Indeed… we have arrived. Left Yuma (a little late but a lot lighter on the shoulders… will explain later) and headed east to a place called Rio Rico. We’d never heard of it, but good friends of ours highly recommended the “Esplendor Resort at Rio Rico”, and wow… were they ever right! Thank you so much Ron & Dal, Esplendor is absolutely “esplendid”. With its old world charm, beautiful gardens, lovely pool, and wonderfully warm and welcoming staff, we really had to tear ourselves away this morning… could have stayed for a week. But leave we did. We hit the trail at 0620 hrs., determined to be early at the border, when it was still too cold for officials to want to stand around talking.
We were ready though. We had our papers for ourselves (Passports, health records, prescriptions for our medications and letters from our Doctors). We had the papers for the Princess (vaccination records, ownership papers, microchip paper, rabies certificate, worming proof, International Health Certificate – from a Vet in Yuma for $125 US, and a letter from the Vet regarding her medications). We had the papers for Chuck the Truck (registration papers and Mexican insurance papers); we had done it all… even gave away a ton of great food from our fridge and cupboards to the cleaning staff at the last two hotels. And guess what…
We rolled up to the truck crossing about 0645 hrs., as planned. There were maybe two officials on duty. We drove slowly up to the kiosk and, as we were just about to arrive… THE GREEN LIGHT CAME ON !!!!! and we were waved through. Just wait, it gets better. As we continued on down the road, heading for KM 17 where we had to stop to get a Temporary Import Permit for Chuck… cuz we know we’ll be driving down to Mazatlan sometime towards the end of this month… well as we were driving south and talking about the double-jeopardy caused by the second red/green light at KM 17… we realized that WE DIDN’T NEED TO STOP!!! because #1 our Visa’s from May (when we went down to buy the boat) are good until November 20th… and #2 we don’t need a TIP for Chuck until we’re going down to Maz… so we could get it on our way back from our second trip to Yuma (and when there’s a lot less stuff in the truck to have to search through if we get the red light. What a huge sigh of relief was launched by all. So we just kept driving, giggling like school girls and very happy with the way things turned out. No doubt, if we hadn’t prepared all of our papers (did I mention we’d even sorted out receipts for the new gear we were carrying?)… if we hadn’t done all that.. we would have, for sure, been pulled over. So it all worked out.
About the only bad thing that happened on the entire drive here (besides the extreme heat) was that at one point on the highway (where there was one lane blocked off due to construction) an impatient truck driver (now… the speed limit was 60 KMH, we were doing 80 KMH, and well… he blasted by us doing at least 100 KMH). And, as he passed us his tire clipped one of the orange stanchions, flipping it up into the air and then right into the front of Chuck. Kathy was driving and did a great job of keeping a steady hand and maintaining our course… Chuck took it like a brave guy, right on the chin, and then he just stomped all over it as it passed under us…. Only damage, thankfully, was to our emergency brake cable which has been pulled out and rendered useless. We’ll get it fixed as soon as we hook up with our mechanic.
And so, here we are in our rented house. Signs of weather damage from Hurricane Odile are obvious. The lovely sandy beach a block from the house, is now a rock strewn collection of gravel and bits of wood, etc. But there are other beaches around and we’ll find one for Sophie as soon as we can. We meet with Eduardo at the boat tomorrow to either begin the bottom work or set up a plan after studying the weather. There are thunderstorms predicted for Sat/Sun here and we’re not sure what that will mean to the work on Spirit. For now, we need to rest. We’ve unloaded Chuck and piled the bins and stuff around about in the house… and we’ll be up early tomorrow to be at the shipyard by 0800 hrs.
In case you’re wondering, it was about 100 degrees when we arrived this afternoon, and it’s now down to the high 80’s. the Forecast for tomorrow is High 90 / Low 81 and for Saturday High 90 and low 79.. The killer is the humidity. It’s 50% today and tomorrow… and 85% on Saturday… :-(
Will let you know how that goes when the heat and sweat induced moments of hysteria and hallucinations calm down. :-)
Take care everyone…. Kathy promises… photos tomorrow… until then.. adios… CJ
