The final border crossing.

 

We departed from San Fernando after Nigel had done some essential fettling and headed for the US border at Matamoros. We wanted to get through the border town and into Texas as quickly as possible, however as the saying goes “the best laid plans of mice and men”.

 




It was 145km to the border and took about two hours, we also went through a time zone losing another hour so we arrived in Matamoros at 10:00am. The signs on the Mexican side were absolutely hopeless and Nigel went to the cargo crossing whilst Chris and ham went to the tourist crossing. There were no queues for Nigel and he went quickly through Mexican migration, sadly by the time he got to the stage of surrendering his Temporary Import Permit there was a power cut and everything ground to a halt. Chris and Ham on the other hand got into a 45 minute traffic jam, where there was absolutely no Mexican migration and no ability to surrender the TIP. As they entered the queue the heavens opened and the rain came down like a monsoon. Being in the queue Ham couldn’t put his hood up and Chris doesn’t have one so they both sat and got absolutely soaked. They went straight into US migration who quickly realised who told them that they had come to the wrong crossing. The border police couldn’t have been more helpful, they also couldn’t believe that we had just driven our cars through Mexico without getting shot or robbed. They completed migration and then were given a police escort to the cargo crossing where they were joined by Nigel.

 



 


The process of bringing cars into the US is opaque to say the least. The customs guy advised that we definitely didn’t want to import the cars as this would trigger duty. Anyone can bring a vehicle in to transfer them across the country for export without any paperwork, and after about two hours that is what we chose to do. We have absolutely no evidence that the cars have correctly been brought into the country and we will have to figure all this out when we send them home. We departed the customs post having completed no paperwork with 265km still to drive.

 



 

We decided that now we were in the States we should stop and have a proper American brunch. Chris was given a recommendation whilst waiting for the traffic lights to change and we stopped and the Texas Roadhouse. They produced fantastic steaks and then we were back on the road to Corpus Christie.

 



Corpus Christie is one of the centres for the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas industry and as you drive in past the enormous oil refineries you really appreciate the massive production capacity of this country. The same applies to the agriculture where there are vast acres of long grain rice from 100km south of the border all the way up to Corpus Christie. As with most oil towns around the world it is not a very attractive city, although it did produce a memorable dinner for Nigel.


 

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