Crossing the Border at Laredo

There are two bridges at Laredo. The Immigration and Car Permits is underneath the bridges on the Mexican side. I was directed to take bridge one which is to the right of the main bridges at the end of IH35. If you take bridge one like I did, just as soon as you cross the Rio Grande you are in Mexico. At the first intersection you come to take a left turn. There's going to be a lot of traffic so get in the correct lane getting on the bridge. The street you take a left on is a narrow street and it is several blocks before you see the car permits sign. You make another left back toward the river and come to the Instituto Nacional de Migracion(immigration). Depending on the time of day will determine how busy it is.

Inside, are Mexican Banks, Mexican Insurance company agents, Immigration, and the Bank that handles the Vehicle permits.

There are a lot of police and security forces around but no one speaks English. Provided you have already converted money and have already obtained vehicle insurance, go directly to immigration. Present your passport or identification to the Immigration Officer who will give you a blank visa form to fill out. There are no pens so bring your own. The form is in Spanish and if you mess it up you are on your own because there is evidently no way to get another. One you fill it out to the satisfaction of the Officer, he will direct you to the 'banko' where you will pay a small fee for a six month visa. After you have paid the fee and they stamp the visa as being paid, the Officer will direct you to the window where they copy your vehicle title, any lien and release, drivers license &/or passport in return for a small fee. The windows each have numbers on them so that is how you will tell which window to go to next.

The Mexican government doesn't want foreigners importing their vehicles into the 'Mexican Market' and selling them so they have a sliding scale depending on how old the vehicle is and it acts as sort of a bond until you leave Mexico and they retrieve the 'Turista' sticker that goes on your windshield. The line to get the permit can be quite long and slow because the bank's agent has to pore over each one of your documents. Being a retiree on a fixed income I was fearful of a several hundred charge to my bank card until I returned from Mexico. That wasn't the case at all since evidently they only charge your credit card if you exceed your stay and don't return to the border.

It can take two or three hours to take care of this ordeal so don't plan an aggressive itinerary for crossing day.

Mexican highways and streets travel on the right hand side like America and Canada. If your odometer registers miles rather than kilometers it is almost impossible to figure your gas milage. Most speedometers indicate miles per hour and also kilometers per hour.

You have a wide selection of brands of gasoline, Pemex, Pemex and Pemex. Help your self is unknown in Mexico. 'Grande' is unleaded and 'Fuuuuul' means fill her up. Each island of the filling station will have a man to pump the gas, clean the windshield and check the oil and coolant.

Leaving the Immigration after finishing there, the adventuresome may elect to go directly through Nuevo Laredo to the highway. Others like myself preferred to take the loop around the outside of town to the intersection of highway 85. At the intersection, there is a traffic light and a bunch of young folks that want to clean your windshield for a coin. They support their families doing this so please help them with 50, 100 or 200 Pesos. Highway 85 leaving Nuevo Laredo is kind of rough in spots and outside of town a bit, you come to a ALTO sign at an inspection station. There was a speed bump there. Being a good citizen I stopped and waited for some one to come out and inspect me. I waited and waited until an impatient driver behind motioned for me to go on. I did. On the other side of the divided road were mile after mile of trucks waiting to be inspected.

Quick Tutorial on Driving in Mexico

• Do not drive at night.
• When a cuota(toll road) is available, use it.(Toll charges throughout Mexico)
• Refrain if at all possible from using libre(free road).
• Each state will have an agricultural inspection checkpoint and a military inspection checkpoint.
• When approaching an agricultural inspection stay in the left lane. Right lane is for trucks. No frutus seems to work.
• At military inspections don't try to enter a dialogue with the soldier. Point to the Turista sticker and say turista.
• At all inspections they will look into your trunk
• Pay attention when entering towns or villages they will have speed bumps which will damage your vehicle if speed is not reduced.
• When in congestion, take it slow and deliberate. Work your way over very slowly. The Mexican's are very proud of their vehicles and don't want the fenders damaged by a tourist.
• Many rural villages have only one policeman and he will probably be standing along side the road when you speed through.
• Some toll booths will exchange money but be prepared if it's not available.
• Your credit card may or may not be accepted for gasoline.
• Most major motels are in the 400 to 600 Pesos a night.
• Generally anything purchased to eat or drink at the Pemex or cuota rest stops will not hurt you.
  

