Back on land

Today I left MS Zaandam and I am continuing my journey south.  I have been in Mexico for about 8 hours now.  So far so good :-)

The cruise was,  interesting.  It seems that a cruise with 10 days at sea and five days visitng various ports is most attractive to the geriatric crowd.  Now I know that I am old, but I felt pretty young on that cruise.  Actually it was a combination of young and old, as the crew was very young, so they would have seen me as yet another old guy, but the passengers were probably averaging somewhere between 70 and 80, which to me at 60 is pretty damn old.  Depressing, as this is what I have to look forward to.  I have always had some kind of wheels, but walkers and wheelchairs are not what I daydream about.

Anyroad the food was good, the crew was great, and my family was able to get through the 15 days without killing each other, so all was good.  Hawaii was fun, I posted a few pics on my Picasa site, https://photos.app.goo.gl/nMRPhmLbbKYYPvXV7

The boat unloaded this morning (Feb. 5) and I went straight to the bike and headed for the border. 

It is right there that a person realizes they are not in Kansas anymore.  The border guards are teens dressed in camo with huge machine guns hanging around their neck.  They have me open the bags on the bike take a look, and send me on my way, and all of sudden I am in Tijuana.  Now I know that I have to get all these papers and permits to travel in Mexico, but the kid with the cannon does not speak English and waves me on.  When a kid with a weapon bigger than he is waves you on, you go.

I circle around Tijuana for a while, thinking maybe this whole leaving the English speaking part of North America is not such a hot idea.   I encounter some cops overseeing the removal of a bunch of cars by a bunch of tow trucks.  One of them directs me to the right place to go and I get my papers in order.  This is also an interesting process, as a connoiseur of bureacracy, I have to say it was almost as good as getting a vehicle registration in Quebec, but more efficient.

More later.

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