After three days of driving from the Sea of Cortez, we are back in Llano completing 41 wonderful days adventuring in Mexico where we enjoyed making new Mexican friends and others from around the world..
Spent a very noisy night on the street across from the Malecon waterfront, traffic all night long on Saturday night but slept surprisingly well. Two vans with Mexico registration and loudspeakers on top slept just behind us.
IS IT A PICKUP WITH SLIDE IN CAMPER, OR AN RV?
We have already had a challenge at our condo in Santa
Fe when one of the now former board members did not want us to park there because she said what we had was an RV. Our insurance company does not treat it as one, nor does vehicle registration, and eventually the board voted unanimously that it was not an RV.
At around 9 am we drove out from La Paz and arrived in Pichilinque went to the Baja Ferries office. We did not see anyone around to measure our vehicle this time, so we showed them the ticket we had from our trip over, hoping to minimize communication problems caused by our poor understanding of Spanish. We told them we would not need a cabin on this trip over since it left at 3:00 and arrived at 9 pm. This would save us around $75. Our price on the way over was $4000 pesos for two people, vehicle and cabin, which is around $370 to $400 usd depending on your exchange rade and again we used our credit card. The clerk looked at the ticket and printed our new one.
A ferry official suggested we come back at 12:00 to avoid lines through customs. We did so and parked and had our lunch and a spit bath.
We drove into the line for passenger vehicles behind a Sportsmobile van like John and Wanda's, with New Mexico plates. We later met the owners, Richard and Alana, from Albuquerque, on the ferry along with some very nice folks from Quebec City.
LAURA HAS TO GET OUT AND WALK ON TO THE FERRY
When we stopped they said Laura would have to get out, only the driver could take the vehicle on. On the way over they had let her ride but put us on the ferry last and then lest us go back down to the truck after all the foot passengers had exited, but no go this time. This is what we expected since reading other traveler accounts. Is it a sexist thing, or do even the commerical operadores drivers who have helpers have to follow this convention? We did not find out the answer. We did read in one internet account that one female driver was not allowed to drive on her own vehicle but it was loaded by a male ferry employee.....
TROUBLE IN THE FERRY LINE
When we got in the ferry line they said there was a mistake and that we should have been charged at the much higher RV rate. We explained that we had paid nothing at the border for the camper even after showing a picture to the officials and they said no, just pay for the truck. Because Laura was so on top of things, we were able to show them our old ticket where we had paid for extra meters upon the base price. We had read a traveler's account of how they had done this, and on the way over we insisted to the guy who was measuring and evaluating that this was not and RV. We were charged for 6.8 meters, which was over the minimum and we paid a per meter overage.
Baja Ferries does not have a clear category for trucks with slide in campers, so it looks like you have to take your chances negotiating whether they will charge you as an RV at the much higher rate. After taking our tickets to the office and onto the boat and consulting they finally let us travel without extra charge. We are thankful they let us through.
BEAUTIFUL CRUISE ACROSS THE SEA OF CORTEZ
The scenery was fabulous as we left Baja to the mainland. We were able to walk around outside and take pictures. Did not see whales. We put on our anti sea sickness bracelets and were very glad we did before the trip was over!
We took the ferry back from La Paz, Baja California Sur, to Topolobampo, Sinaloa, got in late and spent the night in the parking lot.
We had left Santa Fe around the 18 of December and we were finally tired of traveling, though we had more days on our visa and truck permit.
We needed to get back to vote, check on our property, parents, and go to doctors, so early the next morning we drove through Los Mochis while our new friends Edmundo and Olga and family were still sleeping, and drove north through Navajoa to Ciudad Obregon. There we left the main highway and traveled on a secondary narrow winding hardtop road northeast through some georgeous blooming Sonora desert foothills on back up to the Sierra Tamahumara. We came out at a military checkpoint about the middle of the West/ East Highway 16 between Hermosillo and Cuahtemoc. Traveled on east to just outside Yecora and spent the night on the "dark desert highway" in a pullout, probably at around 6000 feet.
The next day early we traveled on the very curvy high mountain road with interesting vistas. We had heard trucks pass us all night, and we came around one corner to find one turned over on its side! (The police were already there directing traffic.) We averaged about 25 miles an hour. Finally came to straight highway about La Junta before and from there on we were able to travel at normal rate of speed for highway travel. Toll Road from Cuahtemoc to Chihuahua City where we got back on 16 then another toll road to Ojinaga where we parked in a pullout at about dark and spent the night.
Up early again and drove the 60 miles or so on in to Ojinaga, went back to the same bank we had originally had changed money at only to learn they did not change pesos to us dollars. They pointed us to a change place across the street and we got a very reasonable exchange.
We had to pay a $2 toll to cross the Mexican side of the bridge?! There were only a few cars ahead of us on the US side and they sent us through the search process with dog and had to give up eggs and a mango. The US Border Patrol agent was nice enough to share that if we did not plan to drive back into Mexico before our permit was expired we better turn it in since they would never let you drive it in again if you let it expire before you turned it in and you would loose the deposit charged to your credit card. So back to the Mexican side to turn it .
On to Alpine to get some groceries, fix lunch and nap. Made to Llano in Central Texas by around 9:00 pm after dodging lots of deer.
We were exhausted but got up the next morning and went to doctor, saw Minnie Robert's Mother, picked up our mail and voted early.
Very tired and glad to be back with our stuff on the beautiful Llano River!
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