Highway 85 over to Monterrey let's you have the choice of libre or cuota. The cuota is divided like the interstates in America and generally has a speed limit of 65 to 75 miles per hour. When you get in the outskirts of Monterrey in order to bypass turn right onto the bypass. From what I understand, if you try to go through Monterrey, it can be a couple of hour drive across town.

Where the bypass intersected with the road to Saltillo, I was pulled over at a check point by the federales who wanted to see my visa. After inspecting that and my Turista sticker he waved me on.

Monterrey is in a smoky valley and it becomes mountainous west of town. The speed limit signs on the curves are important to observe. The cuota fees for the toll road portion of the drive from Nuevo Laredo to Saltillo via the loop around Monterrey is about 284 Pesos. The current toll is here

It was afternoon so I decided to spend the night in Saltillo. There is a GM plant there as well as the usual national chain hotels. I continued into the city and stopped at a motel.

I had hoped to travel from Laredo to Zacatecas Mexico and spend the night there but that proved wishful thinking since I was delayed by car repairs in Laredo and the customs delay in Nuevo Laredo. Saltillo was a welcome sight and I arrived about 4 in the afternoon. I found a motel called the El Paso Motel.

The El Paso Motel is run by an old line aristocratic family whose ancestor who was Mexico's third President. Like early Presidents he was assassinated and the family had to flee to the United States. Two brothers manage the Motel with one running the restaurant. When I checked in I noticed a restaurant and smelled the nice aromas of the food drifting into the office. I returned in a few hours for dinner and met one of the brothers and his wife. I told them of the nice aromas of the food and had a Corona while we chatted about their history. The waiter brought some chips and some salsa which I enjoyed while we talked. Saltillo has a new General Motors plant and a new Holiday Inn and cable TV.

During the course of the conversation I told the owner I enjoyed the aroma of the food and wished to have the same meal. I was told it was fish and vegetables on rice with a cream of cauliflower soup and dessert. I was famished, not having eaten since the night before in Laredo. The waiter was very attentive and the presentation of the food was timely and as soon as one dish was finished, that plate was removed and another arrived. The soup was heavenly puréed with the distinct flavor of cauliflower in a cream base. It was seasoned perfectly. The main course was a plate of filleted fish covered in sliced carrots and olives in a tomato sauce, on a bed of rice. It was seasoned perfectly also. The bread was a small loaf of freshly baked white bread and margarine. The dessert was a homemade piece of lemon pie that was similar to lemon cheesecake on a pie crust. The pie was made from three kinds of milk and had no cheese. Fresh milk, evaporated milk and sweetened condense milk with lemon juice flavoring made the filling. It was delicious.

I turned in early after watching the weather in Spanish but noted that a hurricane was bearing down on Puerto Vallarta my destination. The motel has 20 rooms and only 2 rooms were rented that night. The furnishings were new and it was spotless.

I awoke at 3 am and started the next leg of my journey finding a gas station open next to the place I was supposed to turn to pick up the highway south which was a libre (free road). I had a cappuccino and was off. The major streets have the signs giving the place the road goes to but I took a wrong turn and found myself following a local bus down a winding road that was headed west to Durango when I wanted to go south. In some smaller communities the traffic is divided to separate one way streets and I encountered one at 4 AM. Well it was a barrio and I had to find the other half of the highway to go back to Saltillo. Once I had backtracked to Saltillo I began to see the signs for the city south I wanted to take. The nice divided boulevard turned into a narrow two lane road that winds through the mountain range south of Saltillo.

