The Vehicle Travails Continue

Chuck Shawver and I continue to travel the mountain roads of Chiapas.

I am amazed at how bad the roads are right now. It is always difficult to maintain dirt roads in mountainous areas. The water naturally flows down the road, washing out many areas. This year the roads seem to be worse than I have seen them in the four years I have been coming to Chiapas. At one point yesterday, we had to creep along at less than 5 mph.

It doesn't help that we feel like we are nursing the vehicles along. Chuck is still not confident enough in the repairs to his pickup to take it out on these journeys. Therefore, we are taking the Seminary pickup which is a Chevrolet Colorado. They just had the engine rebuilt in it before I came to Mexico and it from near Puebla to San Cristobal. We had the oil changed on Monday, but today, the mechanic said that it was 2 quarts low. (Ok. He said it was a liter low.) It was also low on transmission fluid. Ugh. But, as soon as it gets back from the mechanic, we will be off to the Ocosingo region again.

One funny story about the roads. Their is one section of the road that had experienced a mud slide at some time. There is still mud coming down the hill and across the road, but not as much. Normally, this section has trouble with water, but not mud. We asked in La Ceiba about this section. The locals believe that their is a hog at the top of the hill who is rooting around in all the mud and sending it down the hill. I almost ask Chuck to stop so that I could hike up and see this amazing hog.

The church in La Ceiba is doing well. They have done quite a bit of work since we left in June. Right  now they are on hold. The cannot get supplies into the work site because the roads are so bad. They would love for us to bring another group down. The options now are April, early June, and late July.

Well I need to get ready to hop back in the Chevy for another day of driving.

By the way, I heard from Chris this morning. In Falcon, it is two degrees and they have a couple inches of snow on the ground. Suddenly, San Cristobal doesn't seem so cold.