Another long day of driving. We left the beach camp at 9AM in order to make some progress toward Oaxaca. We were still another 12 hours from arriving there and wanted to get most of it done today. The drive was beautiful on the winding roads. We average about 60 kph between cities and about 15 kph through the cities. The topos have been replaced with “restrictor” signs, which I have to say are much better labeled. They are still speed bumps, but at least they are not hidden. I did hit one road hazard today and had to replace one of the eye bolts again, but at least I did not lose the tie-down.
In Acapulco there are tons of old VW bugs in every state of repair. Many are used as Taxis, which must be fun getting in and out. As we drove further south some of the cities use these little three-wheeled jobbies to cart people around. There were several hundred of these things in the smaller towns. The tires are smaller than ones on a wheel barrow and apparently they are pretty stable as they whip in and out of traffic without tipping (much).
We managed a total of 162 miles today and made it almost to Puerto Escondido. I was going to head into the city, but there are tons of sketchy ratings on the campgrounds in and around there, so we opted to stay at this little hotel/campground on the shore of an inland lagoon. The owner was pretty nice and we were able to plug in.
Last night we burned through the battery trying to keep the camper cool enough to sleep. It’s one of those things… need power to run AC, but batteries need to be HUGE to manage that level of comfort. And with HUGE batteries, we need longer time to charge. We were moving 9 hours yesterday and when we got to camp we were only at 85% charged. I have a 50A DC/DC charger, but adding 80% power back into the battery was not possible. I think it is only charging 25A per hour. And last night with power plugged in, I felt the AC/DC charger was almost too hot to touch, so I unplugged it. Cannot have that thing fail on me and burn something up. I think I need two banks of batteries with two separate chargers. The living space can handle 400AH, as we generally only drop to 70% overnight (100AH usage). The AC needs more power, but I need to figure out a better system for charging. Or we just have quit with the cushy living. LOL.
We got a call last night that has us possibly changing our plans. My mom fell and hit her head pretty bad and had to be sent to Tucson by helicopter to monitor possible bleeding. We are waiting for word from my brother on here status this morning. She has been stressing about my dad coming home after an 8 week stay in a rehab center trying to get him to be able to walk and operate somewhat normally. With both of them out of commission, we may be turning around and heading north in the next few days. Maps shows it to be a 33 hour drive back, which is 3-4 days. We will update more tomorrow when we get to Oaxaca, which we can pick one of three main routes back. We will keep you updated.
Here is a path of our travels today.
