Journey to Cozumel 1

Advanced Member Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 172

We started out in Wisconsin and drove 1,700 miles to a small border town in Texas called Presidio. Our intention was to leave a car on Cozumel and see Copper Canyon (Barranca del Cobre) along the way. Once we crossed the border and entered Ojinaga, Mexico, it would be another 3, 779 miles before we reached the car ferry to Cozumel. It took two weeks from the time we entered Mexico to get to Cozumel. Ninety percent of the driving was spent in the mountains. We actually didn't get out of the mountains until we reached Palenque in Chiapas. We spent a little over $500 for gas in Mexico and our average speed was 35 mph. You really can't make any time in the mountains. I believe the highest elevation we reached was a little over 11,000 feet.

The trip was great and we had a lot of fun but I don't think I would ever drive down the West coast again. We went through the states of Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo. During the next couple of weeks I will try and post a few photos of our journey.

We reached the border town of Presidio Texas early in the evening and decided to wait until morning to cross over to Mexico. It's not much of a town but we did manage to find a small motel for $35 a night.

Spending the night gave us a little time to repack the Explorer and get our papers in order, some of which weren't all on the up and up.

Leaving in the morning we had to cross over the river to reach Mexico.

You have the choice when crossing the border to just drive into the free zone or pull into the lane to get your visa and papers for the vehicle.

This is the building where your papers are issued. If you are bringing in a velicle you have to post a $330 peso bond on your vehicle with a credit card or you have the option of posting a cash bond of $200 to $400 US dollars depending on how new the vehicle is. We brought down a prepaid debit card with $50 US on it just for this purpose. You also need the title for the vehicle, drivers license, passport, and two copies of each. We didn't need the registration but had it with us anyway. We were the only ones crossing so were done with our paper work in about 15 minutes. We were told that we could pay for our visa at any bank when we got where we were going.

All went well and we are in Mexico. We did have to go through one more check point when we left the free zone to declare what goods we were bringing in. I told them we had a gas grill still in the box, a weed wacker, and a couple of wall safes. We weren't charged for anything and told to be on our way.

Once you cross the border you know you are in Mexico.

We new our front breaks were bad so we brought along a new set. Found a shop to put them on and rotate our tires of $100 pesos.

Once we left Ojinaga the mountains started.

Lots of deep valleys also.

A typical cemetry for the area. I guess the ground is to hard to bury people to deep.

Many of the cacti were in full bloom.

We made it to Chihuahua just after dark and found a drive through by the hour motel room. They charged us $150 pesos for the night. We even had our own garage.

The room was one of the nicest we stayed in. Had color TV, nice washroom with toilet seat, and air.

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 11:56 am

Steve,

Great adventure! Show and tell us more Laughing

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 12:47 pm

This great Steve, please know it is fun for me to see all the photos.

Saludos,

Advanced Member Joined: 09 Oct 2005 Posts: 244

Hey Steve, looking forward to more~ Sounds like the trip Steve and I made only in reverse! We drove from Akumal to Palenque through the Siera Madres..oaxaca and then all the way from Puerto Escondito up the west coast...great trip but a LONG haul! wouldn't trade the experience for anything!...hmmm...probably wouldn't do it again either... Wink