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In Which Patrick Makes The Journey To San Miguel de Allende, with nary a scratch. (Well, actually, one big ugly scratch.)

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Originally, I planned to leave March 1st. Then March 2nd. Then March 3rd. You get the idea. There were a lot of loose ends to tie, and shit to get rid of. Books, clothes, kitchen stuff, papers, books, furniture, electronics, basically 12 years worth of accumulated detritus that I had been dragging along behind me since I don't know when. Did I mention books? Yeah, I think I might have.

Yeah, there were a lot of things that needed to be disposed of. Don't think I didn't nearly have a bonfire. I made the people at the Austin branch of Saint Vincent de Paul very happy the afternoon I drove up with my pick-up truck packed to the gills with stuff. I made the people at the Austin branch of the Saint Vincent de Paul very surprised when, two hours later, I drove up again with nearly as much stuff as the first trip.

Originally, I was going to have a garage sale. One day the weather didn't cooperate. I was stressed from moving. That Sunday morning was beautiful. I however was hysterically stressed. I had gotten up at 8 am in a grouchy mood, running through these ludicrous scenarios in which a browser would ask me:
"How much for the Coffee Pot?"
"Oh, 12 dollars." I would respond haughtily.
Then the browser would say "Hmm... I don't know... would you take ten dollars?"
And I'd immediately launch into cascade of verbal abuse about the stingy bastard, couldn't he see that I was trying to move to Goddam Mexico. If that son-of-a-bitch wanted to haggle, go to 11th Street and wrangle a deal with a crack whore.
As I got into my truck, still muttering and fuming, just waiting for the first SOB to try to even question a price...

I had an Epiphany. A Realization. A Startling Bolt of Clarity. A Moment.

I was not in the proper state of mind to have a garage sale.

Personally I was relieved that I was able to give or sell some of the better things to friends. It made much more sense than trying to sit in the sun all day, trying to convince someone to buy something for three dollars that you bought new six months before for fifteen dollars. So a few friends ended up with some odds and ends. A couple of carpets and some furniture went to my friend Paco. My friends Angel and Violet ended up with some of the more odd portions of the bric-a-brac I had collected, antique doll parts, picture frames, and the like. My friend Monte ended up with some of the playstation games and some CDs. My friend Robert Michael bought my bed. My friend bought my chest of drawers and a matching night stand. I gave them all good prices, probably lower than if I had sold them to a stranger at my garage sale. But the psychic burden was removed. I better about my friends getting my things. I derived a sense of relief from it. Like I really hadn't gotten rid of them, that they were still really in my possesion, in a distant sort of way.

So finally, Friday, March 6th, 1998 came around, and I was ready. My truck was packed so tightly and so geometrically that even an expert Tetris player couldn't have improved. I had done everything I had to do. Waiting around any longer would have just been waiting around. I went to the FringeWare Bookstore one last time to say goodbye, and drove out of Austin at 10:30 pm.

I was headed towards Laredo, and as I drove towards the border I felt as though an enormous weight had lifted itself from my shoulders. But I felt tired, as though the month of preparation for this moment had taken too great a toll.

I pulled aside at a rest stop, about an hour south of San Antonio to let the dog get a chance to use the grass. I felt very tired. I suddenly realized that I wasn't simply doing some onerous chore, that I was moving to Mexico.

"I'M MOVING TO MEXICO!!!" I shouted. A 16 wheeler roared by, my only answer. It was, after all, nearly 2 am. It made me feel better though. We got back into the truck, I felt re-energized. I was changing my life. Following my Will.

I drove the rest of the way with the music playing a notch louder, and a grin on my face.

If you've never been to Laredo, and the Mexican border town next to it, Nuevo Laredo. You aren't missing much. Like most border towns, the architecture is designed for functionality, with little regard for aesthetic effect. The US side is crammed with shops selling electronics, clothing, and other American luxury items. The Mexican side is crammed with stores selling all the tourist crap that you can imagine. T-shirts, silver jewelery, clothing, pottery, chiclets (chewing gum), hand made dolls, prescription drugs, prostitutes, and, well just about anything else you can think of.

I spent the night in a run down hotel that cost $25 dollars per night. They allowed dogs, they were cheap, and I was dead tired. It was nearly 3:30 am. I had made good time, but I was bone tired. I started to get my overnight bag that I had prepared ahead of time, when I looked down at Angus waiting expectantly for me.

I suddenly realized that all the dog food was packed into the back of the truck, about 4 boxes deep. Oops.

