Boulder to Lake Chapala, day by day!

This post is for those that want painful detail on our trip to into Mexico.  Our adventure started June 2, 2011 from Boulder, CO and we arrived last night on Monday, June 6th

We have 2 kids, a dog and a cat, so we broke the trip into 6-7 hour days for the sake of our sanity.

We drove to Albuquerque, NM USA the first night then to Nogales, AZ the second day.


We left our hotel Motel 6 at around 9am, ate breakfast at the IHop.  After we finished, we jumped in the car and headed across the border.  We were waved through but the US Border Patrol.  The road we took circled around the west side of Nogales and we never really saw much of the city.  Then we passed through Inspection zone and were waived through by the Mexican Authorities, we were never stopped for any kind of inspection.  The animal documents were never asked for or any other kind.  When you get to the inspection station, you pull up over the first speed bump “tope” and position the car between what looks like a set of cameras in front and back of the car.  Then proceed to pull forward just a bit towards the gate arm that is in front of you.  What looks like miniature stop lights is in front of you and ours turned a beautiful shade of green (choices are red or green only) and we were allowed to just pass on through.  I assume the only time you are ever stopped is when you are given a red light.  The Inspection zone is before the “Immigracion” INM and car registration stop.  You will find IM, car registration, moneychangers, moneychangers, Insurance for cars and more just a few more minutes down the road. If you are in need of your FMM, or Car registration, this is the place to stop.  It will be on the right side of the road, with a good size parking lot.  You will see a number of small buildings.  To the left is the Insurance office, and then as you look right, you have the INM office with a sign that reads Tourist Permits on the right side of the door.  To the right and slightly back is the Copy Kiosk “Copias” and then back behind the INM is the money exchange kiosk.  Back behind all of these is the of that is the Banjercito where you will go to pay for your FMM Permit and register your vehicles, motorcycles, RV and trailers.

Items you must have:
Drivers License
Passport
Credit Card, not a Debit Card
Title of Vehicle or Valid Registration
FMM “Tourist Document” you will get it here at the INM
Copies of all the above.  You can make most of these before you leave home.
Pesos to pay (We got ours from our Bank back in Boulder, CO)

Before you cross the border, try and make copies of your Drivers license, vehicle/s title or registration, passport for driver only and Tourist Visa (can’t do this until you get one) if you already have one.  If you forget to make these before you cross the border, do not worry, there is a kiosk “Copias” that you can get copies made right there next to the INM office.  You can also change your money to pesos, but I hear the exchange rate is a bit worse then getting it from a bank.
When you pull into the Immigration area on your right.  Go ahead and just park in the lot, walk over to the IM building go to immigration office.  They will want your passport and then they will give you a receipt to pay at the Banjecito.  Take the papers they give you back to the Banjecito and pay for your FMM “Tourist Documents”.  The folks at the Banjecito will give you paid receipt of payment.  You need to take this back to the INM “Immegracion” office, get FMM and Passport stamped.  Once you have your Passport and FMM, step outside to copies kiosk.  IMPORTANT TIME SAVING TIP: Make copies of FMM, we paid 10 pesos for 2 copies (front and back).  “By this time, I had run back and forth a few times and was getting a bit annoyed, so make sure that you get totally fired up and annoyed, because this seems to not help at all.”  ☺   Then take all of your copies back (driver license, title or registration, FMM and passport) to the Banjercito (ANOTHER IMPORTANT TIME SAVING TIP: at this point you can go to the front of the line and wait to be called on again. This happened to us 2 times and we were told to cut back to the front of the line after our second attempt.  It is because we did not make copies of our FMM on the way back to the Banjercito.   Once you have paid they will give you a form with a sticker on it.  This will go in your car windshield to the left of your rearview mirror (inside).  There are picture instructions of how to do this on the form, next to your sticker.  Pull out of parking lot and drive through the "NOTHING TO DECLARE” lane. 

We headed out and didn’t stop for gas until we got to the south side of Ciudad Obregon.  The roads are a bit tight the first part of our trip and a bit of construction, but still good.  Once outside of Los Mochis, the roads turn very nice.  I am not saying they are dangerous; you just need to keep your wits about you, due to lots of trucks and people driving really fast. 

Stopped overnight and stayed at El Rancho.  It is just outside of Navojo on the north side of town on you right.  If you cross the bridge and enter the city, you have gone to far.  It is very easy to turn around in the city with a car if you overshoot it so don’t panic.  We had no problem with either the dog or cat.  We had a great room close to the pool, 2 queen beds and it only cost us 680 Pesos. 
Awesome pool for the kids, yard for the dog to do his business.  The Restaurant was only open for breakfast but it was amazing the next morning.  I recommend the "Divorciada" eggs, sopes, green and red salsa, retried beans, chicken and lettuce.  The juga de naranja (fresh squeezed orange juice) was wonderful and it all started with homemade carrot cake muffins.  The woman that makes them was actually delivering a tray of fresh ones as we waited for our food.  All of this for $40 (36pesos), the 4 of us ate very well.

