Our original idea after Port Aransas was to head off west to the Rio Grande and run up alongside the Mexican border. However, after making a few friends here on the island (upset a few people too, but that's my fault -- tend to get too curious about local mores, especially when it came to the gun subject), we've had cause to think again. Most people, when we told them our plans, had a tendency to shake their heads. Seems that the drugs cartels have gotten a bit out of control just lately and when they're not shooting the crap out of each other they're being hunted down by the Mexican Federales. The local Americans tend to get caught in the crossfire, especially if they get all gung-ho with their own weapons. Linda's Kickapoo-descended friend, Lionel, said to her succinctly, "I wouldn't go there and I'm an ex-marine!". One guy posited that, once the locals got wind of our accents they'd think us fair game, even to the point of kidnapping. Ah, well, maybe not, then. Safer to holiday in Somalia.
Ironically, a couple of the guys admitted they still made the trip to get cut-price dentistry (the health service here is astronomically costly and slow -- I'll never complain about the NHS again). I checked the Tripadvisor site who had this travel warning. We thought, "How bad can it be?" Hell, we'd been lost on the Ecuadorian/Colombian border and survived! After a lot more midnight reading on my tablet we settled on a direct drive to Laredo on the condition that we wouldn't be tempted to a day trip to the Mexican version, Nuevo Laredo, for some quick fillings. It is also the furthest end of the dodgy Tamaulipas region in the US Government's warning message.
Apart from an extremely loud thunder shower in the morning and Linda losing all the money and passports at breakfast, the trip was uneventful (someone kindly handed her funky Thai-crafted purse over to the hotel owners -- good job they're all honest here). It cost around twenty quid to fill the car up and the Sat-Nag got us to the Marriott Courtyard by 1 in the afternoon. We paid a $2-an-hour parking fee just outside the border controls and mooched around downtown for the rest of the afternoon. The best way of describing downtown Laredo is as an extended Shirley High Street in Southampton. Just substitute Mexican immigrants for the Polish and Payless clothes shops and counterfeit perfumeries for English Poundstretchers and Oxfam shops. With that overlay, this place isn't really that strange. The border is right on the river on the south side of the city with a big sign saying "Penalty for importing drugs -- Prison!" (talking to our chum back in the Tarpon Ice House we get the picture that Mexican methamphetamine is a big problem for the Texians).
Most of the hotels and restaurants are on a strip north of downtown. We picked a small family kitchen for our obligatory Mexican dinner just a five minute walk from the Marriott. Cheap and very good. An after-dinner cocktail in the hotel bar and it's an early night. Texas hill country next. After that depends on whether we can meet up with Gary & Sarah in Galveston later in the week.