I ended walking to a 24 hour gas station that was only about 3 blocks away. I didn't feel like I could drive anymore that night. The gas station had a pathetic selection of odds and ends, most of which had a thick coating of dust. They had very small boxes of dog food, the size that would cost about $1.19 at any grocery store. Their price: $4.89. I wasn't going to pay five dollars for 3 meals worth of dog food. I instead bought a can of beef stew, an off, off-brand. I persuaded the clerk to let me use the can opener for free, and then headed back to the hotel.

The stew stank horribly. It literally smelled worse than any canned dog food that I have ever opened. Angus enjoyed it, however, although he ate around the chunks of potatoes that were in it. The hotel room had a thick pervasive funk of cigarettes. Unfortunately, they only allowed dogs on the 3rd floor, and even though they had non smoking rooms, they had no non-smoking rooms for pets. I am allergic to cigarettes. To tell you the truth though, I was so tired that I could hardly care anymore. I called the desk and ordered a 9 am wake up call. I then prayed that no one would break into my truck, and at nearly 5 am, I passed out.

I woke up a few minutes before 9 am, took a shower and left the hotel. I had a few missions to accomplish before I crossed the border. I bought Mexican auto insurance. I mailed 4 boxes of books to my grandmother's house for storage. I bought a medium sized bag of dog food. I bought an oil filter that fit my truck, in case if I needed to get the oil changed, I'd have the right size. I ate breakfast. I had decided to cross the border at 1 pm. So I kind of nosed around the Wal-Mart, and bought a few odds and ends, like another bottle of SPF 45 sun screen lotion and some more 35 mm film.

Finally, it was 10 minutes before one. I decided to really go. As I drove across the bridge and into Mexico, I had an odd sense of foreboding. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I didn't speak any Spanish. I could count to ten- say "yes" and "no", one of my dictionaries had a series of helpful phrases printed in the back: "Please call a doctor."; "I don't understand."; "Do you have any vacancies?". Someone told me that when you drove across the border that you should put a dollar bill on top of each suitcase that you bring. I wish I had listened.

I pulled into the customs inspection station, and a man with in a black customs uniform asked me a few questions in Spanish. I had no idea what he was asking mostly, but in context in knew that he wanted to know what was in the truck, obviously. So I said something like "Solamente los articulos por la casa." Which meant, I thought, "Just household articles." Funny thing is that "articulos" in Spanish only refers to writing, ie. a magazine article. I should have said "cosas" which means things. Not that it made much difference. He pointed to a stall that had a long table and I understood that I was to pull my truck into it and unpack. "Wah!".

I pulled about eight boxes and various loose ends out of the back, (I had about 20 boxes in all), when he rejoined me and started opening a box at random. The one he opened had all of my bathroom stuff. He lifted out the gallon jug of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint soap and asked me what it was. I answered that it was "Jabon." He scowled a little, and I felt a sudden rush of insecurity. "Shit", I thought, "I think I just told him that this was ham". (The Spanish word for ham is "Jamon.")

I rushed around to the front of the truck where I had a Spanish-English dictionary sitting on the dashboard. Somehow, in my nervousness, and perhaps because I was looking in the dictionary at the time, when I walked back to the rear of the truck I had an accident. I walked right into the corner of the door of the aluminum camper top. It smarted a bit, but I shook it off. The customs inspector, however, looked at me with wide eyes. I grinned, and said "No problem." He said, "Senor, mucho sangre!". There was a small mirror in the box of bathroom stuff and so I dug it out. By this time there was blood in my eyes, so I tore off a paper towel and dipped it into the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and cleaned the cut and wiped off the blood. As I cleaned the cut, I watched three droplets of bright red blood drip into the soil of Mexico. The inspector was horrified. I guess he didn't see much blood in his line of work. I decided to contemplate the spiritual nature of my blood offering at a later time. The inspector quickly glanced at the boxes in the truck again, and saw the Sony label on the box holding my stereo. He asked me how much the stereo cost. I told him it cost $250 dollars and was a year old. I had actually bought it for $400 dollars about a week before. He said that I'd have to pay duty on it, looked at my forehead one more time and winced.

