October 30th - Pemex #10820 Magdalena, Jalisco

474 Km.

We hit the road from Villa Hildago a couple of minutes before eight, pre-dawn in the mountains, and found that somewhere around the time we left the state of Tamaulipas and entered the state of San Luis Potosi, we had gained an hour, it was in fact just seven; so an early start.  Still a little groggy, and just into my first cup of coffee, I expected a serene and solitary morning cruise on the rural autopista.  What I found was a serious, heavy truck free-for-all.  Although the cuota was divided four lane, plenty o' steep hills, and a silly amount of semi's meant the slow lane was nose to tail, roaring, smoking trucks, with constant jockeying for position, as every driver played the game of torque, gears, weight, and velocity, in an attempt to be a 1/2 mph faster than the pinche dullard ahead of him impeding his progress.  My coffee remained untouched, as I jockeyed the Brave through the maelstrom, 'til we departed Mex 57 D at San Luis Potosi (the city).  Turns out, not only is this the main route between Monterrey and San Luis Potosi, with it's mile long automobile manufacturing plants, but also the main route south to Mexico City!  Although the roadway cement was fairly new, the continual bombardment of overweight trucks was quickly reducing it to rubble.  Once south of SLP, freed of Mex 57D, the pavement became smooth, the traffic non-existent, and the drive became the lovely coffee-swilling scenic cruise I had initially expected.

The country we travelled through today was beautiful.  Scrubby desert to a green desert full of myriad types of cacti some as large as trees and lots of ground cover.  Prickly Pear cacti 10 ft tall with its dark red fruit a contrast to dark green.  We saw increasing numbers of birds and a coyote as we neared Guadalajara where the vegetation became forests and agricultural land.  The coyote was about the same size as ours at home but a darker rusty brown.

Bear grass forest

Joshua Trees

large Prickly Pear

Guadalajara

camped at Magdalena Pemex

We had an early start so instead of stopping before Guadalajara we decided to make the leap around it and stop in Magdalena.  Of course the Garmin couldn't register the route we needed and the signage was horrid.  We stuck with Church's Mexico book and read our way through.  Looking for signs and the largest conglomeration of trucks heading in one direction, chancy.  We managed to find the south perimeter although lord I had my doubts several times. Unlike the highways, the South Periferico around Guadalajara was very, very bad.  I heard Cam describe it as a "piece of sh*t" pretty much continuously as we rolled and rattled along.  I saw it as that wonderful "sh*tty" brick road around Centro Guadalajara.  By the way, a Garmin can't pronounce Mexican city names.   Guadalajara was unrecognizable.  

Magdalena is a small community known for its fire opal mines.  Hmmmm.