Hola Mainland Mexico! – I’ll throw up now…

In a haze I duck-walked under some semis and worked my way to the upper deck.  They don’t see too many gringos on these ships, but I think it was the first time they had seen a vampire judging by the stares.  I hurried to the first baño and found it locked…*expletive*.  The second appeared to be in a private staff room but I didn’t give a $hit (foreshadowing?).  Time running out, I slammed the door behind me and turned around to find the water/pump/whatever had been turned off.  How do I know?…let’s just say the truckers didn’t care whether it worked or not when they showed up for their morning ritual.

I made it back to the truck without passing out, took down the camper top and hopped behind the wheel.  I can’t tell you how stoked I was to be driving out of a port and into mainland Mexico for the first time, in such a chipper condition.  Each small movement caused shooting pain in my stomach when I remembered what our friend Cameron told us about the camp spot…”the road out there is terrible!”  Welcome to mainland!

Mainland Mexico

Don’t you worry…I hated my life for a day or two but pulled through, put on my big boy pants, cracked a beer and finally started to explore the real Mexico.

Isla de las Piedras

Our first camp was a place on Isla de Las Piedras, or Stone Island (actually a peninsula).  Based on a tip from our FollowTheWind peeps we searched for Pizza Benjis?  We got lost, asked some people, drove down some dirt roads and found some structures.   I never saw a sign indicating I had reached a pizza establishment but asked a nice gal and received confirmation that indeed we were “aqui!”  More often than not, when asking where you can camp or park, the response will be “wherever you like.”  This sounds nice, but is a bit stressful for a northerner like me…”wait, anywhere???”  They usually mean just that, and I’m pretty sure we could have parked on the patio if we wanted.

Instead we drove our eyesore rigs across their public beach, parked on the sand and set up camp right in front of the “restaurant”….never did see customers, pizza or food at Pizza Benjis.  Curious place if ya ask me.  We (TravelAmateurs, TheGlobeTrol & HereUntilThere) settled in to our new “home is where you park it” location and toasted to the mainland.  A little swimming here, some spear fishing there, dinner potlucks and even a tour of Mazatlan.

Mazatlan

One day a few young guys walked passed our camp and into the palms behind us.  Within the hour they had thrown together a drift wood and palm frond lean-to.  We hadn’t a clue what they planned to do with the shelter but found them around our campfire later that night.  Apparently, they’ve watched an episode or two of the TV series “Survivorman” and decided to give their skills a test by building a lean-to, and camping for a night with nothing more than a bottle of brandy, bottle of coke and a giant bag of chips…I like their style!  The language barrier was no match for good people, cold beverages and a shared fire.

We found a way to share stories and laughs and raised a beer to what we couldn’t understand.  I turned on a playlist and they knew nearly every song.  Some songs struck a particular chord inciting dance moves in the light of the fire.  Occasionally someone would call out “coco locos on da beach!” and we’d cheers.  It’s hard to recapture such a night in words and I often wonder how the story is told from their end.  What of these weird gringos camping on the beach? Were we the coco locos??  Maybe it’s better that we don’t know.