San Carlos, Sonora

So I've spent so much time today catching up on my discussion boards, I've forgotten to post to my journal.

Fact is, we arrived in San Carlos last night at about 7:30, after a long day's driving. We left Ajo at about 9:00 in the morning, but what with a couple of errands to run, it was about 10:30 when we crossed the border. This was an odd border crossing. There was no wait, and nobody even asked us any questions or asked for our passports. When we got to the 23? km. checkpoint, we went in and got our six-month tourist visas. The officer noted that it had been about a year since we came to Mexico last, and he was pleased with that. He stamped our forms and our passports, told us to go next door to the "bank" (a single teller's window inside a big room devoted to something else - customs inspections?) to pay our $21 U.S. each. We did that and then drove up to the inspection point. The people there just waved us through. Sheesh.

One of the first things I noticed in Mexico were the starving dogs. I don't think I'll ever get used to that.

We drove and drove and drove. Eventually (after we got through Hermosillo, fortunately) the sun went down and we did the last 1 1/2 or 2 hours in the dark, but pursued by an absolutely enormous full moon. R was driving. I was watching the moon in his rearview mirror. I don't like traveling at night,in part because I can't see a damned thing - that's why I've told R that if he wants to travel at night, he's driving. Also, particularly in Mexico, there is the problem of livestock wandering out onto the road. It can be scary. This time, though, there were no cows or donkeys or horses in the way - there was a lot of traffic, so I imagine the animals were giving the road a wide berth. We pulled into the Totonaka lot, stopped to say hello to Henry, the night watchman, found a site, and within ten minutes we were settled in.

This morning, when the office opened, I walked in and was pleased to see Silvano's face light up. "Sandra! It's good to see you!" I'm so easy to please. I paid for a week (and an RV wash), because R wants to go south for a while. I'm going to check the price of flights from Hermosillo to Cancun, because we hear that the price of gas is now higher here in Mexico than in the U.S. We didn't need to fuel up yesterday (I think there was a teaspoon of gasoline in the tank when we arrived), so we don't know for sure. If the price of a flight to Cancun is even remotely comparable to the cost of driving down (including rv parks, food, fuel), then I'm going to lobby for leaving the rv here, where it would be perfectly safe, flying down to Cancun for a week or two, then coming back "home". That's probably wishful thinking, but I'm going to check it out, anyway.

After we checked in properly, we rode our bikes up the street to Tony's, bought vegetables and fruit - and a pile of fish. R rode home with that stuff while I went across the street to buy tortillas and other staples, then followed him home with my backpack full to bursting. I've now made a batch of beans, and tomorrow I'll make some pico de gallo to serve with them.

Oh, and we did the laundry. Finally. Tomorrow, we will ride our bikes to the lagoon, and we will not do any chores.

Life is good.