Across the Border

Wake up temperature was around 20C and windy. The forecast high for the day was 30C+!

We decided we’d take a day trip to Mexico. The border is probably 10 miles away at the closest point, we decided to go to Progreso, about  25 miles away as there was a parking lot  at the border point and a bridge we could walk across.

I had heard some time ago that the US were going to fence along the whole of the US / Mexico border to clamp down on illegal immigration. We got to see the fence first hand as we drove to Progreso. The border is formed by the Rio Grande, and the road follows the river fairly closely in places. The US side of the river has an earth bank built up along it with about a five foot concrete wall topped with about 10 ft of wooden fencing.

US Border Fence

Entry into Mexico was easy, pay 25c to cross the bridge and that was it. No passport, no border agent, nothing. The US town was Progreso and the Mexican one was Nuevo Progreso. Having been to Tijuana a couple of times, Nuevo Progreso was no different. There was a main street lined with stores and street vendors. What was different was the types of stores along the street, nearly half of them were dentists offices or pharmacies.

Compared with Canada the dental prices were ridiculous. Fillings (white not silver) were $110, about 25% of the cost in Canada. A root canal and ceramic cap would be upwards of $2500 in Canada was less than $300 here (sorry Anne, may have to change dentists). A little more worrying was the price of extractions, $15…

The pharmacies were selling “prescription” drugs over the counter e.g. prozac together with “male enhancement” tablets topping the list in many stores!

The rest of the stores were the usual souvenir shops all selling the same stuff. We didn’t escape unscathed, we bought some pottery and a couple of bottles of vanilla extract. We also bought a painted spoon; there was a guy sitting at a small table painting scenes onto the bowl of a desert spoon. What was interesting was that he was finger painting. We have seen this before, no brushes are used, the paint is applied only by finger. The one we bought was a forest scene with a waterfall in the background, I’ll see if I can get a photo of it and put it in the blog.

We stopped for a 3 course lunch for the grand price of $8.45, and very good it was.

As the temperatures were rising, and there is only so much souvenir shopping you can do, we headed back to the truck.

Main Street - Nuevo Progreso

Notice absence of white fluffy stuff in photo!

Crossing back into the US was not as bad as I expected. Just showed the guy the passport, he scanned it and off we went. No interest at all in what was in the shopping bags. Out of interest I asked him how much booze we could bring back after a day trip; 4 litres per person! Although you would have to pay tax of $3.75 per litre!