12/10/11 Rancho El Rosario to just before Tampico, Mexico, 195 miles

The boys were up early which meant we were too and we got an earlier start- on the road by 8:30am. The tree outside our hotel room was full of ruby red grapefruit so we grabbed few for the road. Again thanks to Kris’ maps we caught a few toll roads and making good time. Our GPS said we could make it to the border by 10pm.  I did a double take when I saw a school bus towing a car. I guess school buses are the preferred form of moving van here. Sadly though we started having transmission trouble with the ‘Burb. One of the gas station attendants the night before overfilled the automatic transmission fluid and the transmission started slipping pretty badly. We were able to get to a mechanic in Poza Rica. He thought that if we changed out the fluid it would be better again. So 5 hours later and after spending $60US on transmission fluid & filter, and $11US on a taxi to go get the fluid, and $23US on labor, we hoped the car would be running well. Kris noticed that according to the dipstick the fluid levels were high again but the mechanic said they weren’t high enough to cause any problems. There was a restaurant next to the mechanic’s house and so we ate a late lunch there.  It was BBQ chicken with rice and tortillas, we also had a coke for $5.75US. 

Huge grapefruit we picked at the hotel. Kris named it "Sam"

Jonathan wearing a hat he made of wax sticks

Lightning McQueen with some guns and a missile launcher- Cars 2 is one of the boys favorite movies right now.

 We stopped at a roadside stand and bought some coconut cookies, apple bananas (smaller and sweeter than regular bananas), and dried plantains for $6.54US. Unfortunately we started having the same problem with the car again. Kris tried siphoning some of the fluid out but it was too hot and started melting the pump tubing. So we pulled into the nearest little town and got a hotel room for $25US. This was was only a bit better than the place we stayed at the night before. I guess most hotels here don’t believe in toilet seats! Oh well, it had air conditioning and the sheets smelled really clean and the mattresses were more comfortable. We didn’t want to drive the car anymore while it was acting up and figured Kris would have better luck siphoning more fluid in the morning when it would be cooler.