We woke up at the Laredo Travel Information Center in Texas, with a bit of adrenaline as we would be driving a short distance to the US/Mexico border crossing today. We will admit, we were nervous about crossing over. There are a few Facebook groups that we'd joined leading up to this with folks who are all driving through Mexico, as well as others focused on Central and South America. While these can be very helpful as we had some of our questions answered on best routes to travel down, and read a number of other tips, in other ways it was like doing a WebMD search when you're not feeling well. That's to say that, there were also a bunch of scary stories on there as well. Now, you have to take it with a grain of salt as we don't know who's posting and what their agenda is, but the reality is that there can and have certainly been some rough places in Mexico. We were avoiding these spots, but of course we planned to keep our wits about us, and followed what seemed to be the 2 golden rules: don't drive at night, and stick to the paid tollways (called cuotas).
As we were about to leave the Information Center, we saw a huge RV (way bigger than ours, like a bus), with a small car towed behind it. It was a Mexican couple and they'd just been to the border, but had been turned back because they weren't allowed to tow their little car behind them, and were in the process of detaching it. Their plan was to cross the border and drive nonstop to their final destination in Mexico, which was about a 13 hour drive in total! That would absolutely mean that they would be driving in the dark. We weren't going in their direction, so we don't know if they made it or had to stop for the night somewhere, but seeing such a massive RV (that would definitely stand out on the road) made us feel a little more at ease about making the journey across.
¡Hola, México!
After filling up on gas one last time in Texas, we got to the border, and drove across the gates to the other side. We didn't know where exactly to park, but the guards motioned for us to move forward, so we moved into a lot where we saw other RVs and campers. Great, we are here. But now where do we go?
This was Lisette's moment to shine and try out her Duolingo Spanish, which, if you know, is absolutely atrocious for real-world speaking (Lisette is just hooked on the gamification and ease of opening an app everyday). We went into an office within a lot where Lisette asked a lady "We want to cross into Mexico, what do we do?" but the lady, looking confused, responded, "You are in Mexico." So yes, great start, we'd technically already crossed the border!
We eventually found out that we had to go first into an office to get our "Forma Migratoria Múltiple" (FMM), an "admission document" issued to visit the country. It's a tourist card, but not a visa. We filled in the forms and lined up pay for these, which was quick and easy since there weren't many tourists (seems most people were Mexican). Then we had to get into another line for our temporary vehicle import permit (TIP), which is allows us to drive our RV in Mexico for a certain number of days, and we'd need to cancel the TIP before we left to enter Guatemala. We had to get some more documents for this so went back to the RV, although in our rush and with all the paperwork, it turns out that Michael left his phone at the office, but fortunately it was tucked away safely by security when we returned. Great start!
Michael got into the line for the TIP, but it looked like it was going to be 1-2 hours of queuing, so Lisette walked back to the RV (it was hot), so Sheila could have a quick walk and do her business. As they walked around the parking lot, they passed a couple of stray dogs who were sleeping, so we tiptoed past them to get back to the RV. Unfortunately, Lisette decided to pass a building on the way back to the RV, and there was a dog inside there, who started to bark loudly. Suddenly, Lisette saw the 2 dogs that we'd passed who were sleeping, bolt towards us and focus on Sheila! Sheila has survived an atrocious dog attack before in San Francisco, which was horrific--and in that split second, Lisette ended up letting the leash go so Sheila could get away, rather than having the leash hold her back.
Fortunately, the dogs didn't get to Sheila, but now Lisette had to chase her, who was freaked out. Sheila ran back to the US side, Lisette trying to catch up. She was almost at her, when Sheila ran down a steep hill filled with bushes and thick scrub. Several Mexican men, who could see what was happening and Lisette screaming after Sheila, tried to help--wandering down the steep hill to try and grab her, but Sheila had then ran up the hill on the other side, going off into who knows where. Lisette's heart sank... this cannot be happening!
Suddenly Sheila came back and the several men tried to get her, but she was too quick--she ran back up the hill to the other side, Lisette chasing her to then a different hill, where another man tried to nab her before she disappeared down the hill once again. By now, there were at least 6 or 7 men who knew what was happening, and fortunately they had walkie talkies and were trying to spot her. She'd disappeared into the truck border crossing, and chatting in Spanish, the men told Lisette that they had spotted Sheila further away, and were getting on a tractor to bring her back. Lisette was left with a couple of the men, waiting for their return as the tractor drove towards the truck crossing.
After a few minutes (it seemed like hours), the men returned--there was one man driving the tractor, and 4 men in the tractor in the loader bucket at the front, holding onto Sheila who was standing in there beside them. Reunited! Lisette could only burst into tears. Sheila was clearly a mess and distressed--she smelled terrible and her leash and fur were covered in dirt. Lisette could only apologize and thank the men profusely for all their help, dragging Sheila back to the RV. They encountered one of the dogs again but this time were able to shout for it to get away, before Sheila went back into our vehicle, shaken but now safe.
