You know what…? Even after a year around Mexico, this place never ceases to amaze us. Not many overlanders tour north east Mexico, they usually dig the western delights of Baja California and Copper Canyon. We did those too, they’re great, but we wanted to start USA in Big Bend National Park. It made sense for us to exit Mexico on the eastern side into Texas. Leaving San Luis Potosi, we steeled ourselves for some long days of tedious driving to the border. But Mexico had a few final tricks up its sleeve. Who knew that north east Mexico had some real little gems???
Tunnel Vision – Real de Catorce
Northern Mexico’s minerals and mines once made it the country’s powerhouse. They’re no longer quite the thriving industries they used to be, but the region has cleverly capitalised on its history, converting its industrial heritage into the 21st Century industry of tourism. Real de Catorce was a tiny mining village accessible through a 2.5km tunnel, blasted through the mountain in the 1800s. Today, it’s a tiny tourist village, accessible through said 2.5 km tunnel.
The tunnel only takes small cars (single file, one direction at a time) so we parked Cuthbert and thumbed a lift through to see the village. Returning, we found a dearth of transport opportunities. Hmmm… We saw some locals emerge from the tunnel on foot, so we reckoned it must be fine to walk through. As with sooo many things… it seemed like a good idea at the start. We set off into the former mineshaft, but soon the artificial lighting ceased. If you want a definition of the term ‘pitch black’, I can assure you, it is found right there, in the middle of that 2.5km tunnel. Not the slightest chink of light, natural or otherwise, exists.
We had no torch and the batteries on our phones were so low we could only do the occasional ‘on-off’ to check we hadn’t inadvertently wandered down a side shaft of the old mine. We stumbled-on in the blackness until we saw dots of light approaching in the distance. Then we heard engine noise: it was cars heading in the opposite direction.
Now… people of Europe, North America, wherever, will no doubt be assured by the assumption that we must surely have been walking down a designated pedestrian side-channel, safely barriered off from the traffic. If you are so assured, you lose five ‘smarty points’. This is Mexico… and we were walking in the pitch-black in the same narrow space designated for cars. As they approached, we could only squeeze back against the cut-rock tunnel wall, breathe in, shine our (very faint) phone torch and wait for the cars to pass before we continued. Eventually, there was a dot of natural light at the end of the tunnel. Phew… if ever we have been pleased to see daylight!
Go there people, it’s an interesting place. But here’s our Top Tip for Real de Catorce… wait for a lift through the tunnel 😏.
Cool Saltillo
As we pressed-on north, over the Tropic of Cancer, towards our rendezvous with Uncle Sam at Trump’s (in)famous Wall, we had a few practicalities to sort out. For a start, we needed to massively increase our medical insurance cover for USA. And we needed to do an advance application for Cuthbert’s temporary import to USA. But the problem biggie, was vehicle insurance. It was kind of underway, you understand, but we needed to hang-out somewhere in Mexico until it was sorted. We scouted around the map… hmmm… Saltillo sits on the very northern edge of the central Mexican high plateau at around 1,500m asl. Any further north and we drop down to the hot and humid Monterrey at a mere 600m asl.
So Saltillo it was, for our little sojourn. It’s not a bad place: it has the ubiquitous cute colonial plaza with church, some quaint streets, and an outstanding natural history museum. If ever a name undersold the scope of a venue, it is Saltillo’s ‘Museum of the Desert’. This wonderful, world-class museum covers deserts, oceans, geology, paleontology, zoolology, meteorology, archaeology, ecology, bloominology (that’s a new one I made up for the sake of completeness😉) and many other sciences. It’s all presented beautifully, no expense spared, with interactive displays to engage 8 to 88 year olds. A real gem that Mexico should rightly be very proud of.
After a week of museum visits, walks in the park, brunches in the plaza and the odd cinema film, we were finally sorted. Vehicle insurance for USA/Canada is not just a biggie for us, it’s a bit of a nightmare ‘biggie’ for all non-North American overlanders at the moment (see here for info). We did a little jig of joy when the confirmation finally came through, and we set off northbound again.
