uh oh..

Well we got up at 6am this morning to get a head start on the drive towards Puerto Escondido. So, as usual, the guys get behind the samurai and begin the push start procedure...except this time it decided not to work. We tried quite a few times before finally giving up and parking it back in its spot. It stutters and almost sounds like its started, but as soon as my foot goes back on the clutch, you can tell its still completely dead. So that left us with a few options. We talked to the two women who´s house we´re staying at and as with everything else they´re quite cool about it. The one who owns the house, Chantelle, has offered to take the car off our hands, and even turn in all the paperwork when she goes back to Arizona, so that it doesnt stick on my Mexican visa. We tried a few more times to get it started so that we could take it to a mechanic, we even towed it behind this guys truck, but nothing would help the old girl out. Chantelle has offered us free stay at her place in exchange for it, and if she sells it, or keeps it, maybe a little bit of cash farther down the road. Im not concerned about the money for the car, seeing as it was pretty much on borrowed time anyhow. I do feel pretty bad for the guy in Guatemala, and I´ve emailed him the news, hopefully he understands that its probably a good thing that he didnt take a lemon from us. We drove into Bucarius (just north of puerto vallarta) and talked to a mechanic, everyone is under the conclusion that a new starter for a 91 samurai would be tricky to find in Mexico, so Chantelle said she was going to bring one from Phoenix when she goes back next week. So for the time being, the plan looks to be that the car will stay here in Sayulita with Chantelle, her boyfriend (the guy who towed us) may fix it up later and was actually looking for something similar. In exchange we´re going to stay here for another week or so free of charge! I could definitely think of worse places to be stuck. So it appears that the real backpacking part of our trip will start that much earlier, as its bus rides from here out! We plan to take a bus ride in to Guadalaraja on Sunday and soak up some of its history, lots of museums, performances, cathedrals and on Sundays, bull fighting. We would spend the night there, then bus back to Sayulita. Im actually kind of relieved, assuming this works as planned. I was nervous about crossing the Guatemalan border with the car, and likewise handing it over to Mario down there, what if he hadn´t wanted it when he saw it? In this case, we still get accomodations for it (quite nice accomodations as my picture will hopefully show), and Chantelle is extremely helpful with taking care of any of the intrique things that involve speaking lots of spanish. So I guess our days of sitting on the beach and surfing are...still here! Hopefully these pictures will work so you can check out what our place is like. The one on top is the place we´re staying, the one on the bottom is a random shot of a portion of the beach, the restaurant in the foreground is where we ate thanksgiving dinner :) Later all!