Mexi-Pimp

My Shitty Week

Well I told you that I'd post this and I finally am... even if it is 3 months past due! My final trip down in Central America was a Mayan Explorer. Everything that could possibly go wrong on a trip did on this one. 5 years worth of shit condensed into one trip. Here is the chronicle of my disasters, one after another after another:

1. Day 2: Border of Tabasco, Mexico - Driving from Merida to Palenque my van starts blowing hot air from the vents instead of air conditioning. It loses power and the steering and brakes get spongy. Thankfully I am at the end of a 100 mile stretch of nothingness and I am able to coast into the parking lot of a refracionaria (car parts store). I ask the guy at the counter for help but he is unfriendly and says that he doesn't know how. I ask if there is a mechanic nearby and he says that the closest is 20 miles away. I tell the group to hold tight while I locate some help. Asking at the workshop/shacks on the side of a road I find a guy who says he has a friend that can help. He swoops off on a bmx and in 3 minutes a guy rolls up in the loudest junk heap of a car I have ever layed eyes on. I roll in and we go back to check out the ride. The tube that holds all the water in the engine has a hole in it. So once a again me and my mexi-mecanic buddy roll out in search for the scraps needed to ghetto-rig a fix. After some searching, pipe cutting and finaggling we got all the pieces and my mechanic buddy and friends rigged me a solid fix.

Mexi Mechanics and my Group

2. Day 8: Panajachel, Guatemala - Lebanese Loop - ATM card stolen in elaborate con scam. See previous posting for details.

3. Day 10: Copan, Honduras - After 5 years of travelling in Mexico and Central America I considered my stomach a steal trap and thought myself impervious to food born illness. How naive! Leaving Antigua in the morning I started illin' immeadiately. It felt like a battle between good and evil was going on in my stomach, I had a fever and a headache and I was sweating like a pig. On the plate for the day - 10 hours of driving through the mountains into the steaming jungle environs of Honduras... not very suitable sick-as-shit conditions. It was a rough ride... the sickest that I've been whilst on a trip. I got to the hotel and crashed out for 2 days. Thankfully there was a TV in the room... I could watch that while I laid in pain. But unfortunately it was the same day as the Virginia massacre and the news about that was my only viewing option. Pregunta: Could it get any worse?

4. Day 13: Rio Dulce, Guatemala - Respuesta: Si! A whole hell of a lot worse. Speaking of hell, and to set the stage for this little quip, it was a bubblingly hot day near the river... hot like the 7th level of the Inferno. I had a boat come pick my group up from our campground to give them a tour of Rio Dulce and buzz them out to Livingston to give them a taste of Guatemalan coastal life. I set off on the dirt road back into town to pick them up - one hour of washboard gravel through banana plantations and rolling green hills. About 20 minutes into the drive my back left wheel exploded.... on a strip of dusty gravel, in the direct sunlight at high noon, solo. It took me a while to get the shredded tire off and replaced. The whole time car after car passed me, spitting up plumes of dust that stuck to my sweaty skin. By the time I got the tire changed I was burnt like a french fry and covered in an oily, black film.

La Llanta exploto.

Hot sun + Dust + Solo + Blown Tire = No Likey

5. Day 16: La Frontera de Guatemala y Belice - So we're heading to Belize and as we get to the border I stop at the last gas station so that my crew can spend the last of their quetzales. Of course we get bombarded by the usual money changing hustlers that want to rip my people off with off-base exchange rates... so I blow them all off and tell them to get lost. After my group buys the shop out of banana chips and popcycles we jump in the van to take off. As I'm backing out one of the money changers points to the ground where my van had been parked and signals me to stop. I look down... my transmission fluid was in a puddle on the ground. Shit! The guy says that he can help me out, surprising after I just told him to scadaddle earlier. I jump on the back of his moped and we drive about 1 1/2 miles down the road dodging pot holes the whole way. We pull up to what looks like a cross between a squatter's shack and Yoda's cavern home on planet Dagobah - the local mechanic's home of course. An old man in oil covered dungarees comes out and says he'll take a look at my ride. We drive down and he jumps under the hood. Looks like the work that my mechanic friends did earlier wasn't agreeing with the rest of the van - a clip that they used to attach the water tube to the van had rubbed against the tube that holds my transmission fluid and had now popped a hole in that as well. (Disclaimer - The technical/mechanical terms that are being used here may not be correct, seeing as though I don't know jack about cars) Dirty Dungaree man whips a chain around my front bumper and drags my van (along with myself and recently appointed group mechanic Neil) to the Yoda Lair. He drops it outside and then tells us to wait because he nteeds to get his tools. I was assuming that he would show up with a gi-normous tackle box full of wrenches and bolt cutters and the like. When he came out all he had was a butcher knife and some cardboard. "Is he going to slay us and then celebrate by breakdancing?", I started to worry. "Maybe that's how they do in Guatemala!". But apparently I had no reason to fear... that is how they do in Guatemala... how they do engine work that is. He had the whole thing fixed and ready to ride in 10 minutes! Pure Genius! This had to be the last bad thing that could happen to us... surely!