Monterrey with a Rescue
The city arguably benefitted from us having particularly low expectations as we approached Monterrey, but it was actually rather nice. What it lacks in colonial charm – and it really does lack the colonial atmosphere of most Mexican cities – it makes up for in modern buzz, excellent museums, great street market and music scene (mostly on Sundays and holidays) and brilliant regeneration of its former industrial sites into beautiful parks and leisure waterways. We were particularly impressed with the excellent Horno 3 museum, a re-purposed iron and steel industrial site in Parque Fundidora, with a good restaurant to boot. The football (soccer) stadium is also an interesting city detour.
But not only the city centre impresses us. Just 20 km outside town is the Huasteca area, with some of the most striking mountain scenery in the whole of Mexico. We took a 4×4 trail down a narrow gorge and found one of the best wild camp sites we have had in a loooong time. A flat area, high enough above the riverbed to be safe from the remote chance of flash-flooding. To have your home all your creature comforts in a spectacular place like this, is one of the reasons we love this lifestyle so much.
Just as we settled into our camp, we heard the unmistakable sound of a vehicle-in-distress: a loud scraping/graunching noise and lots of gravelly wheel-spinning. We wandered down the riverbed for a shufty: a young couple in a smart new Jeep were pondering their ability to go nowhere. It didn’t surprise us to find someone stuck in riverbed soft gravel. But it did surprise us to see what they had driven over to reach the fatal spot. They had negotiated large, no… huge boulders. How they had not totally destroyed the underside of the Jeep we’ll never know, but we accepted the challenge to help them extract themselves from the mess.
Cuthbert and his winch came to the rescue, but that alone would not get the Jeep back on track – at least not without major structural damage from the aforementioned boulders. Initially we winched some of the biggest boulders aside. Then we winched some of the smaller boulders into place to build-up the ground in front of other larger boulders. Finally, we could align our metal sand-ladders over the rocks, forming ramps over which the Jeep could be winched. Almost two hours of graft later, the grateful Mexican courting couple rattled away into the darkness in their shaken-up, but still working, Jeep. Our good deed done for the day 😊
Cuatrocienagas
I can’t quite remember where or when I first heard of this place, but it has sort-of been in the back of my mind to drop by if we happened to find ourselves up in north east Mexico. That time has come. I have seen it described as “a desert habitat of extraordinary biological diversity… home to over 70 endemic species”. There are even some estromatolitos there. Wow. Who knew? In fact, who even knows what an estro-whatever is???
Well… we swam in a beautiful river with tons of freshwater fish and the strangest looking turtles. A fabulous experience!! Initially the turtles were shy and swam away from us in the water, so we took underwater Go-Pro footage from the waterside. Of course, once the batteries of the GoPro died out, the turtles came and swam around us as we were in the water, but we got no photos of that! We never, as far as we are aware, saw one of those estro-thingies, and didn’t see anyone who can tell us what it is. I guess we could Google it sometime, if we ever feel so inclined. See our Instagram account for some video of the turtles.
In the same vicinity of the turtle-waters are some bright while gypsum dunes; a disused marble mine with huge slabs and cubes of extracted marble that never quite made it to market; and yet another colonial village. This one, however, distinguishes itself with a lovely classy restaurant famous with well-heeled Mexicans across the region. I can personally attest to the quality of El 40’s delicious mango margaritas 😊
Hello, Goodbye – The Beatles with Friends
So, all that was left of norht-east Mexico was the final 370km run to our border crossing at Ciudad Acuña. We picked this particular crossing because: a) it’s close to our target destination in Texas – Big Bend; and b) we could visit our lovely Mexican friends Santiago and Nina who we met in their campervan a few months ago in Copper Canyon.
Santi and Nina live just 2km from the border and kindly hosted us for a very special last night in Mexico – including a visit to a wonderfully bizarre Beatles themed café/museum! If there’s any place in the world you least expect to find a Beatles tribute venue, it is in an out-of-the-way Mexican border town, but we loved the eccentricity of it all! And there is no better way to end our year in this amazing country than with great Mexican friends in a fun place.
The diversity, the culture, the towns, the history, the food, but most of all… the outrageously warm welcome that we received here has put Mexico up there as one of our all-time favourite countries in the world. Be in no doubt Mexico… we’ll be back!! 😊
