here’s a picture of the town of san francisco taken with the timelapse camera in the car (i hope this is the right gps spot)

this morning i drove around tepic for a little while. the civic center is nice & the anthropology museum of nayarit is nice, but small. then, because of construction, it took me 30min to find the way down to puerto vallarta. the mango farms from yesterday led to sugar cane and watermelon farms (with mango trees as well). stopping at one of the fruit stands on the side of the road, i bought 10 mangoes and a watermelon for $2 (…i didn’t negotiate either, so that was probably a tourist price!).

taking a detour from the beautiful and raw countryside, i stopped by the town of San Francisco. from the cobbled streets to the quaint houses, it’s everything you’d want in a quaint mexican town. aside from the beautiful (& empty) beach, the most noticeable difference from the other places i’ve seen so far was the cleanliness (…no strange smells). although the town is ~100 years old, it’s clear that it’s current function is to cater to american tourists: signs are in english, there are tons of real estate offices, condos for sale, etc. There are also incredible beach-front houses which would probably cost $10 million in the US and a hospital. it really is an ideal vacation spot.

next, i drove to puerto vallarta. it’s clear that the government has invested heavily here: Airport, shopping, beautiful statues along the beach, etc. it’s like a more low-key & authentic version of cancun (things are overpriced….but the primary currency is pesos, not dollars; there are beach front hotels…but most are not all-inclusive resorts).

LOS MOCHIS
this morning i walked around downton los mochis for a bit. it was pretty quiet as it was during church. the ‘centro’ is very similar to all the other towns i’ve driven through…kina a mess…in fact, surprisingly similar to the mission district in san francisco. los mochis has a small, old park with a nice church across the street (still in use).

FEDERALES
next. i drove over to mazatlan…which is beautfiul and has incredible water. after cooling off for a bit, ushi and i were on our way to Tipec. Along the drive i followed some federales for a while, until i finally got enough guts to overtake them (…actually, they slowed down on the side and waved us by…even though we were all going 20-30km above the speed limit). so far, it seems that the police here get a bad rep. i saw some cars pulled over, but they were speeding….and a $50 bribe is still better than a $200 speding ticket + driving school in the US. (hopefully i won’t ever have to find out).

SENTRA TOP GEAR
it was along this stretch between mazatlan and tipec that i decided to try to keep up with the other cars….on the flat, i got the sentra up to 95mph, on the downhill up to 100mph. even though the speedometer goes up to 130….getting above 105 may be impossible, and the car starts shaking a lot above 85mph. the sad thing is the sentra couldn’t keep up with the other cars….no more speeding for a while.

SCENERY
the drive today was much different from yesterday’s desert/sahel-likr. between los mochis and mazatlan are literally hundreds of miles of corn farms along route 15…it must be the corn basket of mexico. the corn fields lead into the ocean at mazatlan and then into mango farms which lead into tropical-like trees in tepic. tepic is also much more tropical than any of the other cities thus far — it even rained here as i was driving in.

OTHER
-although poverty in mexico is bad, what’s even more shocking is the juxtaposition of the apparent wealth. Below are two pictures from mazatlan…one near the hotels @ the beach….the other 5 minutes away. the small dirt houses seem kinda quaint in the countryside….here it becomes shockingly apparent how dysfunctional the society is.
-toll roads are ridiculously expensive. they are typically every 50 miles and cost between $4 and $10. today, during my 400 mile drive, i spent over $50 on tolls.
-it’s funny to see signs for patagonia and costa rica…i’m always tempted to try them out.
-hotels and food (esp. supermarket) are so much cheaper than us/europe. gas and driving is more expensive than the us (but probably still cheaper than europe).

