No Problem.

 

12-12-12

What a cool date, but what a challenging day!

First official day of the Rally and we're supposed to meet up outside of town somewhere for a convoy into the center of town and the official beginning of the rally. Meet at the Applebees next to the Holiday Inn on the road into town. Sounds simple enough...

My sense of direction (or lack thereof) isn't helped by the confusion designed into the roads and tunnels of Guanajuato. Google Maps has been my friend for a long time in unfamiliar areas, although it sometimes takes me on what I refer to as the scenic route. Several of us leave the campsite almost on time, I plan on being last as I usually am but plug Holiday Inn into my phone just to see if they lead me on the same route as google would. Theres one on the map not far away so I figure that must be it and choose it.

The first bit of confusion is a guy at the entrance waving us all uphill because his delivery truck is blocking the route downhill that we normally take and are familiar with. The next intersection our convoy is stopped and/or turning around, seems like they're not sure where they're going. This is the way I originally came in, I'm a little familiar with it. And my gps says go this way anyways. I've got GPS, follow me! I'm now in the lead, and we make our way across town. At some point in traffic Scott winds up in the lead, no problem. A few minutes later another rally member passes everyone and stops us, directing us to another route. Gps reroutes and seems this path works also, No Problem! That person drops back and lets Scott continue to lead. A short while later we see another rally member, a local, heading a different direction. Well thats odd, I wonder where he's going? Oh well, I'm sure we'll see him at the start. We meander up some side roads, Eddie and myself are the only ones in radio communication at the time. He asks me if we're going the right way, I tell him google says so, Scott has been staying on the right track. Eventually we stop and the route takes a sharp turn up an alleyway. Everyones a bit confused at this point, this doesn't really sound like the directions we were told before departing. At this point we're down to about 4 vehicles, the others have all taken different routes.

I look at my GPS and is indicates we're only about a kilometer from the Holiday Inn. As I've experienced before, sometimes Google takes you to the back door or side street, I figure we're just going the back way so I charge ahead to figure it out, telling everyone else to chill for a minute. I quickly realize google has us on a terrible route, and the road diminishes to little more than a footpath. Cara suggests turning around, but I know we're close to our destination and urge Donkey on, we bounce along happily on an overgrown dirt track. We eventually are deposited back onto pavement but find our path hindered by low hanging christmas decorations. I climb out and remove Donkey's CB antennae to provide clearance and make our way to the end of the route.


Huh. This isn't a Holiday Inn at all. I look at my GPS and choose a random road that I hope will return us to a major road. I call for Eddie on the CB, no response...
For some reason I've already forgoten that I unhooked my CB antenae. Well, Holiday Inn was a bust, Applebees will work. I punch it into Google and pick the closest one. It's not to far, I'll just meet everyone there. We head off. He look, thats the intersection we were at before. We've been in circles many times since arriving in Guanajuato, both with Donkey and on foot.  15 minutes later we've decided that theres no way we're in the right place, we're way up the mountain on some more tiny roads. Heck with this, we're on a goose chase and now 30 minutes late.I picked a point on a known highway towards Leon and we take off, trying to find where we're supposed to be.

15 minutes later, as we're getting to the highway, we see Applebees! It's across the highway so We have to go a couple miles up the road to turn around. Whew! Everyone's gone already, but at least we're here. Dang. We won't be leaving the group again, not in this town. I try (unsuccessfully) to contact Eddie both via CB and phone. Wait a minute, I need an Antennae! OK, fixed that, still no contact. Scott texts me and tells me where they are. OK, cool, lets head out. Google says we're 15 minutes away. We make it into town and are directed into a tunnel (you can't get anywhere in Guanajuato without using the tunnels). A little ways into the tunnel we loose GPS, we'll get it back on the other side. No problem.

Uh oh, an intersection. In the tunnel. It appears to be one way, we'll go right. The GPS indicates we should go left. Oh well, it'll fix us on the other end. We come to another intersection. WAG, (Wild A$$ Guess), go left.
We pop out the other side. Dang, we're on the wrong side of the mountain. We eventually wind up at the same roundabout again. Jeez, that tunnel screwed us twice. OK, I'm goin that way, no problem... we'll figure this out without using tunnels.

BIG mistake. Following Google, we manage to get ourselves over the mountain, but find ourselves driving down what amounts to a sidewalk. Donkey barely fits, we have both mirrors folded in and are scrubbing tires on curbs almost constantly. I've got a terrible suspicion that we're eventually going to get to a crossing we can't get through, and I can't see backing out of this mess. Theres no way we could get out through the front doors for quite a while, it's simply too narrow. I wish I had taken some pictures but I was panicing at this point. Eventually I start seeing cars parked on the road again, whew. If they're here there must be a way back onto a real street, but I don't know where it is. Many, many, wrong turns and one ways later, we make it out onto a real street. Whew! Enough of this, Cara jumps in a taxi and leaves me. Uh, I mean the taxi leads me to where we are supposed to be. Yeah!!  We can actually see the vehicles lined up!

A Policia recognizes our stickers and attempts to help us. The communication barrier strikes again, and neither one of us can understand anything. He gets on his radio and a minute later a guy on a moped shows up who speaks english. Another guy who doesn't speak english gets in the van and starts pointing. To make it a block west requires three tunnels and about 4 kilometers of roads, but we eventually make it there.

We're just in time for the official start, but our adventure is already well underway!!

They pack them in!

This is actually big compared to the ones we almost got stuck on.