Puerto Nuevo

Today after church we decided to make a trip down to Mexico. Being the food lover that I am I had heard of Puerto Nuevo's lobster meals that they are famous for. After talking to several people we were in a quandary as to whether to go or not. Some people are very apprehensive about driving into Mexico. Well, we being the adventurous people that we are decided to give it a whirl. Several things were eye-opening about the trip. First off you have to purchase Mexican driver's insurance (which runs about $20.00 per day). There is no check to drive into Mexico. They don't stop you and check ID or anything...it is just come on in. Now we were a little startled about the line of traffic to get back into the US though. It was backed up for miles and miles. We were hoping this might clear out by the time we came through.

It did not take us long to drive down to Puerto Nuevo (about 30 minutes south of the border). I had read on-line about a great restaurant called Puerto Nuevo II, so we headed straight there. It was a fantastic meal. We had fried lobsters, amazing tortillas (these are not your typical tortillas that you guys on the East Coast know about), rice, beans and a margarita for about $17.00. Allie's cheese quesadilla was pretty awesome too.

After lunch we walked around the little village for a little while and I found a mortar and pestle for $17.00 (this is a recurring figure). I actually bartered with her a little bit. We hit a part of the village where little kids were trying to sell us stuff and we decided it was time to go.

The drive home was a little more difficult than the drive over. Once we got back to Tijuana the road to get to the border was blocked off b/c of too much traffic so we had to go to the Otay crossing. Once we got there it took us 3 hours to get through. Lots of cars...lots of really poor people selling junk...lots of kids juggling for money. We even saw two guys blowing fire out of their mouths. To do this the had a stick on fire and they would put gas in their mouth and blow it towards the stick and a huge fire ball would ignite. I guess we were supposed to give them money for this show. It is no wonder so many people from Mexico are trying to get into the US.

We sure are lucky to live in the place that we do!