They asked for a $20,000 Mexican ransom. Now what?
No, I can’t make this stuff up.
Traveling into the bowels of Mexico.
Why me? Why do I go out on the simplest of trips and encounter the most extreme circumstances? If my experiences don’t prove the adage that people “travel to experience the journey and not the destination”, I don’t know what does. On this adventure, I went down into the bowels of Mexico. I experienced some extreme situations. I’m good with that. This weekend’s trip took me to the state of Chiapas (green state, lower right in the map above).
You’ve heard me say this before.
I am fond of saying, “There is an ass for every seat”. Initially, that may sound a little crude. Frequently, I use that saying in the context of automobiles. Importantly, that saying does not have anything to do with cars.
Then what does it mean? “There’s an ass for every seat” simply means that there are a wide variety of people who have a wide variety of opinions. No matter how strongly you may feel about your own opinion there is almost always going to be someone who feels just as strongly about their opinion, which is often not your opinion. Here’s the kicker. It doesn’t take much for these two opinions to be 180 degrees apart. I know that’s hard to believe. You might frequently think, “Why wouldn’t everyone think about things just the way I do?”
Reader feedback.
I mention the above for one specific reason today. My last couple of messages to you covered the challenges I encountered when trying to buy a new car and sell an old one. Today, I will share with you some of the very nice responses I received from folks who seemed to like what I wrote.
I will also tell you that two people unsubscribed from my newsletter after reading those very same messages. If that doesn’t prove “There is an ass for every seat” I don’t know what does, right? I will simply thank the people who took the time to write and wish those who unsubscribed all the best in their future subscription opportunities. If you’d like to share something with me…just tap the reply button.
Reader feedback.
“You are batting 1000 this week! Enjoyed this story too. I was there when I sold a Toyota Prius after buying my Tesla. Same types of scammers! What I can’t believe is that you didn’t realize you needed possession of the physical title! :) :) Maybe consulting Carol on some of these matters would help – but then you wouldn’t have such a great story to tell!
Another great story! Glad you were able to sell your “old” car for a great price. I can see why you excelled in sales!
This is an amazing story. You are the only person I know who could ever pull this off! Glad it all came together well.
Great timing, I am going through this with a truck I had a loan on in IL, moved to WI with a lien still in place, registered in WI, and have since paid the loan off, but never got the lien release/title……thought I had lost the title, so applied for a new in WI, they replied that it had never been titled in WI, kept calling the wrong bank in IL for help (whom we had our home mortgage through, forgetting the car was through another…..a senior moment perhaps), figuring out the right bank by finding a check stub from 2016, only to find that bank was out of business, tracking down bank that took over that bank’s loans, now getting the lien release and applying for new IL title while living in WI…..headache.
You are a winner! And you are truly one of the bravest most remarkable people I have personally come across in my lifetime.”
And now please join me for this weekend’s trip to Mexico. This was a short two-night vacation. How much could that cost? Short answer? Lots.
I am just a normal guy who likes to travel. However, in my life, “stuff happens”. You’ve read my encounters. Why is the unusual always happening to me?
Saturday, April 13
To reduce the length of this newsletter I will tell you I made my way from Southern California to Mexico City, Mexico today.
Sunday, April 14.
I have a passion for this.
It takes a strong trackchasing commitment for me to travel far into Mexico for one simple two-hour race. Even as passionate as I am about my hobby I sometimes question the sanity of a trip like this. Let’s get going. I’ll tell you all about the extreme situations I encountered today.
First of all, my wake-up call at the Hyatt Regency in Mexico City came at 3:30 a.m. That’s 2:30 a.m. in California. Is 2:30 a.m. early? For a guy that rolls out of bed at 8 o’clock on most mornings, I think it is. Remember, I’m not complaining. I am simply explaining.
Uber just works.
Uber works really well in Mexico City. At all times of the day, I can use my iPhone to order an Uber. In Mexico City, these Uber drivers will be there in less than five minutes. Yesterday afternoon, Saturday, I paid 369 pesos to get a ride from the airport to the Hyatt. Today at 4 a.m. I might have thought drivers would be being paid overtime. Not the case. My Uber this morning was only 169 pesos.
