San Antonio to El Paso to Arizona

The road from San Antonio was long, and had few stops of interest. It was however along I-10 on this stretch when the speed limit reached the highest yet on this trip, at 80mph (130kph). I killed so many bugs and butterflies with that windshield that it ceased being funny. I concluded the speed limit must be a Texas pest control policy.

On arrival in El Paso I could hardly wait to get across the border into Juarez. It was a hot day and there really was nothing for it but to have another beer in Mexico. At a cantina just off Juarez Ave, about a mile from the international bridge we came in on, we met a waiter who spoke perfect english with an accent from north of the border. His name was Caesar. On account of his accent I asked him where he grew up, and he hesitated a moment before saying "well, I don't have to lie about it anymore because I'm over here now." He told us that he was born in Mexico and when he was two his parents took him to the United States. They bought false I.D. papers, birth certificates etc. Caesar got all the way through school and at 17 he joined the US Navy with the hope of eventually going to college. He served in the 1st Gulf War. In 2002 he left the military and signed up for college. In 2005 he had only one year left before he gained his degree and he applied for a student loan. They caught him out with his false birth certificate and he was deported to Mexico after serving a six month jail term, which is how he came to be waiting tables in Juarez.

The following day in the morning we went to a few stores on the US side of the border, before crossing into Mexico again. This time we went to a resturant first and enjoyed some awesome dirt-cheap Mexican food. After that we went on a bit of a south-of-the-border pub crawl visitng cantina of all variety. I tried four new beers that day - Indio, Carta Blanca, Dos Equis and Bohemia.

One of the bars we went to was about the worst bar I've ever been to I think. It was one of those basement bars, you know when you have to walk down the steps from street level. This may be fine in an ordinary modern western city, but Juarez smells like crap at the best of times, and it gets even worse underground. To imagine the restroom at this bar is easy. Picture the dirtiest public restroom you've ever been into, then add an offensive smell of overflowing city sewers, then smash the toilet bowls and take away the running water.

The next bar we went to was completely different, i mean it must have been a cantina fit for a king in Juarez. And at US$2 a beer, you'd expect nothing less. It was so classy in fact that we met a guy visiting from El Paso for the day who is running for the US congress in the 16th congressional district of Texas. His name was Leeland White and he was a very interesting guy. Probably a bit of a radical, from what I learnt from talking to him, and possibly a serial cantitate who has very little chance of winning the seat, but a very interesting guy all the same. Juarez is a really cool city and it is really bizzare to make the quick transition across worlds simply by walking across a bridge over the Rio Grande, and paying 35 cents to the authorities as you do that.

From El Paso we had another long drive up to Holbrook Arizona, crossing the state of New Mexico on the way. In New Mexico, about 50 miles west of Socorro, we visited the 'Very Large Array', the largest radio astronomy observatory in the world, consising of 27 radio telescopes (which loook like satellite dishes) each roughly the size of a baseball triangle. It is best known from its appearence in the 1997 movie 'Contact' and I tried to find it last time I was in New Mexico but never quite got there. It was an impressive site and amazing to think of all the money being spent on such far out scientific research. However, no matter what the movie portrayed in real life the observatory is much less about reaching out to aliens than Jodie Foster might have led you to beleive.

In the afternoon we visited the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, an environment completely unique from anything I have ever seen before. Trees and wood from millions of years ago which has become solid rock while and even grown semi-precious jewells.

Then finally, we arrived in Holbrook Arizona where we stayed in the Wigwam Motel, a relic from the 1950s on the old Route 66.