Action! So we thought we were gonna come back from Ajijic and get all caught
up on our videos. We were there for a week, we really enjoyed our time, but we
Were getting behind because each video was taking 24 to 48 hours to upload. And
not only that, but we also spent more time like doing things rather than like
editing. Yes, very true. And we still have videos from Ajijic that we have not yet
Showed you, so be on the lookout for those.
Well, what just happened? [Laughter] We got back from Ajijic
To Guadalajara on Saturday, and that very same day we're like "Ah crap, we need to
Leave for the border immediately." So instead of being able to get caught up,
We went into panic planning mode. We were like "Okay, we have to go to the border, we
Have to get Airbnbs, we have to find someone to watch Laska." All these
different things. So, that is what immediately took place, and since then it
Has been a complete whirlwind. We have, coming up for you, multiple encounters
with the federales. And yes we do mean federales, not state police, not municipal
police, not traffic cops. Thankfully, not traffic cops. They're kind of annoying.
[Laughter] Should we tell them where we went?
Where we're at? Well, right now we're in Zacatecas.
Zacatecas!
Hopefully we're saying that right.
And if we aren't, I don't care because that's a fun word to say. [Laughter]
And we have also driven over, what? Like 20 hours
in the past three days. Almost 2000 miles. We've been to Laredo, and everywhere in
between. Mexican Consulate. The Mexican Consulate, we've been in three Airbnbs,
And just barely gotten enough time there to get some shut-eye. There were so many
moving parts to this, where after we realized that we needed to head to the
border, each piece kind of made it to where we couldn't plan in advance. So we
could have gotten Airbnbs, but if one thing went wrong, then we might have to cancel it and lose
Cancel and lose our money on that. Yeah, lose money, so
There was a lot up in the air in this. And we are going to show you all of that!
By the way guys, thank you so much to everyone who has signed up on Airbnb and
taken a trip! These past few days were completely crazy, but because you guys
Did that, it gave us a little bit of credit that we were
able to use for this. So, what might have been a super expensive, stressful - Well,
it's still been a stressful trip. But what might have been a very expensive
trip that we needed to take back to the border, was much less so. Thank you so
much! Of you haven't signed up on Airbnb yet, please look in our description at
the link, and you'll get 40 bucks off your first trip of $75 or more. Which
could be like a week somewhere, if you wanted. And yeah, that gives us a little
bit of credit. And we really really appreciate that! Helps us continue
traveling. So let's get to it. So we have a toll road coming up right here. There's
a sign that says "Prepare su cuota," prepare your payment. We're gonna
see another sign coming up to see how much it is. We're taking an eight-hour
drive today, and we looked up to see how much the tolls were gonna be, and it said
677 pesos. However, we did already pass one that was
out of service and everyone just drove through, and we're hoping for protests,
Which, when that happens, there's people standing all over the toll on all sides,
Hooting and hollering, waving things. And they're like telling you "Go! Go! Go!" Wxcept in
Spanish. Yes. The first time we saw this, I seriously thought it was a trap.
I did too. I thought they were like trying to get people to go through,
So that the police would be waiting on the other side, and they would arrest you
for not paying. Because it just seemed like... Just people stand out here and
they let you go through? I wasn't thinking it was going to be an "arrest you"
Situation. I was thinking it was going to be a "Pay me a bribe or I'm giving you
a ticket for not paying" type thing.
But in any case, we did do that. We went through like "Oh
my gosh, what are we getting ourselves into?" But nothing happened. We just went
through and we didn't have to pay. So, we're hoping on this 600+ peso toll
Drive, that we're gonna avoid that. But, whenever you do pull up to these, a lot
of times it looks like this with just crazy crazy backup. This is way more
backed up than I've ever seen it though. We have gone through tons and tons
Toll roads. We were told in facebook groups and things like that, that you
Really needed to pay attention to how much it was, how much cash you gave them,
And how much change should be returned. But not to say that that wouldn't ever happen,
But it hasn't happened to us. We've given whatever, like a 200, and then get our
change back. It's always been exact change. I really don't feel like this is a place
Where scams would happen like that. Maybe that would happen at a gas station. Like
That's a common one you hear. But to us, it's never happened at one of
these. And in general, they're usually cash only. It looks like this time the
outside two lanes here, you can pay with a card. So this particular toll it's a
hundred pesos if you're on a motorcycle, 202 pesos if you're driving a car or
a truck, and if you're pulling a trailer it's going to be more.
202?
What? 202? Thank you.