I know most of you grew up in the United States. Most of you probably had a mother who told you not to get into a car with a stranger, right? Think about that. That advice was given when there were only three TV stations in your area and they shut down at midnight. There was no internet. You might not have had a TV. Life was simple. How many killers were driving around trying to pick up kids playing hide and seek in the 50s and 60s?
Fast forward to today. I’m more than willing to get in a car when someone I don’t know and someone who doesn’t speak my language in one of the purported most dangerous countries in the world. Yep, we’ve made a lot of progress in our world.
Ever flown into Tuxtla Gutierrez?
Today I will be flying on Aero Mexico from the airport in Mexico City (MEX) to Tuxtla Gutierrez (TGZ), Mexico. TGZ is in the Mexican state of Chiapas. This would be an hour and a half flight. I’m going to mention this although I suspect you already know this factoid. Mexico has 31 states and the Federal District which is Mexico’s equivalent of our Washington, D.C.
This would not be my first Mexican rodeo.
Today I would be seeing my 16th different racetrack in the country of Mexico. It has taken me 16 separate trips to do that.
In the past, I have flown into Mexico City and simply hopped on a bus. I then would ride that bus for two or three hours out to wherever the race location was happening. Would you feel comfortable flying into Mexico City and riding a bus out into the hinterlands of Mexico? It’s no big deal. I’ve done that several times. In every one of those situations, I was the only “gringo” on the modern Greyhound-style bus. I loved those trips. I love the Mexican people.
Who do I want to work on my house?
I hope you don’t think what I’m about to say is racist. I don’t really mind white people. We built our house a bit more than 20 years ago. It took us 11 months for architectural approval and another 18 months to build the house. This was quite the project. We had 80 subcontractors and several of those subcontractors had their subs under them. I dealt daily with every one of those people.
In Southern California much more than half of the laborers are Hispanic. When a Hispanic worker was on the job I could count on them to do the job in the best detail. I knew I would be happy with their work. When a guy showed up who looked like me sometimes the work was good and then sometimes not. The only workers who I ever had a problem with were guys who looked like me. Go figure. I know this. I would not have wanted ME to be working on my house! Wait. Got off track. Sorry.
No bus today.
However, the Super Ovalo Chiapas race facility was a 12-hour bus ride outside of Mexico City. Even for a guy like me who likes to ride buses in Mexico that was too far and too long of a bus ride. Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas was much closer to the countries of Guatemala and Belize than Mexico City.
Please. It’s not a man purse.
Today I was traveling light. It was just me and my satchel. What I was carrying with me was not a man purse. It was a satchel. I left my computer, my iPad my passport, and other valuables back in the safe back at the Hyatt Regency. Very late tonight I will be returning by airplane to Mexico City for my second night at the Hyatt Regency. There was one item that I left back in the hotel safe that I began to wish I hadn’t left there. Care to guess what that was?
When I landed in Tuxtla Gutierrez, I planned to use Uber to get me from the airport to the race track and then to a nice restaurant in the evening and back to the airport for my 10:30 p.m. flight to Mexico City.
I don’t necessarily recommend this for you but it has worked for me.
My life strategy has been pretty simple almost from birth. I want to put enough time and effort into something to get a good really good result. I am not looking for a perfect result. Trying to get a perfect result requires a lot more time and effort than I am willing to put into most projects. I want to do as little as humanly possible to get a very good result.
Carol graduated from high school third in a class of 400 people. She was a math major in college. To this day I still call her a “library girl” for her penchant for following rules and making sure she never disappoints. I still remember going to visit her in the library during college. I would find a quiet corner where I could sleep while she finished studying. Then we would go out but not without her reminding me to look both ways when we crossed the street.
No Uber? What do you mean no Uber?
That being the case, and by applying my life strategy, I didn’t research the Uber situation in advance of my arrival at Tuxtla Guerreros. I figured as soon as I touched down I would use my Uber app. The Uber driver would miraculously appear and we would go for a nice day of trackchasing in Chiapas.
Maybe you can sense where I am going with this. When I landed my Uber app told me there were no Uber rides available. Upon further investigation, I learned that the Uber drivers did not come “all the way out to the airport”. They did work in downtown Tuxtla Gutierrez, but not at the airport. The airport was 20 miles south of Tuxtla Gutierrez and 30 miles south of the racetrack.
This was going to require a change of plans. I had landed at 8 a.m. The racing was set to begin at 11 a.m. With the racetrack being about an hour from the airport I needed to come up with a new plan, quickly.
