Day Two of Travel to Ajijiic

Waking up early on our second day, our first thought was to see if the car was still in one piece and all of Carol's possessions were still there. We stayed at the only motel we could find at the outer edge of San Antonio on the road to the border town of Larado. The motel had not been rated by AAA so it is hard to describe the accomodations. To our relief everything survived the night and we went to breakfast. Carol struck up a conversation with the hotel clerk and confided our fears about the trip into the belly of Mexico. She had received email stories of the horrors of women traveling alone in Mexico. I guess she must have really convinced him that we thought we were about to have our throats cut because he came to our breakfast table with a Bible with passages marked for her to read. That is the biggest difference between the two of us. She attracts a man who bring her a Bible for the trip and I attract men who want to come along for the adventure.

We made it through the border town and entered the inspection station in Mexico about 8:30 a.m. The border guards were not ready for Carol. This is lady with the white hair and clutching her folder with every tidbit of information on her life--copied in triplicate--surely astonished these seasoned professionals. After being led to a brick building behind barbed wire, Carol was asked to push a magic yellow button on a stationary traffic signal type light, we were confused when the light turned green and all the border patrol guys said for us to get in our car and have a good trip. We were prepared to be stripped searched and our car contents all over the parking lot but 0ur luck held up and we didn't have a bit of trouble. Since then, we have been told we would make perfect mules--whatever that means.

The rest of the day was astonishing. If you have never driven through Northern Mexico into the desolate desert area well into the northern areas of the country seeing factories American companies built for profit after NAFTA and seeing the pure poverty of living conditions we saw for the rest of the day. We could hardly contain our astonishment of the harshness of life we saw everywhere. Life is hard for these people and these factories didn't seem to improve that.

Our destination was a town which is known as the mid point of Mexico. After reaching the city of Monterey and getting lost for two and one half hours. I won't bore you with the details of our foolish choice to take a wrong turn to find a clean restroom. After a delightful and good looking local man patiently drawing us a map and getting us back to the right road, we made good time to the town of Matehama which was our destination for the day.