the trip

Normally I am pretty good about taking my parents advice but on this instance I took an unnessary risk and luckly got away with it. My father works for a private contractor doing distructive testing of gun barrel failures. Apparently there is some termoil with some top mexican officials and all government emplyees that are going to the Yuma Proving Ground were advised not to travel over the border. After breaking myself physically, mentally and financially for this trip I was feeling invincible.

First thing in the morning I headed for the boarder. I’m not quite sure what the allure of the southwest is but I could not stand the smell. The only way to describe it is aloe, poverty, heat, and sand. I was only about 5 miles from the border so I was there in no time. Getting in was the easy part. I pulled up to the border and they flagged me over to the side. After being told something in Spanish I busted out my extensive knowledge of the Spanish language “no habla espanol” (yeah its that bad). I explained that I had ridden from Alaska and just wanted to go far enough to say that I’ve been to Mexico. The guard sitting on his lawn chair looked at me like I was nuts and waved me on. I drove for about 2 minutes and realized that I had no idea what I was doing and I couldn’t read the street signs. I found the line to get back into the country. There was a line for passenger cars and another line for Sentry System/motorcycle. I had no idea what the sentry system was so I just go in line with the passenger cars, and I sat there. I sat so long that my bike started to overheat. I guess is customary for bikes to go to the front of the line. The lady behind me informed me that I should just ride the curb. Normally I would have but the curb is also where the telephone poles are and there was no way I could make it through. Eventually there was a pull off lane that I could jump back into the motorcycle lane and cut to the front. When it was my turn at the gate the guard gave me a glare and took my passport. After getting grilled about why I was in mexico just long enough to turn around he wrote something down on a slip of paper and told me to pull up to one of the bays. When I got there I was to give my passport to an official. They asked the same questions. They started to dig into my gear and I think they got discouraged by how tightly my gear was packed. They only unzipped the side of one saddlebag and my tank bag. After that the boarder guard went to talk to, who I presume was his superior. When he came back he said I was free to go and gave me my passport and the slip of paper and told me to give the slip to the exit guard. Before I put my gear on I took a quick look at the paper. It said, “Just came in to turn around and leave”, “Hands Shaking”, and “Excessive luggage”. All I could do was laugh, of course my hand were shaking, I had all my gear on and was dehydrated sitting with an internal combustion engine between my legs.