Old Timer Garage

The following morning, I wake up early. The jetlag going west is always better to me than the other way.

As planned, I have a quick breakfast and go with my brother and his girlfriend to the border so that I can keep his car all day. It is only about 10 minutes from his house but I am going to have to remember the route at the same time as I get familiar with the American road signs that I don’t know yet.

 

The fact that the road is pretty much a straight line all the way and the car has an automatic transmission helps greatly, I can focus on the road and just a short half hour later I am back at the house to prepare breakfast for the girls who are just waking up.

The plan for today is simple, we are going to stay relatively quiet and rest in preparation for what is coming in the next few days. We just need to go to the bank to withdraw some cash, make some shopping and go discover the area around us.

Once the breakfast is cleared, the three of us get in the car and towards the border again where the bank is located. I stay in the car not to pay parking while the girls go get some cash. I know leaving my card to two girl on holiday is probably not the wisest thing to do but they didn’t want to drive so I didn’t have any other option.

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After this, we go to the close by Walmart. Nothing special of course but we have to eat so it will be a quick walk through the aisles to compare prices with what we are used to in Europe and we head back home for a quick lunch.

Before he left for work, my brother advised that we go have a look at Pena Blanca lake (around half an hour by car from the house) so that’s what we plan to do this afternoon.

This is for me the first real encounter with the American desert: rocks, cactus, the road… and nothing else! It is absolutely gorgeous and the three of us are looking everywhere. The road is winding around the few hills that give some relief to the desert and in just a few minutes we arrive next to the lake.

We park the car in the shadow of a tree and we go walking.

The sights around the lake make me think of the scenery in some of the Indiana Jones movies. We take the path that goes around the lake surrounded by dry grass and grasshopers. There is absolutely nobody around.

In the whole time we stayed next to the lake, we have crossed path with only one family of tourists that like us were walking around the lake and that is it. Not a noise around apart from the grasshopers. A real joy to get out of the city for a change. The sun hits hard and we are glad to be back at the car with the air conditioning cooling us off.

We get back home as fast as we had gotten to the lake and we take advantage of the car to quickly drive around the house. There are huge houses perched at the top of every hill around. The view is superb and I am wondering how people make their living in this area to afford this kind of villas. The houses in the hill-side neighbourhoods where my brother lives are more like bomb shelters than houses. The houses are cubic, the walls are painted colour sand and the roofs are flat. Not necessarily ugly, I like it but it is a different style for sure.

Here we are back home, just the time for me to empty the memory cards of my cameras and get them ready for what awaits us tomorrow and it is already time to leave to go and get my brother and his girlfriend at the border.

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After that, we will end the day calmly in a Mexican fast-food to eat a few tacos, quesadillas and soda. We were the only non-Mexicans in the whole restaurant and some looks let us know we are net being unnoticed.

Tomorrow is Saturday. The first day of weekend for my brother and the plan is to visit the city of Tombstone at about an hour drive from Nogales. It is a far-west town that has been preserved in its "picturesque" state.

The jet lag reminds us that it is time to go to sleep so the day will end there for us.

That's all for this episode. I promise you more pictures for the next one. We build up the pressure one step at a time :)
In the next post, we will go back in time to see the cowboys.

To be continued… here: 3- Tombsone and Tucson

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