Not a Caravan in Sight, but One Hell of a Line

As I wrote earlier, our itinerary had been flipped since we originally booked, due to a change in the Copper Canyon train schedule.  The only notable downside was that we would be crossing back into the United States at the major border city of Nogales, rather than the much smaller town of Columbus, New Mexico.  With this in mind, we had to move up our departure from San Carlos to an earlier than usual 7:30am.  We were told the crossing at Nogales is notoriously long, and that wait times had been exponentially increased with President Trump's deployment of military troops to the U.S. border.  Whatever the case, we all took turns badmouthing the president as we left San Carlos and headed north.

Along the way, we again found ourselves in very lush-looking agricultural areas, including an enormous area devoted to tomato growing.  Raul cited the numbers, which I cannot remember, but a huge proportion of their production is shipped into the States.  We also learned about the area's notorious association with the growing of marijuana and poppies (for heroin production).  The state south of San Carlos, Sinaloa, is and was the center of Mexican drug cultivation.  Evidently until the outbreak of World War II, the United States got its supply of morphine from poppy producers in Afghanistan and what is now Pakistan.  Once the U.S. entered the war, that supply dried up.  As it was still part of British India at the time, it must have been a case of producers simply refusing to sell.  I'm still not sure of that.  Whatever the case, the U.S. Government was desperate for a new source, so they made an arrangement with Mexico for them to identify several owners of large agricultural tracts to begin growing poppies, which thrived in the Sinaloan climate.  Once the war was over, poppies again became available from both Afghanistan and Pakistan, so the U.S. stopped buying the Mexican supply and told them to end production.  Well, you know how that went.  Almost all of the families continued to grow, and they learned they could make exponentially more money by selling their product illegally.  In fact, most of the largest drug cartels today bear the family names of those original growers, to include the family of the notorious El Chapo.
Aside from lunch, our only stop today was a brief visit to Hermosillo, which is the capital of the Mexican state of Sonora.  It seemed smaller than Chihuahua, but reportedly they both have populations of just under 1 million people.  It, too, was very modern, and was home to dozens of NAFTA-enabled factories, including multiple car-assembly plants.  There was a carnival being set up on the main square, but we still managed to visit, if only to walk a little and take some pictures.  On the far side of the square, in an adjacent plaza in front of a church, there was a large crowd gathered, and we could hear a person on stage read a name, and then the crowd would recite something back in Spanish.  We later learned that it was a political rally, and they were reading the names of all the politicians who had, reportedly, failed them.  The saying that they were all repeating was akin to "all talk and no action."



Cathedral in Hermosillo



Capital Building

After lunch -- which was a forgettable affair at a cafeteria-like restaurant -- and approached the border, we were told what to expect, as we were to go through several inspection stations, on both sides of the border.  First up was a Mexican military inspection.  Raul explained that the process was rarely the same each time, and varied greatly based on who was working and current political situation.  We pulled off into a huge  inspection area and were told to take no pictures.  All of our suitcases were removed from the bus, and then two armed officers boarded the bus.  With one starting from the front and one from the back, they inspected all of our personal bags.  The lead officer, who was working from the front, had several people open up sealed boxes with purchases (mostly pots), and even unwrapped those from huge wads of bubble wrap.  It was a very thorough inspection.  The guy in the rear was less thorough.  Luckily, the two met right at our seat, so our packages were not opened.  It would have been a pain and half to wrap them all back up.  We were warned that we would be expected to then disembark and walk our suitcases through an x-ray and physical examination, but that did not happen.  Raul explained that he "had a bus full of seniors," and evidently that played to their sentiment, as they x-rayed our bags without our having to get off, which was nice.

Next up was a second bus inspection, a few miles before we reached Nogales -- which actually comprises two cities with the same name, on both sides of the border.  We hit a back-up of traffic within easy line-of-sight to the formal border wall that separates the two countries, but then we came to a stop.  Even though there is a separate lane for buses, we were stuck with everyone else, and had to advance about 1/4 mile before we could even access that lane.  There looked to be at least 20 inspection lanes open, but each car was taking 15-30 minutes to be processed, so we just waited.  Raul had anticipated this, so he ran a PBS documentary on the bus's multiple TV screens.  It was a fascinating piece on the history of the Cherokee Indians, and primarily Sitting Bull, who I noted earlier ultimately surrendered in Mexico.

Once we finally accessed the bus lane, we drove right up to the inspection building.  We all had to disembark with all of our bags, physically claim our suitcase, and then walk into the building carrying everything.  Inside were two lines -- one for bus travelers (we were the only ones at the time, though one came in after us), and another for people walking across the border (all of whom seemed to be Mexican) -- and there were two immigration officials.  We queued up and looked forward and quickly realized that neither of the agents was working.  They were sitting there basically shooting the shit while the lines both grew longer.  Aside from one agent angrily yelling at a Mexican for using his cell phone in the building, they seemed content to sit and chat.  We all whispered among ourselves how unacceptable it seemed, but no one had the courage to actually call them out.  Finally, after at least 20 minutes of no one being processed, they each began to call forward people -- one officer for each line.  The agent working our line was thorough, and asked far more questions than I'm used to hearing at airport crossings.  Once we cleared, we worked our way over to a huge x-ray machine and had to load everything we had onto a huge conveyor belt.  Everything went through without a comment, so the biggest challenge was finagling to pick everything up on the other end of the machine, before the next person arrived. It was then a short walk to the bus, luckily past some clean restrooms, as everyone was in need of them after such a long wait.

In Line at the Nogales Border Crossing

Once everyone was back on, it took us about 2 1/2 hours to clear, which Raul said was "remarkably good."  I would beg to differ.  Still, it was another hour to Tucson, and aside from one more quick highway customs inspection, through which we were waved, it was a straight shot. 

We arrived back at the same Sheraton hotel where we had stayed upon arrival Tucson, around 6:00pm.  It had been a long day, and certainly the least fun of the tour, but a necessary evil.  We spoke about getting a car rental for the evening, but ended up using Uber to get to a restaurant for dinner.  There were plenty of options in and around the hotel, but Katherine wanted to go to Casa Molina, the local Mexican restaurant about which I wrote in the beginning of this blog.  It was about a 20-minute ride, but the food was worth it.  It was, however, late when we got back to the hotel, so we turned in immediately.