DAY THIRTY: Tacos and International Intrigue

Columbia to Mexico

This morning, I felt fully refreshed after a much needed day off. In addition to recovering my strength and good health, I was pretty proud of myself for working that "dream sequence" into my blog. It's an unbelievable literary device that never gets old.

It's a good thing I was feeling strong, because I was planning an extra-long day in order to make up for yesterday's zero mileage. In fact, I hoped to bag all of the Central American countries by noon, cross the entire country of Mexico by early evening, and be well into Texas by sundown. Texas sunsets are ultra-beeeyoootiful.

One thing I've learned in my short time as a bicycle tourist is that things don't always go according to plan. Perhaps you've noticed that too. Perhaps not. Well, my plan didn't quite work out today, but I'll get to that later.

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One thing that did work out was that G-2 and I came to a detente. We agreed to not mock or criticize each other all day. We also agreed the only way to achieve that goal was to ride separately and not speak to each other whenever our paths crossed.

Since G-2 is only 4" tall, he rides much slower than I do. Consequently, I was able to race ahead of him with no problem at all and I never looked back. Occasionally, a gust of wind would pick his little body up and I'd see him flying past me. A while later, I'd pass him on the road. That process repeated itself all day and, true to our pledge, we never said a word to each other. It was almost like riding solo once again. NICE!

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I'm not all that big into riding slow and taking time to "smell the roses." I breezed through the rest of Columbia, then zig-zagged my way through Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Belize. I didn't even stop to take any pictures. I was superstitiously afraid snow might show up in them. It was nice to add so many countries to my running total. All of them combined took less time to ride through than big countries like Russia and Australia.

Mexico was a large country, but a significant tailwind pushed me across that land pretty quickly. It also carried G-2 pretty quickly. We met up at a food truck court in Ciudad Monterrey.

G-2 was the first to break our silence. "Maybe we should get some street tacos at one of these food trucks."

"Yeah, I'm all for that," I said, "but which one?"

"That one looks pretty good," said G-2 while pointing at this colorful van. I agreed, but then I pointed out a more interesting option.

"That ramshackle taco truck looks more edgy to me," I said while pointing at a tiny minivan.

Can you believe the proprietor of the ramshackle taco truck was none other than the famous Chef G.?

"I have a good idea," I posited. "Maybe we should order tacos from both of them and compare the results."

"Yeah, we could rate them based on the criteria of authentic Mexican ingredients, flavor and presentation."

"Yes," I said, "for once we agree on something."

G-2 gave a five-star rating to the tacos produced by the colorful taco truck. I gave it 4.5 stars.

I gave Chef G.'s Ramshackle Taco Truck tacos a rating of 5-stars. G-2 only rated it as 4.5-star.

It was a standoff, but there can be no doubt we shared an excellent meal.

From there, northern Mexico was pretty deserty. I took a few pictures, but they all looked the same. In fact, they look somewhat like photos I took while touring through Arizona's Mojave and Sonoran Deserts, but they're not. This is Mexico. Trust me.

The Mexican/U.S. border was my goal for the day but, in all honesty, I wasn't sure if I could actually get there. But I did get there, and it was my toughest border crossing yet.

There was a big fence in the way and there were armed border guards on the other side of the fence. I tried to convince them I was a U.S. citizen, but they refused to listen because I didn't have my passport.

I was transported to a refugee detention center. The camp was as filthy and oppressive as I've heard they were. The guards kept pronouncing my name as "Garcia." No matter how many times I told them it's a French name pronounced "Gar-SO," they continued to call me "Garcia." They just wouldn't listen to reason.

I curled myself up on a concrete floor and tried to get some sleep. A few minutes later, G-2 was thrown into the same room. We began planning our daring escape back into our home country.

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Rachael AndersonGood luck getting out of the detention center!
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1 year ago

Gregory GarceauTo Rachael AndersonThanks Rocky. Today's the day G-2 and I implement our escape plan. It better work or I could be at the border for a long time.
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1 year ago