GETTING FROM TEXAS TO CUATRO CIÉNEGAS

Having researched other options, including contracting a bus to get meeting participants from Austin or San Antonio to Cuatro Ciénegas, it was decided that much easier (and at least as cost effective) for all involved would be to encourage meeting participants to organize car pools. Realizing it's a long drive for most to Cuatro Ciénegas, we provide information on rental vehicles available at the two closest major airports in Texas, Austin and San Antonio. The combination of flying and renting vehicles is not only easy, but compared to all other mass-transport options available for this meeting allows everyone much greater flexibility in scheduling of flights, and flexibility to explore the local area that would otherwise be very difficult for the local committee to provide. The sites most people will want to see are accessible only in private vehicles, and if we went with a bus, the only way anyone would see them would be as part of the after-meeting field trips. With your own vehicles, you could easily explore much of the basin on your own schedules.

We hope that some will be able, and generous enough, to rent larger vehicles and offer to carry others to the meeting. The DFC Bulletin Board provides a convenient place to post messages aimed at organizing or finding a car pool, and emails to DFC-L could help publicize availability of car-pooling offers (please don't clog everyone's mailboxes with requests for rides - restrict those to the bulletin board).

VEHICLES & HOW TO IMPORT THEM INTO MEXICO

Businesses that rent vehicles to go to Mexico are very limited and taking a rented or privately owned vehicle to Mexico entails a bit more preparation than does a domestic trip. You will need to obtain Mexican insurance and, for a rental or bank-owned vehicle, you will need a notarized letter from the rental company or loan holder giving you permission to take the vehicle into Mexico. Be sure the rental contract and permission letter carry the same name and that it matches the name on the identification (passport or original birth certificate) that the vehicle importer will use to get a visa. You will also need a major credit card in the same name - it is the only way to pay the vehicle importation fee (about $26) without posting a significant bond that you would have to pick up at the same place when you leave the country. Borrowed vehicles can simply not be taken to Mexico unless borrowed from your spouse who provides a notarized letter of authorization and you have your original marriage license with you. General information about importing vehicles to Mexico can be found here (and here). Everyone planning to drive to the meeting should read and follow these instructions. Note also that it may be possible to obtain your vehicle importation permit before you get to the border through a Mexican Consulate (click on "Servicios Consulares" then "Localiza tu consulado en el mapa") that offers that service (there's one in Austin, for example).

The two companies that we know that rent vehicles to go to Mexico are:

We have experience only with Longhorn, and thus can recommend them. They send many vehicles to Mexico and know the process well. We have not rented from Advantage in San Antonio, but they inform us that they too regularly send vehicles to Mexico and are familiar with the required paperwork (per Alex at the 210 number).

Austin is about 90 minutes N of San Antonio on Interstate 35 and to get to Cuatro Ciénegas from Austin entails passing through San Antonio, but Longhorn seems to offer better deals and more appropriate vehicle selection than does Advantage in San Antonio. Though a passenger car will get you to most places in the Cuatro Ciénegas valley, we recommend higher clearance vehicles. Longhorn's 15 passenger vans are a great option if you have them take out the back seat for luggage (lowering passenger capacity to 12), but they also rent Suburbans, pickups and a variety of other appropriate vehicles.  The 15-passenger vans are $350/week with 1000 miles included, which is enough for a round trip to Cuatro Ciénegas. Mexico insurance is about $15-17/day. Longhorn refers their customers to the Bastrop, TX office (tel. 512 321-1132) of Sanborn's for insurance, and that system works very smoothly, though one could use other agents. Advantage does not have 15 passenger vans, but does have 8 passenger vehicles, including Dodge Durangos, for $64-$84/day + $26 daily insurance surcharge for Mexico, with 150 miles/day included. If you are driving your personal vehicle, an convenient way to get insurance before leaving is to call an agent with your vehicle identification details (model, year, VIN, plates, drivers license, etc.), pay by credit card, and have them FAX the policy. We know that at least the Sanborn's (main U.S. office phone 1-800-0158) office in McAllen, TX  (tel. 956 682 6677) provides such service. And we are told that http://www.mexpro.com is also good.

Wherever you rent, be sure to start negotiations by telling the company that you will be taking the vehicle to Mexico and then be sure to again contact them (and insurance company in the case of Longhorn at least) 3-4 days prior to pickup of the vehicle to provide the details they'll need for the Mexico insurance and vehicle importation paperwork.

