After 4 days and about 1,400 miles, we have made it to the border of Mexico. We crossed the border into Mexico on Tuesday afternoon, a few miles Northwest of Laredo, Texas. Why did we just not enter through Laredo, like we planned? Well, we saw an advertisement for an alternative route that “saves you time and money” crossing the border, by avoiding the lines in Laredo. This was via an alternative route on a toll road, SH-255. Considering we were the only people trying to cross at 2:30 pm on a Tuesday, I’d say that the alternate route lived up to it’s hype.
After our trip through the border, we drove a little more than 200km (approx 120 miles) to arrive at Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Monterrey is the 3rd largest city in Mexico and is known as the most Americanized city. They have a Sheraton, multiple shushi restaurants and nightclubs that charge admission.
This was where things got interesting. We arrived at the Holiday Inn that claims to be “pet friendly” (as listed on their web site as well as Orbitz) around 6pm, only to discover that they actually were not. The receptionist gave us instructions on how to get to a nearby hotel that allowed pets, although repeated attempts to locate it were unsuccessful. We were now in a foreign country, having spent over 8 hours in our Civic, unable to speak Spanish, and looking for a pet-friendly hotel.
Oh, yeah! Did we forget to mention that all the reading we’d done about Mexico said to avoid driving at night?
We found ourselves driving through Monterrey, at night, using tiny maps from a guide book. The main street we were using to search for hotels suddenly ended due to construction and we ended up driving through some residential streets. John didn’t drive here, but he describes the traffic and congestion in Monterrey like “driving in downtown Chicago, during Friday evening rush hour, except there are twice as many lanes and cars to deal with.” After 20 minutes of zigzagging, avoiding stray dogs, friends helping their intoxicated friends off the ground, people walking down the middle of the road, and various roads that just ended because of construction, we somehow found outselves back on the street we needed to be on. Needless to say, we were a bit frazzled.
We decided we needed to just find a place, sneak the cats in, and prepare a little better for our next parts of the journey. So, we ended up staying at a motel-like Best Western hotel (doors are accessible from the parking lot, not an inside hallway) about 5km outside of downtown Monterrey, in San Nicholas.
It was about 9:20pm and we decided we needed some comfort food to calm our nerves. So, our first meal in Mexico, on this journey, was pizza at a Papa John’s. It hit the spot!
The cats are taking this all very well. They don’t really like being in the car, especially when they are in their carriers. However, they really seem to enjoy exploring the new hotel rooms once they arrive.
We’re spending a 2nd night in Monterrey in order to give the cats and us a needed rest. Tonight, we plan to spend the evening exploring downtown Monterrey, where we’ll get a great meal (in a non-American chain restaurant), have a few drinks and hopefully watch the White Sox win the World Series.
