Mexico

After spending the night in El Paso, Tanner and I were planning to attempt a jaunt over the border. According to various websites, though, it appeared that you would need a passport to re-enter the USA from Mexico. Neither of us have one, so we'd definitely need more info before we ventured away from good ol' American soil.

We apparently had a couple of options, one of which was to park the car and walk across (which was recommended by the travel guides we looked at). I had two problems with that idea: one was that the walkable area would surely be specifically set up for selling crappy sombreros and zapatos to turistas--and therefore not an "authentic" experience...and the other was that my guitar and Tanner's keyboard would be visible in the back of the parked car -- potentially marking the vehicle as a good target for theft while we were across the border haggling over polaroid photos of Linda Hamilton and her dog. We decided that we'd rather cruise over to the automobile bridge crossing, and consider taking the car into Mexico.

We'd check at the Visitor Center before we went, though, to make sure that our driver's licenses would suffice as ID to get us back home. If there was any uncertainty about it all, we just wouldn't go across.

Tanner read the map and directed us toward the crossing point. When we got near where we thought we were headed, I spotted a sign with an arrow point toward Juarez. I turned to follow that arrow. The Visitor Center should be straight ahead.

And suddenly we were on a one-way bridge crossing the Rio Grande. There were no signs saying "Warning -- Turn back now if you don't want to end up in Mexico!" There was no place to back up, nowhere to pull over, and apparently no choice other than stopping in the middle of the street and abandoning your vehicle. It made me very nervous to just cruise along with the traffic, but I didn't see any other options. Suddenly, we were in Mexico!

We could see across to the other half of the bridge, where there were hundreds of cars lined up to go through the US Customs inspection. But on the "to Mexico" side of the bridge, people were just driving across without so much as a friendly wave from the border patrol. There were probably at least a dozen guys in camo gear carrying wicked-looking machine guns, but they were playing hacky-sack and probably chatting about Sabado Gigante or something -- they didn't even glance at us as we drove past.

It made us wonder what it would be like to be from a country that doesn't have to care at all about who or what crosses the border. Hmm.

On the El Paso side of the river, a lot of the signage is bilingual. But not on the south side. There's no English anywhere (unless you count the fact that one of the streets was "Abraham Lincoln Blvd"). The stop signs say "Alto", and the speed limits are all in kph. I obeyed the posted limits, but apparently none of the natives did, as cars were whizzing around us, constantly honking what I assumed must be friendly greetings of welcome to the gringos.

I think I'd have enjoyed gawking at the billboards, storefronts, and other evidence of the Mexican culture, but I found that I was a bit too worried about obeying traffic laws (I've seen too many movies about norteamericanos tortured in Mexican dungeons), and about eventually being able to find our way back to the USA...not to mention a nagging fear about that whole can't-get-back-in-without-a-passport thing. We saw one friendly gentleman gesture that he might offer assistance, but despite my 4 years of college Spanish, I had no idea what he was talking about. He was either telling us where we could find a place to park, or was trying to sell me his sister...I wasn't sure. We said a polite gracias, and drove on.

Tanner's map did list some of the streets on it, but since every single one of them curled and bent, and every single intersection had at least 5 streets cascading off of it, we were hopelessly lost within one minute of crossing the river. Fortunately, it was a Sunday morning and the stores were closed, so traffic was light. (Since we heard at least one car honking its horn at each intersection, I wondered how noisy it would be during a workday rush hour? Pretty wild, I'd imagine.) The was one street light that we passed twice -- don't ask me how we got to it either time, though -- and it had flashing yellow and red arrows on it, apparently directing us to stop turning or something, even though the road was a straight one-way thoroughfare. I just kept driving, urging the boy to look for signs that said Estados Unidos on them.

At one red light, a young fellow in clown makeup began frantically blowing a whistle while he ran out in front of the car. He began juggling, while still blowing his whistle the way a French cop would if a bank had been robbed. He was actually a pretty fair juggler, but there was something really creepy about his clown makeup, and something quite annoying about all the whistling. (And by the way, the red lights in Juarez last forever!) After spending a minute in front of the car, alternating through various juggling patterns, he came around to the driver's side window and demanded one dollar for the performance. I should've had Tanner get out of the car and show the guy that I could see juggling any time I wanted, and from a guy who didn't look like a mime with Rip Taylor fashion sense...but I wasn't thinking clearly enough to suggest that. In any case, the light did eventually change, and we left the poor fellow looking dejected, blowing half-hearted tweets as he returned to the curb.

Unfortunately, we spent so much of our time worrying about staying alive and trying to find "north" that we didn't do a very good job of photographically documenting our little cruise. But eventually, we did somehow manage to get back on the road that would take us to the US Customs checkpoint. Unlike the drive into Mexico, where the traffic didn't even slow down as it passed the "guards" -- the US side had a line of cars backed up all the way across the bridge. The majority of the vehicles seemed to be scrambling to get into the left-hand lane, but we couldn't see any signs that indicated why that option would be preferred. Perhaps there was an "express lane" for people who had monthly passes or something...we never did learn what was going on over there. We stayed to the right.

Several Mexican teenagers were running around the bridge, wiping off cars and cleaning windows in exchange for donations, but we were spared...which appeared to be a good thing, because the rags looked like they left more dirt behind than they picked up. Normally, I'm in favor of displays of entrepreneurship -- I almost always stop at neighborhood lemonade stands -- but I was happy that these guys seemed to be choosing the Mercedes and Lexus drivers for their customers, leaving the beat-up Subarus alone.

Eventually we made it to the checkpoint. A friendly young fellow took our drivers licenses, and asked for our passports. When we said we didn't have them, he made us take our clothes off and go through a combination x-ray and anal probe process.

Naw, I'm kidding. He did look us over pretty well, and opened all the car doors and poked around through our luggage, but he allowed us to remain clothed and sitting in the car the entire time. He asked about the mesh bag with my running gear in it, but ignored the far more suspicious guitar case. He asked us where we'd been, whom we had visited, and who played shortstop for the New York Yankees in 1939. None of his questions were anything that would reveal evil intent on our parts, I don't think -- it was more as if he was just trying to see if we'd get nervous enough to blurt out where we had hidden the bazookas and opium.

Finally, though, he decided that the two bland Brady-bunch-type guys from Colorado probably weren't a threat to national security, and he let us through. Whew!

I know what you're thinking, though -- you want to know if we ever ate at an authentic Mexican restaurant, right? Hey, we saw the UFO museum, visited Mr. TheKid's grave, and survived an attack by a Mexican mime...we'd had enough excitement for one trip. We decided during the long drive home that we'd just have to take another trip to New Mexico one of these days, and we'd do a better job of restaurant hunting then.

I'll let you know when that happens, for sure. In the meantime, just be glad that you live in a country that keeps its border secure (well, kinda) and its jugglers under control...and have a great day!