Hanging out a mile or two from la frontera (the border) is one thing.
Descending past about 30 miles into the “interior” of Mexico is something else completely. And I’m talking both figuratively and literally.
Yeah, in many ways it feels like the “wild, wild west” once you’re beyond the gringo-rich bordertown atmosphere.
But then there’s la aduana, or “customs” as it’s best translated into English.
Now clearly Mexico would rather you not bring your U.S.-registered vehicle into their precious country. In fact, they apparently have more of a phobia of your car for some reason then the State Of Texas, Farmer’s Insurance and GMAC do combined. Whatever their hang-up, it’s obviously an untold calamity worse than your kick-ass symbol of American gas-guzzling extreme being pilfered under cover of the night (or by banditos during broad daylight?) and whisked off to some “chop shop” never to be recovered.
Then again, what does Farmer’s care? Once you’re past la aduana you’re pretty much on your own as far as they’re concerned. This means that a subtle form of low-grade extortion known as “Mexican Auto Insurance” is a must. The cost? Only roughly 8-10 times the cost of equivalent US insurance for a similar coverage period.
Sooner than later, you realize that’s a bargain. After all, one of the most bizarre fundamentals of Mexican culture is that people just flat-out have distinctively less respect for the value of their own lives than I’ve ever seen in any country in the world.
Emily claims that this has a lot to do with the ubiquitous Catholic Church’s teaching that God will take you when he feels like it, and that there’s not much we humans can do about it when “our time” comes.
I think that explanation carries a certain amount of verisimilitude based on what I’ve seen. Hell, if such a philosophy indeed rules the day then it obviously applies to animals also. Mexicano drivers appear to have a shocking propensity for mowing down any vertebrate (human or otherwise) that crosses their asphalt path without so much as a tap on the brakes.
But back to the story.
Emily’s aunt had explained to us, rather convincingly, that the faxed version of GMAC’s “permission slip” to take the “Short Bus” into Mexico was not going to be adequate. They were going to demand an original.
But having come this far, we were undaunted. We hit la aduana the morning after the wedding with the kind of “bulletproof confidence” I’ve talked about before under separate cover.
And sure enough, after wading through about six lines–covering one minor detail at a time–we made it to a window where a young, apparently demure woman of about 4’10/85 lbs. took a freakin’ bazooka to our “bulletproof confidence”.
Only it wasn’t about the fax. Ironically, we never heard so much as a pio-pio about that.
Unbeknownst to any of us was a certain clause that required we had a “receipt” for your Texas registration. The sticker and the documentation of proof wasn’t enough for these turkeys. They wanted a form that we’d later find out isn’t even routinely supplied to Texas vehicle registrants. Inexplicably, no guideline we ever found prior to the trip ever mentioned such a document as necessary to the process.
Whatever!
After high-tailing it back to Juarez, scrambling to get a receipt via Internet connection at some hotel and backtracking to where the customs office was, our frustration was made complete: “Internet” forms didn’t count. Only the office-issued version was “valid”.
The date was Monday, May 26th. Memorial Day. The nearest Texas Department Of Motor Vehicles Office, in El Paso, was closed for the holiday.
Now, if this little chick has been Jonesing for a mordida (make that “bribe”), she was more subtle than a slow gas leak about it. Emily and I both concluded that she was dead serious. The form was a must.
No worries…sort of. We kicked back at a pretty blasted good cantina in Juarez for the night, drained Carta Blancas and watched the Celtics dismantle the Pistons on American television.
The next morning it was off to El Paso, where Emily quickly dispatched of the documentation problem at the D.O.T. Meanwhile, I was rudely awakened to a major server error at my Web Host. So all told, this impromptu backtracking expedition into El Paso was fortuitous.
We jetted to la aduana, where Emily was given even more unexpected hassles by the guy next in line after D.O.T-girl about having a different last name on her Passport than her driver’s license. But after carefully explaining that it was due to something called “marriage” back in the states, and overwhelming the probable mordida-seeker with an onslaught of supporting paperwork, the guy relented.
From there it was open road…finally.
We were a day and a half behind schedule, but headed to Chihuahua.
And perhaps not coincidentally, we would see exactly two other Texas license plates from that point until Nuevo Laredo nearly 1200 miles later. Clearly you have to have a special personality type to even attempt this “road trip through Mexico in your own car” stuff.
Despite common-wisdom that Northern Mexico is pretty much barren desert for miles and miles, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the scenery changes rather profoundly and quite often, varying between low-desert and high-desert environments with corresponding changes in flora and elevation.
That’s not to say the road was not a long one. It was nearly 300 miles to Ciudad Chihuahua, where Emily’s uncle Augusto and his way cool familia were awaiting our arrival.
One thing we couldn’t help but notice is how even though Mexico’s main highway infrastructure was generally of good quality, there were several blatant reminders that you were in a whole ‘nother country (besides Texas).
First, there are no shoulders. If your ride coughs up a lung you’d better hope the traffic behind you is looking alive out there…especially at night. Sheesh.
Second, there are no guard rails. This means YOU had better look alive out there also, especially at night.
There are plenty of little flower-draped crosses lining the road in remembrance of those who apparently fell victim to one or the other scenarios described above.
Third, and arguably most imminently meaningful, the speed limits are both RANDOM and SLOWER THAN RUST. And the locals really don’t give a rip.
But on the other hand, Los Federales (sporting shiny new Dodge Chargers in pearlescent navy blue) do indeed give a rip. Especially if you happen to be driving a “pull me over and fine me”-yellow H3 with gringo tags.
So abide by the speed limits we did, neurotically checking the rear-view every thirty seconds to make sure we weren’t about to get “DINA” tattooed on the back of our heads by a screaming 34-wheeler “road train”. Not that it mattered, seeing as how there was no shoulder to pull over to in such an event anyway.
But fortune smiled upon us, and we made it to Chihuahua. The first thing we saw was an industrial park lined with spanking-new maquiladoras, or “twin plants”…mostly owned by international companies taking full advantage of cheap labor and other NAFTA-oriented benefits. Interestingly, these companies also tend to build entire neighborhoods of low-cost housing for their workers, presumably as part of a “benefits package”. Either that, or the workers end up owing their proverbial souls to the company store. You can’t really be sure.
Getting to uncle Augusto’s house was apparently complicated, so we parked at a local Soriana to rendezvous with Emily’s cousin.
Now Soriana is sort of like a Mexican version of Super Wal-Mart, only with a more devastating array of high-quality (but decidedly bizarre) snack items.
Well that, and there’s this curious Mexican custom that Soriana champions of making concrete, curblike structures that extend vertically precisely not enough to be visible from the driver’s seat while simultaneously yet equally precisely enough to seriously muff up your bumper, passenger door, front differential or anything else that so much as grazes them. Nice.
So it goes with many things in Mexico, as duly noted in the first installment of this series, nobody knows why they are there.
I’ve always thought it would be funny to write a comedy skit in Spanish featuring a lead female character named “Soriana” who liked to spend too much money shopping.
Then again I have a warped sense of humor.
Emily’s cousin indeed met us after a short time, and that’s where the true adventures started…which we’ll talk about in the next installment…
Be Good,
Scot McKay
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Yesterday’s blog post caught a LOT of readership (even if none of y’all commented), so I know that relationship management is a HUGE issue for you.
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