After a wonderful Thanksgiving and birthday celebration, we packed up and headed down the road to Brownsville, TX to begin our Mexico Overlanding Adventure.
Not going to lie, I was nervous. Possibly all of us were. Although we had read, researched and planned for months, the unknown was still ahead of us. As we progressed closer and closer to Brownsville, I started to get more and more nervous. All the warnings and negative comments we received from people regarding the dangers of traveling to Mexico began to creep into my mind. I kept thinking about the email attachments I had received from friends from the State Department website warning us about violent crimes including homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery in various Mexican states including, Tamaulipas (TAM), the first state we were entering and one in which we’d be spending a good deal of time due to its size. We also had heard concerns that we would have difficulty getting ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel which is what our Roadtrek requires and that we could damage our engine, void our warranty and rack up a costly repair bill if we didn’t use it. And finally, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that Jim and I knew NO Spanish and that we were going to rely on hand gestures, a few key phrases and our 15-year old son who takes Spanish in school.
What could possibly go wrong?!?
But I kept reminding myself that we had done our research including… talking to sources who actually traveled in the areas we were going and took all their advice in on how to avoid problems… did extensive research regarding our ability to obtain ULSD fuel… and, although George’s Spanish was isolated to his school experience, he had 7.5 years under his belt and was a good student.
Again, I said to myself… what could go wrong?!?
We could always turn around and come home. Plus this was suppose to be an adventure. Something that would throw us out of our comfort zone and our cozy American way of life. So, deep breath after deep breath, we progressed down the road.
We made it to Brownsville around 4:30 on Friday (11/25) and checked into our hotel… a simple Courtyard by Marriott. Taking an opportunity to get out of the Roadtrek, we got a room so we could shower and stretch out a bit. After we went to dinner at Fabrizzio’s where we were looking forward to an authentic Italian meal. Unfortunately we ended up with Greek Italian in a newly opened establishment that was still working out many kinks. Just “meh” as George would say. After our meal, we went back to the hotel & slept before our border crossing day.
On a side note…
We got our introduction to the Mexican or great-tailed grackle that night.
A grackle is a big blackbird that shimmers with iridescent black and purple feathers and sports a long trailing tail. These guys like to hang out in trees in huge flocks in the evenings but not quietly! It is like a great velvety wave that demands your attention and then once has it, won’t let go!
At first, we were a bit taken aback by this bird especially at night when they would swoop into the trees, on top of buildings, on the electrical wires or whatever was standing high in the air. It often felt like a scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.
We eventually got quite use to these guys and even missed them once we crossed back into the States and began our trek back north.
But that brings me to yet another side note…
Like most RVs, our Roadtrek is equipped with a TV and DVD/Blu-Ray player. When we packed for the trip, we decided we didn’t want to take a lot of movies with us as storage is limited and we knew we wouldn’t spend a lot of time inside watching movies. But we did grab a box-set of Alfred Hitchcock movies we had bought years ago. For whatever reason, we never got around to watching them at home so we decided to throw them in just in case. Of course after our grackle introduction, we were very pleased we had done so and took the opportunity to share these classics with George starting with The Birds, of course! Turns out the Hitchcock movies were a hit with all of us and we often would end our evenings snuggled up in the back king bed to watch one.
Back to the border crossing…
There is a good deal of paperwork to cross the border for an extended period of time especially if you are bringing a vehicle. And we brought 2 as we also brought our Vespa for short trips. Beyond our passports and driver’s licenses, we also needed our Roadtrek registration, proof of insurance and a letter from the financing company granting us permission to take it out of the country since it is financed & they hold the bank title. We also needed our Vespa registration and title (it is fully paid for so no letter from the bank required). Plus 2 copies of everything I just mentioned.
Armed with a folder full of papers and a credit card to make the necessary payments, we made our way to the Veteran’s Memorial Bridge also known as Los Tomates Bridge. As part of the crossing, you need to obtain your temporary tourist permit (TTP) and vehicle permits plus make your way to vehicle inspection where your vehicle will be inspected and you may be boarded for a look inside.
Well we didn’t successfully translate the signs and ended up making a mistake that landed us in the wrong lane causing us to drive past the parking for migración (immigration where we handle our travel visas) and the banjercito (federal agency where we handle our car permits). Instead we ended up at vehicle inspection first and were greeted by 4-5 fully machine-gunned toting Mexican border patrol agents. We were boarded and inspected but it became quickly apparent that much of the time spent was checking out our Roadtrek! They really seemed to like her! They asked us a few questions about where we were going and for how long but quickly realized we didn’t have our TTP & vehicle permits. After explaining our mistake, they graciously helped us go back around to the correct parking to get these items.
Once in the building, we were able to take care of both our visas and the car permits in the same building. First migracion for our travel visas which went very fast. Less than 15 minutes. Then we went to the banjercito for our vehicles. This took a lot more time due to the amount of paperwork we needed to complete. Well over an an hour, probably more like an hour & a half. Communication was a bit difficult but George got us through it plus there was an official that came through at one point that spoke both languages fluently and assisted us with a particularly troublesome point in the conversation. Approximately 2 hours later we were on our way to Matamoros, TAM!
Our Mexico overlanding adventure had officially begun.
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