Getting to Our Final Destination

For some reason neither B nor I slept well through the early morning.  Perhaps it was because we both new we had  a somewhat long journey ahead of us.

I had spent $200, half of what I thought it would cost me to reach the border from my house.  Lil 'Emma did very well with her highway mileage considering she is a big 5.0 8 cylinder engine from 1995.  I had no complaints from her and out of sheer nervousness never turned on the A/C.  To be honest there was really no need considering I did most of the travelling at night and so a quick roll down of the window was all that was needed.

B and I woke up bright and early and headed toward an address provided to us by the man that was to help get our truck legalized.  We arrived at a business address and inquired inside for the man, a woman sitting inside a nice air-conditioned office said he would arrive shortly.  Sure enough within 15 minutes he pulled up in a white Ford pick-up.  He quickly got out of the truck all smiles and greeted us with "buenos dias."  After some small talk this man, Carlos, said that we would need to unload all of our belongings for the legalization appointment.  We knew this beforehand which was part of our reason for doing business with him as we knew we could unload our stuff at the business office while we waited for the truck to be legalized.  We had no reason to distrust Carlos because a family member had already legalized a truck with him and recommended him to us.

After unloading Emma we decided to take care of some business in downtown San Luis and Carlos offered to drive us to el centro as he too was headed in that direction.  After we took care of business we sat in the town's plaza under the shade of a tree and talked a bit.  We decided that we wanted to have a nice cold beer, or in my case cocktail.  We asked one of the locals where we could go but didn't have any luck and in fact were looked at like we were crazy.  I guess it may have been too early, that or nobody goes for a cocktail around there.  We ended up walking around looking for a place which turned out to be not so good of an idea as the day was starting to really heat up.  All of the places we found were ugly little bars that didn't look very inviting for a lady.

Finally we decided to just go in a Chinese restaurant to get anything cold to drink because we were exausted.  The restaurant sold beer! So we ordered two and we ended up having a good time as we talked with an old woman who was our waitress.  We had a very interesting talk with her and then went on our way back to Carlos' office.  We must have waited another 3 hours sitting on the floor because the office wasn't for clients but truck drivers that picked up and dropped off cargo.  Finally we saw Carlos pulling up in the truck and when he got out he had all the paperwork in hand.  We were so happy, after 7 long hours we were able to get on our way. 

We left San Luis at about 4pm and travelled through out the Sonoron desert all the while with the A/C on.  Even though she is 16 years old, 'lil Emma blew out ice cold air.  Were able to make it to Hermosillo by 10pm.  Here we stayed at a hotel where we showered and went to bed.  We were both out as soon as we hit the pillow.  The night before we didn't get any sleep because were were worried about getting the truck legalized. 

We woke up again bright and early to get on the road again.  As we passed Guaymas, I thought of a fellow blogger Brenda, and silently said a hello to her.  By the time we reached Los Mochis Sinaloa, we were hungry and so we stopped to eat at a little restaurant which served seafood.  I ordered a shrimp cocktail and B ordered a shirmp salad.  We ended up switching because I absolutely loved the shrimp salad!  I regret not pulling out my camera more often on this trip.  They had made it look so elegant on the plate.

Once in Sinaloa we knew that we were not far from home and we began relaxing.  We had already been through 2 checkpoints of which we simply told the officers we had not paid any fees previously because we were told that we did not have to declare anything.  They waved us on each time.  Again we reached another city, Mazatlan, where I knew another fellow blogger, Nancy, I said another silent hello. 

I was rather excited passing Mazatlan because I knew we only had two more hours to go!  By the time we came to Nayarit we went through all of the pesos we pulled out in San Luis.  The casetas or toll's that we paid for using the autopistas (nice freeways) really added up.  We thought it was funny that the most expensive autopistas were in Nayarit! 

My husband likes to joke around and when we made it to the second toll booth in Nayarit he asked the woman a question.  "We are coming all the way from Sonora, why is it that Nayarit's toll's are the most expensive?"  She gave him a coy look and you could tell she didn't know what to say. She just smiled and said "It's because Nayarit is one of the more beautiful states!" We all laughed and he said "I'm just kidding Miss, I am from here, near San Blas."

We knew we were home.

Once we reached El Crucero de San Blas, we both sighed, relieved that we had made it.  We looked at each other and I told him "no more...we are too old for this."