At eight a.m. on the dot we both woke up naturally. We both felt great and both thought it was odd that we felt so well rested after sleeping only 6 hours after being up for over 24. We had not really planned on doing anything that day other than laying around so it provided ample opportunity to get going on that. It turns out that it is impossible for Heather to do nothing though. We took showers and at 8:30 a.m. we got a call on the phone from someone trying to sell us a timeshare. I just imagined a collie proudly looking into an office in the basement and barking a few times and a sales guy knowing immediately that the collie could sense that we were awake and the time to call was upon him. He reached for the phone quickly and with purpose in his eyes nimbly dialed our room number and prepared the speech in his mind that he would deliver to me to seal the deal and guarantee my annual return which he would utilize to sell me more crap until the end of time. Unfortunately for him I was prepared to say no to anything after an hour in the Cancun airport and shut him and his super-sales collie down before the process could even really begin.I went to the door of the hotel room and there was a piece of paper under it. It was an invitation from the Hotel to go talk about a timeshare! The collie must have put it there and that is how he knew I was awake. Anyway, according the header on said document, my Spanish name is Señor Lagler instead of Jason Legler. The emphasis is on the LAG, as in LAGler. My new Spanish name is the name Heather uses to address me to this day. We left the Zona Hotelera to find lunch. We found Spanish food at a roadside vendor for 35 pesos for the both of us. If you plan to go to Mexico, leave where all the white people are to get good food for cheap. Heather and I speak no Spanish and the vendors spoke no English and it worked out fine.

Once you’re out of Zona Hotelera the traffic becomes much more interesting. In Mexico and Puerto Rico, speed limits and lines on the roads are suggestions. Large busses using two lanes as one and changing lanes without using blinkers are bigger suggestions. I leave it to you to choose which to pay attention to. It is purely logical driving which was a nice change from Oregon. If you make moves with authority and avoid the people who aren’t watching or who clearly have more will than you then things work out fine. I loved driving in Mexico and as long as you are not too timid and don’t get angered or scared easily it isn’t very hard to catch on. After a little driving around and eating we went and took a 4 hour nap. It was glorious.

Later on around dinner time we decided to drive someplace to find dinner. We found a place after some navigational issues. We had bought some GPS software from BiciMapas before we went to Mexico. The maps were useful in showing the approximate location of many things but otherwise they were terrible. If you had the GPS coordinates of what you wanted to go see off of wikipedia or something, you were set as far as knowing where you were in relation to whatever you had the coordinates to; however, the GPS had no idea of the streets or where they were. In fact, many of the streets have no names. The GPS had streets that didn’t exist and couldn’t have ever existed in many cases. We spent a solid hour letting it route us to futility before we started using it as a suggestion rather than a rule. The GPS would tell us that where we needed to go was roughly northwest of where we were. We would then go north on a road until we were East of it and then turn and go towards it and deal with whatever Mexican magical street madness happened. Once we started doing that we were fine. If you buy the software, be prepared for it to be wrong most of the time; however, the signage in Mexico for places of interest and cities is very good so if you know what towns you need to drive through to get somewhere you will be fine.

Anyway, we found a street with a bunch of restaurants full of brown people. We figured that was a good sign and we were correct. The food was good and inexpensive. I did find out the hard way though that being in Mexico and not speaking Spanish is really tough if you’re a person who has social anxiety issues based entirely on feeling unwelcome and intrusive. The trip as a whole was very stressful for me. That being said, almost all of the people we encountered were overly nice to us and accommodated our ignorance. Maybe they could sense my discomfort. Anyway, out of curiosity we went to a Wal-Muerte and went inside to buy raw materials for breakfast and lunch for when we left to more remote places.. Wal-Muerte is insane in Mexico. It is similar in name and color coding only to its American counterparts. It’s much louder, with much fresher produce and much less order. No one there spoke any English. We got cereal and bread and sandwich fixings and then left for the hotel to sleep and get ready for the real fun to come… and by fun I mean driving.