today was a really long day. the short summary is that i woke up eaarly, drove a lot, and am now in a nice hotel in los mochis, sinaloa, mexico. also, none of the horror stories everybody talks about have come true:
1)RUMOR — i’ll have trouble with customs because of the hiding spots & timelapse camera. ACTUALLY — customs took 1 minute, they checked almost nothing
2)RUMOR — you have to bribe the cops at checkpoint charlie…with money or blenders. ACTUALLY — checkpoint charlie wasn’t even there.
3)RUMOR — all cops want bribes. ACTUALLY — i had to stop at ~5 checkpoints…they all waved me through without any issues.
4)RUMOR — cops pull over american cars. ACTUALLY — i ended up following a police car for a while (which was going above the speed limit), and even sped by one (i figured speeding was better than driving in the dark…see note 6)
5)RUMOR — libre roads are dangerous (as opposed to toll roads). ACTUALLY — i took one, just to see what it was like…ended up being a pain, i got lost, it took forever…but no serious issues at all (i followed the cop car, above, for about half of the time on this road).
6)RUMOR — never, never drive at night. ACTUALLY — because of my delay with the libre road, i ended up driving for ~1 hr at night. it was fine.
of course this was just one day…so tomorrow might be different.

the longer story is below:

TUCSON….a one horse town
so today i woke up at 4am, was on the road at 4:30, and started heading east to tucson. after about 30min, i realized that i probably missed tucson, so i started heading back. turns out, my hotel was in tucson (i assumed it was a tiny little suburb of tucson). anyway, i don’t want to badmouth tucson.

NOGALES (mile 146,565, 7am)
so, i finally got to the border at 7am. nogales is a pretty barren little town…although i think it might still have more stuff to do than tucson. it’s only purpose (on the us side) seems to provide gas, mcdonalds and other necessities for travelers. i started driving to the border, saw a sign that said ‘last u-turn in usa’, freaked out, and turned around.
reinvigorated after a conversation with some women who had just returned from mexico, i got back in the sentra, made sure all the panels were covered up, and drove in. narcotic dogs were barking in the distance…and my heart was racing. well, they checked my car for 1 minute (i opened the trunk, and showed the spare tire under the passenger seat)…and i was through. they didn’t even look at my passport or license.
once in mexican nogales, the contrast is very apparent. for some reason, everything just seems a little browner: the sidewalks, the street, the billboards/posters, the sky…and yes, the people too.

CHECKPOINT CHARLIE (mile 146,577 – )
21km into mexico, there was another station, where you buy the traveler & car permits (total price ~$40 US). no lines, and the whole thing was done in 15 minutes. I put the sticker on the car and drove south. about an hour later i realized they never stamped my passport…oh well.

DETOUR #1: San Carlos (mile 146,832, 1pm)
San Carlos is a tiny beach town off of route 15. the scenery is amazing and the water is really refreshing…especially on a hot day without AC. There are some really nice beach houses….but unfortunately, there are a ton of condos too (mostly for sale), so it ends up seeming like a bit of an american timeshare community (most tourists and many signs are in english). Nonetheless, it’s an incredible location…and was surprisingly empty for a hot saturday (most beaches had only 1 or 2 families).

DETOUR #2: Navojoa (mile 146,960, 4pm)
Since everything was going so well, and i was sick of paying $5 tolls every 50 miles, i decided to take the libre road. turns out the libre road just makes a massive detour around the toll booth…so instead of paying $5 to the government,you use up $5 in gas. halfway through i ended up on a dirt road with peasant shacks and a dirt soccer field — it’s such a different lifestyle than what i saw in san carlos or anything else from the toll road. I figured i had made a wrong turn (the signs are quite bad…or missing), turned back…and some how managed to get on the right road. it was ashame i was so worried about cops, hijackers and the impending night to appreciate the countryside. The road was small & bumpy, with farms & the random donkey on either side — it felt like driving through the midwest. Except for one thing. The houses along the road were one room shacks. Some built from adobe, some from wood, they all reminded me of the old indian houses i saw in utah. it’s pretty crazy how there can be such a dichotomy of wealth…and how it can be so easy to miss it (you can’t see it from the toll road….and even on the libre road, i was so preoccupied with friends’ warnings, it took me a while to realize my surroundings). Anyway, i finally ended up back on the toll road, paid some more tolls, went through some more checkpoints….and arrived in los mochis.

