The Plan...As usual, on the last Thursday Hector and I were planning to visit El Huezo for our regular game of eight balls. Hector told me in the morning that Enrique is in Monterrey and is coming to meet us in the evening. I told Hector to invite Enrique to join us for the drinks. In the evening four of us started off from the office. The four of us including Mauricio...well...yes...I was successful to emotionally blackmail him and convince him to join us. As a rule we first went first to my house to drop-off the car. (The rule is - rather than paying the fine for drunken driving, it is better to pay for the taxi and the drinks...the incentive is you are allowed to drink one more "Dos Equis Amber"!) Enrique visited my house for the first time. I introduced him to Sneha, Krishna and Anusha. Sneha made some fantstic tea. (If only she can make it everyday...I am just joking...honestly...) Over the tea Enrique talked about his family and kids. (He has four daughters and one son and is married for 17 years now.) While talking he said that next to next weekend we should visit Monclova and Cuatro Cienegas. Cuatro Cienegas - yes - I had heard this name earlier from Manoj and Deepak. Also from Kimi. They had gone there in January for camping. So I knew that it is a nice place to put a tent and have a nice swim in the ponds. It sounded exciting for a weekend plan. And so it was a plan indeed!
The Preparations...
On Friday I confirmed it to Enrique that I will be coming. Ajit dropped off as he wanted to attend the Black Sabbath concert. Well...I was in two minds too...as Cynthia kept her Birthday party on Saturday. I apolgized her and declared on Friday evening at home that we will be going to Monclova and Cuatro Cienegas on Saturday. The plan was that on Saturday we will go to Monclova and will play in the swimming pool, in the night he will call a few friends and we will have a good grill (barbeque). On Sunday morning we will go to Cuatro Cienegas and will come back in the afternoon and then return back to Monterrey. With a firm determination that we will start our journey exactly at 0700 hours in the morning we went to sleep.
The Preparations...On Friday I confirmed it to Enrique that I will be coming. Ajit dropped off as he wanted to attend the Black Sabbath concert. Well...I was in two minds too...as Cynthia kept her Birthday party on Saturday. I apolgized her and declared on Friday evening at home that we will be going to Monclova and Cuatro Cienegas on Saturday. The plan was that on Saturday we will go to Monclova and will play in the swimming pool, in the night he will call a few friends and we will have a good grill (barbeque). On Sunday morning we will go to Cuatro Cienegas and will come back in the afternoon and then return back to Monterrey. With a firm determination that we will start our journey exactly at 0700 hours in the morning we went to sleep.
The Start (Day One)...
Waking up on Saturday morning at a pre-determined time is a function of many variables. I would like to make it very clear that the time at which one sleeps on Friday has very little weightage as a variable in this function. You see, it is more like a probability distribution function and therefore the actual time of waking up is mainly driven by the distribution function 
rather than your determination, habit and all those things people say. In short: we could not and did not wake up early enough to start from Monterrey at 0700 hours. Well we were not even close enough to get second runner-up prize. Apart from that, we still had to complete our ritual of packing the bags. Honestly tell me - How much time is really required to pack the bags? As per my experience not more than 3 hours in the worst case. Now, again honestly answer my second question. When do you start packing your bags? In my experience, in the past I started packing my bags for an international journey 5 hours before the scheduled departure. (That time one was not required to reach airport 2 hours in advance and one could cover the distance of 2 Km on the airport road of Bangalore in less than 20 mins.) But that should not have been the reason for us not to be ready with our bags packed. A good amount of energy went in packing the bags - some 80% went in shouting, 15% in searching and 5% in actual packing. Well that meant that we could not prepare and eat breakfast at home. With all that we started from home at 9:30 AM. VIPS provided an excellent breakfast for 4 of us and with an assurance of no complaints from stomach for next 5-6 hours, we left Monterrey at 11:30 AM in the morning.
rather than your determination, habit and all those things people say. In short: we could not and did not wake up early enough to start from Monterrey at 0700 hours. Well we were not even close enough to get second runner-up prize. Apart from that, we still had to complete our ritual of packing the bags. Honestly tell me - How much time is really required to pack the bags? As per my experience not more than 3 hours in the worst case. Now, again honestly answer my second question. When do you start packing your bags? In my experience, in the past I started packing my bags for an international journey 5 hours before the scheduled departure. (That time one was not required to reach airport 2 hours in advance and one could cover the distance of 2 Km on the airport road of Bangalore in less than 20 mins.) But that should not have been the reason for us not to be ready with our bags packed. A good amount of energy went in packing the bags - some 80% went in shouting, 15% in searching and 5% in actual packing. Well that meant that we could not prepare and eat breakfast at home. With all that we started from home at 9:30 AM. VIPS provided an excellent breakfast for 4 of us and with an assurance of no complaints from stomach for next 5-6 hours, we left Monterrey at 11:30 AM in the morning.The Journey (Day One):
Journey to Moclova is easy. Saltillo, Monterrey and Monclova make a kind of triangle. Monterrey in the East, Saltillo in the South and Monclova in North. Enrique recommended me to take the road to Saltillo and then take the road to Monclova in order to be on a road I was more familiar with. The weather was great for travel - not too hot or not too cold. The road from Saltillo to Monclova is single road - meaning - to and fro traffic travels on the same road and road is not divided. This was new to me. But I got the trick quickly and I was overtaking the cars pretty well. I did not expect it to be 195 Km. Well - that was the level of my preparation.