I come for the drama.
As you have observed by reading my messages over time, I always have a plan. It’s just that the original plan doesn’t always work. I think I was bred to manage the plan that doesn’t work. The plan that doesn’t work is the plan that creates the drama. I go on these trips for the drama. I would have my share of drama today.
This would be plan B.
New plan. I would rent a car! With GPS renting a car in Mexico or in any other foreign country is not nearly as difficult as it was more than a decade ago.
Using the app on my phone I made a car reservation with the National Car Rental Company. Please don’t think of this as renting a car from the National Car Rental Company in Omaha or Tallahassee. It ain’t the same.
Once my reservation was confirmed on my phone I was able to talk to a National representative at the airport. He told me they were “a little short on cars”. He went on to say I shouldn’t worry. They were bringing one out for me from the city to the airport. We would have to wait 20-30 minutes.
My iPhone was rewarding me for being such a poor Spanish student.
In the meantime, my new National Rental Car friend, Carlos, and I communicated, via a translator. We would type our messages into our phones using our home language, and the words would be instantly translated into the language of the other. This worked relatively well. I even got a good restaurant recommendation for after the races from Carlos.
Good news and bad news.
Soon another National rep showed up to take over from Carlos. She confirmed my reservation called for a full-sized car, with unlimited kilometers for just $40 for the day. That was a good deal.
However, it is the “required insurance” in situations like this that can get you. The woman told me that insurance for the car for the day would be about $100. That’s right. I would be paying 2 1/2 times the cost of renting a car for the insurance.
I had a solution to the insurance ripoff.
Not a problem. I smugly informed her that I had the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. That card provides full insurance for rental cars anywhere in the world. She was not as impressed as I thought she should be.
She asked me to show her the “letter” explaining that Chase Sapphire Reserve did everything that I was telling her it would do as regards car rental insurance. I didn’t have the letter. I only had my satchel. I have carried this letter with me in the past. When I showed it to some rental car folks, they didn’t believe the letter so I didn’t think there was a lot of value in carrying the letter with me anymore.
These folks were testing my patience.
I am a pretty laid-back guy. Nevertheless, I will tell you I was a little bit irritated after I had hung out with Carlos for such a long time to get this kind of response from National. I politely told this woman to take her rental car and shove it and walked across the aisle over to the Eurocar booth.
I’ve been renting cars with Eurocar in Europe over the years. I’ve been very satisfied with them. I talked to a young woman at the desk. She told me that they would certainly rent me a car. The price would be $40 just like at National. She said all I had to do was step outside the airport, hop in a Eurocar van and they would take good care of me. This all sounded much too good to be true…and it was.
I rode the van to Eurocar’s offsite location just about a mile down the road. There I met a young man working in the office by himself. We started the rental car process. Time was passing. I couldn’t wait much longer. I still had to drive an hour out to the racetrack.
This fellow spoke English reasonably well. He seemed to have a good attitude toward our project. I explained to him as I had previously done inside the airport how my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card was going to cover the cost of the auto insurance.
How about we put a “hold” on your credit card for the rental car insurance?
The Eurocar rep thought that was all fine and good. But…. just in case my credit card didn’t cover things he wanted to put a hold on my credit card. Just in case “you return the car with any damage” he told me.
What? A hold? Would this be a hold like Hyatt places on my credit card in the amount of $50 or $100 to prevent me from stealing the clock radio? Not exactly. He wanted just a little bit more of a “hold”. The hold that he had in mind was a much bigger number than the number I had in mind.
What? What did you say? Are you crazy?
I was renting a Toyota Corolla. This was a pretty well-used up Toyota Corolla. This fellow told me he needed to put a $20,000 hold on my contract. He was not talking pesos. He was talking TWENTY THOUSAND FRIGGING AMERICAN DOLLARS. Even as good of a car salesman as I am I couldn’t have gotten more than $6,500 for that Toyota. Whatever. I told him to go ahead and run the card.
Rejected!
He did as instructed. In a matter of seconds, he informed me that my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card had been rejected! I hadn’t had that experience for nearly two weeks when I tried to use my AppleWatch to run my Chase Freedom Unlimited card at the Waffle House. I knew that had to be a problem on the Waffle House’s end but when my waitress gave me the fish eye I was certain she thought the problem was on my end!
