And I thought New York was a zoo

The following day, we left for Veracruz. After few hours, we arrived in the city, as Cortes did in 1519. The only difference is that we took the direction of the Toyota dealership in the outskirt of the city, so they could give the car another look. After dropping the vehicle, we took a cab to the center of the city. This is a real harbor, with cargo and fishing ships. This is also a city all about music, and there is a big carnival there in February.

We walked around town, and went to have seafood in the fish market. After we were done roaming in the streets and visiting the cathedral, we took a cab back to check on the car.
The mechanics suspect the heat could be coming from the transmission, but were not really sure. Toyota exists in Mexico only since 1999, so my 1996 model is unknown here, and they don’t have parts if needed. The best we can do is to take it easy, not go to fast, and make a run to the Guatemala border where I gather there are older Toyota vehicles. I have to say, everybody from the Japanese carmaker here in Mexico has been very nice, supportive, and they didn’t ask us for any money.
Anyhow, one more time it was almost dark and we wanted to drive a bit more south. Even so we decided we would never drive at night, there was hardly one day we didn’t do it since we arrived in Mexico. We will have to start earlier in the morning and stop before dark each time possible.

Two hours later, we arrived in Tlacotalpan, and we could already see that the fishermen village was really charming. I parked in front of what looked like a park, and few minutes later, a man popped out of nowhere and asked us if he could do something for us. Of course we said, we just need somewhere where we could sleep. He came back few minutes later with a woman who told us there was no problem, and that there were also showers there.
At this point, we had no idea where we landed, but I could say there was something strange with the wildlife in the surroundings. As Nadia was fixing some diner, many different animals were screaming around us.
When the morning came, we realized we were in some kind of zoo, with many birds who woke us up at sunrise.

After another shower (a luxury as I took one the night before as well) and checking up the car, we left and drove back to the center of the village, where we walked the streets, and discovered a splendid chapel with elegant murals.
Back on the road, we took the direction of Catemaco, a small town on a Laguna. We arrived there for lunch, and had some seafood and chicken empanadas.

After which, anxious to put more distance behind us, and trusting our detailed Mexico map and the GPS, we decided to go around the Laguna by the east route, which should lead us to a larger road leading to Villahermosa.

We had no idea, but it was the beginning of what would become my first off-road experience. Little by little, the road became smaller and smaller, to finally become a dirt road.

45 minutes later, looking at the map, we realized we only covered a fifth of our way to the biggest road. And the dirt road we were on was getting worst and worst, forcing me to constantly shift to low range. In addition, we calculated we only had one more hours of daylight. Regardless, we decided to continue. If I already turn back here with these conditions, I will not go very far in my adventure. So here we went, discovering many small villages full of people watching the crazy foreigners going through. At one point we asked one of them how was the upcoming path ‘Is the road ahead worst of better than the one behind?’ and he just replied ‘Do you really think it can be worst?’ But we made it. An hour later, after sunset, we were back in villages where people actually had cars.

Half an hour later, we asked in a house on the roadside if we could camp there. After realizing they would not be able to squeeze any money out of us, they let us set camp.