The Undiscovered Country

My buddy Carrot Killer placed a challenge cache near Georgetown a couple of weeks ago. Its goal is relatively simple and straightforward: find a cache in all eight states that border Texas, four American, four Mexican. I’m not an FTF hound, so I didn’t rush out to get it. I figured I’d go out sometime and add it to the list of challenges I’m keeping for proverbial rainy days. Fast forward to this weekend, and I noticed that it still sat unclaimed. This was surprising because Williamson County is a hotbed of active cachers. Two of the area’s most prolific hiders live up there, along with a multitude of people who have more caches; more states, counties, and countries; and more distance, longevity, Fizzy loops, Mega-Events, and pretty much any other metric you can think of. And I haven’t even mentioned the guy who has topped a hundred thousand caches. So many cachers were around who could have gotten it, and yet nobody touched it. I got it myself, earning an FTF on a challenge, something that has happened for me only once before. Consultation with the Carrot solved the question. A lot of people just don’t qualify for it.

I long ago noticed that most people who have gotten one or more caches in Mexico have acquired them in one (or more) of three specific states: Baja California, Guerrero, or Quintana Roo. I posit this is because these are the locations of the popular travel destinations Tijuana, Acapulco, and Cancun/Cozumel. Cachers rarely cross into the other border states as I have: Chihuahua, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and (most famously) Nuevo Leon. I know border areas have a reputation for being rough and crime-ridden, but I think there’s nothing further from the truth. I’ve never felt a scintilla of danger on any trip across the border. Is that reputation keeping cachers away? A lot of the folks I mentioned previously have completed the Texas County Challenge, so they’ve been near enough to cross. And yet, when I started consulting Project-GC, I was amazed at how few cachers in Texas have multiple states in Mexico. I only have the four myself, but that puts me at #40 on the list of most Mexican states by cachers from Texas. If I found a fifth, that would jump me up to #26. I found another interesting stat as well. There are thirty-one states and Mexico City, making for thirty-two first-level administrative territories in Mexico. The Mexican cacher with the most states has twenty-seven. The only cacher who has more (based out of Jordan?!?!) has twenty-eight. There is no cacher on earth who has been to every state in Mexico! I guess my point here (and I do have one) is that there’s always a new vista that someone hasn’t reached. Carrot Killer has already expressed interest in going to every Mexican state and is currently at nine. It’s good to have a goal, isn’t it?