Here’s where we were. He wouldn’t let me rent the car without having insurance. I didn’t want to pay $100 a day for simple insurance when my credit card covers that stuff. At the same time, he wasn’t going to accept my credit card without putting a $20,000 hold on it. Here we were in a Mexican standoff. Sorry, I just couldn’t resist that.
I told you that I am bred to handle these kinds of situations. If I don’t have at least two or three of these types of challenges on each of my trips I feel shortchanged.
Plan C or plan D or whatever it is.
I had a solution. I would call up Chase to get some help. I have four different credit cards with them. I would ask them to move some of my credit limit from one other Chase card to my Chase Sapphire Reserve card which covers my rental car insurance. I made the international collect call…while the Eurocar rep waited somewhat incredulously.
In a matter of seconds, Chase moved $20,000 from my Chase Freedom Unlimited card (lowering my credit limit) to Chase Sapphire Reserve (raising my credit limit). I knew that spending hours listening to “point and miles” podcasts would pay off!
I’ll just add this one little credit card/credit score tidbit. When I had been home for a few days after this trip I got TWO messages from one of the credit reporting agencies. The first said that a “credit card company” had lowered my credit limit on one of their cards. This was as if to say they HAD to lower the credit limit because I was a deadbeat. Then I got a second message from the credit monitoring outfit saying another credit card company had RAISED the limit on one of my credit cards as if to say I was spending like a drunken sailor. I preferred the sailor reference to being a deadbeat.
I am in the middle of a credit card arbitrage experiment. It’s going well.
As a point of background, you may know that I am currently in a year-long project where I am exploiting the “0% APR offer” from the Chase Freedom Unlimited card. By “exploit”, I simply mean I am continuing to charge things on the CFU card like a drunken sailor. Then I instruct Carol to make only the minimum payment each month. As a “library girl,” you can imagine how my instruction goes over with Carol. To her credit, she is learning to live with watching her credit card balance grow and grow and grow.
In actuality, our Chase Freedom Unlimited card balance has now ballooned to more than $51,000. I love it. That $51,000 is sitting quietly in the Vanguard Treasury Money Market fund earning almost 6% while Chase charges me 0%.
All we have to do to continue this particular project is make the minimum payment. Last month the minimum payment was $403. That’s right. I was paying Chase $403 even though we owe more than $51,000 to Chase on their card. Chase charges me nothing for that trouble. The friendly folks at Vanguard are giving me 6% on the money that we are not paying Chase. Isn’t America a great place?
How many people could have pulled this off?
Instantaneously Chase, over the phone, had moved $20,000 worth of credit limit from one card to another. I asked the Eurocar representative to run the card again. Success. Approved! I was in business. I was renting a Toyota Corolla. That car was now fully insured. I might qualify that statement by saying the car was fully insured by my own credit card and my own personal $20,000 but at least I could get to the race track this morning.
Let’s not waste time on silly details.
I don’t care much for details. I don’t care much when people stress over details that I know won’t affect the outcome of whatever it is we are talking about. Lots of people do that you know. One of the reasons I can say I’m the most laidback guy you know is that I DON’T stress over minor details.
The rental car rep needed to have me sign his iPad about six times to complete our rental car contract. You should know that my official signature is nearly illegible. It is essentially a line that runs from left to right with a bump or two until my signature is complete. No, Carol being a library girl, doesn’t much like the time I put into my signature.
I was getting a little irritated at the guy because our rental process had taken so long. I had places to go. Now he wanted me to sign my name with my finger six times on his iPad. He used the signature on my driver’s license, which truly is illegible, as a template. I scrawled my signature on his device. Mind you the sample below IS when I take my time to sign my name!
Then he had the gall to tell me what I had just signed did not match the signature on my driver’s license. One scrawl did not match the other scrawl? Yes, the above example is one of the best versions of my signature!
Please. It was all I could do to not yank his iPad from his hands and beat him over the head with it. THREE times during the six required signatures he made me “resign” my name in a woeful attempt to match my driver’s license. Although I am laidback I do get less laidback when people try to control my behavior for no good reason.
Here’s your car. Really?
Next, they pulled up a white Toyota Corolla. This car had more nicks, dents, scuffs, scratches, and marks on it than probably the last fifty cars, make that the last 100 cars, I have rented in the United States. I used my iPhone to take a video of the exterior of the car. Then I took lots of photos of the most egregious blemishes as well.