Dinner the night before was in the city of Navojoa and we ate pizza at Carimalis Pizza.  Very cool play structure for the kids and a trampoline.  The Pizza was great, light and fluffy crust, Mexican cheese, ham and pineapple.  The kids loved it too!  It is located about a mile into the city on the left, across the street from a Pemex. The city of Navojoa is very clean and actually fun to cool drive through.

We left Navojoa at 9:30am and headed south.  Stop for gas before you get to Los Mochis, not much on the outskirts of the city.  We met a really nice kid at the Pemex there that spoke excellent English. He had lived in the San Gabriel valley for a few years.  He asked where we were going and we told him Guadalajara and he couldn’t understand why we wanted to move there.  We then explained that it was really the Lake Chapala area and then he understood.  He told our kids to make sure they learn Spanish, because it will help them go very far in the world.

There are plenty of places to stop and get gas on the way. We never almost ran out of gas, the Pemex stations are everywhere. 

No one really spoke any English until we got to the gas station in Los Mochis.

We arrived in Mazatlan that night and stayed at Captain Moe’s B&B in the Golden Zone. Once again they had no problems with the dog, cat or kids.  Captain Moe and Dorothy are so incredibly kind and amazing host and hostess.  We fond them on the Gringo Dog website.  They typically like for you to reserve your room ahead of time, but we had lost Internet service once we crossed the border and couldn’t pay.  So, we just showed up and knocked on the door and we got lucky that no one else had taken our spot.  So, please call and pay ahead of time. 

We took one of the open air taxis down to Plaza Machado for dinner.  The ride cost us 60 pesos.  It’s a rally slow time of year and the cruise ships won’t be back until the fall.  Dinner was fantastic. I had the coconut shrimp and shared a salad with my wife.  The boys had burritos and quesadillas.  Headed back to the B&B, stopped at Dairy Queen for the boys and then walked the 2 blocks back the room.

We left the next morning around 10:30, much later then expected.  The drive through town was easy, with just a little construction and a short detour, that was easy to follow and well marked.  Once back on the 15 Mex, we made really good time.  Got to Tepic, and stopped for gas at the Pemex, bathroom breaks and then kept going.  Oh, we had heard that the gas stations don’t have tissue paper at times, but we always found that they did.  We had brought with us a few rolls just in case but never had to break them out.  Tepic is really cool; it sits at the top of this mountain range.  We drove a few more hours until we got to Guadalajara and that is where we got a bit lost.  We missed the turn off for Chapala/Airport.  We should have stayed to the right and we never would have missed the exit.  We got so lost, but thank goodness I had my iPad with Google Maps (I only had written directions, so do yourself a favor and get a map of the area or GPS), it wasn’t detailed, but we could at least see where we needed to go. A few wrong ways on one ways, dead ends, dirt roads, narrow roads and we were back on the the 15 towards the airport. This was the only stressful part of our journey other then getting all the paper work at the INM office, which would have been easier if I would have known what was needed in the area of copies before hand. 

We arrived in Ajijic around 6:30pm, we forgot that you lose one more hour when moving into Central Time Zone.  So, a bit tired and hungry, we unpacked and then headed into the town of Ajijic.  Cobble stone roads, narrow European streets, brightly colored buildings, the smell of food everywhere, and people all around, we were in our new home.  Our first stop was the waterfront.  We parked and walked the boardwalk.  There was a futbol game, basketball game, volleyball game, kids riding bikes, skateboards, play structures and of course the beautiful lake and the incredible breeze.  It was about 80 degrees on the car temp gauge outside and it was a slice of heaven.  We drove up to the Plaza “Jardin” and had a very nice dinner, all of $4 each.  Then headed back to the house, stopped at the grocery store for a few breakfast items and went home.  I laid next to my wife and we both looked at each other and said “Wow, we are really here” The trip was long, but so much easier then we could ever have imagined.  All the sleepless nights preparing for the trip mentally and logistically, were not really necessary. The logistical part was important, but the sleeplessness was absolutely unnecessary! 

If you would like any more details on our trip, lease contact me. I can be reached on my US phone at 303-351-3912.  Happy trails and hope to see you down here soon.  Buen Viaje! 


Brian and Tracy Johnson

Waiting in Line at the Banjercito

Banjercito

The INM office, to the right is the Copies Kiosk and then the right of that and further back is the Banjercito Office.