My View - Nuevo Laredo (Mexico) to Lincoln NE (USA) [Rob´s entry (#9)]
Nuevo Laredo (Mex)Our return to NL marked the end of this journey, more or less. Beyond this was a Greyhound trip back to Nebraska to spend a couple of months preparing for our next adventure- cycling the summer in Northern Europe. NL is an unremarkable boarder city, and was our gateway to the Spanish-speaking regions we entered about five months ago.
We boarded our Greyhound to cross the border, to change busses in Laredo Texas, but ran into a traffic jam very near the boarder control. In the distance we could see a second bridge that allowed foot traffic back and forth from the US and Mexico. I’ve had these traffic jams at the Tijuana crossing many times, but this one was different. We were not moving, but cars were. None of the busses moved, or when they did, it wasn’t very far. When it was all said and done, it took us FIVE hours to travel three kilometers. It seems that due to current policy (of which I have many views regarding, but will not burden this blog with them), buses are scanned with huge (i.e. SLOW) machines, for ‘security’ reasons. Knowing that, we could have easily walked around to the other bridge. Unfortunately, this wasn’t even close to the worst of the situation.
The lengthy delay at the boarder resulted in us missing our connecting bus (in Laredo TX), and all other connections. All in all, we were faced with a 40-hour DELAY on top of the routine transit time. Fortunately, some creative routing by one (of the few) helpful Greyhound staff (one that may have graduated high school) shaved about 20 hours off of the delay.
Lincoln, NE- at last.
This situation ultimately resulted in our arrival in Lincoln at about 4AM, many hours later (and on a daily schedule, early) and hours away from anything resembling bus service to my home/place to stay (which is a pathetic facsimile at best). Fortunately however, a moderately unpleasant but very kind lady who was dropping someone off gave us and another passenger a ride to the downtown (near where we were going) on her way home. One glimmer of luck in an otherwise disaster. Unfortunately our luck didn’t last however. Even though I traveled thousands of miles with house keys, these were of little use on the recently installed door lock, which occurred to no one that this might cause a problem. Repeated knocking, bell ringing, window scratching, and calling failed to produce entry. [I was expecting my mother (and her dog) and sister to be home, but I later found out that neither were present, and my sister about 60 miles away (it’s still cold and dark….).]
Checking in at a nearby police station to collect some possible clues as to the whereabouts of my family paid off. Unfortunately, we were still left with backpacks in the cold, and locked out. The police suggested the City Mission……..
It seemed a more logical solution to walk the extra couple of miles to where my mother was staying- at least the hospital would be warm.
The Bad News
Unfortunately, my mother was found to have Alzheimer’s Disease. My sister and I will try to share in providing her care. Naturally, our next planned trip- bicycle touring in Europe this summer is on hold.
The Next Trip
We hope to resume traveling later this year (more towards the end), as our BLOG will reflect. Our tentative hope is to travel for about eight months on the next trip, possibly beginning in India, and eventually finishing with our bike trip.
Thanks for reading, and more will come as it develops.
Rob
posted by Rob and Anna @ 9:35 AM
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