Mexico: Red Tape, Roadblocks & Military Hospitality

James
Jun 14, 2015
3 min read

We decided we wanted to get to Guatemala quickly, so we drove from Arizona to Brownsville, Texas in two days, then came down the east coast of Mexico.

We stayed in a horrible county park campground on South Padre Island, and got up early to do some last minute grocery shopping before arriving at the border. It is a good thing, too, because it took close to 2 hours to get across. We went through the "Nothing to Declare" line, which was a mistake, since the vehicle permit office was in the "Something to Declare" line. Getting back to the right spot was really confusing.

There were two windows, one for passports, and the other for the vehicle permit and paying the fees. It took a few times waiting in line at both windows before we got everything squared away.

The next step was finding an ATM the crazy border town of Matamoros. We found one in a large shopping center, but the parking was so nuts we could not park together, We split up, which was a bad idea. When we left the parking lot, we got out about 20 minutes before Jon. Although we pulled over at the next available parking area, we were out of range of our handheld radios with rubber duck antennas. We should have gone through the effort to get external antennas. Jon was not sure where we went, and getting separated was scary. After reuniting, we made a deal not to separate again.

The road south quickly switched to a two-lane country road. Every 10 miles we would pass a military or Policia Federal checkpoint. At one, the officer asked us if we spoke Spanish, and when we said no, kept talking to us in Spanish, almost like he was trying to trick us. He stuck his head in the window and looked around, then finally waved us on.

At the next one, we were waved through, but Jon was stopped and they spoke to him a while. There was an Oxxo convenience store just beyond the checkpoint, so we stopped there to wait. Unfortunately, Jon didn't see us pull over, and took off chasing after where he thought we had went. We took off after him, but it took a long time to catch up with him. We made a pact that we would wait for each other after checkpoints.

Our goal that night was the Victoria Trailer Park in Ciudad Victoria. Someone had recently added it to iOverlander, and it sounded like a nice place. We had two other places for backup. It turned out the person who added Victoria Trailer Park had visited a few years ago. The owner had since passed away and the park was closed.

Backup place number one was locked up tight. It was well kept from looking through the fence, but no one answered the buzzer.

Backup place number 2 was Hotel Hacienda & RV Park. The Mexican Army had taken it over and it was totally full. Now we were in a real pickle. After a lot of hemming and hawing, Jon went back inside to plead our case. They agreed to let us camp on the back lawn. We had an soldier guarding us in a sandbagged booth, and were treated to what turned out to be wonderful Mexican military hospitality.