DRIVING FROM AUSTIN OR SAN ANTONIO TO CUATRO CIÉNEGAS

We'll put more details here later, but the drive from Austin to Cuatro Ciénegas is about 8 hours, not counting the variable (30 minutes to 2-3 hours if you're really unlucky) amount of time you will have to spend to get your visa and vehicle importation permit.

From Austin - head south on I-35 (which passes alongside downtown). Unless traffic is heavy as you come into San Antonio (in which case you might consider loop 410 E which skirts most of the city and connects back to I-35 S of it) stay on I-35 all the way through the center of the city, always following signs for Laredo. About 30 minutes S of San Antonio, exit I-35 on highway 57 to Eagle Pass or Piedras Negras. It's a long, straight road through Batesville and La Pryor to the sweeping left curve that heads you into Piedras Negras. At the first light, turn right. A few lights down the HEB is usually the cheapest place to buy gas and folks can get groceries, pharmacy items, etc. there. Continue from there through the curve to the left in front of the fast food places, following signs to the border. Turn left at the light right after the railroad bridge to cross via bridge 2 (sign says for trucks, but cars can use it too) and skirt downtown Piedras Negras saving time and probable confusion. The bridge entrance is pretty well signed, but you have to make a few unusual little twists and turns. Pay the bridge toll, pick the green "Nada que declarar" lanes (if in fact you have nothing to declare to Customs as is most likely the case), then continue straight on the main road. Follow signs to Sabinas, Monclova and/or Saltillo anywhere you're given a choice. You'll pass a new gas station a little ways down this road and want to bear left at the light just past it. Take that road under the tracks and some way to a light at which you want to turn right. At the next light, with large Pemex stations on the left, turn left and you're on the main road out of town. Outside of town a ways you'll pass the coal-fired power plants and continue past Allende to the Aduana (Customs) stop at km 53. You will have to stop there and go in to get your visa (immediately to the right inside the door) and then vehicle permit (at the windows on the left side). Leaving the Aduana, pull over for inspection if you get a red light, but then immediately past there, take the left fork marked "cuota" (toll road - 67 pesos when last checked). The right fork is free and will get you to the same place, but the toll is worth it for the safer and quicker route it provides. The toll road ends with signs to Sabinas and Nueva Rosita. Stay in the left lane to go to Sabinas, but be careful of the unusual and abrupt 270 degree turn to the right get you headed that way. Continue straight through the suburbs of Sabinas (watch out for the speed bumps and cops) and then right immediately past the Hotel Hacienda Real (on the right just past the PEMEX station with clean bathrooms and munchies) toward Monclova. Long, good highway to Monclova past Menonite farms on left and through Hermanas. Just as you are starting to enter Monclova travelling through scattered mostly industrial and agricultural buildings, watch for an unusual, tall blue-green obelisk-like statue on your right at the fork where you want to go right toward Saltillo and Cuatro Ciénegas. If you miss that turn (not hard to do), you'll immediately know you did if you see a gas station and convenience store on your left and suddenly find yourself in what is clearly Monclova (i.e. more densely developed city). After getting on the turn toward Saltillo, you'll cross railroad tracks and a few km down curve to the left to approach a large industrial building on the left and a freeway-like interchange. Turn right before going under the overpass. This will take you past the Monclova airport on your left as you head toward San Buenaventura. Entering San Buena, the next town, turn left just past the new Oxxo convenience store on the right to continue though the outskirts of town past the lion statue. Continue straight out of town toward Cuatro Ciénegas (signs in this area will now say San Pedro, Torreón, etc.). Very shortly you'll pass through the small towns of Nadadores, and later Sacramento, but always continue on the main road to the next town which is Cuatro Ciénegas. Slow through the canyon where the road is narrow and curvy - you don't want to go off the road and ignite all the Arundo in the bottom along the Río Salado de los Nadadores. Do not turn left toward Torreón as you come into town, but continue straight to the obvious plaza (just past the all-important ice-cream store on your left with the elephant trash can). If headed directly to meeting registration at the Casa de Cultura, continue straight 3 blocks past the stop sign on the far side of the plaza. At the third street from the plaza turn left and the Casa de Cultura is the pink building on the far right side of the next intersection. Do not turn right here to go the wrong way on the new one-way system, but instead park along the building and walk around to the main entrance on the one way street you just crossed.

Suerte!

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(Dean Hendrickson)				General information:   (E. Phil Pister)

This page last modified:  08 April 2005