Phew, we made it into Mexico, and we’re blowing through the north part of it to get closer to somewhere we can settle down a bit longer.  We entered Mexico on Tuesday, and we’ve been driving almost everyday since to get farther and farther south.  It’s more driving than I expected, but it’s also going better than I’d hoped.  It’s definitely hot, but surprisingly green for what I expected to be desert landscape.  Apparently there’s been a lot of rain here this season, so it’s not normally so green.

The border crossing at the Nogales truck route was easy – almost too easy.  At the border itself there was a sign that said to stop and wait for someone to inspect you.  We did so and two cars drove around us, and there was nobody in sight to actually do anything, so we kept driving too.  We knew from research that most of what we needed to do happened around kilometer 21, so we kept going until we got there.  I filled out the visa paperwork to get a 6 month tourist visa for everyone, then the paperwork to bring our car into the country, paid for all that at the Banjercito bank window outside, and came back to get everything stamped.  Nobody searched our car for fruits, vegetables, guns, dogs, drugs or anything else.  The guy stamping passports did so without even having Kim or the kids present, although they had been in and out of the building while I filled out the paperwork.  I assume coming back to the US will be a bit more thorough an experience.

We had purchased Mexican car insurance from Sanborn’s insurance in the lobby of the Holiday Inn the previous day.  All the research I did online it seemed all the policies were pretty close to the same in terms of features and price.  So with all those details taken care of the only thing left to do was drive.  The most impressive thing about our drive through Sonora was the potholes.  That might sound like I’m saying it wasn’t very impressive, but you should see the size of some of these potholes.  This is really our first time driving in a developing nation instead of taking bus transportation everywhere.  If it weren’t for traveling with the dog and all the stuff kids need I’d go back to buses in a second.  You can’t really just hit the highway and tune out like you can with interstates in the US.  There’s always some sort of hazard popping up whether that’s giant potholes, drastic speed changes, constant construction, speed bumps, toll booths, people selling stuff in the middle of the road, drivers who pull out into traffic going 110 km/hr, or huge semi trucks driving like maniacs.

We intended to stop in Hermosillo, about three hours from the border, but when we got there Xena was sleeping like a champ.  So we decided to press on a few more hours to a town on the coast.  It felt like that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer drives the car until the gas runs out: exhilarating until it ends.  As we got into San Carlos we thought we had a place that would work based on our research, but we couldn’t find it.  Turns out it had changed owners and no longer allowed dogs.  So we turned to a backup choice, Hotel Creston $600 pesos, but by this point we were all hungry, tired and cranky.  In retrospect we probably drove too late in the day, and I wish we’d setup and taken advantage of calling ahead to places on our phones.  But we got settled, took a dip in the pool, and slept pretty well our first night in Mexico.  The motel we were at reminded us of our days backpacking through South America – that is the room was sparse with a jail cell feel, the shower barely worked and had funky construction, and there were no outlets you could plug a 3 pronged charger into.  It totally did the job, but we’d gotten used to nicer rooms in the few hotels we’d stayed at the last few weeks, so it felt like a big step down.  So the next night we did a much shorter drive, where Xena slept like a champ again, and checked into a Best Western hotel in Navojoa based on lots of good things we’d heard about it on a Facebook group.  We’re not much for American chains in general, but sometimes knowing what you’ll get in terms of comfort is a big plus, especially with kids in tow.  It wasn’t as plush as a room would be for the same chain in the US, but much more comfortable than the previous night.  And it wasn’t much more expensive at $850 pesos, about $50 US.

At this point we were planning where to stop next that would take dogs, and weren’t find a lot between Najojoa and Mazatlan.  We knew there wasn’t a lot we wanted to stop for in Northern Mexico, but there really aren’t a lot of cities to stop in.  So we decided to do a long day of more than 4 hours of driving and just get to Mazatlan, the first city that sounded all that interesting coming south along the coast.  We had *another* great day of driving where Xena napped for a long time.  I think the kids are getting used to the car after years and years.  Whenever we near our destination though they both sense it and get super antsy and start asking a million questions and for help with everything, which is one of the hardest times for us to deal with them as we’re trying to navigate and find our hotel.  We found a hotel, Hotel Aguamarina, right across from the beach with waterslides.  Basically if we could do an easy filter for hotels it would be that there’s a pool for the kids, which is essential to wear them out for the long car rides, and that accepts dogs.  The dog thing is definitely limiting, but manageable if you’re willing to trade the nicest rooms and best locations for having the dog with you.

We figured it would be good to spend at least one day without driving to see Mazatlan, so yesterday we went to the aquarium.  It was a fun activity, but I always have mixed feelings about going to places that hold animals in less than stellar facilities.  On one hand I hope that having a place for people to go and learn about the animals in the natural world and educate them about how to preserve that world will help the animals out in the wild, on the other there’s always the sadness that accompanies seeing relatively small enclosures for big animals.  It was especially weird that this “aquarium” had a tiger, birds, reptiles and white tailed deer.  This aquarium was in a lot better shape than the “zoo” we saw in Ecuador, but not nearly as nice as most similar facilities in the US would be.

We spent the evening walking around the historic center of Mazatlan, and it’s a lot nicer there if you’re not a beach person craving noise and night life.  The streets feel more European, there’s pretty plazas where people hang out, art galleries, and most importantly for us, decent food.  The beach strip our hotel is on is basically a food wasteland for vegetarians, might not be so bad if all you want to do is eat seafood though.  We found a vegan restaurant, La Ruta Vegana, that we almost didn’t go to because the description didn’t sound that exciting.  However, all the other places that sounded better in our guide book seemed to be closed for the low season.  It turned out to be great food though and I wish we had gone there the previous night too instead of settling for whatever passes for pizza in Mexico.  La Ruta Vegana says its dogs friendly and would even have allowed Ubu inside if we had known to bring her.  Next time.

From here we head to near Puerto Vallarta with a place lined up with multiple bedrooms for a week!  While we’re there the plan is to find even longer term housing starting around October.  We hear it’s better to line something up now before the Canadian snowbirds all descend on the area.  We’d like to go inland for awhile before my vacation time ends, but we’ll see what the housing situation ends up being like.  Looking forward to having a place where we can have visitors.