« Mexican Consulate Denver, CO | Main | Shake-down Cruise »
November 4, 2017
Nice Day For a Ride
I'm starting to plan my escape. The weather looks OK, clear and cold for Sunday November 12th. I used to have a little thing I wore around my neck to keep me warm, but I can't find it recently. Maybe I need to order another one.
Yesterday was sort of interesting. Went down to the Mexican Consulate in Denver, hoping that they could clarify some of the issues I'm facing getting into the country. But when I get there, it's just sort of this nightmare of confusion. I can't read Spanish. It's just gibberish to me. And I can't listen to Spanish and understand a word they're saying. All I can do is belt out words or at best short phrases in Spanish.
And I realize all of this when I get there. But there's all of this angst and trepidation and confusion and lack of information. But eventually, I find enough people that can speak English that I get to the right side of the building in the right office and I see the Banjercito. So, I know I'm in the right place to apply for a Temporary Vehicle Import Permit to Mexico.
Only the Banjercito is closed, and the woman says I need to make an appointment to apply for my Temporary Vehicle Import Permit and to make an appointment I have to call Mexico City.
And now, we have to go into a whole other area of confusion and misunderstanding. Calling a foreign country which is not as simple as it sounds (to me at least). So I idea the number but then it's all in Spanish and now the woman shoos me out of the building pointing to a sign that says No Telephone Calls in Spanish.
So now, I'm outside in the parking lot, and there's a couple of Mexicans out here selling trinkets in the parking lot and I ask if they speak English and one of them does a little and so I call the phone number in Mexico City and have him there on the speaker phone and then it says "Press 3 For English" and of course we press 3 for English, and now I'm on hold for the person that can, in theory, grant me an appointment at the Mexican Consulate in Denver to apply in person for a Temporary Vehicle Import Permit, but no one ever answers and finally I just hang up.
The little flyer she gave me specifies a time window when you have to call, and the time is in Mexico City and I have no idea what Time Zone Mexico city is in and if they do Daylight Savings Time, etc.
I walk across the parking lot to a cart selling some sort of Mexican food, but they don't have a menu or anything. Just some woman leaning over a hot grill and a cooler on the ground before the cart.
I try to talk to the lady trapped inside the cart...to see what food she might offer me for sale, but the woman standing before the cart explains to me that they're about to close and that's why there's no menu or anything.
We go back and forth, and I end up ordering three carnitas tacos and pick up some drink out of the cooler I've never seen before.
When my food comes, I pass her a 20 peso note and she starts laughing uncontrollably. Like, who would have thought this skinny white gringo would have pesos in his wallet?
We settle up and I walk back across the parking lot to the two men that are hawking trinkets...the one guy that helped me call Mexico city, and I hand him a $5 bill (USD). And he's shocked. He looks at me like I'm crazy or maybe the richest man on earth...I'm not sure.
When I get home, I'm not really sure how to proceed. I'm reasonably sure that no on will ever answer the phone in Mexico City, but I figure that I have to try. Putting my head under the covers isn't going to get me a Temporary Vehicle Import Permit into Mexico. I decide to figure out what time it is in Mexico City.
I sort out that Mexico City is in Central Standard Time (CST) and that they do use Daylight Savings Time, but they don't change their clocks at the same time was we do in the USA. We change our clocks on November 5th and they change their clocks on October 29th so, for this one week, we share the same time. So it's the same time in Mexico City as it is in Denver for this one week of the year.
So, I'm still in the window of time specified on the brochure to call Mexico City and set up the appointment. So, I ring them up and lo-and-behold, this time, someone answers the phone in Mexico City and he speaks English and he sets me an appointment for 12:18 pm on Monday morning.
It's such a great feeling to try, and then to be able to find people who are willing to help you. It's so different from the world we're shown on the television.
And...this is what the trip is about, really. This is what I like most about the adventure...you're pushing yourself every day to do things you wouldn't normally even consider doing. Pushed out of your comfort zone, you're sort of forced into a world where you have to interact with total strangers, communicate every day in a foreign language, drive down roads you've never seen before, and basically go explore the world in a way that's not so far removed from the earliest explorers. Like...that's what I'm going to be doing for the foreseeable future....just going wild across the planet, exploring in a way that most people either aren't interested in, or wish they could do, but will never will do for various reasons.
But now, I'm sort of in that odd state where, I'm planning on taking off. Like a bird fledging the nest. And, you go back and forth between "This is Suicidal" and "I am a genius".
Like, no one else is doing this. They're just not. Like, last time I road from Illinois down to Panama, I saw 1 person that was doing what I was doing, and I ran into him briefly at the Tocumen airport in Panama City. There's not a lot of motorcycle riding cross country in Central America. Yeah...I know...I hear rumors about 3 guys who are going into the Darien Gap. I'm happy for them. But that's 3 people out of a country of 300,000,000.
I have to think that, if I'm capable of making it to Tierra Del Fuego on a motorcycle, that will put me in a very small segment of the population in North America. Like...probably...say 1 in a million? I would guess that would be around right.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 4, 2017 at 1:24 PM
Comments