R&R in Acapulco - Que Bonito

Its been an interesting week. We had to drive through the city of Morelia twice. Morelia was a town we wanted to avoid based on reports from fellow travelers. It is the headquarters of the La Familia Drug Cartel and a couple weeks ago the cartel apparently closed all the roads in and out of the town. We really wanted to go to Patzcuaro and the Butterfly sanctuary and we both had an OK feeling, so we decided to bust through it. Despite seeing one dead person on the side of the road, we had no problems. But it was by far the heaviest military presence we've seen.  Helicopters, armored vehicles, check points, the works. Then we got super lost trying to drive past the city of Toluca. We tried to go around it, but ended up in the center. There were of course no road/street signs anywhere, so we relied completely on communication with locals to get us out. Thank god Stevie is smart and knows how to speak spanish. Kiki and I would have been permanent residents without her. Ok, ok, Kiki probably would have made it out. I would have been a permanent resident.

We were both feeling spent, so we decided to leave the interior of Mexico and head back to the coast. This meant aborting our trip to Mexico City, which Stevie was really really looking forward to. But both our intuitions were saying to leave, and so we did. That is a family rule we've decided not break. We always follow our intuition.

We now find ourselves just outside of Acapulco. We've set up the van on a beautiful property owned by some Mexicans. They have great internet, showers, and a pad for parking the van RIGHT in front of the ocean! We're gonna hang here for a couple days and pound out some work before heading straight south down the coast to Oaxaca.  Hoping to catch some surf along the way. Its starting to feel like we're getting real close to crossing into Belize and Central America. We're maybe 2-3 weeks away now. TREE