On the Road

The plan was that on Friday Alejandro and I should leave on our road trip to San Miguel de Allende at noon.  That way we would avoid Mexico City rush hour and arrive in San Miguel around 4 P.M.  However, I knew that was wishful thinking.  

I was up as usual around 6 A.M.  I had breakfast, washed dishes, took a shower, and got dressed.  By 10 o'clock I was on the Metrobus to go to Alejandro's family's house.  It takes an hour to get there, transferring from one line to another, but fortunately I had a seat most of the way.  I arrived at the house shortly after 11.  Alejandro still works from home, and he had been busy all morning working on the computer.  He was just finishing when I arrived.  He still had not fixed breakfast for himself and his father.  So, I had a cup of coffee with them while they ate.  I washed the breakfast dishes while Alejandro showered and got dressed.  I thought to myself, "OK.  We are only an hour behind schedule.  That's not too bad."  But then Alejandro got a message from one of his bosses.  He had to go back on the computer and do some more work.  I sat and read my book.  (I got to the chapter in "Roots" where Kunte Kinte is captured by slave traders.)  Finally, he was finished, and we packed our luggage into the car.  First we had to go to the gas station and fill up the tank.  It was almost 3 before we really got on the road.

We took a nearby avenue called "Gran Canal" which heads north out of the city and connects with the highway heading northwest.  "Gran Canal" was an appropriate name because the road was partially flooded from the previous night's rain.

Then we reached a point where the traffic was at a standstill.  I don't know if there was an accident or worse flooding ahead, but we had to turn off of "Gran Canal".  We zig-zagged our way through congested city streets. I had no idea where we were going, but fortunately Alejandro did.  At last, we reached a highway heading out of the city.  We had crossed the city limits and were now in Ecatepec, a "suburb" of the Mexico City metropolitan area with a population of 1.6 million.  You can see the slum neighborhoods which climb the hillsides of Ecatepec.

Finally we left the Mexico City metropolitan area behind and were on Federal Highway 57D, a toll road which heads northwest to the city of Querétaro.  (In fact, the highway continues on all the way to the U.S. border.)  The Mexico City - Querétaro section of the route is the third oldest toll road in the country.

It was not clear sailing all the way, however.  57D is heavily traveled, and there would be times when traffic would slow to a crawl especially when approaching a toll booth.  (We had to pass through five toll booths on our journey because different portions of the road are under different jurisdictions.)

Along the way we hit a stretch of rain which slowed us down.

Fortunately, the rain did not last too long.  Before reaching Querétaro, the GPS told us to exit onto a different highway, one heading west toward the cities of Celaya and Irapuato.  The traffic was much lighter and the rural scenery more appealing.

The area became more developed and the traffic heavier as we approached the outskirts of Celaya, an industrial city with a population of over 300,000.  Sadly, the city is also one of Mexico's most dangerous cities due to the drug cartels. We exited that highway at the edge of Celaya and took a two-lane road that heads north to San Miguel de Allende through rural landscape.

  

Before night had fallen. we reached the outskirts of San Miguel.  Shortly after 7 P.M. we arrived at our hotel.