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Ciudad Valles
Aug. 14th, 2003 08:28 pmToday we experienced another facet of Mexican culture we had so far failed to come across: road blocks!
Driving up Highway 105, which winds its way up and down every possible mountain between Pachuca and Huejutla, keeping everyone going at the very reasonable speed of 40km/h, we were forced to stop because everyone else ahead of us had stopped. What was going on? Max and I walked to the front of the line to find out and saw a bunch of people standing in front of what looked like a tree blocking the road. Apparently they were poor farmers who were fed up with not getting what the government had promised them, so they were protesting.
We waited about an hour and a half before things started moving again but even then we weren't going too fast. The roads in the mountains curve all over the place and the signage is very inconsistent. We've seen hair-pin curves with no warning sign at all while some moderate curves that aren't even along the edge of a cliff have a "Curva Peligrosa" sign. In towns, topes are sometimes painted, sometimes not, some have signs and others don't, some are smooth and some are half sunken... There is no consistency.
We have 700km left to go before the border. And according to our maps (though our four maps never agree on much) we're out of the mountains for good, so the going should be easier.
Driving up Highway 105, which winds its way up and down every possible mountain between Pachuca and Huejutla, keeping everyone going at the very reasonable speed of 40km/h, we were forced to stop because everyone else ahead of us had stopped. What was going on? Max and I walked to the front of the line to find out and saw a bunch of people standing in front of what looked like a tree blocking the road. Apparently they were poor farmers who were fed up with not getting what the government had promised them, so they were protesting.
We waited about an hour and a half before things started moving again but even then we weren't going too fast. The roads in the mountains curve all over the place and the signage is very inconsistent. We've seen hair-pin curves with no warning sign at all while some moderate curves that aren't even along the edge of a cliff have a "Curva Peligrosa" sign. In towns, topes are sometimes painted, sometimes not, some have signs and others don't, some are smooth and some are half sunken... There is no consistency.
We have 700km left to go before the border. And according to our maps (though our four maps never agree on much) we're out of the mountains for good, so the going should be easier.