Who stole the electrical outlet?
I hopped in the car and immediately discovered that there were no usable electric outlets for my iPhone. There was a 12V battery connection, but of course, I had left that adapter at the Hyatt because I didn’t think I would need it in a modern rental car.
You may have discovered that using GPS really uses a lot of cellphone battery. Luckily, in my small satchel, I was carrying an external iPhone charger. No, not a Tesla charger but I was too lazy to get the proper photo. This small external phone charger would be good for about one or maybe one and a half charges of my phone.
Nevertheless, I would have to manage my iPhone’s battery judiciously to allow me to cover 120 km worth of GPS driving and take videos and pictures at my racing event. I have to admit the possibility of having no workable cell phone added a little bit of angst to my day. I guess I was experiencing “cell phone range anxiety”. Now I know how non-Tesla owners feel when they worry over “range anxiety” with an EV. Mind you I never hear a Tesla owner mention range anxiety.
Let’s go trackchasing.
Off I went on my drive to the racetrack. It was Sunday morning. I was in a rural setting. Traffic was light. Life, after Eurocar, was good.
NASCAR Mexico Series.
Today I was going to be attending a NASCAR Mexico Series race. I would Imagine that lots of NASCAR fans don’t even know that NASCAR has a series in Mexico. Following today’s visit to the Super Ovalo Chiapas race track I will have seen a race at every NASCAR Mexico series location except the El Dorado Speedway event in Chihuahua, Mexico.
They will be racing for the one and only time at El Dorado in a couple of weeks. I could easily come back for that, but I’m not going to. If I knocked off the El Dorado Speedway I could say that I’ve seen a race at every track in Mexico that I know to exist. Nope. I didn’t want to do that. I’ll save the El Dorado Speedway visit for next year. That will give me another reason to come down to Mexico in 2025.
Well…no I didn’t have a ticket to the race now that you mention it.
When I pulled into the track’s parking lot I knew I needed to get a race ticket. Buying a ticket to a race in Mexico is not anywhere close to what it would be like if you wanted to buy a ticket to a racing event or any other sporting event in the United States. It just isn’t.
Years ago, our son J.J., Carol, and I came down for a big NASCAR race in Mexico. This was a huge event with thousands of people attending. There just weren’t any places on the grounds to buy a ticket. J.J. speaks fluent Spanish. That helped. However, his language understanding only confirmed that there was no place on the grounds selling tickets. Apparently, everyone bought their tickets in advance of the event. I can’t tell you exactly how we got a ticket that day. I mean, I could tell you, but I don’t think that would be a good idea. I would just say that we used “alternative sources” to get our tickets. We’re gonna have to leave it at that. You never know who reads these newsletters, right? I will say this. Both J.J. and I are bred to solve problems like this. Carol often looks on in horror.
Before I knew it I was saying and doing things I never expected to do.
I soon found myself where spectators were presenting the tickets they had already acquired in advance. I tried to explain to the young woman taking the tickets that I didn’t have a ticket. I told her I was perfectly willing to buy one. That conversation got a little confusing because of the language barrier. Before I knew what hit me I was pulling out my beautiful multicolored trackchasing business card. When the ticket taker saw my card her eyes lit up. I think, my words, she thought I might be a celebrity.
Before I knew it and before I could control myself I mentioned that I was the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”. This was almost like a reflex move. Not to be too graphic, but it was kind of like vomiting when you’re not expecting to vomit. Stuff just comes out. You know the feeling, right?
Once the woman heard this our conversation took itself to a different level. Now the young woman was parading me past all of the “peons” to a special location and a special conversation.
Monica to the rescue.
Soon I was meeting up with a beautifully coiffed woman named Monica. I showed Monica my card. I explained a little bit about what I did as a trackchaser. Mind you I was not passing myself off as the “World’s #1 Trackchaser” at the New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art or the annual meeting of the American Nuclear Society. I was at a racetrack. Monica seemed impressed and she was certainly hospitable.
Monica was going to help me. Lots of people help me in life. I certainly appreciate that. Why do they help me? I always tell Carol that people like me. Who knows? Maybe they feel sorry for me and just want to get rid of one more problem in their life.
