The
moment many of you have been waiting for - we finally made it
south of the border! After all our careful preparations and
worries, the border crossing went more smoothly than we ever
thought possible. I guess it helps when you are prepared for
the worst! It would have been even easier if anyone at the
tourist visa/car permit place in Nuevo Laredo had spoken English
- official paperwork is challenging to complete in a foreign
language! You’d think maybe one of the people working the U.S.
border would speak English, but I guess not.
So
we made it through, and after about a half of a kilometer or so
(look at us, we’re all metric!), we saw our first Mexican
walking a burro down the side of the road. We passed a car from
California a couple of times, and ended up lunching at the same
place as them. They turned out to be from Vallejo, and sounded
like they were basically doing the same thing as us. Anyway,
after quite a few hours of driving across the Mexican desert, we
made it to the pleasant Camino Real Hotel, where we collapsed in
exhaustion after a full day of hearing and speaking only
Spanish, and not knowing what the heck we were doing. |
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Caroline enjoys a ride on the merry-go-round outside of
our room at the Camino Real Hotel in Saltillo, Mexico,
on our first night. Does this look like Mexico? |
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Our
room in Saltillo - quite nice! I think they get a
lot of business travelers from the U.S. Scott's
over there sitting at the beautiful desk. |
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Nice furniture, comfortable bed (we slept great!), but
we still didn't feel safe flushing the toilet paper -
you don't do that here in Mexico! |
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The
room had this sliding glass door that led out to a nice
grassy yard. |
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