We left San Carlos at 8am yesterday en route to Tucson. Our first stop was a military checkpoint north of Hermosillo, where we were pulled aside to be searched for drugs or weapons. The car was so tightly packed that the uniformed soldier poked around awhile and then pulled out 3 items to be taken inside for X-Ray. Finding nothing, we continued on our journey. We stopped at Leo's for tacos, in a small Mexican town about 50 miles south of the border. After that, we arrived at kilometer 21, the Mexican border stop for customs and auto permits. We tried to turn in our car permit, which last year they told us needs to be redone each year. This time, the man at the booth said we could keep our current one for another year. Confusing!
The next bureaucratic hassle was at customs. We had two boat items to take back to the US for repair, a winch and our flopper-stoppers that we use at anchor to keep the boat more stable. In order to avoid paying duty on the new ones when we return, we had obtained a letter from our marina in San Carlos that needed to be offically stamped on our way out of Mexico. I will spare you further details on this process other than to say we wondered later if it was worth it to save paying the taxes. We also had to have our FM-3 visas stamped to show we had exited Mexico at this point.
On to the US border crossing- a 40 minute line of stop and go traffic with Mexicans hawking Jesus statues, guitars, sombrero hats along the way. I thought I was going to choke from the carbon dioxide fumes. Finally we got to the window and showed our passports. "Any alcohol, fruits, meats, or medicines?" he asked. "None," we said. "Or any animals? Have a nice day!" he said in one breath, as he motioned for us to move on across the barrier to the US. With Luna quiet in her carrier in the back seat, neither one of us thought it prudent to volunteer any further information, although we did have the requisite vaccine certificate if necessary.
Home free? Not quite. There was a Border Patrol checkpoint about halfway between Nogales and Tucson with a back up of about ten minutes. We were waved through immediately as I am sure the officer did not think we could fit any undocumented workers into our crammed car. We finally arrived at our motel in Tucson around 4:30pm. The office door was locked with a sign "We will return at 4:15." Hmmm. We sat there in the car for about half an hour before deciding to call the phone number. The clerk answered and said "Oh, sorry, I forgot to take down the sign." By the time we unloaded some things from the car and Dean chained up our bikes we were pooped! Today we are resting up before we move to the motor home tomorrow at friend Iris's house.
Comments