Monterrey is Mexico’s third largest city. It is busy, the traffic is crazy, and we didn’t have a map. The atlas we brought for Mexico, is a complete dud. It doesn’t cover towns or cities, rarely lists road names and numbers, and often shows roads which don’t exist, or missed roads that do. Finding our hotel was difficult, but not impossible, and gave us a good taste of driving in Mexican cities.
The following day we left the city, and found a hotel run by a very friendly Mexican family in Santiago, in the mountains south of Monterrey. They didn't speak a word of English, and didn’t seem to understand a word of our Spanish, so she called a friend who spoke English every time we needed to ask her something.
The town was very friendly. Everyone waved and greeted you as you passed. It also tuned out to be the local hoon hang out. All the men in town seemed to own a hotted up VW Bug, or buggie and drove up and down the main street (there was only one street in the town, so I guess you’d call it ‘Main Street’) all night long, at great speed. It made for quite an interesting place to be based. Our hotel had a pool, lots of green grass and comfortable beds. We felt quite at home. Which was lucky, because the following day, after bumping up and down the mountains in the national park, our front beam snapped. The car was still drive-able (just) but wasn’t going very far at all.
The big question, was how to explain in Spanish that the entire front section of your car has broken, and you need a new one. Luckily, 500m from where we broke down, we happened upon Oscar, an American Mexican mechanic who spoke perfect English. When we discovered the local parts shops didn’t have the part, he took us to his friend Tupo, who was the best welder in town, and could either find us the part, or weld us up a new one. He was apparently the man responsible for making most of the buggies and hotted up bugs that honed up and down our street.
We dropped our car off in an unknown street, and handed over our keys and $500 to an unknown man. Might not sound that sensible, but we really didn’t have any other options. Plus, they seemed like really good guys. Three nerve wracking days later, we had our car back. We were set to leave Santiago when reverse gear stopped engaging. It’s a problem that has haunted us since Canada. At first, we thought it was a frayed clutch cable. We replaced it, and haven’t had problems with it again. Turns out, that after 5 more hours under the car, Angus and Andrew worked out that the stop plate had worn, and didn’t allow the gear stick to move enough to select reverse gear. Then, there were problems with our new front end. The steering was wobbly and sloppy. That turned out to be the control arm pin. A couple more bush mechanic hours later, the steering was fixed (for now) with a beer can, and the plate was cut with an angle grinder.
The following day we left the city, and found a hotel run by a very friendly Mexican family in Santiago, in the mountains south of Monterrey. They didn't speak a word of English, and didn’t seem to understand a word of our Spanish, so she called a friend who spoke English every time we needed to ask her something.
The town was very friendly. Everyone waved and greeted you as you passed. It also tuned out to be the local hoon hang out. All the men in town seemed to own a hotted up VW Bug, or buggie and drove up and down the main street (there was only one street in the town, so I guess you’d call it ‘Main Street’) all night long, at great speed. It made for quite an interesting place to be based. Our hotel had a pool, lots of green grass and comfortable beds. We felt quite at home. Which was lucky, because the following day, after bumping up and down the mountains in the national park, our front beam snapped. The car was still drive-able (just) but wasn’t going very far at all.
The big question, was how to explain in Spanish that the entire front section of your car has broken, and you need a new one. Luckily, 500m from where we broke down, we happened upon Oscar, an American Mexican mechanic who spoke perfect English. When we discovered the local parts shops didn’t have the part, he took us to his friend Tupo, who was the best welder in town, and could either find us the part, or weld us up a new one. He was apparently the man responsible for making most of the buggies and hotted up bugs that honed up and down our street.
We dropped our car off in an unknown street, and handed over our keys and $500 to an unknown man. Might not sound that sensible, but we really didn’t have any other options. Plus, they seemed like really good guys. Three nerve wracking days later, we had our car back. We were set to leave Santiago when reverse gear stopped engaging. It’s a problem that has haunted us since Canada. At first, we thought it was a frayed clutch cable. We replaced it, and haven’t had problems with it again. Turns out, that after 5 more hours under the car, Angus and Andrew worked out that the stop plate had worn, and didn’t allow the gear stick to move enough to select reverse gear. Then, there were problems with our new front end. The steering was wobbly and sloppy. That turned out to be the control arm pin. A couple more bush mechanic hours later, the steering was fixed (for now) with a beer can, and the plate was cut with an angle grinder.