Banditos, Engine Oil Near-Disasters and Parades
Woke up feeling happy and refreshed. John is also in a better mood. He slept 11 hours, I, more than 9. Everything looks rosey today even though it’s still raining in Palenque. This morning, the tropical foliage no longer feels powerful and overwhelming but vibrant and beautiful.
We eat a delicious desayuno at our Hotel, which is called Xibalba. I discover that Xibalba means “the underworld.” What a strange name for a hotel. By the way, “X” is pronounced as “Sh” – “Shibalba.”
We’re on the road early, ready for the long haul from Palenque to Campeche. A reader wrote to recommend that we visit the ancient relatively undeveloped ruins at Calukmul. She says they are magnificent and have not become commercialized like Chichen Itza. Calukmul has the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan Peninsula. On a clear day you can see the Tikal pyramid from its summit. But, today, it’s raining, not a good day for climbing pyramids. John and I talk about making a change in plans but Calukmul is so far out of the way that we would have to forego some of the plans we have already made. Calakmul will have to wait for our next trip to Yucatan.
The road to Campeche will be through relatively isolated rural countryside and extend the whole day. We hope to make Campeche before nightfall. We decide our goal is to photograph and videotape clearly and definitely the young people running and bicycling along the side of the road wearing t-shirts with the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe’s photo held as a banner or plastered on the back of the truck that accompanies them. We still don’t really know what this is about – had, at first, thought it had only to do with Izamal but have seen devoted young people in every state we have visited – Yucatan, Tabasco and Chiapas.
Our other goal is to record at least one of the many men we have seen riding horses. They’ve been riding beside the road or we saw one sitting respendantly in his saddle with cowboy hat in the cement bus waiting area along the side of the road (waiting for a loved one to arrive on the bus to ride them on the horses back home?) or riding through a field with Brahma cows (a Mexican gaucho cowboy?)
Fears of banditos are out of our minds because we have read they mainly bother travelers at night and mainly in the state of Chiapas south of Palenque. We are NORTH of Palenque and even though it is gray and spitting rain, it is daylight. We drive through Chiapas and Tabasco without incident.
However, in the state of Campeche, we are hounded by a truck from which a man in the passenger seat keeps waving for us to stop. The truck rides beside us on the road, pulls ahead, pulls behind, comes to the side, all the time the passenger waving at us. At one time, he points to our tires and makes motions as if our rear tire is flat. We have read that this is a ploy to get unsuspecting travelers to stop so we keep going in spite of the harrassment. Finally they give up and drive ahead and away from us.
By late afternoon, we are less than 100 kilometres from Campeche, our goal. John makes a worrisome sound. I ask, “What is it?” He says, “The oil light is on.” We’re in the middle of nowhere and the light is fading. John tells me that the oil light blinks on and off. He’s been unsettled the whole trip because the car has smelled of oil ever since we stopped at a Pemex station, also in the middle of nowhere, and added a quart of oil on the advice of the attendant.
He decides to push for Campeche instead of stopping by the side of the road surrounded by deserted wilderness and rolling limestone hills. There isn’t even a ranch or rows of crops growing. He says that the light goes off whenever he accelerates, which, to him, is a good sign. I don’t understand enough about cars to know why but trust him.
We drive tensely trying not to indulge too much in worst case scenarios like that the engine is going to seize up and we’ll be stranded with only snakes, jaguars and banditos for friends.
Finally, the outskirts of Campeche come into view. Like most city outskirts, it contains rows of automobile dealerships. Heaven! We stop at the appropriate dealership and open the hood of the car. The cap to the oil tank is missing . . . and they do not have a replacement. There is much discussion in Spanish and attempts on our part to understand and communicate. There is no oil on the stick. The engine comparment is drenched in oil. We realize that the fellow who added a quart of oil did not put the cap properly back on the valve cover. During the discussion, one young mechanic takes a good look into the open engine compartment. A miracle! The cap is there, wedged between some tubes. It has remained on the engine over hundreds of kilometers of bumpy roads and endless topes or speed bumps. We are ecstatic. We are saved! We all guffaw, slap our thighs and exclaim delight. They add three quarts of oil, we pay them and we all wave good-bye smiling.
Inside the walled historical part of Campeche, where our hotel is, we are surprised by the snarl of traffic bumper to bumper on the narrow cobble-stoned one-way streets. We have to park the car far from they hotel. As we walk to our hotel, loud booming sounds begin ahead of us. It is a night-time pre-Carnival parade right down the street where our hotel is. No wonder we could not find a parking space. I whip out my camcorder, attach it to my extendable mini-tripod and get some dynamic footage of lovely young ladies and youngsters waving balloons. A great and happy ending to a stressful day. It’s good to be in Campeche!
Carol Chapman
