Tamaulipas

238 miles, 8 hours with 34 miles of dirt. Again the roads are paved and in great condition unless you take our detours onto the dirt roads. Lots of onion fields. The Mexican diet of meat is upon me as I struggle to find other options, all revolve around cheese so far. I knew this.
Tampico Alto is a little town with a plaza, if you get off the very loud highway. We stayed at El Corral Hotel. Local taco stands have been very cheap though. Gas is $2.50US per gallon. Fresh orange juice is plentiful! yipee.

April 8th Tampico Alto to El Tajin. 5.5 hours on the road through Alamo , or 4 hours on the toll roads. All times include our breaks, lunches, juice stops.....
We are not fans of highways and toll roads but i changed my mind on this trip. We took both routes to Poza Rica. I highly recommend the toll road around Tuxpan, it is so mcuh fast, less traffic and actually has better views. the other way is "the land of Topes" as Mexico is coming to be knows. Speed bumps everywhere! Slow moving and smokey from trucks. yuck. Take the $2.15 tol which no one want to pay so there is little traffic. El Norteno is a great restaurant in Tuxpan on the west side of the river bank on the city side, across from the floating expensive restaurant.

Poza Rica is one place I wanted avoid at all cost because I have such bad memories of the traffic from my travels in 1997. But we couldn't and it was the same but paved - which added a lot to the expreience this time. But still very hot, very stand still, very aggressive. Get out and head to the Cascada Auto Motel 3 miles before El Tajin ruins if that is where you are headed.

April 11th El Tajin to Monte Pio in Las Tuxlas. 265 miles. 10 hours
Big toll day. 94 peseos. Just trying to get south. The heat is getting intense. Highways are in good condition. heading to the beach! The road around the point of Las Tuxlas is beautiful, big cliffs into the ocean. We found a room at Claudias Restaurant out side of 2deAbril raod, in the family house which they evacuated, across from the beach. All to ourselves. Thank god for human nature, to cluster all in one place. They were all in town and we had our own quiet beach! We didnt have to worry about our stuff. As always people are friendly and helpful. We spent a day off at the beach eating mangoes and watching pelican do eye level flybys. Steve picked up about 50 sand dollars right out of the water while swimming. Easter Weekend is the biggest holiday. time to go to the beach for everyone. Good food in Monte Pio town.