Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

We are on the five hour ferry to the Mexican mainland now. It reminds me of the Channel ferries- it isn't a RORO, but it is a big ship, not an open ferry like the Washington ferries. We had to arrive about 3 hours before the ferry left. We watched them load a large number of trucks- imagine backing up a normal semi truck onto a large ferry. They would unhitch the double-length trucks, but the singles were all backed on. The non-articulated trucks (like a large UHaul van) drove on normally.

After loading most of the cars, the bikes were put on. We went up one ramp, into the belly, and down a floor. The hold was large enough for about 40 cars. There were about 8 cars and 4 bikes. They had us snug in next to a car, I used my BMW straps to secure the bike, and then we locked up all of our gear.

The ferry costs about 1900P ($170). About a third is for the bike, then the remaining thirds are for the passenger tickets. Not bad- especially when you consider that a motorhome would be well over $500 USD, not counting passengers.

We are just sitting in the salon (airplane style seats, versus a private cabin). The latter is fairly expensive, especially for a voyage that isn't overnight. The kids and families are pretty cute to watch- except for the one kid that was punching everybody's seat. I yelled pretty sternly at him, and he has been leaving everyone alone since then.

We were originally planning on going on Monday to Mazatlan, but we decided to go a day earlier to Topolobampo because (a) the Mazatlan ferry isn't in service, and (b) we are tired of being in La Paz. We were there for about 10 days. It's a warm place to be this time of year, and there isn't *that* much that interests us.

Tonight we'll stay in Topolobampo or in the nearby city, then we'll head down towards Durango and Zacatecas on Monday. We've been told to be especially aware of things around Durango, because it is a fairly desolate highway used by drug smugglers, but it'll be okay- we'll be there during the day, which is safe.