Part the 6th : In which the Famous Five become politicos for a day.
Remember
Ivonne? June 7th is the regional election day for Nuevo Leon and this is a
Big Deal. The main players are the PRI (more liberal, who ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century) and the PAN (more traditional, who are the party of Vicente Fox & Calderon). They take their elections very seriously around these parts and Ivonne's face could be seen on almost every fence, wall and car window from the largest towns to the remotest villages. Not a bad face to have staring at you admittedly and I'm hoping she'll consider a run for the Texas Governor's seat soon.
Why is all this important? Stay tuned...
Day 2 sadly lacked the appearance of Taco Boy. So after coffee we decided on some Southerly routes and rode the paved twisties to Iturbide where breakfast was served.
Huevos rancheros, eggs were farm fresh, hopefully not the same chickens as yesterday though.
Breakfast successfully put to rest, we hit the dirt heading South under threatening clouds. Neither the goats or Ivonne seemed to be dissuaded by the weather so neither were we.
Traffic jam? Out here? Yes, in Camarones we'd stumbled across a PAN rally packed with more people and vehicles than these deserted hills could possibly have produced. After some serious negotiations from our resident speaker de Espanol it was decided that we could first pass through, then actually participate in the festivities.
The locals were friendly...
...naturally dmux was busy winning the hearts and minds of the people...
...and I was questioned by the local PAN leader's husband and since their candidate and I shared the same name all was smiles and happiness.
La musica blared, speeches were made and the dancing commenced. They certainly know how a good time is put together at these rallies!
With much fanfare "los motos" departed, however this was not the last we were to see of the PAN supporters! We continued South through forested and somewhat muddy trails (it had rained hard the previous night) to Santa Inez. Deserted, because, well everyone was at the PAN rally weren't they.
At this point the road turns North again and we headed up towards Buena Vista, stopping on the way to admire the BEST CAMPSITE EVER! Which I guess is why it's called Buena Vista?
Stalefish caught the kids heading to school.
Pretty soon we started meeting the folks heading home from the rally. Whole families in trucks, waving & laughing, all politely pulling over to let us by. On the steepest hill we met a line held up behind an overheated Ford. Luckily Los Motos are always prepared and we dived in with mucho agua and mucho advice in a language they couldn't understand. A good time was had by all, the truck was resuscitated and we were off.
Today was water crossing day. We'd met a few along the way but this one caused much merriment for the politicos and us combined.
How it's really done.
We rode through the late afternoon sunshine into a flooded Galeana (we'd again missed all the bad weather) and nearly fought a fierce battle in the streets for the Last Mole in Town. I won by playing the race card (English you know).
We finished the day with homemade Tequilla Ice Cream which was as delicious as it sounds.