Daily Archives: January 8, 2011

Frontera

So many people have warned us (as they probably have warned you, too), about being careful in the border areas. Well, we will continue to be careful. But I’d like to say that the people I have met here are very nice. And, yay, our agent Samuel, as inept as he may be, just returned our money. All the money. And our pink slip. We still don’t really know what happened, but Samuel says he is considering a career change.  Supposedly, our truck is eligible for Mexican registration and plates. But it didn’t get registered (!*#*^). We are making new plans.

So Samuel is on our list of People Who Didn’t Take Advantage Of Us. So is Don David, the cook, who gave us enormous servings of food, a little more each day, because he knew we were stuck here, and that we were making two meals out of each restaurant visit. So is the manager of the hotel, Jorge, who lowered the price of our room even lower than Chon was going to ask him to. So is beautiful Alma, a front-desk lady who we engaged in many conversations. This is Alma.

I promise the photos will be better soon – I didn’t bring my camera, so these are phone photos. Rocio cooked a meal for us on New Year’s Day, when the cook didn’t show up.  Every person here was friendly, sympathetic and simpatico.

The Hotel Estrella Dorada Internacional is not fancy, but it’s got everything a traveler needs. I know, because I stayed here A WEEK! I certainly can recommend it to you if you need a place to stay in Nogales (on the Mexican side.)

The View Past My Knees

Samuel the agent texts: “deme chansa” (give me a chance; or, better, give me time). What a laugh.

Alfonso our friend the customs agent came to the restaurant, and says he can do it for us if we get the pink slip and money back from Samuel. We can drive to Alfonso’s house in Santa Ana and leave the truck, moeny, and papers there. We would then take the bus to Guanajuato, our destination, then travel back to Los Mochis in a couple of weeks, after Alfonso completes the paper-work, and drive the truck home from there. Does this weaken our resolve? NO!

I realize that many folks would just stop right there and say Ya! Basta! Enough! No more throwing good money after bad, etc. But not us. We are made of different stuff.

We have already gone through so much with this old truck.  It was very hard to get it smogged last fall, and that was an epic story in itself that I won’t inflict on you, but it involved getting in touch with junk yards all over the US, and spending several days waiting at a smog repair place, as Foxy was minus an air filter cannister and lid. We’ve decided that no matter how much people laugh at us, we’re going to get it to our house in Mexico no matter what!


I had chilaquiles again tonight, after eating three pancakes. I made and ate so many pancakes when I lived in the midwest that I am not a fan, but they tasted mighty good today. Chon and I think we’ve each lost a couple of pounds on our special one-meal-per-day-since-we-are-running-out-of-money diet. Chon actually ordered the pancakes, but I confess I was dreaming of carbs myself – I was craving Frosted Flakes! Straight out of the box. This evening was the first time we indulged in lots of carbs during our stay here. (Of course, chilaquiles, made from crispy fried tortillas with salsa, are reasonably high on the carb charts, but they are usually nicely balanced with chicken or eggs – I had mine with machaca, which has sent me on an obsessive online hunt for recipes).

Sorry – bad lighting. The white stuff is nice crumbly cheese and lettuce. Underneath are the chilaquiles, with machaca on top of them.

We save the left-overs for later. We keep telling each other we’ll eat these left-overs On The Road. Tomorrow, because it’s already nearly eight p.m. But we’re still waiting for Samuel. To call. Or come with the papers. Any minute, now.