Visa Run

I’m not aware of another country with a tourist visa process that’s as simple and generous as what Mexico offers. You show up at the border, you get six months in the country. Cross over the border, come back, another six months. I’ve met people who have been doing this for years, which is silly really because getting a resident card is about as simple as it gets too.

We recently reached the end of our six month visa, and the end of bus storage situation, so we headed back to Dallas for a week to visit family and move the bus to a new storage location.

Our travel day started about 5 AM. It was a strangely foggy morning, the world muted and blurry at the edges. We walked a mile or so down to the bus station in San Miguel and caught a bus to Mexico City. The age of the chicken bus is long past in Mexico, or at least the necessity for it, these are smooth sleek buses far nicer than the plane we’d be on later in the day.

We made it to Mexico City around noon and caught a cab across the city to the airport. We made an amateur mistake in not eating at the bus station and had to settle for some pretty awful airport food, but it passed the hours before our flight at least.

The flight up from Mexico City had probably a dozen kids on it, more than any flight I’ve ever been on which made it kind of fun because kids love everything about flying. It was a laughing, shrieking, happy kind of flight. And it was funny to watch the handful of people without kids frowning in their seats about the raucousness of their fellow passengers.

At first I barely even noticed it. I’m so used to kids being allowed to be, well, kids that I didn’t even think about it. Mexico loves children. The only other place I’ve been that’s as kid-friendly is India. Yesterday I was running some errands around town with the girls. We stopped to buy tortillas and the woman working at the tortilla shop gave them each a fresh warm tortilla. We went to the carnitas shop and the man working there gave them each a napkinful of carnitas to eat while he packaged up our order. And then, walking home, two random strangers handed the girls some beautiful paper flowers because… Mexico loves children. It wasn’t until I got up and walked down the aisle to the bathroom that I noticed people, yes Americans, giving me dirty looks. Which was funny because our kids weren’t the ones making noise. Guilt by association I guess.

No one said anything though and we made it to Dallas, fourteen hours of travel later. It wasn’t as bad as that probably sounds.

Our kids were super excited to be back in Dallas, see their relatives and jump in the pool. No amount of warning would put them off the pool, it’s going to be cold we told them. Didn’t care. Until they got in the water. Then they cared.

To their credit though they did get in. The water was 62 degrees. Both girls swam across the pool a couple times on two different days. I used to surf in the ocean in those temps (without a wetsuit) all the time when I was younger, but I’ve gone soft. I didn’t even think about getting in.

At one point the hot tub got turned on, which proved a much bigger hit. There was also the trampoline to jump around on and warm up.

While we mostly played and worked, we did make a trip down to the bus to move it to its new temporary home. Everything was as we left it, she fired and drove without major protest, though the gas is clearly at the end of its lifespan, I may have to siphon some out when we get back again.

Up until the moment we climbed in I think we were all pretty happy in Mexico. And then we got in the bus. There was no one else around. We all sort of stood there looking at each other for a minute and then Corrinne said I miss our home.

The kids ran back to their room and grabbed the toys and books and clothes they’ve been missing. I surveyed the batteries, crack the doghouse and looked the engine over. And then… it fired it right up. The wire fell off the ignition coil after about a minute and it died, which temporarily freaked me out until I opened the doghouse again and immediately saw the problem.

After that I had no problems driving the bus and Volvo down to a nearby RV park where we’re storing them. It’s not ideal, but it’ll do for a few more months. We’ll give it lots of love when we get back later this year. Stay tuned.