Day Three: San Antonio to Laredo

Approximately 160 miles

An interesting fact about bikers: Some of us like to brag about the states we’ve visited. Thus, weeks before we left on this trip, we debated the possibility of at least riding into Mexico since we were so close.

We went back and forth on the subject. Some of the guys were gung-ho; others saw crossing the border as a dangerous proposition.

But on Sunday, we left San Antonio and headed south for Laredo and its sister city across the international bridge, Nuevo Laredo.

We lost Gary Hall early that morning. He decided to try to ride the 900-or-so miles back to St. Joseph and attend an honors banquet for the Benton girls basketball team. Gary’s daughter, Delissa, played for the Cardinals’ undefeated, state-championship team.

Gary mounted up and rode out by 7 a.m.; we eventually heard that he guided his BMW into his driveway around 9 p.m. that night.

The rest of us mounted up and stopped for breakfast at a little Mexican café on south edge San Antonio. The food was great, cheap and filling. After getting our fill of Huevos Rancheros, we headed south on I-35 for the short run to Laredo. It was fairly uneventful trip except for a pickup that tried to run Eric off the road.

We stopped for gas about 40 miles north of Laredo at a truck stop that was crawling with U.S. Border Patrol agents. Denny stopped an agent named Sgt. Garza and asked what sort of documentation we needed to enter – and exit – Mexico.

Sgt. Garza frowned when Denny said we wanted to ride into Mexico. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked. But then he grinned and said, “All you need is a picture ID. Go ahead and ride across, stay near the plaza and have a good time. Don’t get drunk and don’t wander too far outside of town. The cartels are having a war.”

We finished our ride into Laredo and found a cheap motel room where we stripped our bikes down. We took off saddlebags, sissy bar bags and windshields – anything that could be removed – and stashed the stuff in the motel room.

Then we mounted up and rode across the bridge into Nuevo Laredo.

There’s little doubt when you cross into a Mexican border town that you’re entering a third-world country. The Nuevo Laredo streets are really narrow and most of them were one-way. A few neighborhoods had nice yards and well-maintained houses; some areas were unbelievably poor. Broken glass seemed to be everywhere.

We stopped at a patio restaurant, grabbed a table where we could keep an eye on our bikes and enjoyed a couple of Coronas. The locals who walked or drove past stared at our bikes – then saw the five gringos drinking a beer and quickly moved on.

We toured the town for a bit then decided to find the bridge back to the U.S. As we neared the bridge, we rode past a nice park that had an outdoor soccer stadium with a couple of girls’ youth teams playing. While Denny, Travis, Eric and Dave walked through the park and watched the soccer match, I stayed in the parking lot and watched the bikes. I needn’t have worried.

Several passersby stopped to admire our motorcycles. A man named Tony and his young son, Gaul, stopped to chat for a few minutes. Gaul was fascinated by my motorcycle, so I lifted him onto the seat while Tony took his picture. Soon other parents stopped wanted to photograph their children with the motorcycle and the rough-looking gringo guarding it.

Meanwhile inside the park, the guys were watched a ripping good soccer match and a guy smoking marijuana right out in the open. As the girls scrambled from one end of the field to the other, the guy passed the joint around to his buddies. The match ended with the girls in blue uniforms winning; I doubt the guy with the joint noticed.

We headed back across the International Bridge into Laredo. I wondered how much trouble it would be getting back into the U.S., but riding a motorcycle must count for something. The Mexican guards told us to ride to the front of a mile-long line and the U.S. border guards waved us through with hardly a word. For all the discussion and worry, getting out and back into the U.S. was fairly easy.

That night, we ate dinner in a nice little Mexican café and drank a few beers at a nearby bar before heading back the motel.