We have been driving back and forth to our winter home in Guatemala for the past three years. The trip from our home at Murray Lake to our winter home at Santa Cruz la Laguna on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala takes about 10 days except when there are things we'd like to see on the way.
The trip home can take longer because we know spring will not have arrived yet. This time we visited the major Mayan ruin at Palenque in Mexico, stayed an extra day at the beach at Cachalaca on the Gulf coast and visited Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. A very worthwhile visit if you’re in the area.
Because we travel with our little dog, Finnigan, we’re not welcome at hotels in Mexico. It was necessary to get to the next city early enough to search out a place that would accept us. Mexico doesn’t have motoring tourists as we do, their motels are mainly hot sheet motels, rented for four hours or 12 hours. Aside from one exception they were average to above average with excellent security.
At one of these motels, we pulled in at 4:15 p.m., there were no other places to stay within reasonable driving distance. It was a nice-looking place but had a strict 12-hour limit. Nothing we could say would sway them from that rule; offers of extra money for a couple more hours had no effect. We made it out by 4:30 a.m. and nobody complained.
When we started out we found that one of the low beams had burned out on the car. We could hardly see to drive, and there was enough traffic that we couldn’t drive on high beam. We ended up sitting in the car outside the motel for a couple of hours until it got light enough to drive safely. Just part of the experience.
Another important lesson was learning to drive on the shoulder and use the driving lane for passing.
