HiWay to Mexico 2008 Day 6
Posted by Doug Bain
NO PHOTO TODAY! Read on to see why...
Up a little bit earlier today to depart Nogales at 0800 for the Mexico border just 2 or 3 kms. away. Some paperwork needed to be completed at the U.S. customs office and then off to the Mexico Customs, where we met our Mexico contact, Pepisan, at 0930.
This was a day where we waited and waited and waited. Harm had lots of paperwork to show and complete with the officials. Seems due to a change in administration some rules had changed also.
At approximately 1300 hrs we were removing everything from our vehicles onto the parking lot for inspection as we understoood some items would be OK to bring to Mazatlan and some would not. We then moved our vehicles to an inspection station where we waited even more.
Finally at 1730 hrs. we were able to leave the border area. We were at the border for 8 hours and Ray Grenier won the "border pool" as his guess for how long we would be detained was the longest. So he has to buy the beer tonight. By this time Pepisan had arranged for a truck to pick up all the merchandise, so that it could be stored back in the USA until proper clearance could be arranged; hopefully next week. Because there wasn't to be any photography at the border area and as it was dark shortly after leaving I didn't get any photo of the group today. So we were finally on our way through Visitor control, 2 toll areas and 1 gas stop for the 3 hour drive, in the dark, to Hermosillo.
After checking in we went for a very late supper at 2200 hrs. Bedtime tonight was after midnight.
At approximately 1300 hrs we were removing everything from our vehicles onto the parking lot for inspection as we understoood some items would be OK to bring to Mazatlan and some would not. We then moved our vehicles to an inspection station where we waited even more.
Finally at 1730 hrs. we were able to leave the border area. We were at the border for 8 hours and Ray Grenier won the "border pool" as his guess for how long we would be detained was the longest. So he has to buy the beer tonight. By this time Pepisan had arranged for a truck to pick up all the merchandise, so that it could be stored back in the USA until proper clearance could be arranged; hopefully next week. Because there wasn't to be any photography at the border area and as it was dark shortly after leaving I didn't get any photo of the group today. So we were finally on our way through Visitor control, 2 toll areas and 1 gas stop for the 3 hour drive, in the dark, to Hermosillo.
After checking in we went for a very late supper at 2200 hrs. Bedtime tonight was after midnight.