Escape from Mexico City

After Barranca del Cobre, we headed back to Torreon for a flight to Chicago to attend Dave`s step-brother Cliff`s wedding in Chicago. When we were in Barranca del Cobre we met quite a few travellers and a couple of them told us that we were supposed to have an entrance visa that basically shows that we paid $20 to enter the country. Apparently you only need it if you go 100 miles from the border. I believe we mentioned that when we entered Mexico the only thing we did was stand in line with a bunch of Mexicans (we were the only gringos on the bus) and push a button that lit up a green light. After consulting our travel book we decided we DID neeed one of these little papers and went about trying to find them.

We found the Mexican Immigration Services department in Torreon and were initially handed a huge form by a women that refused to listen to us. We figured out that the form was not what we wanted and tried to communicate that we needed the entrance visa. The woman helping us went and got another women that spoke English and she told us that since we were farther than 100 miles away from the border we had to pay a fine. Our book said that the fine was $42, but apparently it was increased a few months ago to $100 per person. Given that there was no customs stop or information at the border, we were a little upset that they were now claiming that WE were negligent because WE did not force our bus driver to a customs agency to take care of the 2 gringos on a 40 person bus. They even asked us if we had ever travelled before and we responded that yes we had travelled and been stopped on entry to every other country. After arguing for awhile one of the women said that she could ask her supervisor to cut the fine in half. Fine. $50 later we got a little piece of paper with a stamp on it that said we had paid the fine.

The next day, we flew to Chicago. Actually, we flew from Torreon, to Mexico City, to Cancun, to Chicago. For some reason it was cheaper to go out of Torreon than Mexico City, even though the flight connected through Mexico City. Anyways we got through Torreon easily enough by showing them our papers. However in Mexico City, they really did not want us to leave. First, the security guards questioned us suspicously about the camelback we were draining of water before we went through security. Then as we sat waiting by our gate, they changed the gate 30 minutes before our departure. It took us a couple minutes to figure out what had happened and when we did, we had to go through another security checkpoint. This security checkpoint however, refused to let us through because we needed a different paper. The guard gave us (wrong) directions to the person who could give us the papers we needed. So with 20 minutes before our plane left, having no idea where in which direction we were supposed to go, we were running through the airport trying to find customs. We ended up finding the big entrance customs with 30 booths which, luckily, had a very small line. We weren`t sure if this was actually where we were supposed to go and they wanted us to fill out a form before we approached the booth, but Dave, somewhat rudely, ignored the attendant and went directly to the booth. The woman there told us that we needed a different customs area that was in another part of the airport. So with 15 minutes left we took off running in another direction. We finally found the booth and showed our papers to the attendant who took them and made us fill out another form before giving us the little paper that said we could leave Mexico. We sprinted back through the terminal, dodging airline passengers and pretty much ran through the security checkpoint. Breathing hard, we got to our plane about 3 minutes before it took off.