Peenie Wallie

In the morning, Mexico seems almost tolerable. Almost quaint. They've washed down the brick sidewalks and the air doesn't smell of burning tires just now for whatever reason. People riding quads through the streets.

Peddlers calling the tourists to their wares. Brightly colored hand woven bracelets made by the indigenous people of somewhere. Puppets and hammocks. Bracelets and necklaces. Blankets and hats.

"Excuse me sir, are you an American? I'm trying to call home and I..."

"No habla Ingles," I reply.

This is an old trick. One I learned in Cuba, of all places.

Some other people are sitting at tables on the brick sidewalks as well, shooing away the flies from their breakfast and the musicians from their tables.

"Excuse me sir, I play a romantic song for your girlfriend? I promise not to tell your wife."

"No. Thank you."

After breakfast, I clear out of the hotel, ask for directions and go to pack the gear on the bike. I pack all of my cameras away because it just makes me sick that the one is broken and I'm running late already. I need to go to the DMV today and I'm not sure I'll have time at this rate.

I climb onto the bike and kick start it. It's always hard to get it to turn over in the morning. It's not hard to start, it's just tight. This motorcycle is hard to kick and I weigh 190 pounds. I can't imagine someone smaller trying to start it. I'm not clear that you could.

As I'm leaving Ensenada, I stop to top off the tank. Really, it should be completely full in theory, but I think that a liter or so splashed out in the truck. It certainly smelled like it when we rolled it out last night.

"Roho yenno," I say.

He fills up the tank and I roll out of town. The beaches on the pacific are nicer than the ones on the Sea of Cortez. By this, I mean that they're broader with more sand and the waves make a nice addition. You don't get that on the Sea of Cortez, really. The Sea of Cortez is very calm, at least the places I saw.

Going north, you see all these failed construction projects. Furtive building starts on condos that just halted and stopped with the cranes still rusting overhead. Surreal almost.

Every building has at least another floor of rebar sticking out above it with hopes that they might one day come up with enough funds to add on.

The air is very cold now. Radically different than what it was in Cabo and La Paz. In Cabo, it was so hot I could hardly stand it. I thought I might perish. I remember thinking how happy I'd be to be back in the wilderness of Colorado.

But the winds off the Pacfic are strong today and it's cold enough that I wish I had a thicker jacket but I just keep rolling north. I thought it was only 60 miles from Ensenada to Tijuana, but now it seems like it's closer to 90 miles so I just point the bike North and hold on.

I don't like riding on these toll roads between Ensenada and Tijuana, really. They're 4 lanes and there's too much traffic on them, especially once you get to Rosarito. Now, when I say too much traffic, but this I mean you see other cars. I'm so used to driving for 10 or 20 minutes without seeing another car that I feel the world is closing in on me much more quickly than I'd planned.

I try to follow the woman's directions to the border, but I always get lost in Tijuana and the roads at the border are just as confusing as possible and I get all crossed up. I end up crossing multiple lanes of traffic, going between the Jersey barriers, and eventually, I find myself in line to cross the border with all of the cars, just exactly where I didn't want to be.

So I get on the phone and call the woman and she asks me where I am and how I got here and I don't know. I just don't know. But I'm near the border. I know that. And she tells me to pull forward beneath the pedestrian walkway and look for a gentleman named Jose wearing green pants and a grey shirt.

So I pull forward and as I do, a man wearing a big straw hat calls out "Roberto?" and it's Jose and how good this is. To run into "your guy" in a third world country, when you're lost amongst the diesel fumes and whitewash and barbed wire and peddlers.

I follow the straw hat through this median, of sorts, and I'm driving the XR down sidewalks and stairs and eventually, we cross another several lanes of traffic, all heading North into the U.S., of course. And now I'm driving down more sidewalks and we're on a road now and I see where we're going and I park the bike and get off.

He tells me where to go once I walk across the border and I walk across and the guy hardly even glances at my passport. He just thumbs it open and hands it back and waves me through.

So I walk across the border and I find the International Car Rental company across from Jack in the Box, just where he said it was. But my truck isn't here. It's on the way, some woman tells me.

Somehow, it got to be 3 o'clock I have no idea how. I thought I'd be here hours ago. So I sit and wait and eventually, Caeser shows up, the gentleman I first talked to.

"I thought my truck would be here," I complained. "We're burning daylight."

"You said you'd be here at 1," he countered.

Which was true. Where does the time go?

Eventually, the truck appears and they give me directions to get back down to the other office location in Tijuana and I climb in it. It's a stick shift and I back out and roll across the border slowly into Tijuana.

After a few false starts, I manage to find the place where I left the bike and I'm trying to figure out how we'll load it up. There's a big hill and I'm thinking we'll back it up to the hill and roll it down into the bed.

Then, I notice the guy in the big straw hat has reappeared, so I get on the bike as he backs the truck up to the hill.

The bike only knows power. It only respects strength. Kick starting it is a test of wills. It's a zen thing. If you don't think you can get it started, you are right.

So I get the bike started and run it up the steep hill and I get to the top and then turn around and look down into the truck bed. The hill is too steep to be loading into a truck from and I start down the hill with the bike slipping and sliding, this way and that. There's a trick to staying on the high side of the bike which I'm trying to learn as I go and somehow I manage to come down the hill and into the bed without laying it down, which is nothing short of a miracle.

