If you don’t ever plan to drive across the border, you can probably skip this post. If you want to know what it’s like to do so, buckle up.
We woke up bright and early in Brawley, California, ready to take on our border crossing into Mexico. We had read tons of opinions about which town was the best for border crossing (Tecate, Mexicali, Tijuana), what day and time to cross to avoid traffic, and this is where we landed. Tecate, the oldest border town in Baja first settled in 1831, was our town of choice and we would be crossing on a Friday morning around 11am.
The best part about this day of the trip? We purposefully only planned for a total of 3 hours of driving, so it would be a short day.
The unsettling part? We had to drive across the border of Mexico for the first time ever and had no idea of what to expect.
Both of us couldn’t help but be filled with anxiety. Our mind’s raced through our mental checklists to see if there was anything we had forgotten. Passports? Copies of passports printed? Kennedy’s medical records? FMM paperwork printed? Directions in case Waze no longer worked printed? Common Spanish phrases printed? Best wineries to visit printed? We killed a few trees printing every item we could possibly need like we would never see the Internet again.
We put our minds at ease over another continental breakfast and coffee, repacked the car and hit the road south for the border.
“We have everything we need, right?”
We weren’t on the road long until we had our first “oh shit” realization and mental checklist fail. We did not have our most recent car registration copy, only an expired one. This was needed in case we were pulled over at any point in Mexico (US too, but just now realizing this). How many times did we see it sitting by the hallway shelf in our Denver apartment and say ‘put that in the car next time you go to the garage’ and not actually do it? A million.
Obstacle 1: We made a few phone calls to the Colorado DMV which told us the registration could not be emailed but a family member could pick it up in person for us. Aunt Stacy in Arvada to the rescue as she speeds off to the DMV (all while we’re getting closer and closer to the border).
Obstacle 2: For her to pick it up, the paperwork must be notarized. No bueno. We are two hours from the border, and no banks in sight for us to get this paperwork notarized. What now?
Kyle (of course) realizes, “there’s an app for that”. Notarize would allow us to instantly start a video call with a remote notary who could ask the necessary questions and get our DMV form electronically signed. Nothing like hopping on a video call while driving down the highway and having the notary kindly ask, “sir, I’m going to have to ask you to pull over and stop the car to complete this process.” Aunt Stacy for the win again, going back to the DMV a second time, and gets the registration e-mailed to us.
PHEW. Nothing like a last minute panic attack before crossing into a foreign country! It goes to show, no matter how much you prep, you can’t remember it all.
The rest of the drive was easy and smooth, almost too easy as we didn’t pass many cars and were winding through some rural backroads from Brawley, southwest towards Tecate. Before we knew it, we were following Waze for our next turn and BOOM… border crossing time! We thought we had another 15 minutes to prep for this, but there we were, staring at the “Welcome to Mexico” sign…
Crossing the Border at Tecate
After all the preparation, anticipation, anxiety and stress… the weirdest thing happened next. In ten seconds or less, we had driven right across the border into Mexico without being stopped or questioned.
Was this too good to be true? No line. No cars ahead. No one stopping us or directing us where to go. Heck, we did not even have to get out of the car. We just drove right through the crossing, looking at each other afterwards, like “Ummm… what just happened? Weren’t we supposed to get our passports stamped? Car searched? Dog paperwork approved?” Another great example of why you should not believe everything you read online.
We quickly realized we should probably stop and ask someone what the “right” next step is, before we get too deep into Mexico without the correct paperwork. We put the car in reverse and backed up to the first agent we could find.
Pointing to our passports, we ask her where we’re supposed to go to get our forms stamped. She immediately starts speaking fast in Spanish, but we get the gist that we need to park our car, walk back across the border into the U.S., get our forms verified, and then we can go on our way.
Great. So we’ve been in Mexico for 60 seconds and now we’ve got to find a street-side parking spot, leave our dog and our car (loaded to the brim with all of our belongings) + tailgate hitch storage rack and a car-top carrier and go back across the border… on foot?
Our hearts were racing. Things got real Mexico, real fast as we tried to find a parking spot. Locals standing around outside of their shops staring at us, tiny one-way streets, confusing signs, people selling things everywhere. Anxiety city.
Some friendly locals happened to see us two struggling gringos and pointed us in the right direction. We mazed around the side streets into the FFM office and immediately had the officers cracking jokes in Spanish together about us, as we stood waiting to be processed. Unfortunately (for now) our Spanish wasn’t quite quick enough to keep up, so we put on smiles and acted like we were not terrified (or being made fun of). A humbling experience.
The lead officer (the main one cracking the jokes we couldn’t understand) takes us back into his office and we hand him our FFM forms we had filled out online. Guess what? You also need the receipt that you received with your purchase. Receipt? Really? One of the very few documents we didn’t print and put in our master travel folder? The officer suggested we just go BACK across the border into Mexico (yes, again), visit a guy that runs a small office across the street, and ask him to print copies for us.
After tipping a very nice man for printing our receipts, our FFM forms were finally stamped and we were on the road again. Knowing what we know now, Tecate was generally a nice crossing experience and we were very thankful we did not have to face a long line of traffic and processing to cross.
A few tips we’d like to recap:
Buy your FFM forms online, print them AND your receipt because you need both to get your forms stamped.
Don’t just drive across the border. You park prior to crossing, go into the office and THEN go through the giant gate.
Plan your day and time around the crowd. Outside of a few setbacks, crossing into Mexico was a breeze for us. Your mileage may vary by day, time of day, and crossing location, but it was much easier than we anticipated.
After entering Mexico, we drove at a snails pace as we had been warned about the local federales in Tecate (and beyond, but Tecate for sure). They often pull foreigners over for no reason and threaten the driver to pay up to get out of their ticket. Thankfully, we did not have any run-ins. We immediately bickered out of nerves trying to find the right way to go, following signs to ‘Ensenada’. As we approached our first stop light in Tecate, we couldn’t help but cut the tension and laugh. At the red light, people wandered up to our car window selling varieties of food as street performers stood in front of stopped cars throwing flaming torches into the air. ¡Bienvenido a México!
NOW ENTERING: Mexico Wine Country
We quickly exited the city of Tecate and were back into the rolling hills of Mexico. This time we were headed for Valle de Guadalupe, or better known as “Mexico’s wine country”.
We started heading down the “Ruto Del Vino” (the wine route). Surely it was bound to get better than the welcome sign heading into it.
