In 1982 my wife and I were traveling in the Yucatan in a rented VW bug that we picked up in Merida to drive to Coba. Lots of dirt roads, no cell phones, no Spanish on our part. Somewhere a couple hours out of Merida we had a flat tire near a small collection of houses. Naturally, our car had no spare tire. There were no local resources to fix the tire. Road traffic was minimal and mostly local farmers. There was one telephone. No one spoke English except us.
We were taken in and schooled in using the local phone so we could call the rental agency which only had a Spanish speaker available. Altogether, we made our situation known and the urgency of an approaching night. A few hours later a truck arrived and fixed the car. While we waited, the locals kept us in the shade and supplied with bottled drinks. The children were everywhere and kept us well entertained. Americans stopping in their off the beaten track community were rare. We were delayed, but only had a short, uneventful drive in the dark, dark night to find a place to stay the night. The awkward start to our trip we salvaged by the kindness of those folks and I remember them with gratitude to this day, after 35 years.
David N.