Day 8 - Hidalgo del Parral to El Salto

 This was pretty much a “transfer stage” as they say on the Dakar Rally, just a transport day to get to the next real rally stage. After determining that there was no hot water in the room for showers, we headed to the lobby for a Continental breakfast. Cereal and a few waffles were consumed with HoJo “American Coffee”.

We got off a 9AM and had a rather unmemorable ride except for a stop at a little cafe that specialized in shrimp dishes, out in the middle of nowhere.

Grtting ready for dom Camarones(shrimp)

Go figure, Jim & I had a Shrimp Ranchero. The other dish of the day was Camarones del Diablo, or Shrimp of the Devil. Tom was looking for Rolaids about an hour later. It was all good though.

We ended up at El Salto, working our way through the wood smoke and found our Hotel Real del Bosque.

After checking into the rooms and raiding the beer larder in Ken's truck, we relaxed for a bit and then had an urgent discussion about firewood. Seems there is no heat in the rooms other than fireplaces. Apparently that's the reason for the pall of smoke we coughed our way through on the way into town. Our rooms each had a stash of wood, but Roger & Ken advised it wouldn't be enough to last the night if we were to keep the fire stoked at regular intervals. I started a fire in our fireplace, one match of course(applause) and gave it enough wood to last, while off we went to dinner in the hotel dining room. Grilled steak, enchiladas and other house specialties were consumed that weren't super, but not bad either. We requested firewood and were told additional supplies would be delivered within the hour. Well it was, within a couple hours, but that worked.



One match!!

 After a bit of reading and adjusting the fire, we slid under the 4 or 5 nice wool blankets supplied and drifted off. As Roger suggested, I consumed mucho H2O to ensure regular bathroom awakenings that could be used to keep the fire stoked and going. It's my habit anyway, but some additional consumption guaranteed waking sessions at 12 AM, 2 AM, and 4 AM to keep the room “toasty” at about 62 degrees. While sleeping, I had my earplugs in and was oblivious to the Saturday late night party that apparently was going on outside after the bars had closed. I did hear our next door neighbor get a phone call about 4AM, the decide to turn on the TV and watch a movie. With the earplugs in though it was but a whisper. The other guys weren't as fortunate. Come morning, we arose to temperatures outside in the 20s, but that's another story, for tomorrow...