Mexico Day 56: Mountain town madness

Santa Fe Texacal, San Luis Potosi to Jalpan de Serra, Querétaro //

We’re relieved for Adam when we hear that he is feeling better this morning.  With him feeling up for driving, we get back on the road.  There’s no definitive goal for the day but the weather is telling us it would be prudent to get to the west side of the Sierra Gorda mountain range.  There are three Pueblo Mágicos (magical towns) along our route today and so we decide to take our time, explore some beautiful towns, and find a place to camp along the way.

A steep and narrow highway with sharp curves takes us two thousand feet into the mountains in the first twenty minutes of our drive and into the town of Xilitla (pronounced he-leet-la).  It’s the first Pueblo Mágico of the day that we’d like to explore.  I pull up navigation to the town square which begins with a sharp right-hand hairpin turn that takes us off the highway and onto the even more narrow town streets.  Within seconds we are lost in a sea of chaos.  There are people everywhere.  While I’m looking at google maps I hear Mark say “yep she just walked out right in front of the truck”.  I look up and all I can see is a snake of crawling traffic weaving its way through a street that was most definitely not built for full-size trucks.  We squeeze past pedestrians and parked cars with mere centimeters to spare.  Before we even get to the town square Mark says “tell me how to get out of here”.  

Meanwhile, Heather & Adam are texting us asking where we are.  They’re trying to find us after having looked for a water-fill station.  I try to give Mark directions while frantically texting Heather to avoid the town streets.  We’re completely flustered by the time we figure out our way back to the highway.  Further, we’re relieved and shocked to have come out unscathed.  It turns out a twenty minute driving tour will be our extent of exploring Xilitla.

Continuing our way west, driving on the highway is only slightly less stressful.  The continuously twisting pavement consists of one blind curve after another and is speckled with driveways, road-side vendors, and pedestrians (many cradling infants).  Mark pulls over to take a breath, this kind of driving requires complete and unwavering attention to the road.

For a short time conditions improve.  We arrive to the outskirts of Jalpan de Serra hungry and uncertain as to what the rest of the day holds.  Little do we know at the time but choosing a restaurant on the edge of town was a brilliant idea.  A good meal is enjoyed before driving back into another gauntlet of mountain town madness.  

A slow crawl in bumper to bumper traffic in search of a water-fill station proves fruitless.  We abandon the idea and make our way towards the local mission for a little sight seeing.  Our walkabout is brief as the sun is beginning to hang low in the sky thus elevating our need to find a place to camp.  While we have a spot in mind, making our way there is an entire expedition in itself.  For what feels like an hour, but is probably closer to thirty minutes, we thread the needle that is a maze of very narrow cobblestone streets.  Google is useless as we’re directed to turn onto streets too narrow to be accessed by anything much wider than a Honda Civic.  Once again we somehow manage our way out unscathed.  Adam and Mark both deserve a medal at this point.

We weave our way around the shoreline of Jalpan reservoir to a patch of dirt that is marked on the iOverlander app by previous travelers.  Although practically every inch of ground is covered in cow pies, it appears to be a promising place for a peaceful night’s rest with the bonus of enough trees to offer some privacy from the nearby road.  At dusk a very kind, elderly gentleman rows his canoe up to the shore and offers me some fresh fish.  I pass on the offer and ask if it’s ok to camp here.  With a kind smile he responds “si, muy tranquilo”.  Our pleasant exchange leaves me feeling good about camping here, not that we had many other options.

Mark and I spend the evening researching our options for routes and campsites in the days ahead as well as reevaluating our priorities in terms of what we want to see and where we want to go.  We’d rather not repeat a day like today but that’s likely impossible.  It would probably take years of familiarization and a compact truck to feel as though we could travel around Mexico with ease.  

The night concluded early, as it always does, and by 9pm we were in bed.  At 11pm we’re both woken from a deep sleep to the sound of two trucks pulling up to camp.  I could hear a groggy Adam attempting to understand what was being asked by the two guys who had gotten out of their trucks.  Mark, still half asleep, stepped outside while I remained in bed and listened…more for tone and intention than actual words.  Mark and Adam came to understand that these two twenty-something guys wanted help extracting a vehicle that had gotten stuck five minutes down the road.  As helpful-natured as Adam & Mark are, there was no way either one of our trucks was going to get packed up at 11pm.  While it was a gracious exchange that ended uneventfully, it was still difficult to come down off of elevated nerves and go back to sleep.  Once we heard a revved out vehicle that sounded like it was trying to get unstuck, our guard came down and we eventually dozed off.

And to think, there was actually a third Pueblo Mágico I thought we would make it to today.

…

Interested in camping in Baja?
Check out our Baja Camping Guide!