Had we known better, we'd have brought a good book ...

Here we would like to share with you the tips we learn living here, that would make life easier, were you all to live here too. This weeks tip is that half the population of Mexico tries to enter the US on Sunday nights, and that arriving at the border one hour before it closes, while usually plenty of time, on Sunday nights is such insufficient time as to be comic.

The border crossing at Santa Teresa closes at 10 pm. Every other time we have arrived there, the crossing has taken, at most, ten minutes. Which is great - Santa Teresa is kind of out in the middle of nowhere; there's nothing else to do there but cross the border.

We arrived at Santa Teresa last Sunday night on our way to Las Cruces. We've driven to the US before in the afternoon, and arrived at Santa Teresa at 8 or 8:30 and had no problems. This time, however, we arrived at about 8:45 and found a line waiting to cross literally a mile long. Had we known then what we know now, had our wisdom at that point been greater than it was, we would have just turned around when we arrived and started the hour-long trip into Juarez. But, lacking wisdom, we decided to stick it out. The line could move fairly fast, after all. And it was peaceful and quiet; there were a few people walking up and down the line selling paintings and refreshments, but all in all things were quite tranquil, and the kids were soon asleep.

An hour later, when the border closed amidst flashing lights and much fanfare a quarter mile ahead of us, we started the hour-long drive into Juarez. Once we arrived in downtown Juarez, we started the hour-and-a-half wait in traffic there waiting to cross the border. This was much more entertaining than Santa Teresa, as we now could watch the police with machine guns shaking down the troublemakers outside the clubs, and other such jewels as a city such as Juarez has to offer at midnight. We finally arrived at Las Cruces at 1:30 am.