Car Trip To San Miguel de Allende

living.boondockingmexico@yahoo.com

For us, it was like a new world out there.  We hadn't really been anywhere since March 2020.  I know we could do some things close to home and that travel isn't restricted in Mexico, but with the now 10,000 deaths in Monterrey alone, we hung around the quinta.

We had everything packed and ready to go on Friday night.  One thing that may have held us back a bit was a large Zoom meet up with friends from Mexico and the U.S.  There were 16 of us online and although we started at 8 p.m., said our goodbyes and signed off at 10 p.m. The group stayed up until 3 a.m.  It was fun and we had a couple of drinks.  Getting up at our usual 5:15 was a bit slow but we were on the road by 7:30.

We took our usual route through the mountains instead of driving through Monterrey to Saltillo.  Many people who have come this way know the mountain highway from Linares to San Roberto or Hwy 57.  If you don't, I should have a video uploaded some time tomorrow.  I had purchase a dashcam but the darn thing doesn't like the memory card even after formatting.  We will go to the Steren store here in SMA in the morning to see if they can get it going.  We took some short and sometimes shakey videos from a cell phone.

It was a fun day and we have so many great memories of this route that not only takes us to SMA, but many cities in San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Hidalgo, Coahuila, Veracruz and more.  We drove straight through only stopping for pee breaks.  First stop was Linares, which is    miles from home.  I fixed a sandwich and we had brought along some hard boiled eggs and a small salad.  Great way to start the day.

Crossing the mountains is, well, not slow going but it's a curvy mountain road and one that anybody heading south that crosses at Laredo or Reynosa should try not to mention stopping by to stay hello.  We are now on Boondockers Welcome and offer a place to stay with 30 amp service and water.  Small rigs but we have other places nearby as well.

As you can see we saw some new things, and our lunch stop at Los Potosino was the first time we've had fried chicken in more than a year.  At the rest stop they have Churches, Dominos, Doña Totas, and other restaurants plus a convenience store and of course a gas station.  They have a large trucker's lot where you can park overnight as well as in San Pedro which comes first right after passing San Roberto.  We ate on the road to save time.  The second toll before getting to Matehuala had system problems.  It wasn't backed up to long but enough to make it irritating. 

On some of our bathroom stops we noticed that charging stations are located everywhere even Tesla.

We had a concern entering SMA.  I don't know if I mentioned it but they have COVID checkpoints set up coming from various cities.  You have to have a QR code from your hotel or restaurant.  Well, Airbnb doesn't have QR codes and we thought we might have an issue.  We had a copy of our reservation but we entered from Hwy 57 at Doctor Mora to Los Rodriguez.  When we entered SMA there was no checkpoint.

We found our apartment right away, no issues.  Very quiet building but only 375 sq feet.  A bedroom, bath, and a small living room divided by a counter/bar and a kitchen.  It is very well equipped and a good place to hunker down for the week.  We won't be doing much and Juan will be teaching in the mornings online.  We are happy here and the price is right at $23 USD per night. Yes, that doesn't sound like much but it has everything including high speed internet, Netflix, smart television, a great kitchen for cooking and everything works.  We didn't have to bring a thing (although we always come prepared).

So now we can relax and enjoy the week although we will be at the apartment.  We saw lots of people both Mexican and foreigners on the streets not wearing or carrying a mask.  It's not mandatory here.  Sad.  Guanajuato has had some very heavy COVID spikes in the last year.