When we go on vacations many of us rent cars when we get to our destination city. Rarely do we regret that decision. But if you do it in a foreign country, you may not realize what you got yourself into. And when I say “you”, I mean me in Mexico this past week. “I’ve been driving for decades. It’s just regular driving.” The first setback was procuring the rental car in a foreign country.
Yes, I know some of you are thinking that Mexico isn’t really a foreign country because it’s connected to the United States and we can drive to Mexico from anywhere in the States. Try going to Mexico and don’t stay in a resort area. Find an AirBnB in the middle of a Mexican town where only 2/3 of the people speak a language that you don’t. Pretty quickly you feel like an out of place foreigner.
That’s a real Mexican road sign. So, I needed a drive from a Mexican port to a small beach town most people haven’t heard of. Then a few days after that I was going to have to get myself to the airport. So, at the port, I found a trusty Hertz Rental car and paid one billion pesos for the car rental and ten pesos just to be able to use the rest room right after I got off the boat. I didn’t have ten pesos on me, so I had to borrow it from the Hertz guy. That’s a little humbling.
Fortunately for me this Herzt location had their cars parked over a half mile away. Yay, free steps for me. Also fortunately, it wasn’t raining and it was only 87 degrees. I took a video of all the way around my vehicle and hopped in. I was happy as a clam for about 50 yards. Then I realized that I was in charge of a 3000 pound vehicle in a country where I didn’t understand any of the road signs except for stop. I also very quickly realized that the Mexican’s had made the foolish mistake of putting out their road signs in Spanish without considering that I might want to drive there.
I was able to plug in my destination in my phone. Unfortunately, my phone was on the side of the Mexican road signage because it immediately gave me the speed limit in kilometers. In the States I’m used to driving 65-70 mph on the highways, but in Mexico and in kilometers, I was going 80 kilometers/hour and was getting passed by everyone. Then about 3 minutes after I got on the highway, I saw a cop car about three cars back who just turn his red lights on. Of course my mind immediately told me that he was obviously going to pull me over and take me away to a Mexican prison. I tried to stay calm and employed the only gringo driving trick I knew.
I slowed down to 60 kilometers/hour, hoping that the cop and everyone would just write me off as a scared foreigner and be glad to pass me easily. And it worked! Eventually the cop passed me and I eventually got safely to my destination. You can bet I was white knuckling it all the way.
It was uncomfortable, but not truly awful. I can’t even imagine trying to drive in a country where they dive on the left side? Chances are though that if you keep reading my travels, I just might end up in that predicament. Try to be a better planner than me and you should be just fine!
Thanks for reading! ~Phil
