Day 22: South Padre Island, TX, USA to La Pesca, Tamaulipas, Mexico

We woke up early this morning to a nice warm fog and it was only 5:30 in the AM. Packed up our stuff and headed out the door still a big groggy and sleepy but happy to be entering Mexico. We dropped off the key and then had some nice fresh bagels to fuel us up for the unknown. We talked to the owner of Badabing Bagels and learned more about the island and the locals and their way of life, the good time and the hard times.

It took us about half an hour to get to Brownsville and get to the border crossing, there had been much hype about how to actually cross the boarder and get temporary import permit for the motorcycles. We literally almost missed the offices where we were suppose to do this and drove into Mexico easy as could be past the long line trying to get into the USA. This line was many blocks long both of cars and many people deep for people on foot. The exact opposite of trying to get into Mexico.

We realized what we had done and decided to take back roads back to the customs and park our bikes in front of a money exchanger, walked into the building, found the correct window and filled out the paperwork. We walked over to the next window to declare our bikes, make some copies of documents. This whole process took us under an hour and next thing we knew we were getting lost in a line back into the USA. We turned around and got on highway 101 south heading to Ciudad Victoria, it was a bit hectic for the first hour getting used to the roads and drivers. We just wanted to get on some two lane roads and dirt roads for which we were here for.

If you zoom in you can see the long line of people waiting in line to get into the USA.

Just south of Matamoros there was a policia check point and of course they waved us over asking for identification. Hola Mexico! They basically just put or permiso de importacion temporal de vehiculos on our windshield and sent us on our way.

We had our lunch and overpriced tacos a bit further south from the policia. It was a nice open air restaurante that was just what the doctor ordered.

Once we split off of highway 101 and made our way on highway 180 we felt at home, off of the beaten path of big trucks heading to and from Matamoros and Ustados Unidos Americanos. Shortly after we truned onto 180 we turned off of it and onto a small dirt road heading este towards the playa. We were in heaven on these side dirt roads driving for what was the rest of the afternoon driving into the smallest little villages that seemed to be empty until we stopped and looked around. Everyone was looking at the gringos on our giant motos! Most everyone that we waved to waved back, what beautiful people, kind and friendly and inquisitive about us. Helping us they pointed us on the correct road out of their wonderful little village and towards our destination of the evening, La Pesca. Some of these roads were your regular dirt roads in the us, were most people could drive on and some of these roads made us feel lucky we had the bikes that we did. Yay dual sport.

At one point I asked Colin if we should take the main road or the side road, both of which were dirt just one was a little more warn than the other. We both had a good laugh. This is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. People living simply.

We finally intersected a main road (aka paved one lane) and turned left after being “lost” most of the day, driving about twenty kilometers to the main drag in town, driving through this we headed to towards the playa and saw a sign saying “Camping” great we thought so we pulled over and inquired with the owner about staying the night in our tent. This is when we realized out lack of espania was going to limit our ability to interact with the locals.

We set up our tent, content that we had successfully gotten away from the border town and what seemed like miles away from the USA. We made our dinner and fell asleep satisfied.