Three months ago I went to Mexico with my sister, Cristina, and her two friends from Oxford, James and Dan. Although there were many Mexican shenanigans, this particular one is my favorite. This is the story of the car rental/road trip.

Where do I begin... While I was lounging poolside like it was my job, Cristina came to get me and take me to the rental car. A baller Nissan ride. James and Dan had never driven an automatic before and, lucky for them, this one kicked into gears very unpredictably and erratically. Cristina deposited herself in the front seat despite her lacksidasical attention to the road and complete inability to read a map and/or follow directions. So I was left hollering directions back-seat driver style. Unfortunately for me, and for anybody else driving out of Mazatlan for the first time, we had to take highway 15 northbound out of the city. Why unfortunate? I hope it becomes clear by the end of the tale.

So we started driving down this highway and we were looking out for a turn-off toward destination El Quelite close to km 33. Well, we passed km 33 and there was nothing. No sign, no turn-offs, no indication of El Quelite even existing. We continued, passing km 40, 45, 50, etc. No signs still. In fact, we started to notice that there were no turn-offs from this road period. There was also a gigantic concrete median that prevented turn-arounds. This was a one way road to from Mazatlan to Culiacan with absolutely no way to get on/off until you reached the final destination. This road was for drivers that had made an executive decision to stick with it until the end. Not us; this road was not made for us. We stopped a couple of times to ask about this gem of a colonial town, "El Quelite," and people only looked at us like we were crazy. They had never heard of it. It was the first of many times that we would be looked at like we were crazy.

Finally, after we passed km 60, we found a turn-around (the first and likely only one on the highway, cursed highway 15 north). We decided to turn around and head back to Mazatlan so we could at least stop at a beach or something along the way. We took an "exit" which entailed driving off the road essentially - there was no pavement or official road involved - and drove through an interesting little establishment. We went to the beach, which smelled of rich, pungent dead fish, and stopped to take some pictures and breathe in the salty ocean air. I'm so glad we did. Had we not, we would've missed the man pushing his fluffy white dog in a wheelbarrow. That's not a sight one wants to miss.

Back on the road with no exits, we drove until we got back to the toll booths we had crossed only an hour earlier. Cristina asked again about this magical land known as El Quelite and this is what she was told: Turn around and right after the truck stop you will see a yellow gate. Drive through this (wondrous) yellow gate and go down the dirt road for a while. You'll then get to another dirt road where you will turn left/right (Cristina would later forget) and go down that road for about 5kms. It is not known what directions followed because Cristina forgot those too. We turned around yet again, found said yellow gate, which was a random fence off the road protecting private property (?). What the hell, we rolled with it. Who doesn't love driving down rural Mexican dirt roads in the middle of nowhere? I believe the words I uttered were "this has rape and murder written all over it." To which James responded, "I think we were all thinking that - you didn't have to go and say it out loud." Well put, well put.

We drove down this dirt road that was surrounded by private property/no trespassing signs until we got to the other dirt road. We chose a direction since Cristina could not remember our instructions. Right it was. We really couldn't see evidence of a town to the left. (Little did we know the wonders of Marmol lurked in the shadows.) We drove down 1km, 2km, 3km. Maybe we'll see something around the corner. Let's just go over this hill and see if there's a town. Okay, maybe after this corner we should turn around. We were on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. There was literally nothing around, not even farms, just desert brush. So we decided to what? Oh yes, to turn around. Back the way we came, past the freeway we turned off of, over the overpass to the other side of the freeway. You may wonder, since we were passing no evidence of human colonization/life, how were we doing on gas? Terrible... 1/8 of a tank. We found some campesinos cruising down the calle, avenida even, and asked them about El Quelite. Back the way we came for about 10km. We also asked them for gas. Count our lucky stars, we were pointed to Marmol.

Although I have no doubt Marmol was once a thriving town, the unfortunate collapse of the marble factory brought about the community's demise. Marmol is a town in ruins. Busted, wrecked. We were looked at like aliens when we arrived in Marmol. The men in the 3x3 town square stared at us, shocked, for quite some time. I take it tourists don't visit Marmol frequently (their loss). We asked directions to a gas station and a man told us there was no gas. We stopped again and asked a woman who said "cross the railroad tracks and look for a place that sells beer. When you find that place, ask again. If there's no one there, you should look for the old car. They sell gas by the old car." Oh! The old car. Got it, avoid the hummers and escalades and look for the old car. Really though, I should give the woman some credit. They were the best directions we got. We found the gas, that came in 3-liter soda bottles and filled up. At this point I told Cristina, who insisted that we find El Quelite despite all odds, that fucking El Quelite better blow her mind. So we exited Marmol and headed back down the same dirt road we had come down, back over the overpass (again), past the point where we had decided to turn around and kept, just kept trucking until we came to a road.

Whoa - there's another highway running parallel to the highway we were on and we didn't even know about it! What's this highway? Highway 15? Hang on, weren't we just on Highway 15? Yes, yes we were. This is the other Highway 15 north. Clearly. Why would there only be one? So this must be the Highway 15 where we would look for km 33 and then turn off. Why yes, yes indeed. We came upon 33 and found El Quelite and went there and it blew Cristina's mind and there were many tractors and chickens and roosters and photo ops and joy. It was totally worth it, in my opinion more so because of the hilariously random journey to get there than El Quelite itself. No offense, El Quelite.

The end.