Monica gave me a complimentary ticket to the races today. Thank you, Monica! I accepted graciously and then, with her permission, took her photo. I told her she would be prominently featured in both my newsletter and my website. I’m not sure that fully registered with her, but she gave me a beautiful smile. Again, thank you, Monica.
It was the race that brought me to Mexico.
The Autodromo Ovalo Chiapas track is three-quarters of a mile in length racing track. The D-shaped asphalt oval was built in 2008. It seats about 17,000 people. They probably had a crowd of about 10,000 people today.
It takes a lot of money to build one of these tracks. At the same time, almost no one makes any money in racing. I’m talking about the track builders, the promoters, the car owners, and the racers. Some do but not many. Frequently someone builds the Taj Mahal of racetracks, can’t make any money from operating it, defaults on their debt and someone picks up the property for dimes on the dollar. The Autodromo Ovalo Chiapas track is in the middle of such a financial failure.
At these NASCAR Mexico Series events, they run two races on Sundays. They qualify the racers on Saturday. NMS has a truck division on the undercard and full-sized NASCAR-style Cup cars as their main attraction.
I watched the truck race from the backstretch. I sat in the track’s metal grandstand. I had a grandstand that might have sat one thousand fans all to myself. The metal stands were in bad repair with more rust than steel. I’m pretty sure I won’t need a tetanus shot.
Too many stoppages.
The trucks started 19 entries. The top three trucks put on a good battle. These NMS races use a time limit rather than having a certain number of laps to define the race distance. I think it’s 90 minutes for the trucks and 120 minutes for the cars. The problem today was that every five laps or so they had an accident. There wasn’t anything serious but each accident caused a 10-15 minute delay. When you have 5-6 stoppages like this in an hour and a half show that really breaks the rhythm. I am also partial to smaller tracks.
When it was time for the premier race of the day, the stock cars, the crowd had filled in nicely. I moved over to the front stretch grandstand and grabbed a top-row seat. The grandstands were set back a good distance from the track itself. That’s much different than a place like Daytona where you can walk right next to the fence during the race with the cars flying past at 200 MPH and only ten feet from the fan.
Grandstand vendors!
At these NASCAR Mexico races food and drink vendors roam the grandstand like locusts. These are hard-working folks. They sell just a little bit of everything.
Was I supposed to be turning red?
I didn’t realize it at the time but I was getting sunburn. When I got back to the airport my legs and face were bright red. I can’t recall the last time I had a sunburn. There wasn’t much pain but lots of red. I never use sun care products. Everyone, including my dermatologist, says I should but I think it takes too much effort to apply suntan lotion…and I don’t like greasy hands. Remember, I want to put in the least amount of effort to get a really good result.
87. 2,960. 16.
When the racing was finished I could say that I’ve seen racing in 87 countries at 2,960 tracks and 16 tracks in Mexico. If you think about those numbers in the context of worldwide adventure, meeting new people, seeing what the world has to offer, and risking $20,000 of both Carol’s and my money it’s been a fantastic hobby.
Lots of people would have bailed and just paid the hundred bucks. I don’t roll that way.
I still hadn’t caused any damage to the Eurocar Racing Toyota Corolla. It was not lost on me that I simply could have paid a hundred bucks for the full insurance and called it a day. However, on occasion, I can be stubborn. Heck, I HAD the insurance coverage from my credit card. These yahoos wouldn’t accept that fact. I do know that working an accident claim between Chase, Eurocar, the Mexican government, and me would have been a nightmare. Had I been faced with that nightmare I would have paid fifty times one hundred dollars to make the problem go away.
Eating. A true highlight of these adventures.
Earlier in the day I asked for and got restaurant recommendations from the National Car Rental representative and the Eurocar rep. O.K., maybe not the most qualified restaurant critics. Somewhat surprisingly, and independently, they both came up with the same place. The eatery was called the Las Pichanchas restaurant.
Ever eaten these choices?
After the races, I stopped at the restaurant. What a beautiful experience. This was a Fiesta-style Mexican restaurant in a nondescript location in downtown Tuxtla Gutierrez. The food on the menu, despite being a “Mexican restaurant” was not much like anything I had seen before. I had three appetizers, two desserts, and three drinks.
Butifarra – Pork sausage with peppers.
