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Published: December 27th 2006
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San Antonio >> Laredo and Nuevo Laredo Day 5 - San Antonio, TX >> Saltillo (I do not know the states in Mexico so from now on I will leave them out)
Highlights: truck permit; pollution; Pemex
We packed a few last minutes things into the truck and planned to meet mom and dad at the Flying J (truck stop or a travel plaza as they like to call them now a days) our last stop in our current civilization about 5km north of the border. Carlo and I needed coffee for the road (as you know we got hooked on Starbucks, we blame it on the road travel 😊 and I had seen one yesterday when mom and I had done some errand, ofcourse it was completely a good 10km in the opposite direction but we were desperate.
We were pretty excited to be finally off to Mexico on four wheels. Actually driving down, on our own with Yukon, we talked about it for so many years and here we are actually going to do it we were pretty exited. Yesterday we had told the trailer park owner that we were off to Mexico, he could not believe it that we were going to drive
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Nuevo Laredo >> Monterrey >> Saltillo 'to' and then actually drive 'in' Mexico, he said "what about all those kidnappings on the border in Laredo"? Well maybe we are actually nuts for doing it or these people have seen way too many movies, I am guessing it us being brave and nutty at the same time. It took us three hours to get to Flying J's and met up with mom and dad. We then planned our strategy on how to get into Mexico, just kidding there was no big plan, just drive over the bridge of the Rio Grande and followed mom and dad as there is some kind of quirky route you have to take to get to the vehicle permit building. Mom and dad warned us this could take half a day or longer, due to grumpy officials, non-English speaking officials, very old officials (needing hearing aids) on coffee break officials, people who became officials yesterday, etc. so we were prepared.
In less than 2hours we were out of there, what??, yes in less then two hours. The reason it even took 2hours was due to the fact that my truck permit showed 'johanna' as my first name and also my last
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Close to crossing the Rio Grande. name and then that my truck was a two door truck (I have never seen a two door suv, but maybe they have) they did not want to re-issue another permit but I held my ground and said I was not leaving until they changed it.
The routine to finally get your vehicle permit was interesting (this is for those of you who plan to drive into Mexico in the near future, as it change probably every day 😉 but to you others, you can keep reading if you wish as I said it was quite interesting)
1) You have to find 'the' door that actually opens, plenty visible, but none that work that day
2) It is advised you get some Mexican pesos before you start standing any of the lines, you will just have to start over again if you do not have any pesos
3) You stand in the first line to only request a tourist visa, they will look at your passport and then give you the tourist card to fill in.
4) Once done, you go back to the same line to get the tourist visa stamped. Make sure you ask for 180 days,
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On the bride crossing the Rio Grande, thus entering Mexico. No big fanfare here. sometimes this is an issue as they quickly only write down 90days, but today the official seem to understand "cienteocho" and stamped the tourist visa for 180days for us.
5) Next you need to pay for the tourist card this requires standing in another line, we paid 220pesos (22usd) each for the tourist visas.
6) Now comes the car permit, you stand in another line where they check the passport, tourist visa, car insurance (which we bought before we arrived in Laredo) then you pay 20pesos (2usd) for them to photocopy all these documents.
7) Once you have the photocopies you walk to the final lineup and get the actual vehicle permit, that takes a while as you have to ensure everything on the permit is correct.
Because there were practically no line ups at all we were done within 2hours. Mom and dad have never seen it so quiet in the building as it usually takes them half a day to get thru the line ups. They must have known we were coming 😊.
After you have the permit and paste it inside your truck window we were off to the Mexican checkpoint, this is where they check
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Our first pictures of Mexico, yes you just knew you were in Mexico, the smell, the heat, the sound and the air, you just knew. your passport, tourist visa, vehicle permit and make sure everything matches, if not they turn you around, and back you go to the permit building. Now you have to know that this checkstop is about 26km from the actual land border/Rio Grande, so you want to make sure all your paper work is correct.
Well again they must have knows we were coming as a normal clothed fella in a wheelchair on the side of the road at the checkpoint yelled vaya vaya, even the border official waved us thru in a hurry, mom and dad could not believe it, the first time in 13years that they were not stopped, they "ALWAYS stop us" mom said, we shall use her favorite word mom was 'flabbergasted'.
MEXICO.... we could not believe it we were actually driving in MEXICO. We were anxious to see Mexico on four wheels; bulls, tabasco, tarantulas, drug dealers, donkeys, topes, semitrailor crash, $8usd bag of Lays chips, no showers, too much tequila, where the $%(* is our tent, three coffee machines, grenades, the queen, 20 bottle of wine in the, a couple of good jokes, etc , yes I am serious you will just have
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And so we followed D'nM into Mexico. to keep reading .....
The drive from Nuevo Laredo to Monterrey was on the tollroad $14usd, yes that is very pricy but the toll roads are good and not much traffic. Monterrey and Saltillo (just southwest of Monterrey) is one big valley of factories, we saw an enormous Wallmart distribution centre, factories for Ford, KimberlyClack (public washroom utilities) Volvo, GM, Dylmar Chrysler, etc. you name it it was there. The pollution is staggering as it is just everywhere, on the ground in the air we really believe people do not live mutch past 50years of age here.
Our destination to spend the night was originally Concepcion del Oro, but we only made it as far as Saltillo. You DO NOT DRIVE at night in Mexico, cars/truck, horses/donkey/bulls some or all move and stop without tail lights and you never know when you are about to hit one around the corner.
Our first night in Mexico was at a Pemex gas station at the south end of Saltillo, the first of many. Pemex is pretty much the main gas station in Mexico, the pump prices are the same everywhere in Mexico so you do not have to start
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Carlo and his face mask, he is allergic to Wally and the dust on the road was unbearable to him at first. looking for the best price. I believe it was a few years ago when the government made the gas stations private so now there are brand new Pemex gas stations everywhere. 'Most' are new, well lit, usually have a little snack shop, good/clean and I mean clean bathrooms. They became our haven, for water, snacks, gas, water, bathroom stops (many due to the water stops) and overnights. If you want to overnight at the Pemex the polite thing to do is full up your gas tank in return for staying the night (at one Pemex there was even a police officer with an machine gun to protect it). Carlo swears we were taken at the first Pemex by the amount we paid for the amount in liters of gas, as the gas attendants had a big smirk on his face, but maybe it was because I tipped him. You also have to make sure that they reset the pump back to zero as they will take you for a peso ride. We finally renamed the gas stations 'Pee-Mex', as we more often stopped at them for a bathroom break then for gas and the only reason we were able to
stop and overnight at the Pemex gas stations is because we traveled with mom and dad and the 5wheeler (stove, refrigerator, extra pullout bed, bathroom) yes luxury on the road. Went to bed early as there is not much to do in the dark at a Pemex. Carlo and I had a movie night as he brought along his dvd movie player.
We need to make a name change here, lets call mom and dad 'D'nM' ... thanks, 5 less characters and two spaces to keyboard every time, D'nM ... sounds pretty cool to me.
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