A classified day for the history books and 300 miles of nothing!

June 28, 2012

Laredo, TX

I've finally made my way to the border of Mexico and I'm now resting comfortably after a somewhat mild 300 mile drive. Now I know I said earlier that I'd try to be as honest as possible, but I'm afraid for now the incredulous atrocity that we'll simply refer to as “yesterday” for now will have to be considered classified. While I'd love to try and capture the insanity of the day and the high running emotions of everyone involved I just don't want to make a bad situation worse or cause anyone any embarrassment so for now I think I'm going to have to leave yesterdays entry blank. Hopefully some day I'll feel comfortable enough to share it but unfortunately that day is just not today.

Anyway! Tomorrow morning I will be finally doing the thing I've dreamed about for seemingly so long now: a border crossing by motorcycle. The plan is to get to the border early, cross easily and smoothly, and then make my way to the sleepy town of Saltilla. Honestly though I have no idea how this is going to work. Worst case scenario that I can imagine happening is the border guards asking for my NYS Drivers license which if you remember the fiasco in Louisiana you'd know I didn't have. I do have my temporary motorcycle license issued by New York State and valid for a whole 90 days, but as every single guard pointed out in the sweltering heat every friggin time I tried to enter told is that it does not actually have my name on it, only my NYS ID number so who knows really.

On top of that potential fiasco I have no idea how it will be driving in Mexico. I can't foresee it being too difficult or different from the other places I've been in Central America, but as I've noticed countless times already on my trip that anything unexpected that can happen normally does.

With that said I am incredibly confident in the remainder of my trip. Where I'll go and what I'll doing will be decided almost certainly at the last second. That's the thing about staying in hostels though. You're always hearing from the person next to you that you absolutely HAVE TO go here or try this... For the next two and a half weeks that's exactly what I plan on doing with as much style as possible.

While I have some basic destinations in mind (Mayan ruins, Mexico city to meet my contact, and a few beaches) I think at this point with such little time remaining in my trip before I have to turn around and head home I believe I will be staying only in Mexico. While my overall goal of the trip was to visit every country in central America I hadn't been to I just don't think there will be enough time to do it comfortably. On top of that, the further south I go the longer it will take to get back. Today I did a comfortable 300 miles that only got long near the end, but that was also on Texas' crazy fast back roads doing around 75mph. From here on in I'd like to shorten those distances to somewhere closer to 200 miles a day, at least until I turn around. And last but not least there is still some destinations in the US that I'd like to stop at like Memphis, and Nashville so I want to leave plenty of time to see those places too.

Like I said though, today's ride wasn't bad. I left at 8:30am, and although the temperature rose steadily to over 100 degrees, I didn't feel uncomfortable to well past 2:30 in the afternoon. The one strange thing about the ride though was the startling lack of any type of scenery, or after San Antonio the lack of anything! At the last town before Laredo I finally noticed the sign I had been looking for since I got to Texas: Last Services for [blank] miles. Today it was 60 and as I had already gone 40 and had a bike with a range of somewhere around 100 for some reason I decided to chance it. OK not for some reason: I finally took the time to rig up my extra 1 gallon spare tank so I knew that even if I did run out I could get there eventually. Turns out my gamble paid off though, because while the heat really got to me the last 100 miles, trying to guess whether I'd run out of gas or role in to the next station happily turned out to be a great tool for passing the time. Also, nothing made me feel more proud then arriving in Laredo still moving on my overheated Saphira and although some might find it foolish, I felt accomplished. And after going so fast with the last tank, I sincerely think that there could have only been a couple of drops of gasoline left but we made it!

Hopefully that feeling of accomplishment will continue on to tomorrow. If everything works out my next post should be coming to you from Mexico with more pictures than the whopping zero that I took today. Fingers crossed though!