Good Morning All,

Well, we made it to San Carlos. And we made it a day early. We were running ahead of schedule so we called the property management company to ask if they could recommend a hotel near the condo where we could stay if we came down from Tucson a day early. “Come on down”, they said. “The condo is empty. You can move in whenever. No extra charge. Call us when you get here.” (Our agent’s name is Elba. She is at Seaside Real Estate, and has been extraordinarily helpful.) So, Sunday morning we headed south on U.S. 19. Not sure what time we left, because we were two time zones over from what we’ve become used to, but, apparently, in a place that pays no attention to that whole daylight savings time thing so, it was either 7:30, 8:30, or 9:30. So, anyway, we’re heading down 19, and I’m feeling more confused than normal about the time. The GPS is telling me we’ll be arriving at the border in about an hour, but the mile markers are telling me to do that, we’d have to be moving at over a hundred miles an hour. So here’s the first thing you need to know about U.S.19:  The mile markers are kilometer markers. I guess it’s to prepare you for moving in to the metric system. On to the border! There are two places to cross in Nogales. One is called Mariposa, the other is called something else. Since I don’t remember the name, it should be obvious we went to Mariposa. We chose that one because, during our research, we read that the other one takes you through downtown Nogales, and Mariposa puts you right on the toll road, which was described in our reading as “four lanes, good roads, all the way to San Carlos”. Yeah, more on that later. If this is the way you want to go, take exit 4. This will, literally, take you right to the border crossing. First thing you’ll see is the check point on the U.S. side. I can’t really say why they call it a check point, though, ’cause we didn’t get checked, ’cause there was nobody there. Nobody. We rolled up to the sign that said “Stop here, follow instructions from officer”. So we stopped, but there was no officer. There was a building in front of us we figured maybe an officer would come out of and give us those instructions. Nope. You could go around that building on either side and Mexico had to be on the back of it somewhere, so, after we got tired of waiting (it wasn’t long, I’m neither patient nor a fan of Governmental idiocy), we drove on, sans officer instructions, and headed to the left side of the building. We saw a sign that said “No guns in Mexico” (although it didn’t actually say “guns”, it had a picture of a 1911 instead – for those of you unfamiliar with firearms, a 1911 is what you would refer to as “a gun” – so we figured Mexico must be over that way. We headed in that direction while I wondered if the U.S. was trying to hide Mexico, and simultaneously wondering if carbine fire would be coming through the back window since we proceeded without instructions. Next thing we saw was “Bienvenido a Mexico“; we found Mexico! YAY! We approached the parking garage up and down gate thing where you either get a red light, or a green light. Green light you just go on your merry way.  Red light you go to the right for inspection. Everyone hopes, of course, for a green light. We got a red light. Over to the right was a car with a female officer talking to the driver, and a male officer waving us into his lane. Here’s where the ominous music starts to build, and the following part of this should be read in the voice of the narrator of “A Christmas Story”. Questions, interrogations, Irene’s intimate apparel scattered about as they searched everything we had with us. This is what is going on in my head. We pulled up to the officer and lowered the window. “Pasaportes” (passports – duh). I handed him our passports, wondering if they would give them back in the interrogation room after the cavity search. “Abre la cajuela” (open the trunk). This is it, here come the cuffs. He walked to the back of the car, looked into the trunk and closed it. He walked back toward me. Oh, no, we must be headed for that place you see on TV where they take the car apart bolt by bolt, while scattering your wife’s intimate apparel all over the place. He handed me our passports; “Adelante” (go ahead). REALLY?! THAT’S IT?! He didn’t even ask if we had any guns, drugs or bombs! Much like Gabriel Iglesias says in his stand up routine when the cop didn’t give him a ticket, I wanted to ask, “Why?”. Fortunately, unlike me, Irene is not a moron and said “drive”. That being the first task direction I got from an American that day, I drove. That was our whole border crossing experience. It didn’t take two minutes. In a way, I was disappointed. After all I had read about questionings and searches and the scattering of intimate apparel, we got “Adelante”. Maybe it’s because I look honest. Maybe it was because he looked in the trunk, saw enough luggage to make a good dent in the space of a tractor trailer packed into the trunk like Tetris blocks and thought “ìOh, diablos no. La ropa intima no vale la pena!” (Oh hell no, no intimate apparel is worth that!’). And off we drove, into Mexico.

As I mentioned earlier, the reason we chose Mariposa is because a lot of people wrote about the “good roads, four lanes all the way to San Carlos” on the toll road 15D. That would be true if “good” was a Spanish word that translated to “not dirt”. I had envisioned coming from the border onto a four lane highway similar to the interstates in the U.S. No. The first part of the journey is on roads that were once full of holes, that had been repaired by turning those holes into bumps. The speed limit was 40 kph (about 25 mph). Then there are the topes. If you have done any reading on driving in Mexico, you have no doubt read about topes. A tope is a speed bump that would actually register a change on an altimeter. You have to slow to a crawl to go over them or you will damage your car. Mexico being full of enterprising folk, each tope had a variety of street vendors taking advantage of the slow moving traffic, to thrust all sorts of stuff at your person. One woman had a bag of black stuff in one hand, and a bag of white stuff in the other. Could have been food, could have been some sort of magical juju. Another guy was actually selling baby parrots in little round cages. It’s kind of interesting. Folks just trying to make a living. At one stoplight (yes, there are stoplights on the “four lane good road all the way to San Carlos”, a teenager came up and washed our windshield with water from a Coke bottle and a squeegee. Just trying to make a buck, or a peso. There are parts of this road that are four lanes and the speed limit is 110 kph, or about 70 mph. But not much of it. Huge sections, I’d estimate a third to half, of this highway are under construction, with the northbound side closed so all the traffic, both north and south, is re-routed to the two lanes on the other side of the highway and the speed limit is reduced to 40 to 60 kph (slow). It was OK, it just took forever. If you are coming while the construction is ongoing, allow at least an extra two hours to get to SC. Oh, the tolls. We read that the four lane good road had really expensive tolls. The tolls totaled 90 pesos (about five bucks). We didn’t think that was expensive, but when you compare it to the price of other things in Mexico, maybe it is. More on prices in our next installment.

All in all, we got here safe and sound. We’re decompressing from the drive and exploring. We looked over the pool and pickle ball court yesterday. I think we’re going to like it here. We have pics of the highway signs and checkpoints but I think we will have to get a different WordPress theme to post them in any sort of logical manner. I’ll work on that later. Meantime – enjoy your life; it’s the only one you get (as far as we know).

g.