Leaving Kino Bay

Today we say goodbye to Kino Bay and all the wonderful people we met there. We will have so many great memories of this resort. Three weeks was too short a time to spend there. If we come back someday, it will be for a longer period.

We slowly headed down the dirt road towards town with the motorhome and the car, separately. At least this time we knew what we were in for. We saw our friends, Dan & Diane (from Canada) at the El Cactus RV Park as we were almost into town and we sounded our air horns and they came out and waved goodbye. We were glad to be on a paved road and on our way back through Kino Bay!

It took several hours to get to the US/Mexican border from Kino Bay. We took Rt 15, which is a toll road, up to Nogales where the border crossing is located. Here you see the traffic waiting in line at the last toll booth before you get to the 15 km road that takes you to the crossing. At the booth, the Mexican girl was telling me something in Spanish. She spoke quickly, so I was not able to catch much of it. Finally I deciphered most of what she was saying. She said that the traffic was backed up for many kilometers to the border and she said we may want to turn around. Right! Turn around and go where? So, we continued. It was slightly uphill from the toll booth and after about 1/2 mile, after we peaked the hill, we saw what she was warning us about. Apparently this weekend after New Years was the weekend all the Mexicans living in California, that have family in Mexico, come back from visiting with them!! So...Everyone was trying to get back across the border.

The traffic was at a standstill! More than 14 kilometers to go and we were at the back of the line. It was 4:30pm when we joined this line. Since we had never been to this crossing before, we were not sure how far ahead it was so we slowly creeped along. On the downhills, I shut our diesel engine off and coasted. Of course this did not work on the uphills!

I must say, I was glad we had our house on our back because people in cars were using the roadside hills to go to the bathroom and there were venders walking up and down for miles selling food, drinks and souvenirs. This went on for hours. Now it was dark! To make a very long story short, we finally made it to the border at 11:30pm! Yes, SEVEN hours in line! They then pulled us out of line for an inspection, so we crossed the border back into the US at about 12 midnight! We headed for Tubac where Peg's cousins Cathy and Marshall reside, and found a parking lot next to a cafe to sleep for the night. The sunrise the next morning was nice to wake up to especially since we were now back in the US!