Travel to Huatulco - Day 15

Last night I wrote a letter to Rachel on the Internet. I found my 4 ½ pesos. Angela was not feeling right yesterday. We will go to the beach today.
- Caleb Martineau

We are going down, down, down. I got Angela nasty carbonated water. We are now in the valley.
- Elena

We went through construction work on the road. We are past through the rocks. We are going up and down.
- Augustus

10 a.m. Mango tree orchards. We’re passing through the sierra. It’s very windy, probably windier than I’ve seen very often. The wind blows the grasses like waves. I took off my long sleeves as we descended. We saw an overturned trailer, coming up. Strong wind. We stop at an army inspection and satisfy them that we aren’t drug runners or rebels carrying ammunition. Another stop. Federal police. Lots of windmills, like in Imperial Valley, California.
- Naomi

At about 11 we were going along 200 road about 10 or so miles inland from the ocean with a strong wind out to sea and we came upon a large wind farm being built. There were 4 or 5 long trucks with the parts in a parking place, and we saw 5 or 6 in various stages of assembly. The federal police stopped us for unstated reasons at an ad hoc check point. Mostly shrubs. There are wind machines all along the road, most too new to be online. We turned at La Ventosa going into town for food and to pick up the coast highway. Still shrubs, with occasional cleared pastures, probably 30 – 40 “ rainfall.
- Grandpa

We ate lunch in Jachin Zaragoza. When we got back to the van on the crowded street there were a few cops around. They talked to Dad and said he had parked too far out in the street. They talked to him for awhile, then he told us to get in. A policeman got in with us, and we drove off.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To the beach!” replied sensible Elena.
“With HIM?!”
She thought so. Eventually he told Dad some directions and got out. The grownups were surprised Apparently at first the cop was taking us to the station to take care of a ticket, but instead he told us how to get out of there and wished us luck. Cool.
At the restaurant there was an interesting sauce. It was made out of a certain chili, mayonnaise, and grapefruit juice. First it tasted sweet, then a flavor, then a tiny bite.
- Virginia

We left early for a long drive along the road, eating what was left over from yesterday, bread, avocados and mandarins. At first it was still in the mountains but we soon dropped to sea level and drove along the Pacific on the coastal plain. We passed a town named La Venta, the wind. It was windy. We had noticed the trees were much smaller and the landscape looked much drier, yet we suspected the rain to be consistent with the neighboring areas. Along the road it blew the van around. Then we saw the largest wind farm I've seen. There were a dozen wind machines in various stages of erection, lots of parts laying around, some trucks with new parts still on them, and about half the erected machines not yet on line, i.e. their veins are feathered. It looks like a brand new installation that will be as big as the one on I-10.
By noon we were hungry, super hungry. The first restaurant didn't meet Naomi's specs, that is it had no customers, so we went towards the zocolo to find a good one. On the way Edwin saw a parking spot, a rare find in that town with those narrow streets, so he asked if it was OK to park there, it was, so we parked and walked along looking for a place for food. The food was good, we ate a lot, enjoyed the time and sauntered back to the van to find it swarming with police and a tow truck just a block away waiting for the street to clear so he could haul the van off. Edwin talked to the police who told him (rightly) that it was parked so far from the curb (maybe 8 inches) that it limited passage way down the street. They put a policeman into the van to take us to the judge. along the way the policeman told Edwin several times that he had done a bad thing, parking like that, so he would have to see the judge to impose a fine then go to another place to pay it and maybe go to another place to get his papers back. That is not an outrageous scenario iin Mexico. Edwin explained he had asked if parking there was OK and a police had said yes. That was true, but the yes had applied to the fact that we were about half way in a driveway and probably not to the distance from the curb. The ride was gloomy. After a while the policeman said "Stop here." He got out, returned all of Edwin’s papers, told him to go three blocks, turn left and be on the road out of town, then he left us. We didn't exactly understand. When we got the three blocks away, there was the policeman's boss on a motorcycle mixed in the traffic and we didn't know if we were to follow him so we hesitated. When he left without bothering to notice us, we left town. Three hours later along a highway much like hwy 1 in California we reached Huatulco, clearly the highlight of our pleasure part of the trip.
The kids swam until dark in La Entrega bay. Our hotel was right next to the mercado, Edwin had contacted a worker at the bay who took us there. A nice place. I got fruit in the mercado so Angela, Virginia, Gusty, Caleb and I ate fruit while Edwin, Elena, Naomi and Gusty went to a cafe. Gusty ate anything that didn't eat him. Then Elena asked about ice cream and went looking for La Michoacana. I refused to find one for her so she asked, in perfect Spanish, and located one two blocks away. We slept well, all except Caleb who played the volcano during the night for some reason, he hadn't even eaten baked grasshoppers.
- Grandpa