After having breakfast at the truck stop, the field party headed for the border. The drive took about ten minutes. They paid the toll to cross the Río Grande from Brownsville into Matamoros and arrived at Mexican immigration. The officials examined everyone’s paperwork and sent them on their way to the custom checkpoint, which was on the outskirts of town.
Clearing Mexican customs was always a major ordeal and generally took about an hour. It irritated Miller that they had to post a bond on the vehicle. Usually this was not too costly. The funds for the bond would allegedly be refunded when the American vehicle returned to the United States. Miller thought of renting a vehicle in the DFW area. This was impossible, because vehicles rented in the States could not be taken across the border into Mexico. In addition, he found that it was impossible to rent vehicles anywhere along the Mexican side of the border. He was advised that if he wanted to rent a vehicle, he would have to fly to Monterey or some other town well away from the border. In NAFTA negotiations, the US government gave the Mexicans their way when it came to rental vehicles.
After posting the bond, the geologists had to unload the van so that Mexican customs could examine all of the cargo. It took about twenty minutes to unload and reload the field and camping equipment. Fortunately, there were no problems this time. With a sigh of relief, Miller headed towards San Fernando.
The first stop today was at a godforsaken piece of real estate in the Sierra Cruillas just north of San Fernando in the state of Tamaulipas. The turnoff to the village of Cruillas was just before another Mexican customs checkpoint. Most of the checkpoints could be avoided by simply taking the back roads. The road to Cruillas had been paved for several years. It used to be a dirt road full of immense potholes. Now, it was a paved road full of immense potholes.
The locality that Miller wanted to visit was at a site about five miles south of the village of Cruillas known as the Virgen de Montserrat. Everyone in the village knew about the site. When Miller and his party stopped for a beer and asked what kind of shape the road to La Virgen was in, they were told that it would be impassible in the Institute van. An old toothless man and his grandson offered to take Miller and his associates to the site of La Virgen in the back of their two-ton flatbed truck. Miller had the students load up several bottles of Gatorade, as well as canteens full of water and geological equipment, in the back of the flatbed truck. The temperature was one hundred and ten degrees, and the humidity approached ninety-eight percent.
It took about twenty minutes to get to the locality along Arroyo el Mimbre. The goal of the geologists was to collect samples of white Lower Cretaceous limestone and interbedded black chert strata exposed on the hill, as well as Upper Jurassic gray limestone occurring in Arroyo el Mimbre. There was a well-beaten path through the high chaparral vegetation covering the hill. Every bush was full of thorns and coastal ticks. Gary set down for a second beneath a mesquite tree at the base of the hill and immediately found several ticks.
As Miller and his group collected rock samples along the path, they noted the presence of crutches, canes, neck braces, eyeglasses, and other paraphernalia that people had discarded in the bushes. The told man said that many people from the sparsely populated area had been cured of their illnesses at the site of La Virgen at the top of the hill.
The site of the Virgen de Montserrat was not officially recognized by the Catholic Church. According to geologists who had visited the site, the Virgin Mary had appeared in a small limestone cave at the top of the hill and left a statue of herself carved into the wall of the white limestone. One famous geologist took a picture of the inside of the cave in 1936. At that time, there was no carving of La Virgen in the limestone. Instead, his photograph showed a rag doll hanging from a rope in the ceiling of the cave. Obviously, the image was carved in the limestone some time after 1936.
Miller and the two students entered the cave. Although Gary carried a flashlight, there was no need for it. The cave was well-lit with a dozen or more candles of various sizes and shapes; the smell of the burning wax was sickening in such close quarters. Gary said, “Look! There’s a statue of the Virgin Mary carved in the limestone.”
Felipe said, “Look at this! There’s a strange diagram carved into the limestone as well. It’s a pyramid with a picture of a disk inside of it. There appear to be rays extending from a symmetrical knob-like structure in the center of this disk.”
Miller asked their toothless guide about the meaning of the engraving. The old man replied, “It has always been in the wall of the cave, even before the Virgin Mary appeared; it is a symbol for Moctezuma’s Treasure.” Miller noticed that there was an arrow pointing from the side of the pyramid; it pointed to the south along the north–south wall of the cave.
Miller and the two students left the coolness of the cave for the extremely hot and humid air outside. The party decided to descend the side of the hill into Arroyo el Mimbre below to collect samples of older Jurassic rocks. Unfortunately, this was a poor choice of a route; there was no path, and the geologists had to fight their way through the tick-laden, thorny vegetation to reach the Arroyo. By that time, their arms were covered with scratches; thorns even penetrated Miller’s blue jeans. It seemed like every step Miller took, he collected another tick. In spite of drinking several bottles of Gatorade, Miller and Gary managed to get heat prostration by the time they had collected the Jurassic rock samples and walked down the Arroyo to the road where the truck was parked. Along the way, the old man’s grandson pointed out treasures on the side of the Arroyo that he intended to come back to and harvest. At one place on the side of the Arroyo, there was a large hive of honeybees; at another there was a den of javelina.
Upon their return to the village of Cruillas, Miller paid the two guides after cooling off and having a few drinks in the local store. He said, “It is now four o'clock. We have the choice of either camping out here, or heading out to Ciudad Victoria. Since it has been such a tough day, I think we ought to stay at a hotel or motel tonight. We’ll try to reach Ciudad Victoria. This will give us a chance to shower up and rid ourselves of these damn ticks.” No one was about to object to Miller’s suggestion.
Miller let Arturo drive the van to Ciudad Victoria; he was exhausted and dozed off in the front seat. When they reached their destination, Arturo suggested that they stay at a hotel at the plaza in the heart of the city. After showering, everyone discovered that they were covered with ticks. These coastal ticks aren’t respectable ticks; they are quite small and hard to see. Gary picked at least fifty ticks off Miller’s back.
Arturo said, “We’d better go to a pharmacy and get something to get rid of these ticks.” Apparently, the magic potion that many hunters and geologists in Mexico used to rid themselves of ticks was the same insecticide that was used to get rid of crab lice. Miller decided he would let Arturo handle this. He wasn’t about to blurt out something about crab lice to a pharmacist!