South to North: Day 11... San Antonio, TX

DAY 11

Wednesday, July 23, 2014
San Antonio, Texas, USA to Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico
Weather: Sunny, 36 celsius

After breakfast, we headed to the lobby of the hotel to check out. I noticed this good luck horseshoe above the door and it reminded me of my friend Nicole.

Back on the 35 South, we saw signs for Laredo and set the map for UPS Frieght location. The distance between San Antonio and Laredo is about 155 miles or 250 km. Typically it should take about 2.5 hours, but it took us around 3.5 hours.

There were several of these signs posted all along the highway. 

We finally pulled into the UPS terminal just before noon. The temperature outside was a sweltering 38 Celsius by now; just standing outside under the sun made the sweat pour down our backs. We headed into the office (with air conditioning) and asked about our shipment. The friendly guy in the office located the two skids right away, but we had to wait until they finished their current orders. 

Meanwhile, we pulled the car around the back behind the shipping area and started unloading the trailer to make room for the rest of our things. We took turns going back into the office to cool off. About an hour later, the guy on the fork lift brought down our two skids and dropped them off in the gravel yard beside the car. It took an hour to load everything back into the trailer. We realized that it would probably be a struggle for the Honda to carry the full trailer up the mountain roads between here and Monterrey, so Javier called his uncle to ask if he could come meet us in Laredo with his pick-up truck. By the time we were finished loading the trailer, my head felt like it was going to explode and I couldn't concentrate anymore. If you've ever had heat stroke before, you will know what I'm talking about. It's hard to tell in this photo because of the light in the bathroom, but I looked like a tomato. Although I'm smiling in this photo, I was feeling pretty grumpy at that point.

I went back into the office and Javier bought me a Coke from the vending machine. 
The guys went to find some lunch while I sat on the floor in the office to cool down. 

While we waited for Javier's uncle to arrive, we sat in the UPS staff room, eating lunch and watching Joan Jett on TV.

We were anticipating that the border crossing would take a while, so we wanted to get on the road as soon as possible. Javier's uncle arrived with his truck around 5pm, we hooked everything up and headed for the highway.

Javier drove the truck with his uncle and the trailer in tow, while I followed behind in the Honda with Ricardo. I watched as Javier headed for the declaration line-up, and for some reason, I thought that since I wasn't carrying the trailer, I didn't have anything to declare (complete forgetting that I needed to declare myself and the car!), and breezed through the "nothing to declare" line, crossing the border in about two minutes.
Once across, we suddenly realized that the paperwork for the trailer and importation was in the Honda. After some phone calls and driving around in circles, we managed to get the papers to Javier. Despite having all the paperwork ready, Javier had to unload everything from the trailer by himself, to show the border officials, and then pack it all again. 

I felt very frustrated that I'd made the mistake of taking the wrong line, as it took two hours for Javier and his uncle to make it across the border, while Ricardo and I waited helplessly on the other side. (Spoiler alert: We didn't realize this mistake would cost more time tomorrow!)

It was getting dark by now, and we were 2.5 hours from Monterrey.

We decided to find a hotel for the night and drive the last stretch tomorrow. We found a Holiday Inn just off the highway, ordered some pizza for dinner, and called it a night.

Keep reading to find out what happened on the last day!