Driving, a subject close to my heart. I recently drove from Acapulco to Michigan to San Francisco to L.A. to Austin, Texas to Mazatlan to Guadalajara and back to Acapulco again passing through many cities along the way. I suppose I was trying to prove that the shortest distance between two points isn't a straight line and failed miserably. I love the freedom of driving and all the things you see out there on the road. Some of the best starry nights I've ever seen have been out on a lonely desert highway. I especially love driving in Mexico with all its stunning scenery, interesting people, and beautiful chaos.

Driving in Mexico can either be peaceful and safe or nerve racking and dangerous, it all depends on you. I usually enter at Nuevo Laredo (the worst part of the trip) and head toward Monterrey and Mexico City then down to Acapulco. I can make it from Austin, Texas to Acapulco (with a couple hours set aside at the border for red tape) straight. This is the safest route in all of Mexico as wide, mostly well groomed lanes run all the way down on which you can drive as easily at night as you can in the U.S. or Canada - that is, if you take the sparsely populated cuotas (toll roads).

When driving on a Mexican highway, it's no time to be a cheap skate. Though some cuotas can be as high as the equivalent of $20 USD for a short stretch of road, they're worth every peso. If you decide to go Mexican-style on the freeways, be prepared to deal with two lane roads with huge trucks barrelling down at you head on, narrow lanes, blind curves, burrows, cows, peasants jetting out into the road, unknown distances between gas stations, and virtually no visibility at night. While the toll roads have the Green Angels (a pickup with mechanics and medical aid that patrols the toll roads looking to help stranded motorists) the freeway is marked with crosses where fatal accidents have taken place.

If you break down and decide you need to start hiking, pay somebody a deposit to watch your car and promise them three times the amount when you get back. All I have to say is an unattended car on a lonely highway conjures images of vultures picking apart a fresh corpse.

Though I've never actually added it all up, I'd say the tolls are about $200 USD for a trip down to Acapulco from the border.

Especially when out on the highway, be careful that the attendant sets the pump to zeros (ceros, pronounced seh-rows) before he pumps. Starting you out with $100 pesos or so is the oldest trick in the book and the gas stations are very corrupt. If they scam you and you figure it out after the fact, there is really nothing you can do. Same goes for watering the gas down or shorting you (claiming the tank is full when you later find out it isn't).

No matter which route you take, make sure to buy Mexican auto insurance. It's not that expensive unless you have an expensive car. You can get it at the boarder (there will be places to buy it everywhere) and it's a big help if you get into a spot, and spots are not uncommon.

One thing that always shocks people from the U.S. is when they find out that in Mexico, there is no law requiring auto insurance. In fact, unless you have a new car or a car under lease, most people don’t have any. A definite difference from the “let me see your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance” routine that has been hard coded into the U.S. national fabric. That’s right, once you cross the boarder you are no longer in the land of no-fault, but you have stepped back in time to the days of Napoleonic Code.

So what happens if there's an accident? If there's an accident and it's your fault, they put you in jail until you settle with the injured party. No jury trial, no innocent until proven guilty, you're guilty and have to make restitution and that's that. Is it fair? No. Is it efficient? You bet. People settle really fast under such circumstances. What might take years to settle the U.S. can routinely be settled in a couple days in Mexico.

Another common occurrence that might unnerve you is the presence of military checkpoints. In the U.S. we're not accustomed to being stopped by young stone-faced military men toting machine guns. In Mexico, you actually don't see them often when heading south, but you do see them frequently when heading north. They monitor the north-bound lanes of the major highways to check for contraband ranging from drugs, to guns, to Central Americans. As far as my experience, these guys are all business. No mordidas (bribes), they take a quick look and send you on your way.