Buying the car

So, last Monday, the 16th I left to buy a car in the states to bring back down, so we could pack it up and drive home. The hope was to return with a groovy, resellable station wagon by Friday. Turns out that wasn’t very realistic. My wonderful, helpful, generous and kind man friend, Tom came to help check out the car and to drive part of the way back through Mexico with me.

He met me in Ciudad Juarez with this crazy red, gutless rental car that we used for the week. (This picture is actually taken somewhere between Albuquerque and El Paso.)

We drove straight up to New Mexico where I had learned, on the internets, that there was a bigger variety of cars for sale – it seems that in Texas most people are selling pickup trucks.

From the get-go nothing happened particularly smoothly. Even buying a pay as you go cell phone, which was my first task – took a number of tries. BUT we found a great car for a good price quickly, in very pretty countryside 45 minute out of Santa Fe.

After some delays with getting the money to the seller Wednesday afternoon I was ready to title it and drive home to Mexico the next morning.

It turns out though, that unless you live in the state where you are getting the title, you can’t get a title, so I got a 10 day temporary New Mexico registration, (the longest that they give.)

We shot back down to El Paso (a 5 hour drive.) We didn’t want to buy the mandatory Mexican insurance which they sell at the border and find out at customs 30 km. away that we didn’t have the right papers or had done something wrong, so we decided to go to the consulate to make sure we had everything we needed Thursday morning. After standing in a long line – we were given a phone number to call. I called and told the woman my situation and she told me that there was no way to get permit for the car to be in Mexico, because they only give 6 month permits and my car wasn’t registered for that long. In a panic, we went to a Texas DMV to see if I could title the car there – but no, they only give 30 day temporary registrations. I called Oregon DMV to see if I could title it long distance – he said, (very slowly,) that he supposed so and after telling me everything I had to do said it would take 4 to 6 weeks.

I was devastated, defeated and downtrodden and it was around 100+ degrees out. We decided to get a hotel for one more night and figure out what the hell we were going to do. I was thinking of all the possible alternatives for how to get all of our crap home and deal with this new car and still be able to see some of the world between Guanajuato and Portland and not lose a lot of money. There weren’t many. Then I realized that all of this disaster and devastation, (of my little life,) was because of what one person said in one telephone call. So I called back and asked again. This time the person said she was sure it was possible and gave me another number to call and that person said, “No problem.” With renewed hope, we rushed straight to the Texas DMV, got a 30 day registration, there was an insurance place next door, so we got the Mexican insurance and bright and early the next morning got across the border with a permit for 87 days.

Oh my god!! That was a happy day. And I was driving in Mexico!! It isn’t as scary as it looks.

We spent that night in a very pretty little town called Jimenez, a few hours south of Chihuahua.

It was so wonderful to be back in Mexico after 4 days of strip malls and Holiday Inns.

On the advise of a woman at the bank machine we had a delicious breakfast of Nescafe, pork burritos and carrot/beet juice in this bus. It really was delicious! And so clever. And very nice people.

We drove another 8 hours south to the beautiful Zacatecas.

Tom and I parted ways on Sunday morning and I was on my own for the next 5 hours or so on the open road.

When I got home I parked near the Pipila where the car will stay until we drive it away loaded with nine months worth of stuff, a dog and three Oregonians. Butch was HUGE after my 6 days away, the boys were excited about the car and the rootbeer I brought and that we are that much closer to leaving.

San Miguel Run Around

I took a little trip to San Miguel all by myself the other day. I was planning to get student visas for me and Mikko and the closest immigration office is in San Miguel. I went Wednesday night on the bus, then took the city bus to the Zocolo to meet my friend, Mary. She had a babysitter so we actually got to go out for a drink, something I haven’t done much unless it is with Matthew and Mikko. That was fun and fancy. So grown up.

In the morning I took the bus out to the immigration office, with my pages of xeroxed copies of every page of our passports, tourist cards, credit cards, letters from both schools, saying we were accepted to study there etc etc. I waited about 2 hours for my number to be called. They had a TV on and had it on the Nature Channel. That was cool. I saw some amazing spider action.

The fellow who finally called my number was quite nice, but said I would need Mikko’s birth certificate to change his status, and why don’t I just extend our tourist visas, since chances are we will leave the country at least once before March when the extension would expire. That was the first time I looked at my tourist card and saw that we only had 90 day visas, not 180 days like I thought. At that point he said that the office was about to close and he would have to check with his boss to see if I could get it done that day. She said yes, so then I had to run across the street to make some more copies of things, then go to a bank a few miles away to pay the fee and bring back the receipt. There were no cabs or buses around so I had to walk a ways to the nearest big street, where I was able to get a bus, easily – then go to the bank, get the bus back and walked back into the immigration office, thinking I was done. I was, basically but I had to wait about another two hours for him to get to me and do the mountains and mountains of signatures and stamps and trips to his boss. SO now we have exactly what I always thought we had – tourist visas until March and we will need to cross a Mexican border sometime between now and then to be here the whole time legally.