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09/13/05 - 09/14/05 - Dallas, TX, Laredo, TX, San Luis Potosi, Mexico Small border setbacks delay us from our destination by another day |
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On Tuesday, we drove to Laredo, TX, skipping our scheduled visit/lunch in Austin. Old Chevy-Girl was showing signs of overheating, so we had to pull off in Hillsboro, TX to check things out. After filling her up with coolant (although we got an oil change earlier that day, where the coolant was topped off), we headed for the local radiator shop, which we found with our indispensable Microsoft Streets & Trips. By the time we got there, about 2 miles away, the coolant was empty again. A very kindly old southern mechanic checked her out while we waited but wasn't sure exactly what the problem was (could have been any number of things). After contemplating spending the night in scenic (not) Hillsboro and having the mechanic check the old gal out further the next day, we decided to try a new radiator cap, upon the mechanic's suggestion. Turns out, the $5 radiator cap did the trick, and we were on our way to Laredo, where we stayed for the night.
We figured it was going to be about a 9-hour drive from Laredo to San Miguel de Allende, including going through customs. So we got up bright and early (well, for us) and were crossing the Rio Grande by 8:30am. One thing we should say first... we technically never "checked out" of Mexico. When you leave the country, you're supposed to surrender your Mexican car permit at the border, and turn in your tourist visa or get your FM-3 visa (if your a resident like us) stamped so that they know you're no longer in their country. But, we were in such a hurry to make Michigan in good time, and we knew that no one ever wants to talk to us at the border, we figured we could just slip out and back in without anyone being any the wiser.
As you probably have guessed by now, things did not go as smoothly as we had hoped. Crossing the border was fine, no one wanted to talk to us as we suspected (there's no border control people on the Mexican side of the border in Laredo or Nogales that we've seen). But at the 20km customs checkpoint on the way into the interior, we were not so lucky. You drive through a little toll booth-like thing with a green light and a red light. Once you pass through the sensor that detects your car, one of the two lights will go off. If you get a green, you're golden, drive on through to your destination. If you get a red, pull over and prepare to empty the contents of your car for searching. So there we were, emptying our car, when one of the customs guys noticed that our car permit was expired. Although the customs people in Puerto Vallarta say that as long as you're legally in Mexico, it doesn't matter if your permit has expired, the customs people at this checkpoint were not under that belief. We'd have been surprised if Mexican government workers in two different locations actually agreed on any rule. So back it was to the border, find the car permit office (not as easy as it sounds), renew our permit, back to the checkpoint (green light this time!), and back on the road nearly 2 hours behind our schedule (one mordida (bribe) for a supposedly illegal turn and two more times getting pulled over for car permit checks later).
The driving was just great this time! They have some beautiful new travel plazas along the way, the first of which we stopped at to get some Subway lunch. The drive is through the desert, but with enough elevation that it's cooler than our recent visits to KY, TN, & TX. The highlight, as before, was passing by one particularly intriguing stretch of desert where old women sell snakeskins and jars of venom on the side of the road. There are probably about 15 'stands' over a mile stretch where the snakeskins dangle in the wind, some of these stands having some sort of large predatory bird locked up in rickety wooden cages (to catch snakes?). Anyway, that's the photo over there on the right.
We decided it would be unlikely that we could make it the whole way to San Miguel before nightfall, and the last two hours of the trip involve some treacherous winding mountain roads, so we stayed in San Luis Potosi for the night at the Holiday Inn Express hotel. This hotel was like no other Holiday Inn we've seen. Apparently new (looked like they finished yesterday), it was very modern and architecturally interesting, and one of the nicest hotels we've stayed in. Too bad the sheets were so scratchy! The suits at the front desk even helped us order some tacos, which they had delivered to us for dinner. Just two hours to San Miguel manana. |
The proprietors of the snakeskin/venom stand excitedly ran to greet us as they saw our car slow down for a photo
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