ahh, Mexico

A few hour drive and we found ourselves at the belize mexico border.  We were almost giddy to return to mexico.  Still by far our favorite country along the road. The border crossing went terrifically smooth and we were in and out of both sides in record time.  Easily our faster border on record.  Clearly a sign mexico is just as happy to see us as we are to see her!

Even E felt immediately home among the plethora of VW buses running around, the vochos along the side of the road and (presumably) a bunch of mechanics that know exactly what they're doing...should we happen to need them.  We made our way into Bacalar and stopped in at a hostel we had read about.  It was a torrential downpour as we pulled in and started the 5 minute tour from the host but the sun was shining down by the time we finished.

The hostel was certainly welcoming, but the large group here was just a bit over the top for us and we decided to keep driving and see what else we could find.

On the other side of Bacalar we pulled over to ask directions, but saw a camping sign and decided this would be home.  Nothing but a concrete shell of a building never completed, a bath and shower, power/wifi and all only a block to the laguna... all the makings of a great camping spot (could only be better if it was looking directly out over the lagoon) !!

We stuck around for a few days, swimming in the lagoon, walking through town looking for the best margarita (which we found a few of at Toto Blue and then promptly lost my shoes on the return), talking with the occasional backpacker or van dwelling crew that came through about their next stop or their favorite along the way and finally decided to pack up and head out for the next perfect camp spot.

We didn't get far as we checked the oil and found we were down a quart.  Couldn't see anything in the sand, but clearly we were dropping oil quickly.  We drove a few blocks out to the main road and could see our leak easily.

Pulled into the local auto parts store and navigated our way through the always interesting spanish auto parts conversation (when you don't know the right name in english it's pretty hard to convert it into spanish).  The guy finally came out and looked at the faulty hose, ran back in the store to pull out a length that seemed the right diameter and while i expected him to cut me off a length while i loosened and removed the old one he basically pushed me out of the way, rolled under the back of E and replaced the hose without pause.  Talk about service...and all for the price of a hose.

Within the hour we were back on the road and heading north for the area between Tulum and Playa del Carmen.