We have taken a day off and it's been quite lovely! This, October 24th, is day five and the past four days have been spent just getting into Mexico. We left New Orleans around mid-day on the 20th after making final preparations to the house, bikes and gear. We took highway 90 (not ideal riding) down to the very southern part of Louisiana and then skimmed along the edge to Cameron where we stopped for the night. The whole area around Cameron was decimated by some hurricane or another a few years ago and is not exactly bustling. What is there seems to be mostly oil and gas or fishing related- it's got some hard edges as my mother would say.
The next day was a long haul to Victoria, Texas by way of Galveston. We took two ferries which were delightful and enjoyed lunch in Galveston. It was a really long day though with an 8 AM start and finally pulling into Victoria around 5 PM. Gusty Texas "farm roads" with 75 MPH speed limits were interspersed with small town stretches of stop lights.
The evening was enjoyable, however, with a regular at the hotel bar buying everyone (all 6 of us) multiple Patron shots to celebrate our trip- D and I went up to our room with said regular's number and admonishments to call if we got into trouble "down there".
Victoria to Eagle Pass was a relative breeze by comparison to the day before and we pulled into the border town in the early afternoon after an early morning riding through empty mist covered back Texas roads. Eagle Pass is a bit of a surprise to me, I'd never been to a border town before and had quite a different thing in mind than the bizarre Americana that we found there. I had anticipated more of a blended cultural experience and while I have no doubt that in reality that is probably the case, the superficial trappings of America with big box stores etc. seemed to have been played up- perhaps as a lure for Mexican tourists?
The Super Walmart where D and I bought last minute supplies was packed with Mexicans loading up- the parking lot was filled with Mexican license plates.
By comparison, Piedras Negras, the Mexican counter part to Eagle Pass, while prospering as Eagle Pass is from it's border town location, was obviously not a match in general affluence. While this is certainly logical given the facts that we know about each of these countries, it still hit me hard. I have never before had the experience of traveling overland from one country to another with such obvious wealth disparity.
Davis and I were a tad nervous about dealing with the temporary vehicle importation process at the customs office in Allende (30 KM past the actual border crossing) so we left early that Sunday morning to reach the office before any crowds could develop. This worked fabulously. While the process did take about 30 to 40 minutes with many trips back and forth between two windows, the office was basically empty so everything went smoothly. I can't imagine what a headache it would be while crowded. We emerged victorious and legal IN MEXICO!! at 9:15 AM.
We stopped a little while later for gas and starving still without finding a bank to get any Pesos. We found a cute little taco stand instead with an ATM sign. Of course, who knows what the ATM sign stood for because it certainly wasn't a machine spitting out pesos. After several minutes of staring at each other and getting our courage up to make contact with non-bureaucrats, we made our way over to find out if they would feed us in exchange for dollars. We were greeted with smiles and a very patient lady that didn't mind lifting the lid on every single taco stuffing option she had and she had plenty.
The food was great, the Nestle cafe woke us up and the people couldn't have been nicer dealing with our stilted Spanish. As silly as it sounds the whole experience really started the whole trip off wonderfully. From there, we continued on our way toward Saltillo- our first stop in Mexico. We took the free roads rather than the toll roads because we had read that the libres were a good experience. They have been so far. Very nice road conditions and the riding itself is more to my taste than it was in Texas and Louisiana. The pace is slower and the driving style seems less aggressive. Most of the day was spent riding through empty, flat dry land with the exception of a beautiful mountain pass right after leaving Montclova- the only large town between the border area and Saltillo on our route.
Entering Saltillo we hit 5,600 FT and despite my concerns about high altitudes and my bike's carburetor, everything has been fine so far (though we'll go far higher before the trip is finished). I should mention that my bike has been eating a bit of oil but we've heard that this is normal for XT 250's at high speeds. As for the possible altitude issues, D put on a different exhaust before we left that causes the bike to run leaner in anticipation of this. We are hoping that it will be enough as no other modifications are really possible.
The hacienda style hotel that we are staying at, Rancho el Morillo, has been lovely and relaxing. We've enjoyed the day off doing laundry, kicking around the town centro and catching up on correspondence. Tomorrow we head to an old mining town- Real de Catorce. I'm looking forward to the 2 km + tunnel and 16 km of "rock" road as one of the guests at Morillo described it to us.
More later. Peace and love.
