A THOUSAND HOT HAIR DRYERS

melting, in Isla Aguada

So let us throw up some numbers out there for you.  Try 38 degrees Celsius with 62% humidity, that gives you a real feel temperature of 55 degrees Celsius.  Heat stroke probable, this is what the Canadian humidex calculator says.  Thats what we are living in.  We are hot.  We are sticky.  We are melting, all the time.

making coffee on the fender on the gulf

We needed to get the oil changed.  It actually wasn't due for another thousand kilometers but given the extreme temperatures the oil had thinned out so much that it started leaking out of the valve cover gasket.  Everywhere we stopped the truck marked its territory.  So we were in small town Isla Aguada and asked the hotel staff for the nearest mechanic and they gave us directions that we barely understood.  We found a house that had vehicles strewn throughout the property so we thought that must be the place.  Justin went over to the guy with the most grease across his big belly and started the charades on how to obtain some diesel engine oil.  For some reason, we got back in our vehicle and started to follow him in his to another house.  The guy started honking at the house and a women stepped out, shook her head and the the big belly man started to speak in rapid spanish, he shook his head and looked at Justin, said something angrily, hopped in his car and speeded off, leaving us in the dust - and lost.  "WTF just happened," we thought.  We believe he wanted the work and appeared angry at us because Justin kept pointing at himself and saying, "el mechanico," and the guy kept pointing at himself saying, "el mechanico."
So, we went on our way and figured we would get it done in a bigger town down the road.  We were randomly driving around checking it out when big belly man found us and started honking.  We have to say at this point this guy was a little intimidating.  So Justin got out, walked up to the car and out popped a man with a Tennessee accent.  "Hows it going, I hear you're looking for a diesel mechanic."  Big belly man had found us an interpreter and a diesel mechanic.  So after some chit-chat, we knew we had to source oil from a bigger town up the road.  In the end everybody was friends and parted ways.  Justin hummed and hawed and pulled out his coveted Autozone oil from Manzanillo went over to big belly mans house, rented a bucket and changed the oil on the street.  The Land Rover now runs with 25w60 engine oil.  The lesson we have learned from this is - we need to learn spanish.

The next day we drove to the city of Campeche where we spent the next three days.  We found a great hotel in the colonial district.

our hotel, Lopez

We loved the city.  The people were really nice, lots to see and do.  We spent most of our time wondering the streets and going to museums to escape the heat.  We had planned on visiting many ruins outside of the city but the heat held us back.  We did all of our sight seeing early in the morning and late at night, it was literally impossible to be out in the afternoon.

This area is so clean, they had garbage pick up twice a day and a small army of sweepers cleaning the streets.  The building are all pastel colored and instead of all the tile work we saw in Puebla the buildings here all have decorative concrete mouldings and metal work.  The streets are narrow and cobblestoned.  

the cathedral

above the square

We went to many museums and learnt about pirate attacks and the wall that was built around the city.

And last but not least, Justin got his haircut, by a man who had great chops.......