The Mexican border and Aliens in Roswell

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The ride from Parras to the border was pretty fast, despite the 500 km or so I needed to cover. The highway north from Monclova was awesome and I maintained 130 km/h most of the time. I arrived in the border city of Piedras Negras around 3 PM and headed for the border.

I needed to cancel my vehicle importation permit in order for the $400 security deposit to be reversed on my credit card. I walked into the immigration office located just before the international bridge that crosses the Rio Grande and found a deserted office. A lone security guard stood in the lobby. I told him I needed to cancel my permit. He communicated to me that the Banjercitas - the agency that issues the permits - was actually located about 5 blocks from the border.

He gave me directions, but they got lost in translation. I drove in the direction I thought he was sending me, but had no luck finding it. I returned to the border point and walked up to the security guard shaking my head. He said something involving the word bicycle. After the 3rd or 4th time, I finally understood that he was offering to lead me to the Banjercitas on his bicycle. Now this guy was on duty at the customs building and about 60 years old, but I could not refuse his offer.

The sight of a fully laden motorcycle following a mexican security guard on a mountain bike must have raised a few eyebrows, but he got me there. I gave him 20 pesos for his trouble and I think I made a friend for life. After I got my permit cancelled, I returned to customs to get my tourist card cancelled and found out that the customs official had left about an hour ago saying he'd be back in 5 minutes. A Mexican-American man wanting to enter Mexico was waiting to process his permit and told me that that was pretty typical in Mexico.

When I realized I should plug the parking meter, my security guard friend ran to deposit some coins for me. After waiting for another half hour or so, I found out that there was another border crossing in Piedras Negras, a few km away. I rode over to it and found that there was a custom's official on duty. He stamped me out of the country and I was on my way to the US.

I anticipated being sent for a secondary search by US customs, but I was simply waived through after the customs officer figured out that Saskatchewan was not in the District of Columbia.

I rode to Del Rio, TX and called it a night.

On Tuesday morning I rode 900 km to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The first couple of hundred km paralleled the border. I lost count of the number of US Border Patrol vehicles I encountered. I also saw at least one of their helicopters overhead. I also drove through a Border Patrol checkpoint.

Just outside Roswell, New Mexico, I caught a glimpse of a bizarre sight, about 1 km off the highway: a hundred or so commercial airliners were sitting out in the desert. I made a u-turn and drove down a lonely road, passing by several rusted mobile homes that were still being lived in. The road followed a tall fence that encercled the planes. I eventually got close enough to see that thye whole complex was part of an airport that looked abandonned. Most of the planes had American Airlines markings. The rest had markings I did not recognize. The whole place had an eerie feel to it.

I continued on to Roswell, of UFO fame, and stopped to visit the UFO museum & research centre. A let down to say the least. But the entertainment value of eavesdropping on the conspiracy theoricists that were in the place was priceless.

I stopped for the day in Moriarty, NM, just 50 km short of Albuquerque. I have about 3,200 km left to home. I'll be keeping an eye on the recent winter weather that has been wreaking havoc in Saskatchewan. The forecast is calling for warmer weather over the next few days...

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Photos

South of Roswell
Airliners sitting idle in the desert