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We drove to Douglas where we stayed for the week. It got extremely windy the first night we were there and Winnie was being rocked and battered so much it was
difficult to sleep. It was so bad that the pilot light on the fridge was blown out (a rare occurrence) and we thought we were actually going to be blown over!!!
We got an oil change done and bought a new back battery because we knew ours wouldn't last much longer. We also got the garage at Wal-Mart to change our windscreen
wipers. We warned them that it wouldn't be easy and it wasn't! But they managed in the end!
We drove just outside Douglas to campground with full hook-up for only $6 a night and stayed for three nights. We did a lot of sorting out and cleaning inside and
out.
On Sunday we crossed the border into Mexico which took approx one hour and headed towards Santa Ana and the main route south. Two hours later we heard a bump rather
than a bang and stopped to see what it might have been. Kirsten was driving and Helen thought it had come from inside the motor home at the back.
We checked inside and out and couldn't see anything. So we got back in and drove off. But shortly afterwards we stopped again to check because we knew that whatever
we had heard must have been us. This time we actually felt each of the tyres and found that the inside real tyre was flat but the valve was still intact and there was
no obvious damage.
We were in the middle of nowhere and on a winding, narrow hilly road. So we drove slowly and limped into the next town. We hoped there would be somewhere open on a
Sunday and we found a little shack that did tyres and got them to put our spare tyre on. Only then did we see the damage to the tyre. Each time we had stopped to check
we must have actually parked on the damaged area of the tyre otherwise we would have seen it straight away!
Needless to say they didn't have one of our tyres. We know how difficult it is to get our tyres even in America. The last time we had a blow out we had to get them
shipped to Yuma in Arizona which is not a small place but they still didn't have our tyres.
They had to do everything by hand and it took an hour. They only charged us $5 so we gave them a tip! We drove to Santa Ana and stopped at a Pemex for the night. The
first thing we had to do was to take the spare tyre rim off as it is not designed for a rim without a tyre to be put there and it had come loose and was banging at the
back. So we took it off and brought it inside Winnie.
We decided we would drive the 140 miles into Hermosillo, a very large city, and see if we could find any tyres or find out how to get them shipped. At the end of the
day we could always get them shipped to Mazatlan. But we certainly couldn't drive around without a spare!
We got to Hermosillo the next day and went to Bridgestone first. They had our tyres in their warehouse but it would take at least an hour to get them to where we were
and they couldn't tell us the manufacturing date on the tyres until they got here and they wouldn't order them unless we paid. Tyres only last about 4 to 5 years even
if they aren't used so the date of manufacture is very important.
They rang up Michelin for us but their tyres were very expensive. So we drove a block further and went to Goodyear. Unbelievably, they had our tyres, they had 10 of
them, they had them in stock right there so we could see the date and they had a special offer on at the moment - 4 tyres for the price of 3!!!
Three hours later we drove off with 6 new tyres for half the price than in America because the labour charges are a lot lower in Mexico and with a 40,000 mile
guarantee. Perfect. And there we were thinking we would have a great deal of problems even finding tyres and would have to drive around for two weeks without a spare
until tyres arrived!
We continued south for four days and got to Mazatlan and stayed at a campground for two nights. Helen packed for her flight to England where she spent two weeks in
freezing temperatures for Christmas and New Year and Kirsten drove south to Teacapan to stay with all our German friends for the holidays.
