Xpujil, Campeche
I am currently sitting in the Silicon Valley of Xpujil. Besides Greg and me, there are three local geeks hunched over their laptops in the restaurant of the Hotel Calakmul in beautiful downtown Xpujil. For those who donÂ?t immediately localize this place, it is halfway between Escarcega and Chetumal. That is near the Belize border. It has the best Internet in town so the other guys come here. They seem a little old for geeks (look whoÂ?s talking). But it is a happy family, 5 geeks (2 of us Americans) a family of Mayans with a baby and somebody else. All the others are watching the ubiquitous TV and soccer game. Somebody is always playing soccer on TV here, always at loud volume. When not doing that, the rest of the telelandia population is crying over lost loves on the telenovelas. ItÂ?s like everyone else has a more interesting life than I do.
We had some excitement today. The Escarcega Â? Xpujil road has always had a bad reputation for bandits. This predates the cartel situation. It was supposedly a bad place to be 40 years ago. I have always warned clients to get off this road before dark. I also dissed Escarcega, Campeche.
Well, we stopped in Escarcega and gassed up (got gassed? passed gas?). The Pemex attendant was friendly and efficient. We ate at the Burger King next door. It was a nice place, but I donÂ?t think the concept of fast food was too entrenched in the employeeÂ?s mentality. But it was food and an experience.
I always said Escarcega was hell spelled backward (I am not very good at dyslexia either). There are several hotels here, some best suited for emergencies like avoiding driving the highway at night. I tottered out of the car several times, placed my backside on several beds (wait, that sounds wrong. I mean I sat on several beds to see how hard they were Â? oh heck there is no way to get out of this linguistic hell I trapped myself in).
At one hotel the laughing ladies who manned the front desk seemed awfully happy to see two guys drive up. Their very low-cut and slightly filmy camisas were probably just their hotel clerk uniforms. When one showed me the room, she seemed to have a bit more sway in her walk than necessary. I call that place the Â?Happy Hotel.Â? I think the "happy" part is extra.
The next, the Â?Gran Hotel de EscarcegaÂ? was actually quite nice and I sensed no hanky-panky on the menu. And it has Internet wireless.
We were on the suspicious section of road early, about 1:30. For once I followed my own advice. About 2:00, there was a pickup truck with some two or three guys in the back, (in retrospect, this morning, we decided it was at least 17 guys armed with Uzis and grenade launchers. By tomorrow they may have grown to a platoon) and a couple in the front of the truck. It was just kind of sitting between the lanes. Greg, who is a retired cop said he did not get a good feeling from them. Neither did I. I an not even retired. We sped on and Greg watched them in the rear view.
They waited a little while and then turned onto a road into the bush. From that point on, we were on alert. We saw trouble everywhere. A campesino walking along the road became a potential threat. In short, we went from two happy-go-lucky (no play on words there) guys to real road warriors. We WERE Mad Max Light.
Greg explained just how you can run through a barricade by hitting a car at the right spot and spinning it, using the motor as a fulcrum. He was able and I was ready. Those who know me may have compared us to dumb and dumber, but hey, they weren't there.
There wasnÂ?t enough traffic to suit us. When there was traffic, it was not the right kind of traffic. All that was missing was that haunting trumpet intro to the Clint Eastwood westerns. When we finally saw an army truck rolling down to where we came from, we were very happy.
OK, what really happened? I think the guys, who were probably not members of the Welcome Wagon or the local Rotary, were in the middle of the road because they needed to turn left to their ranch. They were waiting for the traffic (us) to pass. They did not turn around to follow us or threaten us in any way. They may have been up to no good, but it didn't include us.
I remember when my old boss Charles and I drove this same road 15 years ago. We saw a Â?roadblockÂ? up ahead. We decided we would run it. I got my Swiss Army knife ready. He gunned the engine. As we approached the Â?roadblockÂ? we realized that the Â?banditsÂ? were really construction workers either making or filling potholes. We nearly killed a couple.
So, a little paranoia is a good thing, but not too much. Just keep your eyes open and donÂ?t shut off your brain when driving and you will be as sane as I. Oops, that is not much to aspire to. You get the idea. Stay cool and cool things will happen to you.
BTW, this road was one of the nicest free roads we have seen and better than some toll roads. Yay Campeche.
In the next episode I will tell you of the adventures of the Dona Corleone who runs the hotel with an iron fist, crippled with arthritis, but iron nonetheless. I made friends with her and got her to Â?findÂ? a room for Greg after she had shouted, Â?No changes, no refunds, no rooms.Â? She turned out to be a sweetheart. But I have a way with 80 year-old women.
