On The Run!

The time had come to leave the supposedly 'safe' USA and enter a completely different world. A world where everything would be new for Sascha, and a world where we would surely struggle to adapt. But that's what makes it exciting, right? 😉

The beginning of our journey through Mexico could not have been better. We had booked a bus from Tijuana to Mexicali in advance, and another one from there to Puerto Peñasco, a small town on the Gulf of California. So we ordered a taxi to take us from San Diego to the bus station in TJ (=Tijuana). Unfortunately, our driver didn't have his passport with him, which meant he could take us to, but not across, the border. In itself, that's not a problem. However, my brother and I have the completely useless superpower called 'doing everything at the last minute.' That means we had 25 minutes left until our bus to Mexicali, but we didn't know where the bus station in TJ was or how to get there quickly.

So, we sprinted across the bridge that represents the pedestrian border between the USA and Mexico, past many armed Mexican soldiers who looked at us suspiciously but didn't stop us. We took the nearest taxi. At 10:00 a.m., we arrived at the bus station, and thank goodness no other people on this earth are as fanatical about punctuality as we Germans. 😉

So, we somehow made it to Mexicali. A place that is similar to Tijuana and located right on the American border. The fun continued here as well. The Mexican bus companies send you the bus ticket by email, but they only accept a printed version on site. We thought it wouldn't be a problem since we could surely ask for help and have someone print the ticket for us. To that, I can only say: Welcome to Mexico. We are not even 2 kilometers away from the American border, and absolutely no person there speaks English. Maybe they simply didn't want to understand what we were saying, but in any case, no one could help us. We had completely underestimated this language barrier, and we were a little dumbfounded, but we had to move on. And once again, time was running out. In my opinion, this is not even one percent understandable for so many reasons, but that's not why we're writing all this. Ultimately, we simply asked others, preferably young people if they speak English, and a nice young lady acted as an interpreter for us, so we managed to somehow get that bus as well, and we breathed a sigh of relief when we finally reached Puerto Peñasco.

The first impression we had of the small town and thus of Mexico is pretty simple to explain. It is a beautiful place with probably a lot of potential. However, all the buildings are either old and decaying or simply unfinished, which is a shame because it gave us a slightly unattractive impression. This impression would be confirmed in many other places we saw.

In Puerto Peñasco, there wasn't much to do. We visited the beach and stocked up on some supplies, and that was it.

Our next destination was Hermosillo, the capital of the state of Sonora. We were quite excited to see what a big Mexican city would look like since Hermosillo has 700,000 inhabitants. After a long bus ride, during which we clarified ahead of time with the reception that we would get the tickets printed on site, we reached the big city. Lots of traffic, loud noise, and even hotter weather were the first things we noticed. Otherwise, we can conclude the same thing here as we did in the small towns before, just with more people. Hermosillo was also the place where we first noticed how many stares we actually attracted. Almost every person there stared at us two white boys with our big backpacks, although it wasn't always easy to interpret what the looks meant. For a change, we were the exotic ones. Germans are actually considered exotic, no one will believe that. 😂

I personally believe that many people thought Sascha was an alien. They had simply never seen such bright blue eyes before. 😊

But now back to the topic. On the way to our hotel, we walked along a major street where presumably the poorer population had settled in many small improvised huts by the side. Suddenly, a man came out of one of these houses and asked us in English where we were headed. We explained it to him, and he strongly advised us not to continue walking on that street because there are 'bad people' who are waiting for people like us. He emphatically urged us to use the street to the left and kept telling us to run. After a short consideration, we believed him and did as he said until we reached the Hilton Hotel, completely exhausted and soaked in sweat. They were very helpful there and offered us a free shuttle to our hotel, which we gratefully accepted.

When we arrived there, both of us realized that we didn't want to stay there. So, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel room and booked a flight to Monterrey for the next day since a bus connection would take a very long time and cost about the same as a flight.

Monterrey is much nicer than Hermosillo, for example, probably because many big American companies have their Mexican headquarters here, which means the city simply has more money. Our hotel was located right in the center of the city.

However, Monterrey was just a stopover as well because the intended destination was the supposedly safe and beautiful East Coast. We set off in the morning to the bus station, once again running late and without having printed the tickets due to the lack of options. So, we went back to the counter where they told us that we had to forward the email with the tickets so they could print them for us, but without internet, it was a bit difficult. Fortunately, there were PCs with internet access for a fee in the terminal. 🙄

However, we only had three minutes left until our bus to Tampico. In all the hustle and bustle, it took too long, and we actually missed the bus. While I went back to the counter to figure out in my perfect Spanish which bus we could take without having to pay more (which actually worked 😂), Sascha was approached by a Mexican who asked us where we were going. During the conversation that followed, it became clear that it was absolutely right not to take that bus, as Tampico and also Veracruz, our next stop, are currently apparently the worst travel destinations in all of Mexico. The reason for that is many armed conflicts between the military and drug cartels, which has led to the kidnapping of tourists. The website of the Federal Foreign Office confirms this. So, was it pure luck or fate? Regardless, it seems that something or someone is watching over us. Therefore, we decided to take the flight to Merida the next day and skip everything else because we knew Yucatan would be quieter. Later, we met up with a friend of Sascha's to watch the Germany match together. We took a taxi to the other side of the mountain on which Monterrey was built and couldn't believe our eyes when we emerged from the tunnel. If I hadn't known we were in Mexico, someone could have easily convinced me that I was in the downtown area of a major American city. Large glazed buildings, huge malls, fountains, and all of it in perfect condition. It was a completely different world. We enjoyed the game with a few beers and good food, and thankfully, Germany won the match. So, the next day we could relax and take a flight to Merida, where we hoped to finally get a bit of vacation feeling.

In this sense... Hasta luego!

Pinky (Max) & Brain (Sascha)