Don't go to Guadalajara.

This page comes to you from just outside a big Mercedes garage (Eurocamiones, Ave. Lazaro Gardenas, Guadalajara, Phone: 3540-8938 or 3540-89-39, N 20.645443, W 103.359250 ). Mog and K-Nine are parked in the customer car park outside, and Bodo is inside. But before I tell you why, a short commercial break.

We all spent last night at a small town, Moyahua de Estrada, on scenic Route 54 heading south towards Guadalajara. Moyahua is a fairly ordinary quiet little town, with a nice church and a picturesque town square.

But what makes it special is Los Burritos a 24 hour a day 7 days a week dinner with great atmosphere and cheap food and beer. Customers include truck drivers, family groups, couples on dates, and as we pulled out, three hearses from Costa Rica and the longest stretch-limo I have ever seen.

We parked just in front of the school on the main road, 100 metres south of Los Burritos (N 21.259763, W 103.157948 ). A highly recommended stopping place, if you are passing!

Now back to why we are in Guadalajara, somewhere we had every intention of bypassing.

Bruce and Lesley were leading today (we take turns). Every time we came to a significant hill Bodo got slower and slower until, 10km north of Guadalajara, Bodo was down to a top speed of 5kph! Because we knew there was a large Mercedes garage somewhere in Guadalajara, we reluctantly went looking for it.

After phoning the garage, we got rough directions (in Spanish of course) but in the end had to resort to hiring a taxi to follow. After 20 minutes of driving thru heavy traffic, Bodo again slowed down to a crawl and we had to pull over and call the garage to ask for a tow truck. They promised one by 14:00. By 15:00 no tow truck had arrived, so we started off again. By a combination of luck and inspired navigation by Lesley, we found the garage at 16:15. Naturally, being Saturday, it was closed till Monday.

However, Bruce and Lesley managed to persuade the security guard to call somebody, who called somebody and eventually two mechanics turned up. They are currently working on Bodo (at 18:45).

Stop Press: It is now 19:55 and Bodo is "fixed". They have diagnosed dirty fuel and blocked fuel filters. We shall see tomorrow.