Next Time I’ll Walk!

We are in a nice little marina, Marina Chiapas, in the southernmost port of Mexico, getting ready to clear out of the country and head to Panama.  This long passage necessitates a provisioning trip.  However, the marina is about 30 minutes from the main town of Tapachula.  Time for some public transportation.  We try to use buses whenever possible and travel with the locals.  However, when you have a lot of groceries, and it’s 97 degrees, a private taxi is sometimes necessary.  Here’s a story about one such ride.

We exit WalMart in Tapachula with about 75 pounds of groceries inside large backpacks.  Dante is back on the boat doing homework (under the watchful eyes of some Canadian boat neighbors, lest there is an emergency.) We are immediately approached by several men asking, “Taxi? Taxi?”  I respond in Spanish that we need to go to the Marina Chiapas and we are quoted 200 pesos (about $18.)  I balk at the price and make a counter offer of 150 pesos, which I know to be the going rate for our destination.  He looks offended and doesn’t budget.  Sometimes you have to be prepared to walk off, so we do.  About 40 steps further another taxi stops and I tell him we’d be willing to pay 150 pesos to take us to Marina Chiapas.  This time it works – and he helps us with our bags.

Our driver negotiates a patch of construction with some uneven pavement and we become aware that his shocks are shot.  We’re in for a bumpy ride.  The highway back to Marina Chiapas has helpful signs like: “Slow down when it rains” and “Don’t litter; keep the road clean,” as well as “Drive carefully!” and “Obey the signs.”  We pass several homemade memorials on the side of the road, crosses with fresh flowers, in memory of the people who have died along the highway.  There are a disconcerting number of them, and we pass one that is surrounded by a group of people with the heads bowed.

We speed along – quickly – past farms, roadside restaurants and fruit stands, all threatening to be engulfed by the jungle alongside.  This is a two lane highway, which doesn’t pose a problem for our taxi driver when he wants to pass a slow car.  He simply drives (faster) between the two lanes.  He honks gently to alert the vehicle he’s overtaking.  Safety first.

We pass a pickup truck with 16 people standing up in the back.  Men, women and children.  We pass another sign at 75 miles an hour that reads, “This is not a high speed roadway,”  and another inexplicable sign that says, “Don’t leave rocks on the highway.”  We pass a truck in the opposite direction that licks up small rocks into the driver’s window … he  makes the sign of the cross.  We follow suit.  At least the fast driving is providing  a welcome breeze.

I reach for the seat belt.  There isn’t one.  The driver is wearing his seat belt, though “wearing” is a bit of a loose term as he has the belt draped across his belly but it isn’t clipped in.

I’m sitting in the middle seat in the back.  As the driver stops short for another car entering the highway I realize I have a clear shot of the front windshield if we’re in an accident.  The windshield should offer little resistance due to the large diagonal crack that spans across it.

We pull up into the marina and Darold says to me, “In the future, maybe just one of us should go to the store.  We don’t want to orphan our kid.”

 

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