I must add here that tourists aren't supposed to pay an import tariff for any items that could reasonably be considered as a part of what a tourist might want to use while being a tourist. According to my housemate, Sam, a stereo falls easily within the realm of these possibilities. I knew, even then, that in part, I was paying "You Don't Speak Spanish Tax". Well the tax on a $250 stereo was N$600. That's about $70-$75 dollars. I asked whether I could get a refund for it, if, I when I left, and took it back across the border. The clerk didn't speak much English, but left me with the impression that it might be subject to an export tariff. At this point I felt lucky however. In my truck I had a Minolta 35 mm camera, a Casio Digital camera, about 270 CDs, my Mac IIsi, a laser printer, an Apple Emate 300, a CD walkman, about 400 books, and a variety of other things. Now if everything was technically subject to a 30% tariff, well, I was fucked. So I was getting off cheaply.

I glumly paid the tariff, glad that I had changed $200 into pesos before crossing the border. One of the odd things about Mexican Customs is the lottery. Before you leave you have to press a button hooked up to a traffic light. If it is green, you are finished and you get to go on your way. If you get a red light, they give you a thorough inspection. Luckily I got the green light, so I drove into Nuevo Laredo. If you've never been to Mexico, or if you've never driven in Mexico you can't imagine what city driving is like. With the exception of the intersection with traffic signals, the intersections are governed by the goodwill of your fellow drivers. In general this means that any intersection (most don't have stop signs) you yield to traffic on the main thoroughfare. If both streets are side streets, then it's "uno a uno", one at a time, you yield to a car, then the next one yields to you. That's the theory. The truth is that a lot of people drive very aggressively, so if you, for example inch into the intersection, unsure if the approaching car will actually yield to you, chances are the driver won't.

Since it was incredibly hot, and I wanted to get to San Miguel, I decided to forgo the opportunity to walk around Nuevo Laredo. I had nearly everything I owned stuffed into the back of my truck, and I wasn't especially eager to leave it somewhere to be emptied while I took in a cerveza and watched the crowds pass me by, probably carrying my stuff.

I made good time as I drove south from Nuevo Laredo, and within 40 minutes, I began to approach a another Customs Inspection station. As I drove south I had begun to wonder when I would have the opportunity to get my Mexican visa. I assumed that this was the place.

No, I was quickly informed, I had missed the Immigration building on my way out of Nuevo Laredo, and, in fact, I didn't have my vehicle import permit either. Luckily, they were all in the same building. Yes, I'd have to go back.

Forty minutes later, I was at the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo once again, however I couldn't figure out how to get to the proper building. It was on a one way road heading south. The parallel north bound road forked off about 6 blocks before this building, leaving me in a maze of narrow residential streets, all of which seemed to lead every direction except back to the main south bound road. Finally in desperation, I just drove to the river, the border, found the Customs Inspection building that I had left nearly two hours before and then retraced my path. Now that I knew what I was looking for, the building was very obvious, It had a huge parking lot, and the cement wall announced in Spanish that it was the place to go. I drove in and surveyed the lot, looking for shade which there wasn't any. However, around the corner from the main building was a narrow alley, and the angle of the afternoon sun cast a shadow just about the size of the truck. I pulled in and rolled down the windows so that Angus wouldn't asphyxiate and plunged inside the building.

First off let me say that Mexicans has a hell of a bureaucracy. I have been to a number of foreign countries in my life, and it always seemed easier and faster than the two hours it took to get into Mexico. I think that if there had been a suggestion box, I would have said why don't you hang up numbered signs to let people know what order you are supposed to go to each counter. It was a large room, and there were about 7 or 8 different counters in different places in no particular order. There were a lot of Americans in each line, luckily I overheard someone at one counter telling an American to go to the counter across the room first. So I stood in line, got my six month tourist visa, then went to the counter at the very back and paid to have it photocopied, then stood at another counter as they compared the photocopy to the original, then stamped them both, handed me a different form to fill out which asked the identical information as the tourist visa but had an agreement I had to put my signature on, then I stood in the "ultimo" line where I got my temporary car importation permit.

Then some problems arose. I had heard that if you didn't have a credit card, you had to deposit a hefty cash bound. I wasn't worried, because I had two Visa debit cards from my bank accounts in Austin. Well, the problem is that debit cards aren't considered valid proof of financial responsibilty. The guy started to send me to another counter at which I would need pay $1000 dollars to a bondsman. I quickly explained that I had an American Express card, but that I had lost it before crossing the border and hadn't had a chance to get a replacement yet. This is not entirely true. The truth is that my parents had requested a card for me under their account, however it didn't show up before I left town, and they were going to mail it to me in Mexico. At this point I have to remind you that I had this angry red two and a half inch scratch on my forehead. I was hot, and tired from the lack of sleep the night before. Something must have clicked with him, pity, I don't know what, but he finally said he would accept one of my debit cards for the $11 dollar import permit fee, and let me get on my way. He handed me my receipt, and a square of yellow paper with a number on it. And told me to wait for my number to be called. I asked him how to say "8912" in Spanish (ocho mil novecientos doce), and of course looked at him cross eyed when he rattled of the string of nearly incomprehensible syllables. Then he said, "Don't worry, I'll tell you."

