May
23
2006

Heading Back To The U.S of A

PhotosTuesday, May 23, 2006 - 01:49:30 pm (Monday, May 22, 2006 - 08:49:30 pm MST)
(Posted Under: Travel)
Photobox ImageThis morning we woke up at 6:30am - briefly anyway. The winds coming off the Sea Of Cortez had really picked up during the night. 'Waking up' is probably an overstatement, but I did manage to haul my ass out of bed long enough to move the plastic ba of CD's that were blowing violently through some vent in the wall. I breifly looked out the window at the blue sea lapping violently at the rocky shore, thought how it would make an excellent photo, and promptly collapsed into back into bed!

We finally made a move at 10:30am, checkout being at 11 after all. By this time the sea had turned a light green colour - the wind and waves were still quite violent.

While going down to checkout, Katie pointed out the huge SUV with a RC&TPM petroglyph on the back, and that it was Roger and his family - no doubt back to sort out things with Sunset Cantina. It was funny that his family were hanging out of the SUV, and he was keeping a low profile in the drivers seat.

The whole area was quite desolate in comparision to the weekend, with most of the gringos headed back to the border yesterday or this morning. Certainly a stark contrast to the weekend, even down to the fact that we had to walk a bit to hail a taxi (as opposed to walking out of Pincate and literally having to refuse offers for a cab ride. Nether the less, we hailed down a cab down the next street and headed down to the fish market.

We did a bit of shopping, but again, the fish market was a lot different than Saturday. The influx of American's were gone, although, you could still spot the Peacemaker's fans that hadn't yet left. It felt a bit more like a foriegn place today, with more hispanic people than Americans. With fewer people, the vendors were more inclined to swoop on you today.

Photobox ImageAfter getting seperated for a bit, we met up with Catherine at Señor Shrimp. Actually, she called out to us from the balcony as we were looking for her. As we walked over there, our waiter from yesterday asked us if we wanted to eat, and ushered us in. We decided that we were just going to have a drink, and then headc back to Pincate, though ordering the drinks seemed quite hard. My Tecate was fine, it was really Catherine and Katie's cokes that were causing the issue. We finally got that sorted out (funnily enough Katie had to have a Fanta because there were no Cokes), and after a little while another waiter came out with duos Seinor Shrimp t-shirts. Katie had desperately wanted one, and Catherine had organised this while she was waiting for us. Apparently there was an issue with getting one before 2pm, and Catherine sorted that out by offer $20 if they could get them immediately - Mexico is great! [wink]

My Tecate and lime was great, I'm such a fan. Actually, I had nothing but great food and drink experiences in Mexico. I'm kinda wondering why I came back. [wink] After having our drinks, we left (not before the waiter stopped me to shake my hand, he was a really cool guy) and walked a bit to hail a taxi back to Pincate . Travelling in Mexico is great, jump in the taxi, tell the driver "Pincate!" and you are there.

Photobox ImageOnce getting back to the car, we pretty much just headed for the border. I slept on and off for most of the trip to the border line. I woke up about 10kms out of Sonoyta, which was nice - just in time for that border crossing that we haven't been that sure about - which turned out to be such a non event. The entry point as Sonoyta is so low key, in comparison to say Nogales. We drove up, told the US Border Control guy that there was on American and two Australians, handed him our passport, which he seemed to barley look at, and that was that. He was quite nice to, which was a stark contrast to the more intimidating Border Control dudes we encounted last time. It was an incredibly smooth crossing, but maybe having passports at the ready this time helped that. [wink]

Further on, between Why and Ajo we encounted a mobile check point which we'd been expecting. We followed the same procedure again. This time there were 3 officers, on both sides of the car. I had my window wound down, and the officer closest to me said "Aussies! What part are you from?". I said Melbourne, and explained where that was, and he said that he had been stationed ibn Bondi for 2 months and "when you go back, say Eric says hi!". This was pretty cool, and again, such a stark contrast to my one encounter with the US Border Control last year. I couldn't believe how nice and chatty these guys were actually. As we pulled away to continue north, he called out "cheers! - which was brillant! I've been saying that all week and people don't know what I mean! On that, the whole car let out a cheer, that SOMEONE, an AMERICAN said "cheers" to me! So, all in all, the border crossing was actually a plesent experience. We hadn't known exactly what to expect, and as it turned out, there was not an issue before.

From there we continued to Phoenix, and got into town at about 5. It was interesting being all the way out past Goodyear and seeing Southern Ave. and Broadway Rd. (Katie's street) and the fact they went all the way from there to Tempe. Though of course, we opted for the freeway to / thru Phoenix. Suprisingly the traffic was not bad, for 5pm on a Monday afternoon.

Suprisingly the temperature in Tempe is quite nice. Katie and I went down to get the mail, found a CD that we'd been waiting on, and came back up here and listened to the CD and just chilled.

A whole buttload of photos from the weekend will be up soon - as soon as I have a chance to put them up.

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