My friends Janet and Grant were moving to a B&B in the Golden Zone today and asked me to drive them and their wonderful dog, Boo, as well as their pile of luggage. I was warned by Contessa that this is a holiday week and so traffic in town is crazy and that they should take a panga and auriga. Having yet to see anywhere in North America traffic as bad as Montreal on a normal day and today being midweek, I decided to ignore the warning and save Janet and Grant the trouble of manhandling all that gear and the dog. 🙂

As it turned out, traffic was actually quite light so that, in combination with The Road being in good shape, meant we were at the B&B in just under an hour. It would have been closer to 45 minutes if I hadn’t tried to avoid Camarón Sábalo since I heard there would be closures on it. As it turned out, it was open to northbound traffic, so we were fine. Grant only had directions from Camarón Sábalo and no map, so it made sense to risk taking the road and it worked out fine.

From the B&B, I followed the very good and clear southbound detour signs to Rafael Buelna (Flagstaff, take note). I wanted to get a few things at Mega and the detour took me to Rafael Buelna just a block from the store, so I had a right, a left, and a right to make and I was there… where I discovered that between the three of us, we had missed the giant dog crate on the passenger bucket seat! Dang!

Since I was there, I decided to do my shopping before making my way back to the B&B. The trip to Mega ended up being rather pointless since they didn’t have the no sugar high protein delicious granola I picked up there last time, but they did have their unsweetened whole wheat raisin bread, so the trip wasn’t a complete bust. I also got beer since I can’t get Tecate on Isla, was due for a change, and didn’t have to carry it home!

Coming out of Mega, I was peckish, so I bought a slice of decent pizza and a bottle of cold water for 27 pesos from the Rin Rin below the supermarket. The manager was on hand to translate, but very quickly realised his help wasn’t needed and went back into the hall to try to find more customers.

I’d brought the styrofoam cooler with me, so I put my cold stuff in there when I got back to the truck. This included quite a lot of yoghurt since the Lala was quite a bit cheaper than I’ve ever seen it anywhere else, 20 pesos for the BIG tub!.

From Mega, I took Camarón Sábalo back up to Gaviotas and then on to the B&B where Janet and Grant were very happy to see me. Grant had already planned to get on a bus and meet me at the panga!

To get to Mex-15, I followed the Rafael Buelna signs for a bit, but then veered off from them, taking a route I believed would take me to a road where I could turn right and then catch Rafael Buelna at a light across from the Home Depot so I could make a left hand turn. My route was perfect and after a few turns, I was on Mex-15 heading home.

It was such an easy and pleasant drive in town today. My navigator wound up not being very useful (I so wish he read this blog *g*), but I really do know my way around now and all I had to focus on was not hitting or being hit by anyone, easy peasy.

Now, to see if Isla and the Beach do get as crazy this weekend as many people have warned me about…