The closer we got to Palenque, the more roadside vendors we saw. Every time there was a tope in a small town forcing the truck to almost come to a stop, we were approached by locals trying to sell oranges, nuts, dried bananas, coconut water, etc. At one point several small children jumped onto our running boards trying to sell us food items, and when we said “No, gracious”, they asked for pesos instead. Derek tried his tactic of chatting them up, which we have found often distracts them from trying to get something from us, but they were pretty insistent that we should give them some money. All the while they hung from windows on the running boards in the middle of the highway. We, generally, don’t give kids money. Others ,wiser than us, have told us that it promotes a begging society and discourages them from going to school. So, eventually, Derek had to start inching the truck ahead to get the kids to let go of our truck…it felt yucky, neither of us liked having to do that, but it was the only way we could figure out how to get them off of our running boards.

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