Wednesday, March 20, 2013

A GPS trip to Tonala

Glen and I just got back from an enjoyable Melaque - Tonala - Tequila - Melaque trip and were accompanied by his Tom Tom GPS. First time experience for me and generally it was a pretty good guide but it did have it's issues. It talks to you if you didn't know.

Coming up highway 80 Mrs Tom did not know there was an Autlan bypass and wanted to take us thru town. After many "turn around" requests and distracted we ended up in El Grullo which is not close to highway 80.

Further on 'the voice' wanted us to turn left a few miles before Lopez Mateos but the intersection was vague so we continued. On Mateos it wanted us to turn to Jocotepec so Glen obediently drove along the lake to Chapala. Any clues on that one?

Tonala has redone some exits so we couldn't follow directions and ended up paying an exit and entrance toll at the next underpass. It did find the hotel after we got off the freeway.

Our guide did take us to Tequila on the free road and then back towards Ameca and the cross over road to Cocula and highway 80 but we had to ignore a few instructions on the way. Glen says many areas in the country and smaller towns are unmapped and the GPS gets confused.

Part of the problem is he hadn't updated his maps for 3 years. I drive less and less in Mexico but still interesting experience.

Highway 80 with a little rian

2 comments:

Steve Cotton said...

I really enjoy using my Garmin in Mexico. The only problem I have had is when I programmed it incorrectly. Two additional hours to get to San Miguel de Allende.

sparks said...

I didn't pay much attention to "programming" but it seemed he just entered a destination city ... and an address when we got close

The construction of the house finished in April 2011 and I'm pretty much settled in. As of March 2014 I'm in preparation for rain mode for this coming summer. That includes sealing and painting things and dealing with drainage issues from last year.

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