been the strobe-light guy.

The mountains started getting higher, and we knew we were getting close.

We’d soon find out that “getting there” and “arriving” are two completely separate concepts…