It's been a sad day in our short lives, for today we had to say adios to the beautiful San Carlos, Mexico. Although hopefully it's not actually 'adios' but 'hasta luego'.
Our morning started off earlier than any other for us in Mexico. We wanted to get to Barracuda Bob's to eat a delicious breakfast and use their internet to post our belated blog posts for all you loyal followers. Many others in the group joined us for breakfast because Barracuda Bob's has the best breakfast in San Carlos (in our opinion). This is where we also decided that once we buy our boat to live on in San Carlos we will be eating every breakfast at Barracuda Bob's and every dinner at Tequilas.
Following our delicious breakfast, we stopped off at the hotel gift shop to buy 5 cans of pineapple nectar and 1 can of mango nectar to smuggle across the border. Pineapple nectar was one of our greatest discoveries here in Mexico and now it's safe to say we're addicted... We plan to find out how much it might cost to ship a case of it from Mexico to Flint (Doc estimates $10/can).
We boarded the bus about 8 AM with a heartfelt 'hasta luego' from Veijita (the sweetest translator and our San Carlos host). She even offered to let us stay at her house when we told her we didn't want to leave San Carlos. We were quite tempted to take her up on that offer. The bus pulled out of the hotel and set a course for the American border. Along the way, we stopped at the same Mexican gas station as the trip down and managed to cheat the system of paying the 2 peso 'fee to pee'. Our next exciting stop was at a government checkpoint. Here we had to unload everything off the bus and pass it through an x-ray scanner so they could make sure we weren't trying to smuggle drugs or weapons into America. Don't worry, everyone passed and we were allowed to be on our way. Close to the border we stopped for lunch at Asadero Leo's (nothing like the Leo's we're used to) for some carne asada tacos and quesadillas. After lunch, we boarded the bus for the last time with Marco (the miracle-working bus driver) and continued toward the border. Our final stop in Mexico was a quick bus change back to an American bus line and not nearly as great of a bus driver.
At the border we all had our passports checked, except Doc because he tried to get by with an enhanced drivers license. We then moved on to customs where we had to once again scan all our luggage and be sniffed by a dog trained to sniff out fruit and meats instead of bombs and drugs. They don't joke about smuggling fruit into the states... Luckily for us the only fruit the dog could smell on us was the lime juice on our hands from lunch. After a bus inspection at Dept. of Transportation we made our way onto free American soil and headed for Phoenix.
About 13 hours after we left San Carlos, we arrived at our hotel in Phoenix, dropped off our luggage, changed out of our bus pants (yes, we have bus pants now) and headed to dinner with the group at Applebee's. Everyone was happy to once again be enjoying American food and there was much laughter to go around the table. After stuffing our faces we played a rousing game of 'Doc's 5 Question Post-Trip Survey'.
With our stomachs full and our spirits high, we returned to the hotel where we promptly crashed for the night.
¡Quédate un empollón!
Marco y Polo
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