A girlie road trip to Mexico

Today I got up at four am and picked Sally up at five. We were on our way to Mexico to get a stamp on my passport (long, boring story). A girlie roadtrip! I was giddy with excitement. We packed our snacks, and our cameras and our music and set off! We had 10 hours or so to cover every necessary topic for conversation so there wasn't a moment to lose!

The road trip was pretty smooth, punctuated by Starbucks stops. Sally bought a Tucson Starbucks mug to add to her collection.
It wasn't long before the road signs were in Spanish and we were approaching the border.
My friend Josee told me that we shouldn't drive over the border but park up in the US MacDonalds before the border and walk over. But we didn't quite work out why or how and drove on...
We parked up to declare our fruit - two apples and a banana - and a border control dude laughed . Another guy asked us if we spoke Spanish - and I recalled a single word "poquito". He gently advised us - in English - that we need not declare our two apples and a banana when we entered the US, it was actually for people travelling the other way...

So we drive on into Nogales and find ourselves on the craziest roads EVER!!!! Sally stormed the roads in style. The border guys gave us directions to the shops that we forgot as soon as we heard them, so we were lost and frankly more than a little peturbed by the people honking their horns at us. And we couldn't read the signs. And Chris called and said we weren't insured. We soon decided that we'd done enough for now and headed back to the US border to get my stamp in my passport.

Except they didn't stamp it at the first checkpoint.

Since we felt we'd had enough of driving we decided this time to go back into Mexico on foot. We lined up with everyone else looking totally like tourists and passed through border control with our passports.

And they didn't stamp them.

Now here's the thing. When I go to another country, even if it is for 20 seconds - I want my passport to say so!!!! Besides I needed it for my visa.

So finally after a THIRD attempt we managed to get it stamped, and then dated and sorted. I must say also that they were the nicest immigration officials I have ever met.

Soon Sally and I were on our way home (via another Starbucks of course) . We realised that we didn't actually take any pictures in Mexico - so we got out of the car and took one on the highway - for posterity (and the one of Sally isn't in Mexico either).

But all in all it was a fab day - and I think we managed to set the world to rights too.

You'd think after talking for 10 - 11 hours you'd run out of things to say. NOT US! We were only just getting started....