We left our lovely but cold camp spot at Joshua Tree and headed south to the border.  The wind had kicked up overnight and was gusting strongly for the entire day, making me glad that Jim was doing the driving.  We passed the Salton Sea, which we had seen from above the day before in JT.  We heard some people talking about it while at the overlook.  One fellow said that by 2034 it would be totally dried up, which was strange to think about as it is so large.  We were excited to get into Mexico today, so chose not to stop here, but maybe on the way back up?  After all, if its going to disappear, we should really have a closeup look! 

After a quick pit stop for an iced coffee and pick up a couple of things, we headed to the border at Mexicali II.  As you might surmise, there are two crossings at the city of Mexicali and we had debated about which to use, reading posts by others on our way south.  It seemed, from what others had said, that M II would be the easier crossing, so we screwed up our courage and headed there.  Now, I have to say, we thought our crossing at the US border went pretty smoothly and we were kind of surprised that they didn’t want us to pull over so they could look through our vey packed van for contraband, but no, they just said have a good trip and waved us through.  So, coming to the Mexican border we thought for sure there would be questions about where we were headed, what we were bringing and the rest.  I had practiced the phrase “vamos a La Paz” (we are going to La Paz) over and over so that we would be confident in replying to the question as to our destination.  So, passports at the ready, we approached the border. And were waved though.  Like they didn’t even look at our passports.  We didn’t even stop the van.  They just waved and we went through. “ Amazing!”, you are saying.  Well, yes, that is amazing, except for the part where we needed to get our FMM (visas for staying in Mexico for up to 6 months) stamped.  We drove through so quickly we didn’t even see where we could get this done, and we knew, from reading about many others who had missed this step, that this was a most necessary, indeed, the MOST necessary part of our crossing!  We drove out of the border area in total confusion, but as we approached the main roadway a Good Samaritan appeared.  This guy, dressed all in white, was asking for donations to some cause.  We stopped and asked him “donde esta FMM”.  He said, “Oh, you need to turn around and go into that building behind you.”  Argh!!!  So, we turned, then did a (hopefully legal) u-turn and approached the border again.  Our buddy very kindly was standing at the place where we needed to enter, waving us in and telling us where to turn.  We promised on our way out, to donate! 

Ok!  Now we are cooking!  We parked the van and asked about where the office for the FMM was.  We were led to the correct building by a most kind young lady from the border security detail.  As we walked in, a friendly older gentleman opened the door for us.  Everyone here was so nice!  Goodness!  We went up to the desk and I pulled out what I thought were the proper FMM papers.  I had done them online before we left home and paid the fee, so now all we needed was a stamp and we were home free.  Yes, except for the park where I only printed out the receipts and not the actual FMM forms!  Duh!!!!!  I’m not sure what the clerk actually thought of us, but she was very nice and explained that we needed to go into Mexicali to the Office Depot where we could log on and print out the forms and then bring them back for her to stamp.  Of for Pete’s sake!  We thanked her and headed back to the van, drove into town (stopping to give our buddy a donation as promised).  Using Google, we made our way into town and found the Office Depot, where again, we were met with so much kindness.  The girl who helped us was so patient with our very limited Spanish (of course, her English was very good!).  The cost of printing our papers?  $15 pesos (that’s $1.00 CDN)!  Having accomplished our assigned task, we proceeded to leave the parking lot where we ran into a tricky detour. You see, this was a pay parking lot if you stayed for more than 20 minutes, and of course, we ended up staying longer we had to pay 8 pesos.  Now, this was not problem – I had lots of change with me from our last trip.  However, we could not, for the life of us, figure out how to pay for the parking!!!  We drove up to the gate, put the ticket into the machine, only to hear something we didn’t understand.  We ended up having to back up and go around to park while we tried to think of what to do.  We saw another exit so thought, maybe this was the correct exit to use?  We pulled in behind another car only to see them also have to back up.  However, this is where we found our answer!  They backed up, got out of their car and went up to a pay station!  Of course!!!!  I grabbed our ticket and, with the help of a couple of people standing there, managed to pay for our parking and we were able to exit!  What high drama!!!

Arriving back at the border, we drove confidently into the proper place, walked into the proper building and got our FMM forms formally stamped.  We were in Mexico and could stay for up to 6 months!  Of course, all of this had taken much much longer than it should have and now we had another 2 hour drive to our destination for the evening, San Felipe.  To be honest, I was ready to fold up shop and get a hotel for the night, I was so rattled by our ridiculous adventure so far, but Jim was all for moving on and since he was the driver, we pushed on, arriving in San Felipe in time to find a place to park for 2 nights at Kikis Campground and head into town for some fish tacos and beers.  What a day!!! Oh and as for pictures? Ya, I wasn’t going to get myself into trouble trying to take pictures at the border crossing – no way!  So our only shots from this day are of that lovely border wall that someone was so keen on building!