OTHER
here are some more observations from the trip:
-mile 146,671…literally a 3 mile backup of trucks waiting to get through a checkpoint. i can’t help but think it’s inefficient…especially after my experiences with the inspection stations (nobody even noticed the camera!)
-mile 146,742….hermosillo is the first major town you pass through. so far it’s the nicest town i’ve seen in mexico (san carlos had nice scenery….but it was one road….not much of a town).
-mile 146,860….end of usa hassle free zone. i’m not sure what that means, but apparently route 15 is ‘hassle free’ up until that point.
-mile 146,945….stack of pigs (see pic).
-it’s weird to see people walking/biking alongside the road…in the desert climate…when there might be 10 miles between towns.
-food is crazy cheap.

well, that’s it for now…hopefully tomorrow i’ll get to start experiencing the country (rather than just driving through it).

tomorrow morning i head down to mexico….so i’m not sure when my next post will be (it might be twitter for a while). anyway, here are today’s highlights:
1) mie 146,008 (9am) breakfast at tommy’s — thanks and good luck with the recital tonight
2) mile 146,122 (11am) — filled up a jerry can in preparation for tomorrow (apparently not too many bay area residents head this way…see pic of keypad below). also removed the roof rack (see ushi below)
3) not to scare off any of you that might join me for a leg….but without the ac, the sentra will probably become a literal (& metaphorical) melting pot in this journey through latin america.
4) tomorrow morning i wake up before dawn for my border crossing though nogales. i hope it all goes well….but if the gps shows me at the border for several hours, you’ll know why.

hightlights
+legoland…$70 admission fee?! …i’ll wait for legoland china
+i thinkmy ac has a leak (it doesn’t work)…but so do my windows, so maybe it evens out?
+with 4 ad clicks, the total bet prize money is $0.76!
+spending the night at sam’s place — thanks!
+san diego zoo…very nice. wish i could visit wild animal park, but mexico is calling…
+averaging 32mpg so far

one day down….how many more left? here are some highlights:

1) mile ? (2:21pm) — olympic torch in santa cruz? or some random lady running with a stick….not sure if my time lapse caught it (i’ll add it, if it did)
2) mile 145,416 (2:50pm moss landing)– artichokes: 10 for $1, that’s cheap!
3) mile ? (monterey) — monterey bay aquarium.
4) mile 145,536 (6:50pm) — elephant seals!
5) spending the night at ross & dave’s place, thanks!
6) 1 or 2 gallons of home-made dried apricots — thanks mark!

well, i’m finally off!

also, apparently it’s bad luck to start a trip without naming your vessel, so i present USHI.

don’t forget to vote on how long ushi & i will make it.

hopefully just a few more days before i embark. before i go, though, here’s a short rundown of some of the modifications i made to the car. i also uploaded a short (but nauseating) video of the car here.

1) remove passenger seat — this makes the car appear cheaper (less of a target), provides a more comfortable ride for me/passenger and allows me to hide tools/tire under the carpet.
2) timelapse camera — using CHDK, i programmed an SD300 to take 1 picture every 30sec. the camera is powered by the car’s battery and is secured to the passenger visor (i can simply flip up/hide the camera when not in use).
3) more trunk space — removed spare wheel from trunk to make space for three 5-gallon jerry cans & 2 full wheels.
4) more storage space — made rear-passenger side panels removable (secured with velcro). there was a surprisingly large amount of dead space in there!
5) kill switch — not a great one and easy to bypass, but hopefully will prevent some theft.

well, today i tried out the timelapse setup in the car. it still needs a little bit of tweaking, but it’s not bad. click on the image below to access a low-quality gif of me driving around the city for ~15 minutes @ 2 pics/minute (…obviously the final version will be higher quality & not a gif).