Neil assessing the situation.

Neil wielding the Guatemalan Mechanic's Multipurpose Tool.


The Dungaree Man and I in front of Yoda's pad.

6. Day 16: Middle of the Caribbean Seas, Belize - Just when I thought that this had to be the end of our bad luck, we get nailed again. This time on the high seas. We get to Belize City with just enough time to squeeze onto the last oversold water taxi out to Caye Caulker. Packed like sardines amongst people, luggage and island supplies we take off to the island. After all the bad luck I was still able to clear my mind, relax and let my worries blow away in the salty breeze. All I could think about was getting to the I&I and having a Panty Rippa while I chilled in a roof top hammock. Then... sputtering. The engine died! No way. We were adrift for 1 1/2 hours in a hot, stanky breezeless boat hold with 10 too many people and 3 too many crying babies. Are they sending another boat? What's wrong? How long will we be here? Abiding by true Belizian customer service standards the boat hands weren't saying shit and just smoking and belittling people in Creole. Nice. Finally another boat showed and we all boarded Captain Hook style and resumed our path to the island. We got there well after dark and were barely able to squeeze in a dinner.

In the Bilge Hold of the water taxi. I now know what it's like to float from Cuba on a converted Caddy.

7. Day 18: Near Bacalar, Mexico - We leave Caye Caulker and Belize with relative ease. Crossing back into Mexico I couldn't help but feel like I was back home. It was a nice feeling. Only 4 hours of highway cruising and I'd be back in Xpu-ha... my Mexican abode. Just 45 minutes from the border we approached a construction zone. Cones on the road pushed me into the oncoming lane that was now divided into 2 skinny lanes. I slowed down to 40k/hour (the posted speed) and rolled through. Oncoming - a speeding bullet of a Lincoln pickup going like 110/k. He whizzes by me and our driver's side mirrors collide, exploding on implact. FUCK! I get through the cones and pull over. He turns around, speeds back and pulls in front of me. The car door opens and out emerges a 5 foot 6 Mexi-Midget Pimp. Slicked back hair, orange wife beater tank top, 2 cell phones clipped to his belt and 5 fat gold chains with a huge Jesus piece hanging around his neck. Immeadiate hostility! (Translated) "What the Fuck! You gotta pay me! You broke my mirror! You were way over in my lane! Blah, Blah, Blah!!". I argued saying that he was going almost 70 miles/ hour in a 25/hour zone. If he had been going slower than nothing would have happened. If I pay for his mirror, who's paying for mine. It was a little intense for a while. Using his shifty pimp logic he pulled out a tape measure and started measuring the road trying to formulate equations as to why I was at fault. Idiot. Basically I told him to call his insurance and I'd call mine. So we sat there waiting for the adjusters to show. In the meantime my group is sitting in a hot van and I'm dealing with Mexi-Pimp. "Te gusta Chile", he asked me. This is an old one that Mexi-Machos try to use on Spanish beginners for a laugh. It means "Do you like chile peppers?" but the double "funny" meaning means "Do you like dick?"... Ha, Ha. Anyways, I didn't give him the answer he wanted to get his immature laugh. I really thought that this guy and me might be roadside brawling in the not to distant future. Finally the adjusters showed... and they couldn't come to a conclusion either. So we had to wait another 1 1/2 hours for the cops. When they finally showed they called it a wash and sent us both on our ways... 4 hours and lots of Pimp trash talking later.

The Mexi-Pimp and his ride.

8. Day 20: Playa del Carmen, Mexico - It has to be over right? Wrong. The last day of my trip I decide to make a run up to Playa to get some extra grillin' goods. I wrangle up Lalo and Gaby, the resident Mayan kids at the beach, and take them for a "fun" shopping trip. We go to the store, I get my goods and buy them treats and then we roll out to the parking lot. As I get to my van I notice that the lock on the driver's side is hanging out... ROBBED! I open the door and sure enough while I was in the shop someone had broken in (in pure daylight and a high traffic area mind you) and stolen my Ipod and my cellphone. That was the disaster capper... nothing could make things any worse.

So those are the 8 bad things that happened to me... all in one trip. That night when I returned to camp I took the necessary steps to making sure my bad luck wouldn't continue. Those details are discussed in my next post...