Mexican Border to San Carlos

We were on the road at 8.30 and 55minutes later we crossed the border into Mexico. This is a very uneventful crossing. Although there are officials here we have yet to be delayed more that a coupe of minutes—this time straight through.

21 kilometers and 20 minutes later we arrive at what is appropriately known as Kilometer 21. It is here that we get our tourist card, (like a Visa) allowing us to stay in Mexico for 180 days. The cost for this was $22.00 Canadian, each. Here we also had our passports stamped. Next was the temporary foreign vehicle import permit, also issued for 180 days for the tracker, our tow car. This comes with a hologram which is affixed to the windshield and cost $33.00 Canadian.

This year there was a senior official wandering around watching. He would occasionally approach the the line up, ask people what they were waiting for, and check to see if they had everything they would need at the wicket. Several people returned to their vehicles for papers, some had to go and get photocopies, and some even had to go back and get their tourist card, which had to be paid for at the wicket.

When we entered Mexico last year we were issued a 10 year permit for the motorhome, which has been available for several years now for motorhomes, trailers and boats. Last summer we had the motorhome windshield replaced and had the glass shop remove the hologram from the old windshield. We had stuck it back on the new one but it was obvious by even a cursory glance that it had been removed. We had come concerns about being stopped later and having problems with it.

Art took the opportunity (with some misgivings!) of asking the official about it, explaining what had occurred. He assured us that as long as the numbers on the hologram sticker coincided with the paper permit and the information on the permit matched registration of the vehicle, everything would be OK.

Back at the rig, new decal on the tracker and dogs walked, we were on our way an hour and twenty five minutes after pulling in. One last gauntlet to run—at the exit we again had to drive through customs. A few questions, where, how long, what were you bring in etc and we were finally on our way for real.

Shortly before 1:00 PM we pulled into the Pemex at Benjamin Hill for fuel and went into the restaurant next door for lunch. Diesel was 8 pesos a litre—about 67 cents Canadian at current rates of exchange (approximately 12 pesos to the Canadian dollar). This is a favourite stop either south or north bound, our first or last stop depending which way we are going and we are usually here for about an hour. We would now drive non stop to San Carlos, 265 kilometers which would take a little over 3 hours if the roads are in good shape. We drove through the City of Hermasillo using the eastern bypass with out incident. The 4 lane street here is in very good condition for the most part (though there is one small section in the city with a few nasty topes) and it takes a lot of concentration to maintain the 60 Km/speed limit—which is strictly enforced—especially against foreign vehicles!

The highway from Nogales to Magdalena wasn't in particularly good shape, Magdalena to Hermasillo was fairly good, and fair on to San Carlos. Fortunately traffic, especially truck traffic, was light and we had no difficulty maintaining a highway speed of 90 to 100 Km/H and arrived at the Totonoka RV Park in San Carlos at around 5:00 PM

We had a couple of gifts (one a small joke which had traveled all the way from Marrakech) for our friends Joe and Christine who winter in San Carlos but had not yet arrived. We were able to leave these with the owners of the RV park who know them well.

Note the topiary, especially the small tree in the middle. There were quite a few of these around the park. We stayed 2 nights here, got a load of laundry done and a bit of shopping and spent the rest of the day re-acquainting ourselves with the area.

San Carlos received quite a bit of damage from the hurricane last September but repairs were well in hand for the most part. There was a lot of water damage from the torrential rains and water run off. The property beside the RV Park was almost completely washed away and across the same was similar damage.






To the west, approaching the second section of San Carlos (the town is in almost 2 separate parts separated by steep cliffs on one side and a deep bay on the other) the eastbound bridge was impassible, all traffic using the 2 laned westbound bridge.







West of San Carlos is the tiny village of La Manga (the Sleeve) and we were quite concerned that it might have suffered a lot of damage. We drove up the dirt track and found it to be in very good shape. The little school had 5 large solar panels and signs of recent maintenance, there were several shacks with new “Restaurant” signs advertising seafood; the fishing boats pulled up on the sand testified to the freshness of the catch. Still a poor village but improving year by year, thanks in large part to American service clubs.


When we were getting ready to go in the morning Art proceeded with the outside chores while Gillian took the dogs for a last walk around the park. These chores included draining the black and gray water tanks. The gray is emptied first, then the gray, to flush the worst of the smelly stuff out of the hose. When the contents of the black tank had stopped flowing Art closed that valve and opened the valve for the gray water. It ran normally for a few seconds, then . . . . the connector came off at the valve, and the gray water poured out onto the ground and Art's lap! He managed get the valve closed before all 50 litres or so had run out. Inspection showed nothing wrong with the fitting, the only remaining being operator error, and it hadn't been secured in the first place! Art was quite pleased that in Tucson he had emptied the tanks and added about 20 or 30 litres of clean water and deodorant to help clean the tank as we drove.

Art hosed himself off, packed things up, stripped off on the steps and headed to the shower!

After a change of clothes, leaving the wet things on the floor of the shower, we were ready to go.




Leaving San Carlos/Guymas to the north, where the toll road bypass starts, the former overpass has been completely destroyed. Southbound traffic (us) is temporarily being re-routed through the Pemex station at the intersection. We were unable to take time for photos here as typically there were no direction signs and we had to watch carefully. If we hadn't known where we were supposed to go we would have found ourselves on the road back to Hermasillo! Once through the Pemex lot we did manage to snap a few pics through the windows, unfortunately due to reflections from the bright sunlight they aren't particularly good but you can see that they are hard at work rebuilding.




99.94 Litres of fuel.




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