About 10 minutes later, he stepped out from behind the counter with a sheaf of temporary vehicle import stickers printed on holographic film. With a grin he asked me to say my number, and I blushed and tried to stammer out "uhh, ocho, uhh..." He rolled his eyes at the poor gringo, and then lead us outside. We cued up in our cars and he affixed the sticker on the inside of our windshields.

Finally on my way! It was now nearly 5 pm, I had spent almost four hours trying to get into Mexico.

This time on the way south there was a lot of traffic, maybe 300 vehicles lined up to go through this inspection. Suddenly I realized that I could concievably be in a bit of trouble. This was a second customs inspection, to catch the people who had made it through the first one without claiming everything they were supposed to... People like me.

It took about thirty or forty minutes for my turn in the cue to come up. I pulled into an inspection bay and braced myself for the worst. I wondered what the penalties were for not claiming taxable items at the first station. The inspector who walked up was young, maybe 25 years old. He looked me once over, then glanced in the back of the truck. He raised his eyebrows. I removed my bicycle from the bumper mounted rack and started to open up the truck, but he stopped me.

"My friend," he said in perfect English, "It seems as if you have had a hard day..." (bags under my eyes and a scratch on my forehead)
"Yes, yes I have." I agreed.
"We have many cars to inspect this afternoon...." he paused and gave me a meaningful look. "Perhaps we could make things faster for everyone."
I returned his meaningful look. "Yes... I'd like that."
"It seems to me, that if you paid me the tax, then that would make everything faster."
"Sure... How much 'tax' should I need for my truck."
He smiled politely. "Well, I couldn't say. I would have to inspect it very carefully to determine the tax. But you could just tell me what you think the tax should be."
I rolled some quick numbers in my head. "I wonder if twenty dollars is enough 'tax'."
He smiled at me. "Oh, that sounds fair to me. Just leave it on the car seat, and get this paper stamped."

And then I drove away.

According to my road atlas, I could take Highway 57 all the way down to San Miguel de Allende. 57 goes through Monterrey and Saltillo, and eventually intersects Queretaro, which is about 36 miles southeast of San Miguel.

I took the "Autopiste", the toll road, to Monterrey. It cost something like N$100, about $12 dollars, but for those 4 hours, it was worth it. The road was a smooth as glass. I think I drove about 90 mph the whole time.

Monterrey is a wealthy Mexican city. It is very cosmopolitan, and very modern. There are a large number of maquiladoras there, as well as a couple large cement plants, which in this time of US funded construction are doing very well. Originally, Monterrey was a cattle town, it's wealth by the most part derived from the beef industry. As I drove through the city on this Saturday night, I was stunned by the number of US companies that had businesses here. There were 7-11's everywhere. Wendy's, McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dominos, Holiday Inn, What-a-Burger (a Texas chain), Walmart, just dozens and dozens of them. I felt like I just fell off the haycart. I swear that my jaw must have been hanging open for 10 minutes. I was looking at NAFTA.

It was nearly 9 pm, and I was exhausted. I started looking for a hotel. After the third one told me that they didn't allow dogs, the weird biblical parallel came to mind. I had already decided that my scratch was a "mark of Cain". Now as I went from one hotel to another, I wasn't even being offered a manger to sleep in. After the sixth hotel rejected me, I was no longer interested in Monterrey.

By this time I had gotten to the edge of downtown, and as I drove away from the last one, I realized belatedly that I was on a ramp to some sort of beltway. I drove about about ten minutes before I had a chance to exit, then turn around so I could get back to Highway 57 and away from this dog hating town.

Somehow, I misread the beltway exit sign, and took a sharp exit, going about 45 mph, much too quickly, onto a street at the edge of a residential neighborhood. I say much too quickly because about forty feet into the street there was some sort of drainage ditch, normally covered by some sort of metal grating. A section of the grating had been knocked away, and when I hit it, it immediately bent the rim on my rear driver's side tire. I had a flat.

