Friday, February 12, 2021

San Felipe, Mexico

ODOMETER: 83,977 | TOTAL MILES TRAVELED: 6,032

Gamble Family Adventures and Travel Blog | Jana

 

by Jana

Today, Grant left in the morning to make the 200-km trip back across the border to El Centro to pick up our new tow package and internet routers. Our tow package broke on our way down to San Felipe almost three weeks ago and while Grant was trying to order a new one, he discovered that Mexican mail was incredibly unreliable and cumbersome. 

We have also not been able to secure a reliable internet connection for Jack and Ellie to do their online school classes, having to resort to occupying an outdoor seating area of a local coffee shop in order to do school work. While many RV parks advertise WiFi, it is very unreliable and unable to support Zoom. This is sometimes the case in the U.S. as well, but far less so than here, which points to obvious differences in infrastructure. 

saguaro national park

Our only option was to get things we desperately needed in order to function in Mexico delivered to a UPS store across the border in the U.S. and for Grant to drive back to pick them up.

His border crossing back into the U.S. was terrible as he was directed to a secondary inspection and that took forever. However, crossing back into Mexico was much easier and while the line was over a mile long, he was able to cross without any inspection.

There really doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the border crossing process, which means that you’re largely relying on luck or a lack thereof. 

After a stressful day, Grant made it back to San Felipe just after dark with packages on board, which means that we can continue our trip as soon as he and Jack install the new tow package.

Our only option was to get things we desperately needed in order to function in Mexico delivered to a UPS store across the border in the U.S. and for Grant to drive back to pick them up.

 

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