But how will you get here.

Well meaning folks on the rough path to nowhere

It's hard to imagine, I'm sure, how hard it is to get to this place. What do you mean there's no ADDRESS?? You can't get deliveries? 

No. Although I had a small (false) victory last month with some Vitamins and a bath mat from Amazon.MX that got delivered to a DHL locker in the name of a guy who drives for the bank if I give him a 6 digit code, wait 3 weeks and pay 200MXN ($13usd) he will bring it to this pueblo. 

I had another vitamin delivery that was returned/lost/refunded after a month. Just disappeared. Here's your $30 back from iHerb. So I don't really have a way to get stuff. Someone else has offered their house in Hermosillo and then I can send the courier over there and then and then and then. 

I mostly figure  that I don't need anything that badly. I mean it's been three years already. 

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We had the spay clinic Feb 17, and I got some puppies out of a concrete hole in an abandoned lot (Calico the abandoned young dog pregnant and then starving while nursing) and I got them all spayed and someone wants the tiniest puppy…people fall in love on Instagram and after a week of trying to get this puppy to a border crossing that this well meaning but not Mexico savvy adopter wants to have as a pick up? 

I've gotta pull the plug. 

There are so many moving parts to an international adoption, everyone has to be on their toes. She was going to fly, then drive, then take a day off of work (ONE?) and drive to Sonora from Denver. And her phone doesn't work for Mexican phone numbers so she's having a hard time finding a vet in Nogales and and and. 

Like the online shopping…it's not going to work. 

If you can't add the Mexico plan to your mobile phone for $5 in 2024 you surely don't have any business driving in dangerous border towns. And what if I do drop the dog in Nogales 4 hours away with some transit company? Are they going to wait for you to get lost or delayed? And then I'm scrambling to get to Nogales to find this poor puppy? No and no. It all looks easy on a Google map's drive app. It's only 13 hours! Yea, if you're a crow.

As someone who drove cross country (this one and US) 5 times in the last 3 years I can assure you, it is NOT 13 hours, "easy to get to" or something you can do in a day off of work. I'm sorry, but you can pick up from a vet or a friend in Hermosillo or the dog stays here. No one in town wants to drive to Puerto Penasco, the gringo town 3 hours away on the AZ border because the 3 hour stretch is Tierra Caliente…a cartel hot spot. And as much as I'd love to get this dog and so many others into the good home of a big hearted adopter, it's just a logistics nightmare. 

*Also if I had a way to get out of here I would have. Yes, I care about the dogs and have now sunk into my unplanned Mission from Dog but if I had not totaled my van? had a plated vehicle? A bus that accepted pets? A friend with a car that had a windshield? A boat even! We would have taken our leave long ago. 

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I'm in a constant state of disappointing people and it's actually a good exercise for me because although I have a tough exterior (some think) I'm just an old turtle who occasionally gets flipped upside down. Soft on the inside! I have a history of people pleasing everyone but me. Well into my late 50s, I'm learning that I can be led by my heart and still have boundaries. It's a daily lesson. I'm not great at it.

It's hard to turn down adopters, locals who want to know if I can save their dead pregnant dogs puppies after she's been poisoned, and turning away web design clients who say things like "let's see what you can do for $650" to run their digital marketing campaign and folks who want to visit the shelter from wherever it is that they live to come "help". I always say this isn't the Margarita and Fish Tacos side of Mexico (alas) and it is the kind of place that will change you. And a week isn't enough for the shock and horror to burn off. Is that a dead body? Why is there no coffee here? Can't we eat lunch somewhere? There's no Uber?

It's just easier to go it alone and disappoint myself. And as I'm out of disappointment cards, I'm fine. In the last couple weeks I've found someone who can wash my clothes and bring me things that are too heavy to carry alone. I got to go food from a Sushi place that puts shrimp and bacon with chicken in their hand rolls but it was good, despite the weirdness. 

Huge milestones. Catching the sorta unreliable vet when he's in town to vaccinate found puppies which used to number 7 but dwindling from poison, getting run over by speeding cars, and MIA death from starving before I found them, I have 2. Another milestone. 

And I don't have to convince anyone but me, that it's actually not so bad. Well, it is, but I'm used to it. 

For more info on the dogs and the rescue or to donate to the street dog feed or spay clinics linktr.ee/lolasdogrescue or on Instagram or FB at LolasDogRescue

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