We woke up at 5:30am on Saturday morning, packed Burt up (who is now forever lovingly called "Fat Bottomed Burt") and headed for Laredo.
The drive to the border took about 3.5 hours. We stopped in Laredo to fill up the cooler with snacks, bottled water, coconut water, Quiznos subs, and fruit. Jack wanted to go to IHOP so we headed there for breakfast and got the most special server I've ever encountered. He was a 40 year old man named Mike (he told us this about 5 times), who had clearly never waited a day in his life, and checked back with us once every 2 minutes. It was hard to be annoyed with him as he was clearly trying so hard to succeed. And he even got the kitchen to make me some "special sauce" in place of cocktail sauce. Poor sweet guy. After Mike had thoroughly served and confused us, we headed for the border.
From everything we heard about crossing into Mexico, it was relatively painless. We went into the customs and border patrol place, signed some papers, got a permit for me and Jack and one for Burt and paid a $200 something deposit which we'll get back when we get into California. We then set off on our drive to Mexico City. At that point the GPS told us we would get there around 3:30am.
Jack took over driving so I could get some sleep. When I woke up we were in the breathtaking mountains of Monterey. Literally everywhere you looked was a work of art. The clouds, the mountains, the sky, the trees. It was one of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever scene. Jack continued to drive for a few more hours and I fell in and out of sleep.
When I woke up again it was 7pm and we were getting closer. I noticed the closer we got to the capital, the nicer the houses and gas stations became. Kind of like the Hunger Games Yes, I just made the reference. Don't judge. The roads became better too. Jack had to deal with no lines on 3 lanes of fast traffic, loads of tractor trailers who "owned the road," and masses of road debris and pot holes.
I took over for a few hours. We stopped at a nicer gas station closer to the capital and finally got in contact with the outside world with some wifi. Our portable wifi jetpack and prepaid phone from Verizon that the salesman promised would work in Mexico had no bars after we crossed the border. I'm very happy I had Jack with me, but even so, it was a little unnerving driving through a strange country with no way to get in touch with anyone. We messaged our family and our friends Dan and Ana who gave us directions to a hostel since we would be getting in around 4am and got back on the road.
Then the drive from hell began.
It all started because our GPS didn't recognize the address we were given, so we googled a place nearby and typed it in. At about 3 am, when we were supposed to be an hour away from Mexico City, we realised that instead of big interstates and city lights that should accompany a city with 21.2 million people, we were on a sketchy road, in an impoverished village, with angry dogs, potholes and village made speed bumps that poor fat bottomed Burt kept scraping his under belly on. Realising we were no where near our destination and the GPS had taken us astray, we decided to type in the address of a hotel close to our destination. This put another hour on our journey.
Little did we know that the hour would turn into a much longer and much harder journey than we ever expected.
The GPS led us up a mountain, far away from any civilization. As the incline became steeper, the worse the road became. Every 15 feet our tarmac ran out into the most F***ed up road I have ever seen. Jack had taken over at this point and expertly maneuvered around thick mud, jagged rocks, and obscenely large pot holes. Our arrival time kept falling back as we could only go about 5 miles an hour to avoid all the debris. An hour later, we still hadn't reached the top of the mountain and as the fog set in, our stress levels began to rise and I wondered if we would make it. Bertie's fuel was getting low and at any point a rock could puncture one of his tires and we would be stranded with no way to call anyone.
We finally began to go downhill which would be another 14 miles. Jack (trying to keep calm) joked that this was the Top Gear mission he had been waiting for. I lost it and started laughing hysterically, probably the side effect of so much pent up adrenaline. I wondered how things could possibly get any worse and said a little prayer when we saw a chapel on the side of the road.
As the sun started to rise around 6am we saw civilization: a sweet little village with workers waiting for their morning buses. I began to feel a bit better. I felt like we could make it. The small windy roads trickled into fast paced interstates with entrances and exits that made your head swim. Somehow we managed to navigate our way through and just when I thought we would make it to the hostel, we were greeted with crime tape and police cars blocking off every road we needed to go down in a 3-5 mile radius. I thought something terrible had happened. Jack tried to call our friends on the pay phone but it didn't work. Every hotel we tried to go to had police blocking the way.
Finally we found a Radisson on the GPS that we could get to. We successfully pulled into the parking garage, made our way to the front desk and begged the lady to let us check into a room early (at the point it was 8:30 am and we had been on the road for 25 hours). She said the only rooms she had were two beds. We said sold. I told her I loved her.
At 8:45am, two dirty, stressed, haggard, and exhausted road animals made their way into their hotel room overlooking Mexico City. Jack was buzzing off the adrenaline and had a couple beers to wind down. I don't remember much, but I member I cried. A lot. Probably out of exhaustion and relief. And then I passed out hard.
*NOTE: Mexico is not as bad as the media makes it out to be. The crime tape ended up being up for a marathon, not a mass murder. The police that stopped us along the way were kind and helpful. You just have to be smart, like in any country or big city and trust your instincts.
**TRAVELERS TIP: Make sure you have the correct address and make sure all of your communications with the outside world actually work before you enter the country. Also, don't be ignorant like me and assume that the majority of people in a foreign country speak English. They don't and have no reason to. I was very lucky to have Jack with me who knew a little Spanish, otherwise I would have been completely screwed. I meant to learn on the drive down, but only got around to learning the bare minimum. Even with Jack with me, it's really stressful to be in a country with a different culture and not be able to understand anyone. I wish I had learned more before I came and will never make the same mistake again.
***ANOTHER NOTE: The entire journey was a big blur. For a more accurate account of our travels, check out Jack's blog.
