After San Antonio everything comes to an abrupt end for a 150 mile cruise across the baking chaparral to Laredo.
I got into Laredo in the early afternoon. Good I thought, since I would be able to deliver my load a day early and then have n advantageous spot on the board and get out of the hellish oven that is south Texas. In all fairness the weather this time around (while above 100) was not so bad since there was a firm and constant breeze and the humidity was quite low.
As it turns out there was a hang up with my paperwork, the shipper had neglected to include on the bills the name of the forwarder (the facility in Laredo at which I would leave the trailer for a Mexican carrier to pick up.) I would not be able to deliver until the morning.
It was comfortable enough outside that as the sun began to get low in the sky I figured I’d head out for a bike ride. Initially I headed south unsure what I wanted to see. Maybe just to the mall or into downtown Laredo to see what it looks like where they don’t allow trucks, but peering down a long strait avenue I could see an enormous Mexican flag billowing in the soft blue breeze and I new where I was headed. Downtown Laredo is certainly a different world than the Rubik’s cube of trucks and warehouses that make up the north end. Mostly commercial boulevards, not unlike those in San Antonio or Phoenix or LA terminate near the river having become quiet streets of medium height Spanish buildings, stucco and heavy shady trees, open squares and pleasant spaces.
There are two border crossings in downtown Laredo, one for trucks and cars and the other primarily for pedestrians.
I found the latter and paid the fifty cents toll, walked my bike up and over the bridge, over the Rio Grande, a great green ditch in this semi desert and into another country. I’m not sure I was prepared for how different it would be. First of all, although I was allowed freely to enter Mexico without so much as a check of my documents, there were heavily armed guards everywhere. AK-47s cradled in arms shock me, an unreal object, as intense as if the soldiers held corpses.
Once past this however, the scene becomes classic Mexican. The world is more colorful. Horses pull rickety but brightly painted carts. City buses are old school buses painted solid and scrawled with soap in the windshield “#4 Walmart.” 
Open squares with great shade trees, farmacias selling prescription drugs at 80% discount. Everywhere fruit and juices and ice to stave off the heat that persists from March to November. And people. People everywhere, walking. After about an hour of wandering around in wide eyed amazement I headed back toward the border. Urchins tried to sell me cheap leather or beaded jewelry. Their technique, in lieu of a facility with English (apart from “meester, you like”) was to follow me for a few blocks.
Crossing the border back was not bad, though certainly not like coming into Mexico. I never seem to be able to communicate on the level with customs and immigration. I’m never sure what they are saying or implying, and they always seem to think that I, bicycle in hand just walking out of Mexico, am up to something.
I biked back to the terminal stopping for some Gatorade and then some carne guisada which was tasty.
The next day I finally delivered my load (the shipper had returned the faxed bills with the words “EXIT LAREDO” on them, if that’s all it takes…) Then I waited some more.
I waited most of the afternoon before Laredo gave up. Not a lot of freight headed out of Mexico, not enough, at least, to keep up with the freight coming in and so I, and a lot of other waiting drivers, were deadheaded to Dallas, 400+ miles north.
I drove it all that night, getting in by midnight. It felt like nothing.
The air was cooler but much more humid and much less pleasant.
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