End of the Beginning

Melanie and I checked out of Don and Lynda's casita this morning for the start of our journey home, a temporary end to a new beginning. We have decided to throw a Mexican wedding, so, in addition to starting a search for Mariachis, we decided at the last minute to go on a piñata hunt.

We got lucky almost immediately. After walking about town and asking a few mangled Spanish questions, we arrived at two his-and-hers piñatas (tiara included), which were very funny and just about perfect, except they were small and kind of chessy-looking. We purchased them with great glee, got the bank machine to cough up some more pesos, bought gas at a buck-20 a litre and off we flew with sandwiches from Tango leftovers, hard-boiled eggs in a cooler bag, chilled water and tonic. A perfect road trip.

Outside San Luis Potosi, Melanie suddenly exclaimed: "Piñatas!" on the opposite side of the divided highway. We found a Retourno about 3 kms down and went back, where we bought a fabulous star-shaped piñata that barely fit in the car. I can hardly wait for tomorrow when the US border patrol asks what's inside them and sends them all through the x-ray machine. More on that in 24 hours.

After that, through the beautiful mountains and onto the Monterrey bypass, a city I have already explained I never want to visit again. Sandra, Melanie's wonderful TomTom GPS device sadly knows nothing of this, so she guides us off the toll road and back into the heart of the city to where she thinks the hotel is located, and where there has been a major accident. (She does warn you at time of programming that some information may be incomplete.)

After 3 hotels that are full due to a University student sports tournament (this is a Monday), we manage to get to the Airport Hampton by Hilton, which immediately fails to meet expectations, details of which will have to be read in a separate Trip Advisor review.

For a while we thought we night have to sleep in the car. But the car doesn't have Wifi.