Mexican commerce uses the highways to move goods and they like to travel at night. I safely passed several trucks but encountered a truck that was moving slowly and we were approaching fog. I stayed on his back bumper as we wound around the mountain until he slowed to about 20 MPH because the fog was so very thick. At the top of the pass we encountered some cones in the roadway and the truck I had been following pulled off and I pulled around him. The roadway was OK but the shoulder was rough as you hopped from one pothole to another. Eventually, the cones led me back up to the roadway and was back up to speed as the fog lifted and I came down out of the mountains.

Continuing on I could see lights on the valley floor where street lights were on in the communities I was approaching. I have traveled Australia extensively and in the bush you see very few houses with electricity unless they own a generator. Mexico seems to have a power grid making power available to most wanting it. Rural communities have bus stops where local folks catch the local buses which take them to the nearest major town to shop and work. At 4 in the morning you begin to see more and more folks at the stops as you pass.

On the highway you will see speed limit signs when you approach a community and you had better slow down because the town policeman is waiting to wave over transgressors. Become acquainted with the small numbers on the inside of your speedometer because the speeds in Mexico are in kilometers as well as the distances. At villages and intersections with the highway you will see people waiting on the bus to take them into town or where ever they want to go. These local buses are very slow as well as the local trucks so it is very easy to come upon them very quickly. Repairing vehicle lights is a low priority so be prepared to meet a one headlight or one tail light vehicle over the next hill. If you come upon a stopped or slowly moving vehicle it is custom for the overtaking vehicle to turn on the emergency flashers so that traffic following can know ahead of time that traffic might be stopped or slowed. Proceed slowly around such vehicles.

About 9 AM I arrived at Zacatecas, which I had originally intended to stay my first night in Mexico. The highway wound through the hills and mountains of the city of multicolored houses. I stopped at a Pemex station for petrol before heading on to Aguascaliente.

Aguascaliente is a very cosmopolitan city with malls and a huge Nissan factory. Aguascaliente is known for their fabrics. I continued on south to the cuota to Guadalajara. The highway from Saltillo to Zacatecas is highway 54 but you take highway 45 which also includes the name Mexico in addition to Aguascaliente. Another highway number 70 also must take this same route because one sign will say highway 54 and another will say highway 70. Leaving Aguascaliente you have no clue that this is the road that will take you to the cuota that takes you west to Guadalajara. Highway 45 has a stop sign and you have to cross a major intersecting highway that is difficult to cross so that you can enter the cuota ramp. Be careful at that intersection. I stopped for petrol before the intersection to the cuota. The next time I will look for the Leon cuota sign which bypasses the hazardous driving south of Aguascaliente and connects to the cuota that goes to Guadalajara.

I arrived in Guadalajara about 4 PM in the afternoon and followed the traffic bumper to bumper through the city using the road signs as my guide. If you are traveling to Puerto Vallarta you follow the Tepic signs. The approximate cost of the toll for the cuota from where I got on south of Aguascaliente to Guadalajara was 260 Pesos. The current price is here

At one intersection I failed to turn so had to go down and turn around and come back and have another go at it. At the intersection I failed to turn at, I was waiting in the left turn land and I saw a little girl of 8 or 9 licking a piece of an orange or some candy. She came to each car and begged. Rejection was used to her. As she turned to go back to her place on the center median I noticed the dirt on her little dress and tears came to my eyes. As a child myself I had heard of the street urchins in Mexico who beg and eat out of the rubbish bins but this was my first encounter and my heart was broken.

Continuing on toward Tepic on the cuota you have to cross a mountain range and close to Tepic you see the sign Puerto Vallarta to right. This connects you to highway 200 which continues across the range up and down mountains many times completely covered with canopy from the trees. You encounter several villages along the way. Take it easy and keep your vehicle under control. The road connects north of the city about 30 kilometers and turns into a 4 lane boulevard. You pass through Bucerias, Nuevo Vallarta and then Puerto Vallarta following the coastline of Banderas Bay. The approximate toll from Guardalajara is 252 Pesos. The current toll is here.

Driving and Finding Your Way around Puerto Vallarta