ACTING NATURAL IN DESPERATE SITUATIONS

My painting of a dancer

      Since we have been alluding to our desperado status for the past month or so, I thought I should tell all now that we are back in our own bed.

 

      We were happy go lucky travelers going thru the border crossing at Matamores, Mexico on Sunday, January 25th.  Had our passports at the ready.....but the police waved us on.  Well, on we went.  We didn't see an office open to stamp our passports or to issue us our visitors permit.

 

     So still farther we drove.  Nothing.

 

  We arrived in Tampico having almost forgotten that we might be "detained" (put in jail) or our car confiscated (taken away) because we were "undocumented".   But Pete had read all of the literature (?) put out by our State Department to try to prepare us for the worst so he continued to be concerned.

 

The hotel we stayed at in Tampico was loaded with Mexican Federal Police Officers because they were using it as a headquarters.  So Pete told an officer, in his best Spanish, about our situation and concerns.  The officer said, "No se preocupe", (don't worry about it).  So for a few minutes Pete let it go.  I didn't concern myself until later because the beach and sky and everything was so beautiful and everyone was so friendly.

 

On we went on our great adventure.  We saw and visited  all sorts of wonders which I reported in this blog.  We did stop and try to talk to a guy at an agriculture check but he was only concerned with frutas.  We also talked to a young man in the tourist information in Puebla to no avail.  No se preocupe. 

 

Then when we were visiting San Cristobal de las Casas for a week, I began to read the information about what might happen to us and found why Pete had been concerned off and on for the whole time.  He emailed the  American Embassy in Mexico City.  They got right back to tell us exactly what we already knew or had read.  No help there.  On the desperados went acting natural, being on the lam, ducking the authorities etc. 

Driving out of Chiapas we came upon an Immigration Office.  They were there for migrants from Guatemala not the U.S.  They were nice.  Looked over our passports, seemed concerned, called for a woman who spoke English and in the end said that they couldn't help us either. No se preocupe.

 

By this time the desperado act was wearing a bit thin and we decided that we would go on to Acapulco and then to our friends in Guadalajara and cut our trip short a little so that we could "face the consequences of our lack of action", sooner rather than later.  Law abiding citizens that we are.

 

We enjoyed the rest of our trip being on the lam and took only three days to get to the border at Lukeville, AZ.  We joined a rather long line of cars on the Mexican border leading to the US.  We waited anxiously on the Mexican side, passport and narrative about our unintentional undocumented status at the ready. 

 

We were not even slowed down at the Mexican border.. nor was anyone else asked to show permits or anything....., drove up to the U.S. border "free"-were asked by the U.S. border/immigration people for our passports and if we brought anything back.  We said "NO" and drove on quickly. 

 

The Mexican's didn't care.  They were happy to have us visit  and happy to see us go.  Gracious to the end. All that consternation for nothing but I would advise anyone else to be more responsible and get those documents by gosh!!!!

 

END OF THE STORY ABOUT THE TWO GREY HAIRED DESPERADOS.