So it turns out our lane did accept credit cards. It was weird because they
accepted Visa and MasterCard, which is rare because most places here that
accept cards in Mexico that we've come across only accept Visa. And almost
nobody accepts MasterCard, and a few accept American Express.
Very, very few. Emphasis on the few. [Laughter] You get a little
Ticket when you go through this toll booth. Be sure to keep that until you
get at least off that road. This, if you get an accident, the Mexican government
is going to pay for all the expenses that are involved in that.
It's basically your insurance. Yes. And then if you ever wind up in a pickle, like us, where
You take the wrong road and you have to go back, if you have that ticket and show
them, they'll refund the money and give you the money for the next - The toll road
That you need to get back on. Yeah, that happened to us once around Guadalajara.
We're at another toll booth, and in two of the three lanes, above it it says
"Todas las formas de pago" or all the forms of payment, so in those two
lanes you can use a card. In the other lane,
You have to use cash. We're in the other lane, so we're gonna have to pay 167,
Ciento seisenta y siete.
Good afternoon. How are you? Good afternoon. 167, please. Thank you.
333. 333 pesos of change. Thank you. See you later. Have a good trip!
So pretty painless. To be honest, this was one of the things that we were
most nervous about when we first started our travels. And now, it's just La-dee-da,
Going through another toll booth. And when we have gone to an ATM recently
We have stacks of 500 peso bills that a lot of places don't have change for. But
in a toll booth, even if it's a small toll, you can still pay with a 500 peso,
And they won't blink an eye. Yeah. So if you need change, it's a great time to do it.
So we may or may not be in Guanajuato, the state, right now. And within, I
don't know, like 15 minutes of driving we saw these herds of sheep, Bahhh! Which I've
never ever in my life seen real-life sheep being herded across a field before.
By a human? By a human, yes. Those are called Shepherds. I know that.
[Laughter] Thank you.
Hello, good afternoon.
Buenas tardes.
Alright, this was another toll. This time, 51 pesos.
Here we are at another toll booth.
Hello, good afternoon. Good afternoon.
Thank you.
Have a good day. And this toll cost 62 pesos.
Paid with a 500 and got all this change! You
know how valuable this stuff is! [Laughter] Oh yeah! The small bills.
Right now, we're standing at this super
interesting gas station, that's themed like a Western. Western things. So yeah
Let's show you a little bit of that and then we're back in the car. It's super
windy, so I hope that doesn't ruin this. But we've got the sheriff's office right here, salon
A bank, or saloon maybe? Salon. Bank.
Súper. Horse. Horse!
Giant boots.
Gordo. Did you check for snakes in your boots?
Gordo. The sheriff, we have to take him very seriously!
Jail over there, so be careful
what you do. But yeah, this is a really cute stop. We're outside of San Luis Potosi
right now, and need to get back in the car so we don't end up driving at
night in Mexico. That is one tip that we must continually bestow upon you, and it
Was bestowed upon us. Don't drive at night, it's dangerous. Don't do it.
Okay, so there's something really really weird happening. We're driving, to the
border, and we're passing through small towns, small little pueblos, neighborhoods.
One was probably the poorest little village we've seen on all of Mexico. Yeah,
I mean it's like probably what some people think all of Mexico looks like,
But houses or shacks, whatever you can call them, made out of cardboard, or
stacked bricks, or mud, literally mud. But that's not the weird thing. I mean that's
that's terrible, but that's not the weird thing.
We're on what? We're on highway 57, north of San Luis Potosi.
Maybe 100 or 150 kilometers. So it's pretty much
Desert landscape around us. Giant mountains on one side, Joshua trees
everywhere. That's what we know them as, I don't know what it is in
Spanish. But what we're passing is all of these places that say "Café" something.
Most of them are people's names after them. Yeah. It's too many! Like dozens of
them as we're going through these places.
Yeah, like it's just a small town, and there's maybe a hundred buildings
alongside this highway, and 90 of them are cafes. They say Cafe and then a name.
We can't figure out what it is. Our best guess is that maybe this is some indication
For people passing through that they can come in. Like they'll serve you coffee if
you want to buy it from their house or something? But we didn't see a single
car in front of any of them. Granted, there's not a whole lot of
traffic on this road in the first place. But really weird because all of these
little patches of houses and buildings, they all say cafe. You had another idea
what it might be. Yeah, another guess of mine was maybe there is some type of tax
On houses, but there aren't on businesses, so then they put cafe on the
front of their house. Because these look like houses. So they put Cafe
Maria or something on the side of their house, and then suddenly it's a business.
So we're confused, maybe you guys know if there's some... If it's like a joke, or
a tradition, or it has to do with taxes, or something. Help us out in the comments
because we're just completely stumped! We've never seen anything like this!