During this time Michael had no idea what was happening, and he texted Lisette to get back to the office. Lisette got back just as it was our turn in line! The TIP process was straightforward, where we declared what items we had on a form and paid the fee. We were expecting a vehicle inspection, but we didn't get one (had we known, Lisette wouldn't have thrown out the small amount of milk and carrot that we had in anticipation of bringing food across the border). The TIP in Mexico lasts for 10 years, which was maybe why we didn't end up needing to pay an additional deposit (that you get back when you leave). By this time Michael had been updated on the situation, and we got back to poor Sheila. We triple checked we had everything with the officers around us, and when they confirmed we were good, we drove out onto the roads in Mexico.
Costly, Costly Cuotas
Our initial reaction to the driving down the highway in Mexico was--are we on the right road? It was well-paved, but was eerily devoid or any vehicles and made us feel uneasy. So we turned around and asked the National Guard officers who were parked at the beginning of the highway which way to go, and he confirmed that we indeed needed to drive on the La Gloria-Colombia stretch of highway to get to 85D (D denotes that it's a toll road, or cuota). Sheila, still freaked out, was barking uncontrollably as Lisette asked for directions, which is understandable, but now we know that until she is back at ease she will be barking whenever strangers get near our RV.
We eventually got onto the 85D, which was a nice, straight and new road, and noticed that people driving on the right hand side would be half in that lane but half on the shoulder. This is a way to let people easy overtake each other. If it's only a single lane, it can become 2 lanes with someone overtaking in the middle. If there's 2 lanes, then it can become 3 lanes just as easily. And folks sped on these roads! This meant that we were able to make good time, not stopping along the way, not even for lunch. We ate snacks for lunch, zipping past hundreds of Joshua trees and lush scenery in this part of Mexico. There are a ton, and we mean, A TON of trucks on the roads, and we also saw quite a lot of law enforcement as well, including the national guard and the state police. They did look a bit intimidating, as their faces are well covered and for the National Guard, there'd tend to be at least one officer standing up behind the pickup next to the gun that looked locked and loaded.
At one point Google Maps didn't give us enough of a heads up on which road to take at a fork (it tends to do that, annoyingly), so we ended up on a "libremente"--the free road equivalent. We weren't eager to try driving on this road (although it does seem that these can sometimes be just as smooth and not have that much traffic in comparison). We found a way to turn around and make it back onto a cuota, despite it being a very expensive endeavor (by the end of the day, we'd paid US$65 for the toll roads!).
Snazzy Saltillo
Finally, we ended up in Saltillo, the capital and largest city of the northeastern Mexican state of Coahuila. While we'd heard that many folks had been stopped at checkpoints, we fortunately hadn't been stopped at any point on the drive, and were waved through one as we neared Saltillo.
Our stop for the night was one we'd found in advance, at Hotel Imperial in Saltillo. It's a traditional hotel with rooms, but there's also a big parking lot at the back of the hotel that's gated and has secure 24/7, and RVs and campers pay a different rate to park here for the night. In the lot there's also hookups for electricity, water and dumping grey/black water (although we couldn't use electricity as it was only 20 amp and we needed 30, but that was fine). The man at the security gate was a cute elderly gentlemen who didn't really speak English, but we communicated enough where he let us in the gate with a smile and nod after we registered, and we then went to the office to pay for our night's stay.
Once we set up, it was time to check on Sheila--she was limping, and we realized that her poor little paws were absolutely shredded to bits after her ordeal running around. She also smelled terrible, so we gave her a bath, and then bandaged her paws. We also noticed that the tray in the back storage part of our RV had collapsed again (there were a lot of bumps on the road, even when we were on cuotas--for some reason they like to put a bunch of speed bumps everywhere), so Michael had to also drill the tray back in as best as he could so that we wouldn't inadvertently lose anything.
Dinner Time
We hadn't really eaten lunch (unless Japanese peanuts count), so we reluctantly left Sheila to recover in the RV (at least we're in the mountains so it was a cool evening), to grab dinner. We ended up stumbling upon a restaurant called Matsuri Izakaya that serves ramen, and other Japanese fare. The whole area looked rather fancy, so we clearly were staying in an upmarket part of town! The ramen was delicious (and there was vegan ramen on the menu for Lisette filled with tons of veggies, yay!). The prices were close to US prices for ramen, reaffirming that we were indeed in a fancy neighborhood.
As we went to bed that night, we could hear a lot of folks around the parking lot, loudly talking and laughing (the lot is near an event hall, and it seemed that there was some kind of ugly sweater party happening). It was a group of young folks having a lot of wholesome fun for a Saturday night--chatting while sharing a big bottle of Fanta! Still, we wanted to get enough zzz's before another long drive in the morning. Luckily, like the wholesome folks that they were, they all got into their cars at midnight, driving home and leaving us in peace to sleep.