SOME MISHAPS
by Dave Krieg & Anne Kiehl
For years now, when we would tell strangers in American campgrounds that we were going to drive to Mexico, they would say something like: Aren't you afraid? Such terrible things happen there! We would smugly respond that we considered it as safe as the USA, most people were friendly and courteous and we had never experienced a serious problem during all our trips there (six, as of now). Now, finally, we have some serious problems to report from our last trip. In a perverse way, the following stories might be gratifying to the fearful ones.
A LITTLE THEFT. We had enjoyed a day at XCaret (the wonderful tourist attraction featured in another chapter of this webpage). We had parked our motorhome in a part of their lot reserved for buses and other big vehicles; it was alone and obscured by palm trees. When we returned we found our door unlocked and our stuff strewn over the floor. We always lock it; it must have been picked by a professional. Missing items included our notebook computer (less than 2 years old and recently zooped up), our TV, microwave, a few older cameras, our pocketmail device and even Anne's treasured rice cooker. Although drawers and cabinets had been rifled we still had our passports and other important documents. Fortunately we hadn't lost our wonderful new digital camera; I had carried it with me all day. We especially regretted the loss in my hard-drive of 1000 pictures from the trip to date. This is why the website uses pictures taken by our fellow-traveler, Jeanne, for the first half of this trip and why we tell folks to stop using our @pocketmail address.
ATTACKED BY A CONCRETE WALL. While driving along a narrow two-lane road, I rounded a hairpin bend to find a parked car facing me and taking up half the road. I maneuvered right to miss it, but there was no shoulder and the right side of my motorhome scraped against a low concrete wall. There was appreciable cosmetic damage, my entry step was destroyed and our entry door rendered nearly inoperable. We hammered and filed to make it possible to open and close it. A representative of the Mexican insurance company examined the rig and we were told to have it repaired in the states. Except for a large deductible, it would be covered. As I write this we are at a body shop in Arizona which has had favorable experiences with that insurer and will do a good job.
SHAKEDOWN. Everybody likes to tell of being unjustly hassled by a cop, and we can finally relate such a story. It was late afternoon on a tiring day and we were driving through Guyamas to get to our RV park. We were on a busy street approaching an intersection. A man started to walk slowly across. He was quite a distance ahead of me; I slowed to a crawl. By the time I reached the point he was at the other side of the street. All seemed OK until suddenly I was stopped by a cop who said, in effect, that I had done something terrible, would have to surrender my driver's license, go to the police station and pay a big fine. I didn't much like the idea so I kept the RV door locked, hung on to my license, talked to him through a window and ended up giving him 30 dollars. On reflection, I remember that one of the first things I had learned when I moved to California some decades ago was to completely stop my car the moment a pedestrian stepped off a sidewalk ahead of me, but I guess I have developed sloppy habits since leaving the golden state.
PEASANT REVOLT. Soon after we entered Chiapas, home of the dread and glorious Zapatistas, we met some strange characters. We had just driven a half-mile down a narrow lane towards a campground that had sounded especially nice in our CG directory. We found a padlocked gate and a dozen young men milling about. Posters paid tribute to a masked sub-commandant. Mutual communication skills were limited but it became clear that they wanted us to leave. Now. No, we couldn't enter and find a place to turn around. They seemed very serious about it all. So we backed up to the main road which, strangely, had an army base alongside. The soldiers we talked to evinced no interest in the incident. We spent the night parked at a nearby Pemex gas station where the attendants were, as always, cheerful and friendly. A subsequent exchange of emails with the CG owners & operators (an American couple) reported that their property had been seized by a mysterious group and that the local and state government was indifferent.
Well that's it. No violence, no plague, no dungeons, no hostage-taking. Other than these episodes, it was a great trip. But, while we think our troubles could have happened anywhere, we may wait a few years before our next big trip south of the border.
