Day 3-drive through the mountains

We drove another 7 hours south from Agua Prieta to Hermosillo.  The church had packed us a lunch for the road (bean or beef burritos).  After 4 different credit cards failed to pay for fueling the van, one of our Mexican partners took care of the charge...call to the bank needed.  The highway was mostly two lanes and took us through some beautiful mountain country.  The road was narrow and winding, but we were in good hands with Jay driving.  Some crazy drivers were passing on blind curves and there was a lot of truck traffic.

Headed into the mountains toward Hermosillo from Agua Prieta

Looking back toward Agua Prieta

Typical stretch of road, except you don't see a crazy driver trying to pass us...

Coming out of the mountains on the west side, not far from Magdalena

We were stopped at a check point by the federal police who were looking for illegal arms shipments and drugs.  They were polite and let us pass without difficulty.  We had another stop for customs.  All the passenger cars drove off the road onto the dirt and bypassed the truck traffic being inspected.  They made us open the trailer, but didn't delay us much.  Fortunately we had the correct license paperwork for the van thanks to the long initial wait at the border.

I would have liked more pictures of the security stops, but others in the van didn't think it was a good idea to be openly snapping photos.  They were probably right.

We made a pit stop at The equivalent of Quick Stop (called OXXO).  It had the cleanest bathroom we've seen since leaving Wichita.  Our second stop saw our first pay toilet, 5 pesos (approx 50 cents).  Unfortunately we had left the informal "dollar zone" and had not gotten any pesos yet, so our Mexican partners helped out again.  An effort to access the ATM (cajera) was unsuccessful (broken).  This made it kind of hard to pay the toll on the toll road > thanks again partners who saved the day!

The OXXO (pronounced Ox-O) stores were everywhere!  On every street corner.