Jacuané – Slices of fried tamale
Fried slices of cheese served with guacamole
Vanilla ice cream with chimbo candy
Cheese pie (similar to cheesecake)
A margarita and two Coke Zeros
Great service and all for $37 U.S. The rental car guys knew what they were talking about when they recommended this place.
Ever bought gas in Mexico?
From the restaurant, I needed to fill the car with gas and return the car.
In Mexico, the gas station attendants provide full service and they take credit cards.
Gas was about 24.5 pesos per liter. Right now, one U.S. dollar buys about 17 Mexican pesos. Continuing with our math lesson this tells us the price of fuel was about $1.44 U.S. per liter or about $5.47 U.S. per gallon.
The price of fuel all around the world including the U.S. is pretty much dependent on the price of a barrel of Brent Crude Oil that currently sells for $87.57. A month after Covid began in 2020 the Brent Crude Oil world price was $32.18. That’s a 172% increase in roughly four years. The astute reader will find gasoline prices up somewhere around that amount in every major industrialized country in the world. Now is a good time to be driving an electric car!
This was the most tension-filled part of the trip.
However, I was not driving an EV today. I was driving a very well-used Toyota Corolla rental car. When I returned to Eurocar not only was the guy who checked me out waiting for me…but both he and his boss were at the ready. The two of them took a FULL FIFTEEN MINUTES each with an iPad taking closeup photos of nearly every square inch of the little Toyota.
They raised the hood. They took close-up pictures of the engine. They opened the trunk and lifted the trunk’s carpeting. When they were convinced I hadn’t stolen the spare tire they closed the trunk. I am not exaggerating. These guys took their time. Fifteen minutes. Folks, I couldn’t pay people to pose for photos like this!
I couldn’t resist making this comment to the boss man. “You gave me this car with 100 dents and dings. If I added one more how could you find it?” I’m not sure he both understood and appreciated my sarcasm. The longer they took the stronger I built up my mental defenses. If they thought they were going to get one penny of my twenty thousand dollar deposit they were sadly mistaken. When they were finished the leader came over and said, “We didn’t find anything. You’re good to go” or something to that effect.
Zinger!
I couldn’t resist one more zinger. I told the guy this, “I’ve rented well over 2,000 cars in my life. I have never in all that time seen an inspection that was anything like what you just did. What a way to treat a customer when you gave me such a POS, to begin with, that didn’t even have a charging connection for my phone”. I think he might have been embarrassed. His only reply was, “The other guy is brand new. He just started last week. I wanted to set a good example for him”. Why me?
Then, after I had now waited nearly 30 minutes to get my car completely checked in, another car pulled into this lonely outpost to be returned. I had to sit in the van while the laborious return process was again completed. Finally, the four young occupants joined me in the van, and off we went to the airport.
This was a fun people encounter.
These guys were wearing racing gear. I struck up a conversation. Soon I learned that a couple of these guys had driven in the big race today. One, Andrés Perez de Lara had led the entire event until a last-lap caution caused a restart. From that point, he was shuffled back to an 8th-place finish. He was disappointed as you might expect.
These young people were interested when I told them about my trackchasing world travel hobby. Once back at the airport, we all had a four-hour wait until our late-night flights took off to Mexico City and other places. It seemed as if all of the racing people were hanging out at the Carl’s Jr. in the airport. Carl’s Jr. is seen more frequently than McDonald’s in these parts.
Hola Andrés.
Andrés came over to my table to say hello. Although a Mexican national, his driving talent has attracted the interest of the NASCAR series in the U.S. At just nineteen years of age, he has already driven in the ARCA stock car series in the states and will be driving in the NASCAR truck series. If you know much about racing that’s impressive. Andrés brought me one of his sponsor hats, autographed it, and gave it to me. What a nice young man. He has gained a fan for life in me. When I got home I mailed him one of my trackchasing souvenir t-shirts.
One last element of drama.
The drama from today’s play had one more act. I told you I left my valuables back in the hotel safe in Mexico City. When I’m out touring in a foreign city I usually leave my passport back at the hotel. It’s just that in those circumstances I am not flying anywhere. This morning I simply showed my driver’s license when flying domestically on AeroMexico. The key word is “domestically”.
