Apr 04, 2015
Last day in Mexico and a strange border crossing
Hola everyone. I apologize to everyone who was worried ( thanks for your emails ), but we had no internet. On with the story….
We left San Carlos at 7:00AM on Thursday April 2nd. The mosquitoes were vicious and were coming through the screens. We both felt the roads all the way from there to Santa Ana were in good condition and then onto Sonoyta as well. I have heard that the road to Nogales from Santa Ana is in bad shape.
What the heck? Turned out to be burning tires.
Much of the boulevard at the North end of Hermosillo is planted with oranges trees. What a great idea. Free fruit for those who need it.
Just after the Hermosillo toll we stopped at a Pemex. Colin took the girls out to do their business while I cut up fruit and muffins for us to enjoy as we kept driving. I could hear a bird singing while inside. Colin captured this photo, this guy was way up high in a cactus. Great real estate location.
What a cute little woodpecker. Not sure if he was a baby.
I could tell it was going to be a special day and that was confirmed when we got to the military check at Benjamin Hill. For the very first time ever we were given the signal to keep driving and got to miss the in depth inside check 😆 Last year they came in and even opened my spice bottles and sniffed them. In no time, due to the good roads, we were @ Santa Ana and headed directly West for Sonoyta/Lukeville. As we drove through Altar this large group of youths ( maybe scouts ) started waving and I got this shot at the last possible second.
They just started smiling and waving as we passed by. Wish we could have stopped and chatted and found out what they were all about.
Very odd and very slow driving combination.
We did stop in Sonoyta for about 5 minutes to look at plant pots. They wanted $70.00 US for one and $100.00 US for two. No gracias. Literally highway robbery. Next stop the Mexican/USA border.
Gulp! There were at least 18 vehicles ahead of us.
This was a first in all of our years crossing into the USA that we had more that one vehicle in front of us, but it was also our first time crossing during Semena Santa. It took us 40 minutes in line to get to the US border officer. As we got closer we saw that only one lane was open. Ridiculous considering the line up. I have to say that by the time we got through the line it must have been close to a two hour wait behind us and possibly longer. Usually we pull up and have a quick chat about where we have been and for how long and what are we bringing into the US. Usually it is all agriculture based. Not so this trip. Finally it was our turn. Where were we coming from….’San Carlos’…for how long….’one night but we were in Mazatlan before that’. We were asked to pull ahead and stop at his signal. He never indicated that he was coming on board but suddenly there he was at our door and yes he did have to jump up to the door level entry as our steps were broken. Out came a flashlight, he checked the shower, then the bedroom and asked me to open a closet door. Was he looking for illegal aliens? Once he saw the amount of clothes in there, he said adios. What the heck, I was saying in my mind? What about all the fruit, cucumber and tomatoes I was crossing with? He was not interested. Okay, so I will bring these items into the US illegally. You did not ask me, I am stunned.
The girls were extremely impatient at the delay in crossing and rather vocal about it. They wanted us to get moving or get out and go for a walk. I had to snap this photo, Caeli looked so relaxed with her paws on the dash but look at her legs.
We were both stunned by the new exit. Usually you just drive forward onto the highway. Now there is a maze of sorts. We had to make an extremely wide turn to go between the two tall yellow pillars.
You can’t really see it in this quick shot taken on the fly but the base of those yellow protruding bases are black with past collisions.
Colin said it was very difficult to navigate due to the narrowness of the space. The RV rocked as we went over the tope stripes and if you were not correctly positioned one could easily incur damage to your rig. From here you had to take a sharp left which should have been alright except for the 2 cars parked ( you can see a white vehicle to the left of the top left pillar) in the way of our turn. Thank goodness Colin is so experienced. Meanwhile as all of this was transpiring, the line behind us was growing. By the way, we saw a dozen agents sitting inside the building doing ???
Finally 45 minutes later we reached our destination, the BLM lands at mile 55, just North of the border. Waiting for us was a very special visitor and some special moments. Stayed tuned for the details.
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Thanks for checking in!
It looks like the authorities are getting wise about people favouring the Lukeville crossing and are beefing it up.
My rig is nowhere near yours in size and I would have freaked out having to go through that narrow tunnel!
It is not a new thing to be using the Lukeville crossing, we have used it at least 12 times now. It was busy because of Semena Santa and Mexicans going North. However being Canadian they are usually only interested in what is in the fridge. Thank goodness Colin is a great driver, it is obvious that others aren’t.
I know a lot of RVers, like, you, have been using Lukeville for years because it’s apparently less of a hassle. I know that it’s Semana Santa, but I also think that they are starting to beef up the crossing for the very reason you favour it. I’m seeing a lot of these smaller crossings getting additional equipment, especially on the US side. You might come to discover that there’s no advantage to crossing in Lukeville over Nogales in the future.
They have had the x-ray machine at Lukeville for at least 6 years now. We use this crossing heading North as it takes us where we want to go. Coming South we use Nogales as that is where we are coming from. We use the crossings that suit our travel purposes. This is the first year that Nogales have been easy for large Class A’s to use as they finally modernized.
You often hear of good & bad customs crossings….must be the luck of the draw & how the guards feel on the day…maybe who is watching them do their job as well. Staying tuned for your next episode – “special moments ts awaiting”..have a great Easter…cheers
I hope you had a great Easter also. I will get to a new post soon 🙂 Still catching up on emails, etc.
At least you mad it safe through the border crossing, now you can relax for a while.
George, after all these years you must know that I very seldom relax, too much to do.
They always have something new to throw at you. Gotta love those tight turns!
I wondered how many RV’s have been damaged on those turns. The agent wasn’t too communicative or I would have asked him about the changes.