Wednesday, March 9, 2011

On The Road to Mexico

Last night we had a meeting of the caravan participants and went over our trip log and expectations for this trip. Today we thru out the trip log (for today) and had to wing it! It's an adventure!

The Mexicans have changed all their procedures at the border since the last Fantasy Tour went thru the gate. We left Las Cruces at 7 AM and drove to the border crossing at Santa Teresa where 6 couples got their Visa's and holograms for their RV's. But when we tried to go thru the crossing, the roof over the drive was too low for several rigs and the Mexicans would not let them go thru on any other drive. Fantasy Tours has a policy that they do not split up the group, so we all turned around and waited in the US Customs line for about 45 minutes and then drove 60 miles west to another border crossing at Columbus, NM. The Mexicans would not let us cross without a thorough inspection of the inside of all the coaches so we waited there another hour before moving on. We had to go through two more Mexican Military inspections along our route. We arrived in Nuevo Casas Grande at 4:45 PM and had to hurry to our evening entertainment and dinner.

We had a speaker who told of his discovery of the pottery maker from Mata Ortiz, a small village in Chihuahua. The pottery here is all hand made and formed only by hands that do not use wheels or other forms to shape the pottery. They use brushes made of human hair to paint the pottery. We'll learn more about the art tomorrow. We had a great dinner of steak and chicken cooked in lava pots which kept the food bubbling the whole time we were eating. A couple entertained us with dances from 4 different regions of Mexico and a musician who sang and played the guitar.

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