Today we awoke after a very quiet night parked by Las Posas. We slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, showers, and the drive to Tamazunchale was only about 40 miles.
As we were driving through town, Tobey pulled over to let cars go by us when one kind woman motioned the scooter was shaking, so we got out to investigate. Glad we did! One of the tie-down straps that holds it to the RV had broken and it was leaning dangerously away from the RV! So, here we are, stopped in a no parking area, not sure what to do. The man that runs the store we are in front of told us it was okay to park it there. We tightened down the 3 remaining straps and set out on foot to find a new strap. First stop, no luck, and the other stores were further back into town. Back to the RV to come up with Plan B.
The store owner directed us to a place where we could park and unload the scooter. Of course, my Spanish being what it is, we went to the wrong place! We drove down by the river, parked, unloaded the scooter. We saw a police car go by so we asked them if it was okay to park there overnight and if it was safe. No, but we understood little else. Tobey got our bilingual dictionary, and the officer looked up word after word and finally showed us the Spanish word for “follow.” We figured out that we were to follow them to a safe place. On the scooter, we followed them to a sports park just a few blocks away, got the okay to stay there overnight, and went back to move the RV.
Okay, now the RV is parked, so we head back to town to find a strap for the scooter and see if we can locate Rudy (according to MEXCONNECT’s article by Mexico Mike Nelson, http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/3681-tamazunchale-natural-beauty-a-slow-paced-lifestyle-and-mexico-s-native-peoples )we were supposed to ask for Rudy at the Hotel Tamazunchale. The front desk clerk had no idea who Rudy is or where to find him. At this point we have asked just about everyone we see if they know Rudy. So far, no luck.
We decide to look for the strap instead. Off to the hardware store. We met another gentleman, Gabriel, who spoke some English. When they didn’t have what we needed, he took us to another store. No luck. Oh well, Tobey decided he could make something else work. Gabriel then took us to get his truck so he could take us to Rudy’s house to find him because he knows Rudy! Rudy wasn’t home. He tried another house, but his truck wasn’t there, either. We came back to the RV & gave him a tour and exchanged email addresses, then he took us back to get our scooter which is parked at the Hotel T. He was so very kind and helpful!
In the meantime, Rudy had left a note on the RV of how to contact him. The police that helped us earlier had gone to his house & told him we were looking for him! So, off we go again on the scooter to find Rudy – now knowing our destination! Rudy was home and we visited for a while and arranged to attend mass with him tonight and a tour tomorrow. He took our broken tie-down strap and is going to have someone repair it for us tomorrow and will help us with the scooter repair shop because the handle bars were pulled a bit out of alignment when the strap broke! GEEZ.
Anyway, we did attend mass with Rudy tonight. It was interesting to see the differences between a Catholic mass in Mexico as compared to the US. It seemed much more joyful here. A good end to the evening.
Back to the RV, the guard was just getting ready to lock the gate – glad we made it back! He patrols the park all night so we feel very safe. We gave him some cookies and candy just to seal the deal.
GPS 21.25203°N, 98.77642°W
No comments:
Post a Comment