Turtle to Patzcuaro

I woke up with the birds this morning, looked out the window and saw the most amazing sunrise over Lake Chapala.   By the time I jumped out of bed, put my shoes on and grabbed the camera it was too late to capture the most spectacular moments of it.   It was still beautiful.

We got an early start on the day.    Bertha seemed to be giving us a hard time again.   She wanted us to go back toward Guadalajara to pick up Mex 15.   That would have taken us an hour and a half out of our way.    Bertha was saying 5 1/2 hours.   The program on our computer found this route, and said it was only 4 hours.   It appeared to be a possible lovely drive along the lake, then cut up to Mex 15.  Even that seemed out of the way to us, but we figured we would drive along the lake and force Bertha to see it our way.     She often changes her mind when pushed hard enough.

Indeed, part of the drive was beautiful.

There were a few little towns along the coast, with very bad roads.    The locals were giving us some funny looks...as if they had never seen a motor home on these roads before.   

There were quite a few spots that we had to tell Myrtle to hold her breath to fit through.   Even so, we thought we had bested Bertha. 

After about an hour and a half of bumpy, crazy, tire killing road  we came upon this Y in the road.   Well, we had already committed, so what the heck.    Bertha had come on board by this time, so we figured everything was A - OK.   We had figured we would take about 30 minutes to get this far.  



Holy friggin hannah!!!!    We climbed this bumpy, crazy, tire killing, edge of the cliff hill for 2 kilometers, and were a half kilometer higher in elevation by the time we reached the top!   The road didn't end there.    

See those tiny little toy houses?  That's the village we left behind when we started up the hill.

Finally, we get off the tire killing, crazy bumpy road, by this time we are only 2 hours behind schedule.    It was kind of fun, we didn't mind too much.   Until we hit the 3 hour traffic jam.   We saw 4 ambulances and 2 tow trucks towing transport trucks.   We figured there was a bad accident ahead.   It was like a parking lot.   I even went back into Myrtle, figuring I would chill on my computer for a while.    I couldn't find it.   I knew I left it on the bed above the driver compartment...but it just wasn't there.     oh oh....I did hear something fall.....yup, the road was so bumpy my computer flew off the bed, six feet through the air and landed in the stairwell by the side door.    In all the driving we have done, nothing has ever flown off of the bed.  Not a scratch on it, and it works like a charm.    When we finally reached the part of the road that was causing the delay, it was a 40 foot bridge under construction!     The ambulances must have gone elsewhere.   lol.   Ok, so now we are only 5 hours behind schedule.     

Mex 15D!!!!!   What a sight for sore eyes,

We were up over 2 kilometers above sea level here.    The leaves are changing colour, the temperature drops, leaves are falling, and it actually smells like Ontario, Canada in the autumn.    

At this elevation it is cool enough for pine trees to grow.      Our campground is on the opposite side of this lake.    Lago de Patzcuaro.

We finally pulled into our campsite at 5:00 p.m.    We left Lagu de Chapala at 8:15 a.m., for a 4 hour drive.     We should have listened to Bertha.   :)     We are so exhausted, and hurt like hell....we didn't even take a single picture since we got here.    Tomorrow is another day, and another adventure.