I need to get back to the east coast, but thought I should take in some of the west coast while I’m here, then head east via Oaxaca. I’m not the kind of person to hang out on the beach for days, but enjoy a swim in the ocean so I figured I would have time for a quick swim and lunch at one of the beaches on the coast road before turning east into the mountains. Beach was great, a nice break on a warm day.
The road to Oaxaca (Mex 175) was another sinuous snake of a road, fun to be in the mountains again. I’d miscalculated my fuel situation a little however – I should have filled up before leaving the coast, but figured I had enough to get to Oaxaca, assuming there were no gas station between here and there. There weren’t any… and my GPS had given conflicting numbers as to the distance to Oaxaca. It was now telling me it was quite a bit further that its earlier calculation. And no apologies, nothing!
With no Pemex stations on this road, I had to buy gas from one of the roadside stalls. Check out this really clever way of getting the siphon started. (stupid Aussies normally would get a mouthful of gas sucking on the tube). Also you get a taste of how marvelously well my spanish is coming on…
I’m at 8000 ft again, and it’s 4pm and I have maybe 2 hours to go to Oaxaca. Now the fog and rain settles over the road… I could see that if I tried to keep going, not only was it not particularly safe (a million curves on this road) but I would also be getting into Oaxaca after dark. Just then I came upon a little roadside restaurant with a couple of cabanas attached. That’ll do me!
However, the cabins were very basic and toilets and cold showers were 30m away down a muddy path. And he wanted 250 pesos. I’ve had very nice hotels for that, I said too much – 200 peso. He said no, and I was about to get back on the bike when the heavens opened. Rain went from a drizzle to a downpour right then, so I paid the 250 pesos and was happy to be somewhere dry before it got dark. I figured he knew he had me at a disadvantage. It was unlucky it rained right at that moment, when I left the next day I found a little town a few miles down the road with 2 hotels, I probably could have gotten a better deal there.
My cabana came with a TV – I thought cool, with all the fog and rain outside maybe I’ll just settle in and watch a movie. When I turned the TV on I found there was only one channel. Weird… then the channel changed by itself. Then changed again. It was 5pm, and it was flicking between the kids channels. I soon figured out that YES I had cable TV in the room, but it was sharing a set-top box that was controlled by the family. That meant I had to watch what they were watching… Needless to say that didn’t work for me!
