It was another very long day, 700 miles / 1120 km in 13 hours. At 3 am, we stood at the gate of Trailer Park Teotihuacan campground located in the suburbs of Mexico City. I remembered that when we stayed there three years ago, the owner insisted on waking her up at any time. I decided to take a chance and pressed the bell button. The vehicle standing at the gate in the middle of the night looked suspicious. "Show me your face," she said to me, seeing only my silhouette in the dark. Fortunately, she allowed us to enter and spend there the rest of the night saying, "I suspected a trouble, I have never met foreigners who travel by car after dark."

After several hours of a needed sleep and buffet breakfast at nearby restaurant, we were on the road again. We drove the volcanic chain known as the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt climbing up to over 10,000 ft. / 3000 m and descending almost to the sea level. It was a picturesque road, fantastic views and several different climate zones in just a few hours. When the darkness came, we began to look for a place for the night. At Rancho Nuevo Carrizal in Veracruz, we found camping Parque Green Forest as the best potential place in the area. It was late, around 9 pm, when we located it. The gate was locked. Almost the entire village was asleep. We started calling for someone to open the gate. We also used the car horn, and various other sounds. No one answered from the inside, only a few dogs appeared, some of them friendly, others not. The gate was silent like a sleeping child. We learned from a passing villager that there was definitely someone inside and that he his name is Jose. Armed with this knowledge, I started shouting in my poor Spanish: "Jose, Jose, we want to spend the night here", still no response. After almost an hour, however, I noticed someone inside. Frightened Jose was holding a shotgun by his side. After a long conversation, I was able to convince him somehow that we are not gang members and that it is safe to let us in. We were lucky, heavy rain was about to start.