We put the tiedowns on the bike so it won't go anywhere and then I hop in and attempt to return to the United States.

I make it back in line with the other cars to cross the border and the far right lanes are for buses but, we're in Mexico, and I notice that all of the other vehicles are cars in the so-called "bus lane". Big deal. So I get in the bus lane and when I get to the customs officer, I hand him my passport and he says how often do you go to Mexico?

"I've been about 2 or 4 times this year," I reply.

"Why are you in the bus lane?" he continues.

And I'm like "Am I? I thought only the right lane was for buses. I'm in the lane beside it."

"This lane is for special vehicles," he replies.

"Oh. I didn't know," I replied.

"They'll make it really clear to you in secondary screening he continued.

And he puts my passport and a little piece of paper with my offense on it underneath the windshield and directs me to pull forward into the dreaded penalty box of "secondary screening". I imagine them pulling the truck apart bolt by bolt and handing me the keys to a pile of rubble and saying "you're free to go," but instead, they direct me to drive through an X-Ray machine and then I pull forward and await my fait.

They place a little orange traffic cone on my windshield and after a while, a customs officer approaches and we do the whole story about what huge mistake it was for me to be in the bus lane when I'm clearly not driving a bus.

I apologize sincerely and he tells me it's not a small deal. I'll get a written warning and the third offense will be a $5,000 fine. I think that if they really didn't want people to be in the bus lane, they should say "$5,000.00 for vehicles in the bus lane", on the sign and that would pretty much do it, but you can't reason with these bastards. They're the most wicked people that walk the earth.

"I need to see your driver's license, insurance, and registration," he continues. And when I've produced all of these things, he says "I'll be right back" and disappears.

And I sit and sit and sit and he doesn't return and he does not return and eventually, I realize that something must be wrong. Eventually, I start to think about all of those unpaid tickets I had from when I used to work in South San Francisco a few years ago and that must be the deal. They've finally got my driver's license in their hot little mitts for the first time since I used to work out here in the 2003 and they're probably back there right now, gathering together enough officers to do a forcible takedown in broad daylight and sure enough, as I look up, a wave of customs officers is coming toward me. Not 1. Not 3. More like 7 and I'm thinking...Christ...how many does it take? And I watch the mean bastards make their way toward me, pulling on their gloves as they all walk slowly toward my position.

I start thinking about all of the fabricated documents in my wallet related to insurance, registration, you name it. There's enough felonies in there to put me away for the rest of my life I'm certain.

I wonder if I should ask to go to the bathroom and try to flush all the document down the commode, but I'm sure there are cameras in the bathroom. No, I'll just have to play it out, now. Nothing to do but sit here and wait for the inevitable.

And what sucks is that I was trying to go the safe route. I rented the truck so I wouldn't have any problems. But now, here were are with huge problems. Ginormous problems.

I'm truly freaking out and I'm thinking...why on Earth do I need this? Why am I here? Did I forget how much I hate customs? Customs officers make your typical overzealous city cop look like a girl scout. These people are insanely mean, and proud of it.

The customs officer have a german shepherd on a leash and they're all petting it and I'm about as nervous as can be imagined. The german shepherd has to dogpaddle through my fear when he comes by my truck.

And finally, the customs officer returns and hands me something to sign saying I'm sorry for driving in the bus lane, I suppose. I don't know what it says I just sign it because I'm swimming in fear.

He hands me a little yellow piece of paper which is my get out of jail free card and returns all of my documents to me but he doesn't give me a copy of what I signed and I say "Can I get a copy of that please?"

"Do you want a copy of it?"

"Yes."

So, disappears to go and make a copy of my signed confession, though what I confessed to I'm not entirely clear.

But while he's gone, another customs officer shows up and he's a royal jackass and wants to make sure I'm aware of it.

"Have you been helped?" he asks.

"Yes. He gave me this," and I show him my get out of jail free card.

"Who gave you this?" he demands.

"It has his name on there. You can see who wrote it," I offer helpfully.

"I think Jim did that one," explains yet another officer. They seem to be everywhere these helpful friendly people.

After review the get out of jail free card for a second, he says "You can go."

"Yeah. I know, but I'm waiting on the other customs officer. He has my paperwork," I reply.

"What paperwork?" he asks.

"I'm not sure, but he'll be right back," I fake being dumb.

"You can go," he continues menacingly.

"He'll be right back," I offer. "He has my paperwork."

"What paperwork? Does he have your passport?"

"He's making a copy of what I signed. He said he'd be right back."

"You can't have a copy of what you signed," the officer retorts. Like, in this Orwellian World, that's not how things work. You sign something, but you can't have a copy of it.

"You need to go." He's getting meaner and if he was a dog, I swear he'd be drooling and foaming at the mouth right about now.

"Here he comes now," I offer, as the first Customs Officer approaches.

He gets a supreme lecture from the royal jackass customs officer.

"I know, but I blocked out everything from here down," he explains. "There's nothing here that he can't see and doesn't know," he complains.

And finally, I have my paperwork and as I drive away, I look in the sideview mirror and royal jackass is staring daggers through me as I drive away and I just smile at him because, in my own little way, I won.