Lluvia/Rain (Veracruz and Campeche)

We have a really bad internet connection right now, so we can only post a few photos for now - next time we will add more. Here is what we have been doing the past couple of days:

Jan 15 -This morning we woke up to, a) rain (will the sun ever come out?) and, b) the Quebecois guy we met in Texas, Philippe, riding his bike down the lane to greet us! He was passing by and saw our vehicle and decided to stop by and say hello. We had a nice chat and were happy to share our breakfast of champions with him and with Mike, and then we parted ways and finally got on our way. I am sure we will meet again soon! Since we had such a late start, we did not make it as far as we had hoped today. We drove through Veracruz, which we thought is a really nice old colonial port city, the oldest in Mexico, apparently founded by Hernan Cortez :-( in 1519, and it reminded us a bit of Montevideo. It kept raining and we kept driving along the coast to a cute little town called Alvarado, between a lake and the gulf, where Suzanne and Quique told us there was a great seafood place called “La Palapa de Mauricio” and (of course) we had a feast of seafood there. The owner was really friendly and gave us a T-shirt as a souvenir, and told us that this is a really safe place and that we should just park anywhere on the street close to the main square and we’ll be fine. We took him at his word, and we are now parked a couple of blocks from the zocalo (which is really quite beautiful) right on the boardwalk. We just shined a flashlight into the water and saw a bunch of needle-nosed fish and a baby shark! We are parked right in front of a coffee chain place called The Italian Coffee Company, which has wi-fi access (thanks for the tip, Mike!), hence the blog update! It is very illuminated here, so I think we will be fine for the night. The kids are playing music and we are keeping dry. We are hoping to get up as early as possible and head toward the Yucatan Peninsula - hopefully it will not be raining there! En este momento estamos estacionados en la ramblita de Alvarado y aprovechamos para dormir aca en la combi porque hay luz y es seguro. Despues de salir mediotarde del lugar en la costa Esmeralda, solo pudimos manejar hasta aca. De maniana nos encontramos con nuestro amigo Phillipe, el loco de la bici! Estaba pasando por la carretera y nos vio y vino a saludar. Comimos breakfast of champions con el y con Mike, y salimos. Pasamos por Veracruz, que nos parecio muy linda – una mezcla entre Montevideo, Punta del Este, y Piriapolis - y seguimos para Alvarado. Fuimos a un lugar llamado “La Palapa de Mauricio” a comer mariscos, recomendado por Suzanne y Quique. Ahora estamos por dormir aca, frente de un café Italiano que tiene wi-fi. Hace un rato, despues de pasear por el zocalo y estacionarnos en la rambla y prepararnos para comer algo y dormir, nos dimos cuenta que iluminando al agua un monton de peces se acercaban, entre ellos, habian peces agujas, y tiburoncitos. Bueno, ahora vamos a pasar la noche aquí, y maniana salir hacia el Yucatan.
Jan. 16 – As it turned out, we parked in front of a nightclub, so it was pretty noisy all night long! The wireless also kicked out at one point, so I was unable to post the blog. But we managed to sleep a bit and got going again by 7 am. Today we DROVE ALL DAY (except for a brief reprise to send a fax, have a much-needed oil and filter change, and do some grocery shopping) and now we are in a crappy and overpriced RV park in Isla Aguada (close to Cuidad del Carmen) in Campeche. Sorry that all the photos are literally snapshots taken out of the window, but we are feeling in a bit of a hurry to get to the sun (which we haven’t seen since Real de Catorce, if you can believe it)! We are making a quick meal and are about to go to bed, because we hope to reach the Mayan ruins of Calakmul tomorrow, which is on the road to Chetumal, where we hear that after exploring the ruins we can camp out with jaguars, toucans and howler monkeys! We are very excited….stay tuned for the next installment!
16 de enero- Hoy nos despertamos en la rambla de Alvarado viendo pelicanos tirarse al agua. Comimos un dsayuno ligero de barras de granola y yogurt a las 7 de la maniana y nos fuimos.
Entramos a las montanias y llovia como loco. Aprovechamos y mandamos un fax en una papeleria en un publo chico y tambien cambiamos el aceite en la combi. Despues de eso, seguimos en camino a ciudad del carmen. El resto del dia era manejar y manejar y manejar hasta llegar a este lugar llamado isla aguada, donde nos estamos quedando en un trailer park llamado freedom shores(que es demasiado caro para lo que ofrecen). Comimos una cena de pasta y broccoli con salsa thailandesa de trader joes y ahora a la cama…..maniana a las ruinas de Calakmul!