El Taxi Perdido's Blog

Some of you have commented that you don’t know everyone on our rag tag little team. Well here they are in no particular order. Good sports, all and making a great time of it. Well, in no particular order, there’s “Bill “Memo” Merz. Memo is short for Giermo, which is how you say William in Spanish. Bill is the Assistant Wrench and Head Hauler. He\’s also a gentle giant with a real knack for putting us all in our place when the need arises. Then there’s Peter Lambert, the world’s fastest smoker and all around good guy. A collector of cars, Peter is like a kid in a candy store down here. He’s also the owner of our support vehicle and a generous soul to let us use it and share his company. Moving all the list, there’s Conrad (under Taxi). He’s the main man. My co-driver and builder of dream machines. He’s the reason we’re going to kick some butt on this adventure. Master mechanic, restoration specialist and extremely capable driver, Conrad does it all. And most of it from underneath the car. On the cuter side there’s, Christine (shown here wearing traditional Arch Angel head dress). She’s the mother hen of the group and a damn good one at that. Translator, logistics maven, wife, welder, and story teller supreme. And finally, yours truly. Author of this waste of pixels and organizer of this misadventure. I’m also the driver that’s sure to put the ‘perdido’ in El Taxi Perdido’s name.

Now, making fun of Mexican law enforcement or the lack thereof, is easy. But it’s also unfair. This country is undergoing a horrible epidemic of drug and gang related violence, not to mention a rather valid H1N1 scare. But the keepers of the peace have taken time out of their drug war to escort us from one end of their lovely country to the other. They’re everywhere this week! I’ve haven’t seen so many guns since…well, I’ve never seen so many guns. And almost without exception, these guys walk around with their fingers on the trigger. That may just be posturing, but you wouldn’t want to sneak up on one of these law enforcers. But not all of them are stone jawed. A few are more than happy to say hello and even pose for a pix or two.

[gallery][caption id="attachment_162" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="He showed us how to pass a Mexican road side sobriety test."][/caption]

Every car that runs the La Carrera must pass a thorough tech and safety inspection. It’s a pain in the ass but a very good idea given the velocity of this race and the duration. They check everything from seatbelt date of manufacture to how thick your rollbar tubing is, to whether or not your horn works (ours does).
We arrived at tech around 6pm and they close at 7. We’re the last car teched and we sort of passed. I say sort of because we forgot our stickers for the side of the car. The ones that say our names and blood types. Nothing a Sharpie can’t fix. A little fine penmanship and we’re good to go.

Another day, another 600km. And more beautiful scenery including agave fields and more race cars in our hotel parking lot as we arrive. Yes, that’s our car on the left and yes it’s jacked up in the back. We’re working on it. A few last minute adjustments. Like seatbelts. Duh.

I have to take a second and mention some great new friends we’ve met. Paul and Darrell are buddies from Sacramento and this is their second La Carrera. Their car is an amazing 356 Porsche. Paul and Darrell and Paul’s wife Nancy have taken us under the wing and are schooling us each night on the finer points of rally racing. Seriously, you can spend a whole lot of money and come a long, long way to do this race only to mess up and make a wrong turn and ruin the day and your chances for a succesful, competitive finish. Paul and Darrel have made all the mistakes back in 07 and their back with a vengence, older and wiser. And their sharing with us so we might not make the too many rookie mistakes. They are great and we’re grateful. Thanks guys!

Up at 7am and load up the rig. A quick breakfast and we’re on our way out of town. So long to San Miguel de Allede, a beautiful town!

We’re heading to Oaxaca today. About an eight hour drive and it starts with some very dense fog and a rural, Mexican monday morning rush hour. Lots of kids in catholic school uniforms, tractors heading to and from the fields, lost dogs, wandering buses and the occasional armored personel carrier. Yes, the military, or paramilitary are everywhere. I feel rather safe, I must admit. But I guess it’s all relative. I feel safe now, compared to Friday morning when I’ll be fling a little Italian shit box around canyon road with no real clue where I’m going. Except for Conrad’s expert navigation, of course. And we got a taste for that today as he steered us out of town. Not bad actually. Really pretty good. Even with the four back seat drivers barking orders and opinions. Yes, the interpersonal dynamics of five adults in a Range Rover for eight hours a day are starting to manifest themselves. There’s a lot of commentary on everything from one’s choice of reading material to one’s choice of snack. There’s the aforementioned Conrad, navigator for the day and all around optimist. Peter the fastest smoker on earth. The poor guy has to have a cig everytime we stop and he only gets about 1 minute to finish them each time. He’s a fast inhaler. That can’t be relaxing. Then there’s big Bill Mertz who knows way too much about the puesdo celebs in US magazine. And of course, the lovely Christine, who due to her size is doomed to sit in the middle seat for at least another 1000 miles. Oh, and I can’t forget to comment on myself. I’m certainly showing my cranky side, cramped in the back seat tring to fight of car sickeness. I’ve got the wrist bands going, the ginger gum and the pills. Nothings working and I might just have to demonstate for my car mates that I’m not kidding. They think I’m just manuvering for the front seat. I’m about to prove them wrong. Gotta go!