As the saying goes, "I've reached the end of my road"

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 I think I posted previously that when I bought my ranch, the reason everybody else had passed on it was because once you left the pueblo of Mayapan, it was only 4 km to the ranch, but that 4 km took at least 25 minutes to drive.  It was the road from hell.   So many big rocks sticking up in the path, and path is really all it was.    A photo of the old road is below, and somewhere back in my postings is a video of driving on the old road.  It was not only slow going, but still beat your brains out.  It was the most dreaded part of any day for me was going or coming from the ranch.

From a prior life, I built subdivisions.  Roads, curbs, gutters, underground utilities, and the works.  So I bought my ranch knowing what could be done if I just got a new road to it.   In June I started taking those steps and I had a dozen men with machetes that I pointed "go that way" and that's the way they cleared.  I align myself with my compass and some landmarks and Google Earth when I could, and then we'd go on.   In the end, the new road took out a lot of twists and turns (although I do still have a few) and it reduced the distance from 4 km down to 2.7 km.   In the middle of July, I hired two backhoes with jack hammers on the back and put one in the pueblo going to the ranch, and one at the ranch going toward the pueblo. They were to clear out stumps that we'd left with the clearing men, and then also break up any protruding boulders and get the ground down, more or less, level but with some rocks.   3 weeks later they met in the middle and that was about August 10.   

We cleared a swath that was about 7 meters wide, and I intended to put down 4 meters wide of gravel.  That left a meter and a half on either side thru the jungle of trees. That's barely enough room for 2 cars to slow down and pass each other, but I knew that the road only went to my ranch, so it wasn't going to have a bunch of cars ever.

What's bad about starting to haul gravel on a new road in the middle of August is that is also about the start of the rainy season in Yucatan.   A job that should have normally taken about 4 weeks to haul 200 truckloads of gravel has taken 2 months, and that's because when it would rain it would knock us out of hauling for 2 or 3 or 4 days for the un-graveled path to dry so the gravel trucks didn't get bogged down in mud.

Today, Saturday we reached the Entrada Principal of the ranch.  Hallelujah!  We still have a bit do to for the gravel to now bend off and go around to the entrance to my house corral.  And we can do that next week.  But for now, all the rain will do is stop us from hauling that day.  Now with a new 2.7 km hard "white road" we can drive on it rain or shine.  Today I used a stopwatch to time myself on the drive from the pueblo to the ranch.   5 minutes and 15 seconds.  And besides being 20 minutes faster, I was still in my right senses and no headache when I arrived!    

Below are 2 photos of the Entrance when I bought the place and a photo of the road to get to it.   And then a photo of the Entrance now and a video of the final gravel spreading and leveling.   Good things come to those who wait!

Entrance when I bought the ranch:

The original 4km "trail" to the ranch:

Entrance today:



Video link here to the spreading of gravel for the final 100 meters

Here's a photo of the old road to the right and the new road to the left.  They overlap in a few places:







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