We had such a lovely time in Cuatrocienegas. I’d read about the place in the Lonely Planet Mexico book (I think I have the 2004 edition) and thought that if things worked out it might be nice to visit. We have turquoise waters in the Caribbean and had seen the turquoise of the Huasteca, so it wasn’t such a big deal, but the dunas (dunes) looked interesting and the whole concept of a Galapagos-like enviornment mimicking the origin of life was intriguing. I ran into our very first military checkpoint since leaving Veracruz state and he was suitably impressed that we’d driven from Quintana Roo. Unfortunately, he was the very last to be impressed by that fact. Hey, it is a LONG drive! People should be impressed. We drove to the plaza and parked by 3 hotels. Pike picked the first hotel to check, Hotel Plaza, which from the outside looked to be a very expensive hotel and I figured that once we got inside we wouldn’t be leaving. The hotel was gorgeous and at $675 ($52USD), the most expensive after Coatepec. I decided we’d splurge and not eat out at all and hopefully come out equal.
I arranged for a guide for the next morning and we quickly headed to bed after a quick tour around the small town. I was up early the next morning looking for a futbol field to run around and got in 40 minutes of run and 20 minutes of walk before the guide came to take us to tour the reserve. We got a great guide, Jesse learned how to say “dehydrated” in Spanish and we taught the guide “dehydrated” in English. We toured the dunes, the springs and headed to the river before heading back to town, very happy with the guide and the sights. We spent the last of the afternoon lunching with our guide, Humberto, at the hotel (where he had been a waiter), poolside, and soaking up the luxury.
Early next morning we headed out towards the border. At this point on MX57 all traffic is definitely border-bound and the stark desert reflects this fact. There is little to nothing to offer to the tourist, though the road is 4-lane and lovely pavement. The mountains are absolutely gorgeous along MX57 and we quickly found ourselves in Ciudad Acuna. I took advantage of the last Pemex station to fill up with cheap and sulfur-laden Mexican diesel, removed the rum from its second hiding place and headed to the border. I was shocked at how quickly we were at the front of the line – I think we might have waited 15 minutes. I expected a revision of the van, but I was surprised to find that they wanted us to remove almost Everything from the van and as we did this, 3 border agents crawled around and through the van looking for (what?) something. I had both Dad’s Very Expensive bottle of rum and a bottle for Jody hidden and high hopes that they wouldn’t be found. It was a good thing I hid Dad’s the last time in Ciudad Acuna as both hiding places I’d had the rum in previously were thoroughly searched and it would have been found. As it turned out, I hid Jody’s well enough that I had a hard time remembering and finding it once we met up in Texas. I was surprised, however, to find one border agent GOING THROUGH MY WALLET at one point and looking at drivers licenses (I have SD and CA) and credit cards but chalked it up to the experience. And the boys humored me by stopping their rendition of “100 bottles of Cuban rum on the wall” while the agents searched our stuff
Finally the border agents had had enough of us and told us to move on and by the time we reached Sanderson, Texas, I was beginning to fall asleep at the wheel and realized I needed to stop for the night. We quickly found a hotel and when the clerk (owner?) quickly dropped the price of the double from $60 to $55, I should have recognized that this was a good time to bargain and drop the priced further. I quickly headed out to the highschool field for a run around the track and this was my first experience on hard pack (other than sand and dirt) and it was different. Definitely spongy. I also found that running outside the Yucatan peninsula was a LOT cooler than at home. It felt like I didn’t even break a sweat after 3+ miles due to the lack of humidity. It was defintely hot, but nothing like at home. We then took the opportunity to do a large load of laundry and hit the sack nice and early (for me).
Sanderson was a weird town. Almost each and every storefront was crumbling, deserted and very much closed. We saw 2 people the entire time we were in town (2-3 hours) walking all over and one of them was the motel clerk. We did have wireless internet in the room and the boys took great advantage of that fact. (OMG I was falling asleep typing this last night but now, at 4am, am wide awake. Damn those time zone changes) The high school track field was enormous though and it looked like a decent amount of money had been poured in there but the main street of town was filled with empty or decaying or roofless storefront after another. Like I said, it was a very weird town. With internet access, though, I was able to contact Jody and arrange a meet up in Ft. Davis, one of our favorite spots in all of west Texas, for breakfast the next morning.
