Driving in Mexico

Alan's Story:

Back in December, when making plans for Bryan to visit us in La Paz, we realized it was half price to fly to San Jose del Cabo (40 k. North of Cabo San Lucas) compared to La Paz. It was a big difference so we booked his round trip and also told Caroline’s sister to fly there, saving them money too. The hidden cost however was how to get from Cabo to La Paz. Standard busses don’t go directly between the airport and La Paz. It became clear renting a car was the least expensive way to go. We walked between 5 car rental companies and found a 50$ deal with Thrifty, and reserved a car each day folks were arriving and departing. It was also a way for us to provision and even visit Home Depot in Cabo.

That first round trip opened our eyes to the hidden costs of time, fuel, and our sore butts. We were lead to believe it was less than a 2 hour drive when in reality it was more than 3. The stress of being over 1 ½ hours late to pick up Alisa & family (their flight was 40 minutes early) was another hidden cost not planed on. But the drive is actually nice, being mostly a 4 lane highway, going through a delightful town along the way, Todo Santos. We chanced upon a taco stand we’ve eaten at almost every trip. We’ve also learned to take extra cushions to protect us from the cheap car seats. But there was another hidden cost not seen until our last round trip to Cabo.

Driving in Mexico is an adventure. There is road work along two stretches (making two lanes into four) and unlike the USA road projects, signage is often lacking when making transition from old to new road ways. Stop signs are ignored unless a cross traffic car is present. And I haven’t figured out just how much faster than the posted speed limit I can drive without being stopped. When the signs say 90, I’m doing 120 and regularly being passed by other drivers, it makes me thing the speed rules are very flexible. However, 10 minutes into our last round trip (yesterday) I learned about another road rule down here. Imagine an intersection with lights. They aren’t on every corner, but just in the middle overhead. So I learned the hard way you don’t venture out to the middle to make a left hahd turn, because you can no longer see the sign. I couldn’t see it had turned red when I made the turn, after the oncoming traffic passed. The motorcycle cop behind me had no problem seeing the light, and I was soon parked and hearing about my error. My Spanish is rather poor but his saying “rojo” was one word I caught, and his hand signs also gave clear meaning to what he didn’t like about my driving. He had my driver’s license  and his ticket book in hand and was telling me he was going to keep the license until the ticket was paid. Amongst all this Spanish came the words (in English) “Two Hundred Dollars”. I asked “Pesos?” “No, Dollars”, but he flipped the ticket book over and wrote out 2,300. Then it became clear he wanted payment now, in cash and there would be no ticket and he said twice, no receipt. MORDIDA! I pulled out the wallet and found the exact amount and he gave me the space to slip the bills between two pages of his ticket book, we shook hands and said good by. After the shock of what had just happened, I realized the car rental had just doubled in price, thanks to my new friend the cop.