I cried twice today. The first when I cracked the top of my head on the corner of the van door – so hard I though that I’d shed blood. The second when we discovered that what we thought was the only secure campground in Golfo de Santa Clara, Mexico was a members only establishment. We weren’t members, it was dark and we were miles from anywhere.

We woke up in Yuma, AZ to a hot, dry, windy desert day. After a quick pack up we all jumped in the pool to cool off (at 9am) and, if I’m being honest, to give our urchin daughters a well needed bath.

In the time it took Matty to re – wire the solar panel (his dogged determination finally paid off and we now have a fully functioning solar power supply) our swimming costumes and towels were dry in the sun. That being said we had planned a much earlier “Border Crossing Day” start. It was around then the first tears were shed.

So finally around mid day we were off and rolling. But this is The Powells, so there are always last minute bits and bobs to be done. A trip to the store to get coffee/water mugs, a few groceries and a solar shower (that wasn’t on the list but Matty can never resist a gadget or gismo) and then we really were heading to the border……well via a gas station and an ATM……ok now to the border.

Just as an aside – and also just to wind up my husband a little I should tell you why we had to go buy the new coffee mugs. He lost both the ones we left Saskatoon with. The first one didn’t even make it out of Canada. Actually there’s a list of lost property.
The gas cap fell by the wayside at our very first stop for gas. Remember the one when we ran out of gas? Well in all the excitement of the incident the gas cap got left on the pump.
His wallet, lost in Banff after a night of drinking and merriment with his brother at friend’s wedding ( thankfully returned by the wonderfully honest Corine, that could have been a real headache.)
The $100 bill, hidden in a cigarette packet for safe keeping, forgotten about and tossed in the bin. This ended in a cross San Diego dash when he realized. Luckily the bag of rubbish was still in the bin and we retrieved the money.
Freja’s play tent, strategically placed on the roof of the van overnight and forgotten when taking off to the garage in haste. It probably ended up in someone’s front yard – or front windscreen on the highway. That outing was also the last known observation of travel mug no2.
So not only did we cast off all our possessions before leaving, but it appears that Matty has developed quite the taste for liberating our possessions and continues to do so.

Anyway, I digress. We arrived at San Luis, AZ around 2.15pm. What an experience. We had no clue what to do or where to go other than what basic info we had in our literature.
It went something like this…..

Parked the van. We knew we had to get a travel visa for ourselves and a temporary vehicle import permit for the van. The first office we get to is for neither and the man kindly directs us to where we need to go. Go to the Banjercito, lady speaks some English, tells us to go next door to Immigration and get our travel permits first then come back to do the van stuff. Next door we go, fill in some forms while Freja continually slides across the floor and Eir is trying to grab anything she can get her hands on. Matty’s doing most of the Spanish speaking (haha – we knew diddly). So when we eventually fill out the forms and I point out that I’m British they want to keep my passport while we have to go back to the Banjercito to pay for the visas…hmmm…off we go. Get back and she tells us her system is crashed we have to walk to the next bank up the street and pay there (its blistering hot by the way). So off we go. Can’t find it. Back to ask where it is, walk back the way we came, it was where we had just been but 2 floors up. Pay our money. Back to Immigration. Stamp. Sign. Muchos gracias, adios. Then back to the Banjercito to do the van stuff. Sign here. Stamp. Sticker. Muchos gracias. Adios.Then I have to go back to the American port of entry to give them back the green piece of paper they put in my passport when I arrived. Wonderfully friendly guys they were too. No seriously they were really super nice. Then back to Mexico, quick nappy change and off into the unkown. The unknown with very few road signs at that.

Wow! what a completely different world. In the space of a few hundred metres the contrasts were stark. Needless to say we got lost pretty quickly, and after a few heated exchanges and a few frantic map reading moments we eventually succumbed to the “OK lets just ask someone” philosophy. My turn this time. All I managed to communicate to the kids in the shop we stopped at was that I was lost and then pointing to where we wanted to go on a map. They tried to explain in Spanish but I had no clue, so he kindly drew me a sort of map. We weren’t far off, just a left turn instead of a right. The last glimpse of sunlight was just disappearing as we arrived at the beach town of Golfo de Santa Clara, and I mean literally a beach town. All the roads and everything round about are completely sand.

So as I mentioned earlier, we find the campground we are looking for but discover its members only, we aren’t members – and the folks weren’t very helpful to be honest. Even the American guy on his ATV cruising past us as we were scratching our heads gave us the ‘dirty hippy’ look and took off offering no advice. So now what? Tears round 2, the icing on a stressful day’s cake. Well to rub sand into the wound the van won’t start so Matty jumps it with the solar battery. Back the way we came and as we turn the corner there’s a few old RVs parked in a somewhat fenced area with a light. So after another Spanish exchange with a local (we’ve no idea what he said other than suggest we might get stuck in the sand) we decide just to park up. We’re still a little wound up as some hooded guy and his dog wander up and ask us for $20 for our spot. Eh? We weren’t about to argue. So we gave him $9 and he left reasonably happy. So, after a dinner of a tin of cold past stars between the 4 of us its bedtime. The stars are phenomenal (the ones in the sky, not the cold pasta ones – they were average). The vans locked up and tonight we fall asleep to the sound of barking dogs, Spanish music and general merriment in the distance, and the dessert breeze gently blowing through the sand and the trees…..