I stayed up really late last night to make a bunch of updates and get caught up on the journal writing. I think it was about 4:30 am when I finally turned in! I hope people are actually reading these things!

We hung out a little in the morning with Cullen and his housemates. They have been so gracious allowing us to camp in our truck outside their hose. A really friendly and helpful crew. We were given lots of advice about Mexico and checked out a few of the books on their shelves while we were there. But it was time for goodbyes once again.

After a trip to the internet café to post the updates and at the bank and to get diesel, we were finally diving out of Tucson at about 12:30 pm. The truck is fully loaded with oil, about 125 gallons on the roof!

It took about 1 1/2 hours to get to the border. We were only were going about 60, despite a 75mph speed limit. We were really loaded down, and I decided to just be conservative. We listened to our Spanish CD to try and learn something before we made the crossing; a desperate attempt, yet somehow comforting.

We both had to pee as we pulled closed to the boarder crossing and perhaps that was our nerves. So we pulled into a Burger King cause the McDonalds parking lot was full. Not that we care. As we moved through the crossing we encountered our first official Mexican authorities... They were wondering what was in the containers on the roof. We tried to explain in or terrible Spanish that the truck ran on used vegetable oil. They seemed pretty amazed or skeptical. They asked where we were going and when we said Costa Rica they asked “Why?” in a “Why would you want to drive to Costa Rica” sort of way. But we we allowed to pass and got the green light.

We kept driving to the next town where we were required to get our vehicle permit and tourist card, but we tried to do it in the wrong order and had to stand in line 3 times. And because we were honest and said that we were travelling to Costa Rica, we only got a 30 day tourist card, and subsequently only a 30 day vehicle permit, when the maximum is 180 days. Now we will have to pay a second $33.00 fee for the vehicle permit on the return trip into and across Mexico. Oh well.

We were hoping to make it to Hermosilla, but the sun was going down and we decided to look for camping. We turned off the highway and headed 8km east towards a little town call Carbo. Just outside town was a group of 5 Federales who stopped the vehicle. Kris was nervous from the machine guns. They asked me something and I said something about camping in spanish and made a sleeping gesture. I asked if they spoke English, and they said no, but they got someone on their radio who did. He asked me over the radio where we were from, and asked my name. He then asked if I was drunk. I said “no” emphatically and we all had a laugh. Then they waived us through.

So we drove through our first little Mexican town on a Saturday night and were just a little nervous and afraid that we’d run into some drunk Mexicans running from the Federales. We drove all the way through the town trying to figure out where we were going to park and camp for the night. We crossed the train tracks, and headed down a dirt road for a few more kilometers. It was still light out, but fading. Then we saw a little road that crossed the tracks again so we took it.

We came upon a water trough for the cows behind a fence and there was a flat spot off road to park the truck out of the way. It was very surreal and beautiful. The stars came out, and we enjoyed the changing colors and the two bright planets shining on ether side of the sky. Kris was unsettled but calm, and I felt a strange sense of centeredness, despite being parked in the middle of nowhere next to god knows who’s farm. We opened the tailgate, cracked a bottle of wine and talked for a few hours since it was still quite early. A young boy rode by on his bicycle, probably heading to party in the town center. A man on horseback rode by later in the opposite direction, and I tried to say "Buenas Noches", and he seemd surpriised that I even spoke to him. Nobody would mind our little camp. We slept to the sound of coyotes.