Breakfast was provided by the hotel, and when I discovered the waffle maker I just couldn't resist!
We got the green light *HOORAY* crossing the bridge. I guess we didn't look much like terrorists or smugglers. After a short drive through Juarez, and lots of comments about me falling through the looking glass we were on the PanAmerican highway headed to Chihuahua.
It's about 350km from the border to Chihuahua and the first order of business was stopping at the Visa Checkpoint. We provided our passports/birth certificates and got the car approved. I was told that since there weren't many places to stop I should use the restroom there, but let me tell you. I will never, never (and I mean NEVER) complain about the state of a public restroom again! I found it all too common for there to be no toilet paper, no soap, no paper towels, and sometimes no toilet seats. It looked like those bathrooms had never, ever been cleaned. Thank you very much, I'll wait.
On the way to Chihuahua there's a tiny town that used to be a major stop on the rail line. Lots of tiny shops lined up across the street from the train station. We stopped, bought some Cokes (Coca in Spanish) and some cheese and stopped at a little restaurant that supposedly had clean bathrooms. They were marginally cleaner than the checkpoint and I went ahead and used them, but *shudder* it was not good.
Since they had no soap, I decided to get the Purell out of my bag in the trunk. That was a very unfortunate decision because I cut my hand...badly...on something in the trunk and bled profusely for the next 200 kilometers. When the bleeding had subsided enough for a Band-Aid I dabbed some of the Purell on the wound (Oh you should have heard the profanity that escaped my lips, but that stung like a m@#$!*-F$%^&*!!!)
When we finally arrived in Chihuahua it was about 1:00 p.m. Carmen made us a lunch of barbacoa (it tasted kind of like potroast) and marcaron. I found (somewhat suprisingly) that rice is not that prevalent. After lunch there was napping, reading, and a lot of reminiscing, followed by what felt like a thousand visitors from Ana's extended family.
I went to bed very early, very tired from all the driving, all the Spanish and the total, fundamental different-ness of Mexico.
