Attempted Bite in Tampico

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I forgot to really tell yesterday's travel story. Traffic was really light until we passed Altamira coming into Tampico. I was in the passing lane of a 4-lane divided highway but going around the speed limit. Lots of trucks were in the right lane when a policeman waved me over. He started speaking rapidly in Spanish, of course, and the gist of what I caught was that I'm supposed to travel in the right lane. He asked for my driver's license and began to ask where are we going, and don't we have any money. I told him Cancun and nothing else. He inferred the ticket would be costly and mar my driving record but I just said OK give me a ticket. I then handed him a copy of this logo. He talked some more and handed both back and said stay in the right lane, adios.

We decided to take the Tampico bypass so I wouldn't get stopped again by driving through the city. The bypass was improved slightly but it was still a bumpy long way to go. MX-180 south of Tampico was much improve, not a lot of chuck holes but a wavy pavement. Traffic was really heavy until we got off the Alamo bypass then it was light again. Without the traffic cop stop it would have taken exactly 9 hours as we planned.