I pulled into a parking lot, and surveyed the neighborhood. It was a bit dirty, a bit darker than I would have preferred, but there were a fair number of people wandering around, so I felt reasonably safe. I hauled out my jack and my flashlight (which I had only purchased three days before- preparedness pays off). Yes, the rim was bent. No problem, I had a spare. Well what they don't tell you when you buy a vehicle it that the spare kit is a piece of shit. The combination lug wrench/jack handle might look good on paper, but doesn't give you enough torque to take off the nuts. After about 30 minutes, I had gotten one loosened, the other three had not moved a millimeter, and were in fact, starting to slip because I was stripping them. Infuriated by this point, I sent out a general curse to all Monterrey hotel owners. If any of those six hotels had given me a room, I wouldn't have had a flat tire.

By this time I had attracted a bit of attention, and a short Mexican man who had been watching me since I parked the truck offered to lend me a hand. He couldn't make the lug nuts move any better than I, but told me, in fairly good English that there was a Tire Repair shop a couple of blocks away. For a moment, I hesitated, thinking that this would be an easy way to get me away from the truck to rob it, or rob me. On the other hand, what choice did I have. I would not be able to take the wheel off by myself. So I followed this man down the block to the "Llantas" repair shop. Since it was after 9 pm, they were closed of course. He pounded on the door anyhow, since there was an apartment above the store. However, no one answered. We then thought that maybe a tow truck could take the pick-up some place that was open, so we went to a pharmacy that was open and borrowed their telephone book. Printed right in the cover of the book, was a section in English labelled "Tourist Information", and a telephone number under the heading "Emergency Car Service". Armed with the telephone number, we went to the pay phone and dialed the number. No answer. Hmm, maybe we misdialed (even though the Mexican payphones have a digital read out and display the number dialed.) Still no answer.

In defeat, we went back to the truck. The guy said that he would be happy to let me stay the night at his house, and help me get the truck taken care of in the morning. I was surprised by his generosity, but I was determined to get the thing fixed. I tried again to loosen the lug nuts- nothing. Another guy came out of his girlfriend's house (which I had parked in front of.) He said that I needed a "cruciforma", a cross shaped or "+"-shaped lug wrench- the kind that is made of two perpendicular metal bars with sockets at the ends. You get proper torque with them, where as the one that came with the car, designed to fit neatly behind the seat, was more "Y" shaped, if you broke off one of the forks. He said that he might be able to find one and left.

In the meantime serious desperation had set in. It was about 90 degrees that night, and it felt like the humidity was up in the 80% range. I dug a hammer out of my box of tools and began beating the rim back into shape as best as I could. Surprisingly, it began to bend back towards the tire and after a while, it looked as though I had gotten it as close as I could. I had a can of fix-a-flat that I had bought for precisely this sort of emergency. As I started to fill the tire I could hear the air hissing from the rim, but it gradually started burbling as the polymer goop started solidifying around the hole. Encouraged, I beat the rim with the hammer again, of course knocking all the goop away from the hole it was trying to seal. As I watch the tire go completely flat again, I felt myself go as limp as the tire.

Soon after, however, the guy came back with a proper "+"-shaped wrench. Not surprisingly, the nuts loosened easily. I got out the jack and spent a miserable ten minutes spinning the handle inside of the narrow slot that caused the jack to raise. (Note to myself- buy a new tire kit!) But within a decent amount of time, the spare was on and I was ready to go. I thanked them all very much, by this time I had attracted an audience, including the guy's girlfriend, and her father. One of them told me that Saltillo was only about 45 minutes away on the highway, and I decided that I would go ahead and drive there.

I got back onto the beltway and as I looped through one portion, I went through a winding road that curled through the edge of the city. I was suddenly struck by the billboards- they weren't your usual paper posters that I was used to. They were backlit plastic windows, with the message printed on a transparency. They looked very modern, very Blade Runner. At that moment I thought that my friend Monte would probably think they were pretty cool. I was so struck by them I almost wanted to take a picture, but the road was busy and there really wasn't even a breakdown lane to pull over into. I don't know why I was so impressed with them- maybe it was fatigue edging on the border of hysteria, or maybe it was because somehow, in the back of my mind I had considered Mexico a backward country, and never expected to see something more modern than I would have seen in Austin. I don't know, for all I know they could be using those type of billboards everywhere but Austin, and maybe most people would ignore them along with the rest of the media barrage that were are subjected to on a daily basis.

