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Driving across the Mexican desert, touring lots of Pemex gas station banos (bathrooms)

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.