Kathy & Eric's travels: Why, AZ to Santa Ana and Edgar and Anna’s Punta Vista RV Park

Monday Dec. 17, 2012

First things first. I know that my baby sister Joy reads my blog so “Happy 50th Birthday to to you!”

We left Why this morning at about 9:30 am and just before leaving my first order of business was to stow away my beef, salmon and wieners in a cold bag in preparation for the border crossing.

Heading to the border.

We were stopped at the border and the Mexican border guard wanted to see inside my freezer. He would have taken the beef but did not ask about fish. The pork and chicken was okay but was supposed to be in it’s original packaging and he could have taken that. He was nice and said remember for next year. He did not look at our passports or ask for Visa’s.

As we passed through Sonoyta there was a large gathering of police and a greeting committee of some kind. Turns out it was a welcome to Mexico by the municipal police and perhaps someone running for mayor! We were given a brochure in Spanish and a piece of paper that had emergency numbers to call in case we were hassled by police.

Town of Sonoyta.

Policia tourist hand out. I didn’t get a picture of the greeting committee as I thought they were federalies to start with and by then it was too late. They did take pictures of us!

Waiting for the pothole crew leaving Sonoyta.

On to San Emeterio where you are forced to go through. The booth where we turned in our vehicle stickers last year is gone so I assume that they are not doing the vehicle importation documents there anymore. They may still be doing tourist visa’s but that is not clear. There the huge drop off that we had issues going down last year has been fixed. We passed through one of the lanes and again no one asked for any paperwork.

Sonoyta to Caborca. Long lonesome highway.

We stopped at the first Pemex coming into Caborca for our usual lunch stop and fuel. One thing of note is the discrepancy between the fuel pumped and the fuel that our trucks computer said we used. There was a 7 liter discrepancy and it was not in our favor. We had been checking in the US and the amounts were correct. I might mention that we had noted this on quite a few occasions at Pemex’s in Mexico last year. Nothing we can do about it but irritating just the same.

The next police greeting committee was just east of Caborca and they were handing out brochures as well. Luckily we already had one because he ran out just as we got there. A major push to make people want to come to Sonora and feel safe. We also noted new blue signs ever 20kms or so giving an emergency number to call if we were in trouble.

Onward to Pitiquito.

Caborca.

At Pitiquito we drove through the customs (Aduana) lane and not the vehicle importation lane as we had all our paperwork done. There they did not ask for any paperwork of any kind either. So….no one anywhere wanted to see any paperwork of any kind. Now that is all well and good if you have what you need but if you don’t and also don’t know what you need you are going to end up in a big mess! Total confusion.

The road from Caborca to Santa Ana is once again being paved and guess what is paying for that. You guessed it….tolls and boy did the one east of Caborca go up since last fall. We have 3 axles on the rig and 2 on the truck so we pay the same as the semis. Oct 2011- 160 peso’s…Dec. 2012 – 231 peso’s. About a 45% increase. Ah Mexico!

We arrived at Edgar and Anna’s around 2:30 pm and they were very happy to see us. Business is down even worse than last year and every customer counts. I would guess that all this confusion coming through Lukeville is not helping them at all. Many people have chosen to come through Nogales and then you are so close to Santa Ana that you would not stop unless you made a point of it. Edgar did mention that while he was sitting out there waiting for customers he has not seen as many rigs pass by this year as last. So….please make an effort to stop and stay with them if you can as they count on us for their livelihood and they deserve our support. Lovely people.