Once I got back into the downtown area, I started to feel really, really tired. On impulse, I pulled into the parking lot of a shiny new 'Holiday Inn Express'. "Fuck it," I thought. "I need a hot bath and some sleep." At that moment, I probably would have paid $80 dollars to stay in that hotel. As I walked into the lobby, clothing sweat-stained and dirty from changing the tire, the 'mark of Cain' on my forehead, I asked for a room.

"I'm sorry sir, we have no vacancies..."

As I started to turn away, I noticed that I had left a black handprint on the counter. "Fuck them." I muttered, and then drove to Saltillo.

I got into Saltillo at around 12:30 am. I stopped at the first hotel I saw the sign for: "Hotel Mario's Inn". I asked for a room, and then told them I had a dog. The clerk started to hesitate, and I explained to him that the dog was well trained, and that I had a flat tire in Monterrey, and that I was exhausted. The room was actually pretty nice, N$150 per night, about $17 dollars. There was a big bathtub, but you could only fill it with cold water. I took a hot shower, and then collapsed, I didn't even get under the covers, I fell asleep on top of the bed.

Since I had decided not to eat any unfamiliar food during my journey to San Miguel, I decided to get french fries from the Wendy's in Saltillo. Angus got to eat a hamburger. While I was waiting for my food, I saw the American who was the manager there. He was in his late forties, slick hair, and had that sort of patina that only fast food restaurant managers get.

He was sitting at one of the tables, speaking Spanish with three of his employees, three young and beautiful Mexican girls, two of which had green eyes. He had a big smile on his face, and as he made jokes in perfect Spanish, the girls tittered obligingly. He looked like he was about the happiest Wendy's manager in the world. He probably is. He caught me looking at him, and he kind of smiled the sort of smile you might make if you were a manager of a Wendy's and one day the District Manager said, "Hey, we need someone to manage a store in Saltillo, Mexico. I notice here in your file it says that you took night classes to learn Spanish." and then the manager says, "Well, jeez...", and the District Manager says, "Of course, we'll pay your moving expenses, and you'll get a raise." and the manager thinks for a minute about his divorced ex-wife, and the crummy apartment he had to rent after they split up and then says "Well, okay." Then a month later he's living in Saltillo, Mexico and he is sitting at a table with three young and beautiful Mexican girls and then this American guy with a bag of french fries and a hamburger for his dog looks at him, and he thinks, "That guy has no idea how happy I am." That was the private sort of smile he had on his face.

The french fries were pretty good.

South from Saltillo, there was another toll road, but it ended after about an hour. Suddenly there was an intersection and two different ways to go south on Highway 57. According to my map, one way kind of jogged west about 80 kilometers before continuing south, so I took the other road.

Unfortunately the road I had chosen was in fact, the old Highway 57, not the toll road, and what that meant was: it was far more crowded; it was full of huge, overloaded trucks; and the road was in terrible condition.

About two hours later my teeth were rattling as I hit another series of grooves and potholes. Imagine driving down MLK in Austin, or one of the other roads in bad shape, then add huge Mexican trucks, then narrow it to 2 lanes, then drive 60 mph- yeah that's what it was like. I couldn't go faster than about 45-50 mph most times because of the condition of the road. The first sign I had seen said something like "Pavement in poor condition next 10 km" after 10 kilometers, I had about a two minute reprise, then another sign would read "Pavement in poor condition next 47 km". And then another one, and then another. It began to seem like it would have been easier to post signs that said "Pavement in good condition next 500 m" because there certainly was less good road than bad road. Finally, after about 7 hours of bone jarring roads and near brushes with death as sports cars roared up the left lane and forced me into the right lane (which was in much worse shape because of all the trucks), I saw the exit I needed to take to get to San Miguel.

San Miguel de Allende is partially built on the side of a mountain. It is a narrow cobblestoned colonial village that has been a popular tourist destination for more than 100 years, and was declared a national historical monument I think around 1920. Anyhow, you won't find any 7-11's or Burger Kings here. But what San Miguel lacks in US companies, it more than makes up for in American tourists, students and expatriate population. Nonetheless, it is beautiful, with a postcard/picturebook view around every corner.

My first stop was at El Mirador, "The View", an open space that allows a panoramic view of the heart of the city below. Mostly I stopped because there were parking spaces, and I knew that Angus needed to use the grass. But I had just happened to arrive right before sunset, and was treated to a lovely view. "This is your new home," I kept telling myself, "You live here now." Somehow I didn't sink in. I called my parents from a payphone at El Mirador, as promised, and then found a hotel. The first one I tried took dogs, and had a vacancy.

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