Day One in Mexico. Borders, Bribes and Banditos.

First of all, there were no banditos.  I couldn't think of anything else that started with a B.  I could have said Burritos, except we had left-over pizza for lunch.

The border crossing was pretty uneventful.  No searches, no questions, they just waved us through.  We did however get yelled at by an army guy with a automatic rifle for moving too slow through the search area.  "¡ADELANTE!" He exclaimed.  I was a little annoyed.  Why are they so sure I'm not running guns or smuggling illegal Americans?  I guess we just don't look threatening enough.

Getting our visa's and vehicle permits issued was a pretty painless process as well.  It took us a bit to find the office but once we did we were in and out in 30 minutes or so.  We hit the road and about 4 minutes later, we see the flashing lights in the rear view.  We pulled over and all my bribe training went right out the window.  He asked where we were headed and I rattled off our daily and weekly itinerary.    Pues, vamos para Guatemala, pero hoy dia quieremos llegar hasta Tampico para descansar y en la manana seguiremos adelante. I completely spaced that I'm supposed to pretend like I don't speak Spanish.  Whoops.  He asked for my ID.  My prep kicked in enough that I remembered to hand him a copy and not the actual ID.  We probably would have ended up on the side of the road much longer if he was holding my DL hostage.  Then he had me accompany him to the back of the Montero to have a little group chat with his compadres.  They talked about how in Mexico they use kilometros not miles.  You must have been confused and that's why you were speeding, right?  Then they explained that they would have to write me a ticket.  Ok, I cheerfully agreed.  So should I follow you to the police station to pay the fine?  Then a lightbulb went off in his head.  He explained that I could follow him back to the police station in some town very far away (Keep in mind, we were literally 4 minutes from the border.) or I could just pay him right there.  I replied very thankfully, Oh that would be so great, except I don't have any cash.  I'd have to pay with a card.  Uh oh.  Now I was really in trouble.  The distant town with a police station had no ATM's.  I'd have to travel to a different town to get cash and then back to the police station.  That would put me behind schedule and it would also mean that I would be driving into Tampico at night.  That was very dangerous and he didn't want me to do that.  Why don't you ask your wife if she has cash to pay the fine.  Unfortunately he had a good point.  We got started a little late and we were kinda pushing it on making it to Tampico before dark.  I knew that I could have waited him out, but I really did want to get going.  So I asked Kaytie and she did in fact have $5.  This seemed to please our kind, considerate officer friend and we were on our way.

I know paying bribes does nothing to solve the problem and I apologize to my fellow travelers.  I promise, I won't cave again.  I knew it would happen at some point but I was just thrown off at how quickly it was upon me.  We were stopped two more times at military check points.  Neither were anything to report.  Mostly they just thought we were crazy.  One guy kept asking us things like, "Are you familiar with Guatemala/Tampico/the Gulf Coast/Mexican Roads..."  I replied to each question, "Nope.  Never been."  Finally he just shook his head and waved us on.

The drive was beautiful aside from a pretty crazy dust/rain storm early on.  Interestingly, when you combine dust storms with rain storms, you end up with mud storms.  So we had no way to take crappy through-the-windshield pictures of the beauty we encountered later on.  Also the clouds tricked us into thinking it was later than it was, so we didn't want to stop and take it all in.  I kept kicking myself for the whole boogy-down-to-guate plan.  I just had to keep telling myself, Mexico will still be here when you come back.

We made it to our planned stopping point with about an hour of daylight to spare.  We heard good things about a hotel that will let you park in their parking lot, use their restrooms (complete with hot water) and wifi for $50/night. That's pesos.  So for a grand total of $3.80, we will get a comfortable nights rest, update the blog and have a hot shower in the morning.  Pretty good deal!  Also, they have a nice pavilion area where we had dinner and watched fire flies.  All in all a good first day in Mexico.