Tonight, when I went to check in for my flight with Mexico’s Viva Aerobus airline I got scared. The passenger checking in ahead of me first showed his driver’s license and then was asked for his passport. Oh my. I didn’t have my passport with me. If they required that and I didn’t have my passport and this was the last flight of the day (which it was) and I couldn’t get back to my hotel tonight in Mexico City then I probably couldn’t catch my flight tomorrow to Los Angeles. Oh my. Is it just me? How do I get myself into these situations?
On the other hand, what if I did have my passport with me today and then got mugged and lost my passport…O.K. I never really think like that but you know what I mean. I confidently offered up my driver’s license, gave the agent a big smile and he let me pass. Wow. I think I will bring my passport even on domestic flights next time.
Yes, I guess this was a long day.
Today had been a long day. My wake-up call came at 3:30 a.m. in Mexico City. Now my 10:30 p.m. flight from Tuxtla Gutierrez didn’t land until after midnight. When we landed they didn’t have a gate for our plane. We waited. Then they brought a bus to take us from the plane to the terminal. That is a common practice in foreign countries. Luckily, I don’t see much of that in the states. Then it was an Uber ride from the Mexico City airport to the Hyatt Regency. I was glad I had booked the 2 p.m. flight for tomorrow. I would sleep in.
Monday, April 15.
This fellow was 100% correct.
A friend recently said, “You don’t travel for the travel you travel for the story”. I agree 100%. Doesn’t just about everybody travel for the story? Remember, it’s about the journey and not the destination.
As I am sure you have guessed by now my “racing” hobby is really a “story” hobby. Think about when you travel. Let’s say you’re going from Los Angeles to Detroit. The actual physical movement from one place to the other isn’t the value of the trip. It’s what happens getting from point A to point B and/or what happens at point B that makes your trip. It’s the people and the sites and all of the downright unusual things that you never expected to happen that create the story. It is a 100% factual statement to say I’m in this for the drama of the journey more than anything else.
Hey dad. You up for this?
Today, I landed on the tarmac at LAX at 4:30 p.m. No sooner than I had touched down I got a text message from our son J.J. asking if I wanted to go to the Los Angeles Dodgers game tonight. The game’s first pitch would be at 7:10 p.m. The game was starting in less than three hours. I was still on the airplane.
Did I want to go? Of course. I ALWAYS want to go. If you called me and said, “If you can be ready in 10 minutes for a trip to London I’ll pick you up in your driveway. If you can’t meet that 10-minute deadline you can’t go on the trip. Do you want to go?” Of course. I ALWAYS want to go.
I had landed at 4:30 p.m. It took some time to get off the plane. Then I had to clear customs. Next, I had to walk one mile to where my car was parked and along the way pick up the toll transponder from J.J.’s car that was parked at the airport. This stuff runs in the family!
J.J. bought the seats to the game tonight. We were right behind home plate. April 15 is “Jackie Robinson Night” at every Major League Ballpark in the major leagues. Every player on this day wears #42 in honor of Jackie Robinson the major league’s first African American ball player. We had a wonderful father/son outing.
When I got home Carol asked me if it was confusing that every player wore #42. I had never given that any thought. I told her that once the public address announcer got the hang of saying every player was #42 his life became a lot simpler.
Just two nights; four planes and my share of drama.
I had only been gone for two nights on this trip. I had flown on four airplanes. I traveled a good deal in business during my 30 years of working. I have traveled a good deal in 23 years of retirement. I estimate I have flown on an average of three airplanes every week, every year since I was 23 years old. Uniquely, I didn’t fly on my first plane until I was twenty-one.
On that trip, I was going out to Montana to see a race (imagine that!) and to visit my girlfriend at the time who lived in Wyoming. That girl was a library girl as well. Two library girls? No, just one…the same one. Now I’ve been married to that same gal for 52 years and I’m still going to those dang races!
Looking ahead.
What does my immediate travel future look like. Getting back from Mexico City happened on a Monday. Carol and I head off on Thursday for another international adventure to Panama. We’ll return the following Monday. Then I fly on Tuesday (to Japan), Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Wednesday. Once I’m back in the U.S. it’s on to the airport for flights on Friday and Monday and so it goes.
I never get tired of traveling. There’s so much to see and experience. If I ever do get weary of traveling I will stop. Someday I won’t be able to do this. When that time comes I will happily and accurately be able to say “I didn’t miss out on much. I was a road warrior and truly did love every minute of it”.
