I know that it’s been awhile but since our arrival in Roca Azul it has been very hectic with unpacking and trying to get organized. We’re not there yet but we have made some progress in the last week.
I guess I left off with us leaving a campsite in a very rural part of Missouri which turned out to have some of the most beautiful, tree lined stretches, of highway right into Arkansas before we finally hit Texas.
As we crossed the Mississippi I was reminded, in some small way, why I had wanted to make this trek by motor home rather than flying. To be honest that is the only way we could have done it with the four dogs, but the Huck Finn in me made the lure of the open road, in a six wheeled “raft”, irresistible.
I loved The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; the kid was an irascible scamp but it was Huckleberry Finn who always set me to dreaming. Growing up on the lake and having access to a neighbor’s raft probably had something to do with my vision of packing a stick with some string and a fishing hook (I don’t even eat fish) and setting off on the neighbor’s raft for an unlimited adventure. In reality I knew that I would have to be home and in the house by dark but in my heart I was always half way across Lake Huron with the wind at my back.
I have to say though that the thoughts of endless days with only a stick, string, a fishing hook and the same old underwear day after day no longer holds the same appeal. Now I am quite content to have a full kitchen, comfortable beds, air conditioning, a television and a lap top at the ready for any voyage of more than a day. Oh! And I must not forget: having a shower and hot water keeps the otherwise pungency of canned humanity at an acceptable level while traveling along the road in what is essentially a well equipped tin can. I have gotten soft in my old age!
But don’t let my reference to “Gertie” as a tin can fool you; she was quite a work horse when the going got tough while lost in the Serria Madres for two days. But I’ll get to that later. First I have to comment on the Mexican border crossing. A NIGHTMARE of un-rivaled proportions to be sure!
After spending the night in Lake Casa Blanca in Laredo, Texas, which is by far the most beautiful campsite that we ran into along the way, we set out for the border at first light and immediately got lost. After about forty minutes of heading in the opposite direction on a very rural road, with “Wrong way” at the wheel, we finally found some recently flooded and mudded ruts on the side of the road which afforded us the narrowest of margins to turn around and head back to Laredo.
Needless to say we were about two hours later than planned when it came time to drive across that short bridge to Nuevo Laredo and into the quagmire that is their border crossing and descent into officialdumb (and no, that is not a spelling mistake although I might have made it two words official dumb).
I won’t bore you with the details but initially we were pointed in the right direction (just follow the “blue signs”) by men with guns and no English, to ask for “permission” to bring in our vehicles. Half an hour later, after snailing our way through streets no wider than a bowling lane and loaded with people selling things and shouting and of course hundreds of blue signs in Spanish, we boarded a young bandit named Jessie (pronounced Yessie) who had been running alongside our vehicle shouting directions.
Jessie helped us negotiate the streets until we were finally ensconced in a parking lot for “Dinky Toys” outside the Department of Immigration. Yessie kept pounding his chest and saying: “It’s Ok. I help you”. A true humanitarian; it cost us about eighty bucks to eventually offload Jessie after registering our vehicles and setting out for the next checkpoint where the price of importing our own stuff was the lions share of five hundred dollars U.S. but then, FINALLY, after five hours of chaos, we were on our way.
It took two days of driving through the mountains which wasn’t bad until we missed our exit to a toll road and ended up competing with long distance haulers for inches of cliff side, with drop aways the depth of the Grand Canyon. I don’t recall ever being so terrified. From my side of the vehicle there was no side of the road and from Cath’s side the perspective wasn’t much better. Thank goodness for her driving prowess; if she were not such a competent driver I’m thinking that we would have a final understanding of a descent into hell and have ended up sitting with our maps and GPS at the bottom of some valley picking cactus needles out of our sorry butts.
. . . Well Stanley . . . isn’t this a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into?
I guess I left off with us leaving a campsite in a very rural part of Missouri which turned out to have some of the most beautiful, tree lined stretches, of highway right into Arkansas before we finally hit Texas.
As we crossed the Mississippi I was reminded, in some small way, why I had wanted to make this trek by motor home rather than flying. To be honest that is the only way we could have done it with the four dogs, but the Huck Finn in me made the lure of the open road, in a six wheeled “raft”, irresistible.
I loved The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; the kid was an irascible scamp but it was Huckleberry Finn who always set me to dreaming. Growing up on the lake and having access to a neighbor’s raft probably had something to do with my vision of packing a stick with some string and a fishing hook (I don’t even eat fish) and setting off on the neighbor’s raft for an unlimited adventure. In reality I knew that I would have to be home and in the house by dark but in my heart I was always half way across Lake Huron with the wind at my back.
I have to say though that the thoughts of endless days with only a stick, string, a fishing hook and the same old underwear day after day no longer holds the same appeal. Now I am quite content to have a full kitchen, comfortable beds, air conditioning, a television and a lap top at the ready for any voyage of more than a day. Oh! And I must not forget: having a shower and hot water keeps the otherwise pungency of canned humanity at an acceptable level while traveling along the road in what is essentially a well equipped tin can. I have gotten soft in my old age!
But don’t let my reference to “Gertie” as a tin can fool you; she was quite a work horse when the going got tough while lost in the Serria Madres for two days. But I’ll get to that later. First I have to comment on the Mexican border crossing. A NIGHTMARE of un-rivaled proportions to be sure!
After spending the night in Lake Casa Blanca in Laredo, Texas, which is by far the most beautiful campsite that we ran into along the way, we set out for the border at first light and immediately got lost. After about forty minutes of heading in the opposite direction on a very rural road, with “Wrong way” at the wheel, we finally found some recently flooded and mudded ruts on the side of the road which afforded us the narrowest of margins to turn around and head back to Laredo.
Needless to say we were about two hours later than planned when it came time to drive across that short bridge to Nuevo Laredo and into the quagmire that is their border crossing and descent into officialdumb (and no, that is not a spelling mistake although I might have made it two words official dumb).
I won’t bore you with the details but initially we were pointed in the right direction (just follow the “blue signs”) by men with guns and no English, to ask for “permission” to bring in our vehicles. Half an hour later, after snailing our way through streets no wider than a bowling lane and loaded with people selling things and shouting and of course hundreds of blue signs in Spanish, we boarded a young bandit named Jessie (pronounced Yessie) who had been running alongside our vehicle shouting directions.
Jessie helped us negotiate the streets until we were finally ensconced in a parking lot for “Dinky Toys” outside the Department of Immigration. Yessie kept pounding his chest and saying: “It’s Ok. I help you”. A true humanitarian; it cost us about eighty bucks to eventually offload Jessie after registering our vehicles and setting out for the next checkpoint where the price of importing our own stuff was the lions share of five hundred dollars U.S. but then, FINALLY, after five hours of chaos, we were on our way.
It took two days of driving through the mountains which wasn’t bad until we missed our exit to a toll road and ended up competing with long distance haulers for inches of cliff side, with drop aways the depth of the Grand Canyon. I don’t recall ever being so terrified. From my side of the vehicle there was no side of the road and from Cath’s side the perspective wasn’t much better. Thank goodness for her driving prowess; if she were not such a competent driver I’m thinking that we would have a final understanding of a descent into hell and have ended up sitting with our maps and GPS at the bottom of some valley picking cactus needles out of our sorry butts.
. . . Well Stanley . . . isn’t this a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into?
1 comment:
I'm surprised its so tough getting in. Seriously, what could you smuggle into Mexico that's not already there?
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