Snow Birds

We are like the geese which fly south every winter and now that the temperature has turned cool, we ready ourselves for the trip.

In the past twelve years we have sailed south, we have flown south and we have driven south in our three-quarter ton Chevy truck pulling an Ideal travel trailer which we have nicknamed “The Turtle.”

This time we have loaded up the Turtle for another trip. It is a good old girl, built in 1969 when workmen still knew how to build strong travel trailers. Its 21-foot length is perfect for the Mexican roads, any longer and it would not make it around the mountain roads and any wider and it would be off the edge.

This will be its eighth trip. Each time another part falls off and we patch it back together to make her ready for the next trip. We use Okie hinges on all the cupboards and drawers so they won’t open and dump the contents out on the floor.

The roads can be rough and we have already been forewarned that this year, the contractors who worked on the roads, stopped work when the money ran out. There are five stretches of about five miles or more which are 2 mph roads. So the going will be slow.

But what’s the rush? This is Mexico.

What do we take with us? Everything!

We have a 12 volt freezer and fill it with meat. You’re not supposed to take meat across the border but we have never been stopped. We take wine because Mexican wine does not compare with California wine and its very pricey.

We take computers, printers,  tennis balls, fishing gear, lots of canned goods, paper products, dog food, summer clothing and of course tools to repair things on the truck and trailer as we head south. 

We also have all our paperwork, which we ordered from Discover Baja, a travel club which does all the work and puts it on our credit card. Even the visa is paid for in advance, but we still have to go through customs and we prefer to do that in Tecate, Mexico rather than Tijuana.

Once we are over the border we dead head south, only stopping for gas and night’s lodging in pre-designated safe trailer parks. The further from the border the safer.

We never carry weapons, as there are security check points along the way which would take them. Carrying drugs is very dangerous, but still some foreigners do bring them and once a year there is a dumb American who gets busted. 

Mexicans don’t mess around with drug users. They put them in jail and throw away the key.

We also take our dachshund T.S. down with us and we are required to have all the necessary papers. Strangely, dog food is something which is hard to get across the border. We have had to dump it out on at least a couple of occasions. 

Then there is insurance. We never cross the border without insurance. That means Mexican insurance in addition to our regular American policy. We only carry liability because its questionable if we would get paid for the damage to our vehicle if we were it in an accident. 

Be aware in Mexico if a driver damages any part of the road while involved in an accident, then they must pay for that damage and it can be substantial.

We made the mistake of hitting a pickup truck while returning home last time and it turned out the vehicle was owned by the state and the driver was the Mexican equivalent of the F.B.I. We filed all the insurance forms before leaving Mexico and even attempted to pay cash for the damage, but the F.B.I. agent was so mad he was seeing red. 

And to top it off, he seemed reluctant to accept our insurance papers as we drove away from the scene of the accident. 

Now as we return, we wonder if we are going to be greeted by the Mexican F.B.I wanting to arrest us for leaving the scene of an accident without being given proper permission.