Lawn Management

Tampico to Costa de Esmeralda. Today's trip is 141 miles. When you buy Diesel you must be sure the pump is turned back to zero before you let the attendant pump. We dry camped behind a beautiful Hotel last night with an acre of grass surrounding a pool with wonderful flowers. We had a social hour and meeting in their palapa with tiled floor and thatched roof.
At 8 a.m., Cecil, our wagonmaster says 'we go now'. Long trip through Tampico at rush hour sharing the road with donkey and cart, school children, cars and pedestrians. It's a fishing village with a population of 75,000. Through town the light is green, then flashes green which is our amber and red for stop. We finally stopped enough traffic that 2 police cars appeared and escorted us through town - took an hour. Went through our first toll booth, 410 pesos, about $4.10. The 4 toll roads and 1 bridge today coast 1580 pesos. Some of the toll roads are worse than the others. We're following the coast now and saw on floating oil rig, shipyard, fabrication shop - nothing like Bors. We pass the 'Mexican lawnmowers' on the roadside - lawn management is accomplished by herds of goats, single horse,cow or donkeys, a man with a machete and only once one with a weed eater.