Today was the big day. I didn’t sleep that well. I think I’m get­ting a lit­tle ner­vous about this whole thing, which I think is inevitable. Because of that, I got a rel­a­tively early start this morn­ing, picked up my title from Fed Ex, and had lunch at Popeye’s. I love Popeye’s, and haven’t seen on yet. While sit­ting there, I started talk­ing to another guy who came in at 10:30 on a motor­cy­cle look­ing for lunch. He ended up being a real nice guy, and we exchanged con­tact information(If you’re read­ing this, howdy!)

Well, after that, it was on to Mex­ico. There wasn’t any real wait at the bor­der. The hard­est part is fig­ur­ing out where immi­gra­tion is (so I can get my tourist card), where to get the cor­rect doc­u­ments for my bike, and where to get insur­ance. I found immi­gra­tion, but couldn’t get to on my bike. I ended up park­ing about half a mile away and walk­ing. In the noon­day heat, wear­ing and car­ry­ing my bike gear. I had to make two trips. Immi­gra­tion was taken care of by about 1 p.m. The only way to get an vehi­cle imported is to drive 30KM down High­way (?) 45 towards Chi­huahua. Too bad I wasn’t going to Chi­huahua. Once I got there, well, every­thing was on Mex­i­can Time. The first step was easy — give some guy $1/US to pho­to­copy what I needed for step 2. Step 2 involved wait­ing. And wait­ing. It took about 90 min­utes to go through the line to import my vehi­cle. And of course, I don’t speak span­ish (yet!) That caused a few awk­ward moments. The chicha behind the counter had some­one trans­late for me. He said “You’re on a motor­cy­cle” — yes. “Where are you going” — Oax­aca, then leav­ing south, “Are you trav­el­ling by your­self?” — yes. “That’s Weird”. Mex­i­can Les­son num­ber one — always brings some­thing to read.

Hav­ing got­ten the first and sec­ond of my task out of the way, I went for insur­ance. I was look­ing for a San­borns office, but they had some­one in the same build­ing, so I went to see what they had to offer. After fill­ing out the insur­ance forms, I find out that they can’t use EITHER of the credit cards I had. I had intended to head towards Neuvo Casa Grandes to see the nearby ruins, but I didn’t want to end up with­out a way to pay for a room, and frankly, it was get­ting late, and I was spent. I saw a tem­per­a­ture read­ing of 32 degrees, which I cal­cu­late to be approx­i­mately 8000 degrees Faren­height (sp?) It was by far the hottest day of my trip. The stress of the day, and the heat were get­ting to me, and I wasn’t sure I could make it to Neuvo Casa Grandes in time, so I decided to go back to Juarez and get one of the over­priced chain hotels I passed. I didn’t have a map, and I took a wrong turn com­ing back. I don’t mind just dri­ving around a town, so I did that for a while. While trav­el­ling, it’s not to bad hav­ing a jacket on, but when stuck in traf­fic for 15 or 20 min­utes, with my bike get­ting hot enough to worry me, it was like an oven. Even­tu­ally I found a nice clean hotel, with what appeared to be under­ground park­ing. Started talk­ing to the guy, and found out the rooms were about 330 peso (~33/US.) But, that’s for six hours. It was a freakin’ love hotel. I knew they had such things in Japan, but Mex­ico too? He offered a room that didn’t have under­ground park­ing for $27/US for the night, but I declined. What if some lonely cou­ple couldn’t cou­ple because of me. I can’t be respon­si­ble for that. The room was very nice though. And the place was large. I guess if could have got­ten under­ground park­ing AND the inter­net, I’d have thought about it.

I even­tu­ally found a Hol­i­day Inn. $66 for the night. Not too cheap, but not too bad either. It has been a long day, and some­times you just want to stop mov­ing. I plan on get­ting an early start, to cover the 150 or so miles the ruins I want to see. The rough guide I have warns of ban­ditry on the road head­ing to the ruins, so I might just head to Chi­huahua instead espe­cially if it’s cooler. This heat is killing me. I’ll see how I feel in the morn­ing. I have to be in Oax­aca for a Span­ish class in about seven days, and it’s slower trav­el­ling round these parts. And I need to get out of the heat. Maybe I’ll head to the coast for a day or two. Funny to feel like I don’t have enough time, given that I’ve got all the time in the world.

As a side note, nor­mal Mex­ico cable has occa­sional full nudity, which I found flip­ping the chan­nels. But it’s not one of those soft­core porn things with­out plot. A lit­tle nudity, then a plot. It’s like a bad USA chan­nel movie, but with nudity. I’m torn — nudity good, rest of movie bad.