Yeah it's super, super strange!
Hello, good afternoon. 26. 26?
Thank you.
Alright, and another tool for 26 pesos.
Good afternoon. What do you do for a living?
Say that again, please.
Okay, so we didn't talk about the situation at all after this happened
Because we were a little bit shaken up and we had to continue driving. But after
reviewing what he said, and he's saying a A qué se dedican? Like, what do you do
for living? What do you do for work? We're kind of wondering, are they actually
asking like how we have this car? Like how do we afford to be driving or
something like that? So curious to know what you guys think that might be about,
Because that actually happened another time, later on in our trip, where they
were asking the same question. And so we're kind of curious, what the best way
to answer this would be? Or what they might actually be getting at by asking
this, because that doesn't totally seem like a normal question in the U.S. But
maybe not, I don't know. We, in the u.s. I never dealt with police or military as
much as I have in Mexico. So, maybe you guys can help us out with that.
Can you put the window down?
Are you on vacation? Yes. Go ahead. Thank you.
Also, when he made us roll down the window in the back,
We rolled it down and he saw one
suitcase. We only had two, they're small carry-on sized suitcases, so there wasn't
really much to search. Which I'm sure is why they didn't, and that's why, when he
asked, Are you here on vacation? We said yes. No, we're actually not here on
Vacation, we live here. But if that meant we could get out of there faster, it
seemed like the appropriate thing to say, and so we did.
Hello, good afternoon.
62 for this toll! This drive is taking a toll on me. I need to stretch!
8 hours of driving one day, bleh! No, it's been more than that.
Yeah. This drive is taking longer. I feel like we've
Mentioned this before, but when Google Maps says something's going to take, say
eight hours, expect it to take like nine and a half. Unless you're going the
Speed that other cars are going, but even so, like we're going well over the
speed limit. Like it'll say 80 and we're going 95 or 100. And everyone
else is flying by! Yeah.
I'd like to err on the side of caution, and maybe some
Streets are the case where it's 80 in the right lane and 100 in the other. So that
it's sort of acceptable if you go 110 in the left one or 90 in the right one or
something like that. But I don't want to give anyone any reasons that they can
pull us over. So we don't get in any tricky situations like that. But, in
Our experience, whenever we're driving, it can be anywhere from like an hour more
than the Google Maps estimate to an hour and a half, two hours. And then sometimes
there's construction that even Google Maps doesn't know about. But overall, so far,
They've been pretty nice roads. We've had some stretches where it was a little
rougher. And the biggest pothole we have ever seen, thankfully we didn't hit it.
The car would've been totaled. We probably would have lost a tire at the very least.
Yeah. We got a flat tire (Jokingly, in Spanish, because it's a phrase we just learned.) [Laughter]
When you've been driving way too long...
So we are staying... Are you here? [Laughter]
We are staying one night in Saltillo. Saltillo!
I'm not even going to try to pronounce the name of the
State that it's in. [Laughter] Outside of Monterrey. Because we are
Heading to the border and we needed a halfway point. We spent 10 hours driving
today, which was supposed to be about 8 hours.
[Laughter] But we're leaving the light
amount of driving for tomorrow. We're right near Centro here in Saltillo, and
there's this gorgeous cathedral behind us! It's so ornate! So many details carved
Into the stone! Yeah. Every time I see a cathedral, I think "Wow, this
is the most beautiful one I've ever seen!" I think this is the prettiest one yet!
They all have such character. And
There's something going on in the town square. Music, kids doing choreographed
dances. So I don't really know what we walked into. It's a Monday. Monday night.
So, we're going to walk around and see what's up.
We're walking past all of these booths with jewelry,
clothing, artesanias of course. Very typical of Mexico. And we came up to some pan de elote!
My favorite. What's pan de elote? This is corn bread.
But just corn, no glutens. So I
could have it. This giant thing was 25 pesos.
So we have had pan de elote before, but this stuff is way different! So I don't know if it's
Made differently in northern Mexico or what?
But it has whole pieces of corn in there, mixed into the
bread. I really like this stuff! I love it!
It has more like an actual corn taste to it.
And texture too, which is cool!
[Live music playing]
It's raining now, so we're gonna wrap this up pretty quickly! If you want to
Know what happens with the federales in this crazy, crazy trip to the border,
Subscribe to our channel. Give this video a thumbs up, and!
GONG THAT BELL! So you get
Notified the next time we put out a new video! And as long as the rain doesn't
damage this camera, we will see you there! [Laughter]