When I was first learning how to drive I found that I did much better if I was alone. I would drive round the neighborhood by myself with no problem, but when Sebastian was with me something would always mess up. So I convinced Sebastian to leave me the car one day and that I would force myself to learn by running errands and then coming to pick him up. I spent all day driving around town and was feeling pretty good about my new skills when it came time to pick him up.

I got through Centro with only maybe a dozen taxi drivers beeping and yelling at me and got through the difficult intersection that leads into the Hotel Zone only stalling out twice. I thought I was home free because I had no more turns to make and the road in the Hotel Zone is straight and smooth. However this was just where things started to get interesting. There are several red lights in the hotel zone and I didn't like them at all, because every time I stopped I would have to start up again. Mexican drivers make a lot of noise when someone is slow to get moving once the light is green and when I first started driving that bothered me. (To be quite honest I was very anxious about just about everything and usually would find my self shaking and on the verge of a nervous breakdown after each drive.)

Anyway, as I approached about the third stop light I started my early preparations. I let off on the gas and was getting ready to down shift. But instead of slowing down the car seemed to be speeding up. I down shifted anyway and the car made awful noises and didn't slow, I down shifted again to 2nd and the same thing. I put the car in neutral and started pumping the brake which produced more awful noises but the car wouldn't slow down. At this point the stop light and all the cars sitting at it was getting very close, and I was more than a little panicked. I tried to get my foot under are pedal-like thing to push it up, but it didn't work. Finally at the last minute I found a place to turn off into a parking lot, holding down the brake and then turn the car off. Thankfully it stopped before hitting the tree I had chosen to stop me if all else failed. (This was before the Vocho had seat belts.)

I tried starting the car up again but it immediately made sounds like the engine was being revved forcefully. So I turned it off. Slammed the doors (much to the amusement of the watching taxi drivers) and stomped off to the next bus stop to get Sebastian. He was able to somehow get the car to the mechanic who also had a good laugh because apparently one of the cables in the engine had come unhooked then wrapped itself around whatever mechanism that supplies gas to the engine, a pretty rare occurrence apparently.

Needless to say, this adventure set my learning back quite a bit and it was almost a month before I was ready to try driving El Vocho again.

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