October 10, 2010

Buenas Dias Mexico

To everyone's relief, we crossed into Mexico without incident-almost. We were feeling pretty confident about finding Customs (it is not right at the border as in the US and Canada) and getting processed because we had done it several times before on our way to the Mexican National Rally. So imagine our surprise when we found it but the gates were locked and on closer examination, the entire parking lot was under water! This was the first evidence we saw of the recent storms that have flooded the countryside.

So it was off to find another Customs office and we didn't have to go far to find it ten miles east in Phar. The processing went relatively quickly and we were soon on our way south with both bikes and people documented for travel.

Not long after, we came upon our first military checkpoint and found with a woman leading and a cheery “Hola!”, inspections were cursory and quick. At least two were. At the third checkpoint, they lined all the bikes up nose to tail and a soldier held what looked like a 'witching stick' and walked down the line. He did this several times and each time the stick turned and pointed at Ross. The officer who stopped us explained they were searching for ammunition or drugs and I assured him we had neither. Just as I said that, they pulled out Ross' bulging medicine bag so I tried to explain that we had malaria medicine for six months and that Ross was an old, sick man and had other medicines for various aliments in sundry parts of the body which I didn't have Spanish words for so I pointed them out. By this time, they were convinced we were harmless hypochondriacs and waved us on.

We spent the first night in Manuel, at a wonderful hotel recommended by Ken O'Malley and Wayne Dougherty and the second day rode through the countryside in beautiful sunshine to Vera Cruz where we spent Saturday night dinning on the old town square, drinking cervecas and listening to Latino music. This travel business is hard work

6 comments:

  1. Way to go, Jean ! Thanks for the heads up about the 'floods' in MX, we intend to cross at McAllen, too.

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  2. I really like the SPOT. You can't hide as long as it's on. Now that you're moving on I can see which roads you take and where you stop. I have no more recommendations. I thought that you rode pretty late last night until I realized that Mexico is 2 hours behind us. I hope there was some activity in the Zocala. There seemed to be something every night when we were there.
    wayne

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  3. Steve... Had to laugh if your the one carrying the SPOT,,, as I zoomed in on the Sat. there seemed to be some confusion in Minatitlan,, that or you were touring the town :-) Dan S. (thee ole spot will give it away every time)

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  4. Just bouncing back and forth from hotel to hotel to find the best deal. Didn't even end up exactly where it says we did :-)

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  5. Que bueno que ya esten en Mexico. Don't drink the water!Looking forward to more stories and photos.
    Abrazos,
    Felice

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  6. PS. Dan, if you think the SPOT track is confusing, you should see the track on the gps!

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