Short Version:
Reaper security beats Ensenadan thievery, then we evade the military despite our own best efforts, shop at the border, and end up back in the USA!
Long Version:
Rainy Monday mornings in Ensenada aren't quite as happy-making as seeing the sun rise into a cloudless sky over Bahia Concepcion. Still, good to see another side of Mexican life - albeit a grim, chilly, workday grind side - at the front end of our last few hours on the Baja. We ate an eggy breakfast in the Desert Inn restaurant, in the company of a cabal of men who ranged from painful-looking late middle age to sprightly old. One had a very nice suit, another a cool hat. Most had moustaches.
Someone had had a crack at penetrating the Reaper's security overnight - we could tell because their break-in tool was on the passenger-side floor where they'd been forced to abandon it after failing to gain entry. Reaper 1 : Scoundrels 0.
Traffic wasn't as bad as we'd feared - we suspect people may have been starting later than usual after the excitement of the previous day's political rallies*. We got mildly lost trying to follow both the maps and the signposted route to Tijuana and the border, and we had some issues with hidden stop signs**, but we got out, and hit the toll road north.
First military checkpoint of the day saw some excitement, with Anoushka staging an intervention between Craig and the soldier with the big gun. By this stage we'd successfully managed umpteen checkpoints, and been speaking Spanglish to officials in a charmingly-incompetent way for almost two weeks. So it was somewhat surprising that it was at this point that Craig's recent, adult Spanish went AWOL, leaving him with what we figure he must have picked up as a youngster from exposure to Manuel from Fawlty Towers. We stopped at the checkpoint, and the soldier with the big gun rattled off the by-now-familiar-yet-still-incomprehensible string of high-speed Spanish words. Standard practise for us in this situation had long since become a combination of words, gestures, and face-pulling, all intended to convey something along the lines of:
"Despite my best efforts to learn your language, I have had only limited success - probably because I'm not very bright. I'm very nice though - everyone from New Zealand is. No-one from New Zealand would ever do drug- or firearm-smuggling, because we're too nice. I, in addition, am not very bright. No need to search the vehicle. These aren't the droids you're looking for."
This time, though, Craig said: "Que?"
We think the guard probably thought he had a Spanish-speaker with impaired hearing, and repeated his initial statement, just as rapidly as the first time. Craig said: "Que?"
At that point Anoushka, mastering her urge to fall about laughing, stepped in, and said something along the lines of "This is my husband. Despite my best efforts to teach him your language, I have had only limited success - probably because he's not very bright. We're both very nice though - everyone from New Zealand is. No-one from New Zealand would ever do drug- or firearm-smuggling, because we're too nice. My husband, in addition, is not very bright. No need to search the vehicle. These aren't the droids you`re looking for."
We tried not to laugh until we were out of range of the soldiers' big guns, but failed dismally, which was somewhat nerve-wracking.
Not long after, we reached the town we`d dubbed 'Ciudad de la Zombie Jesus,' because of its enormous Jesus statue, which stands atop the hill behind the town, looming over the city with arms outstretched in a very non-benevolent "I want to eat your brains... BRRRRAAAAAAIIINNSSS!" kind of way.
And then, before we knew it, we were in the queue for the US border crossing. Craig stroked a ceramic monkey in a green-and-white-striped bathing suit, we marvelled at the expression on the faces of the ceramic turtles, the sensible red-shirt-wearers (Anoushka and Nick, believe it or not) restrained el stupido green-shirt-wearers (Craig and Janine) from eating the churros (which had been sitting uncovered in the sun for an unspecified number of days)... basically, the hour-long queue was hawker heaven, with mobile pedlars giving way to a series of fixed-site stalls as we got closer to the border. These stalls had runners, who went car-to-car, seeking a need. When they found one - as they did with our hammocklessness - they'd then visit as many stalls as it took to find what was sought, with return trips for different size or color option requests. In our case, the poor guy had run several hundred metres by the time Janine started haggling with him in earnest, and he'd not quite finished telling us how hammocks were made*** when we reached the clear zone before the border control booths and he waved us a friendly goodbye.
For some reason, the clear zone seemd to have an exemption clause for little old lady beggars, so we decided to get rid of our coins. In another display of linguistic mastery, Craig yelled "Hello, Mister" at her to get her attention. She didn't seem to mind, although she didn't seem particularly impressed with the handful of metal that was dumped into her polystyrene cup. She had a moustache anyways.
The border crossing itself was incredibly anti-climactic after all the interest we'd had from soldiers during our Baja sojourn. The man in the booth looked at our passports, gently queried the lack of entry stamp in Janine's****, then waved us through. No search. No vehicle X-ray. Nothing. Obviously we weren't the droids they were looking for.
* = We passed through red town, yellow town, and blue town, all of which had been extensively decorated, both with massive banners and posters, and with painted buildings. All were being whipped into a frenzy by men with loudhailers. No female candidates until we reached cosmopolitan***** Ensenada. We each adopted a candidate, and, if we remember, we'll check the election results next week (or however long after the election the final, massaged results are published).
** = If you want people to stop, don't hide the stop sign behind other signs.
*** = Something about fishing nets and car tyres and prisoners. We think.
**** = And then didn't stamp one in it - what the...?
***** = We could tell it was cosmopolitan because most of the feral dogs were alive, and because there were obviously-homeless people. And female political candidates. And car thieves******.
****** = Would-be car thieves. Yay Reaper!
Reaper security beats Ensenadan thievery, then we evade the military despite our own best efforts, shop at the border, and end up back in the USA!
Long Version:
Rainy Monday mornings in Ensenada aren't quite as happy-making as seeing the sun rise into a cloudless sky over Bahia Concepcion. Still, good to see another side of Mexican life - albeit a grim, chilly, workday grind side - at the front end of our last few hours on the Baja. We ate an eggy breakfast in the Desert Inn restaurant, in the company of a cabal of men who ranged from painful-looking late middle age to sprightly old. One had a very nice suit, another a cool hat. Most had moustaches.
Someone had had a crack at penetrating the Reaper's security overnight - we could tell because their break-in tool was on the passenger-side floor where they'd been forced to abandon it after failing to gain entry. Reaper 1 : Scoundrels 0.
Traffic wasn't as bad as we'd feared - we suspect people may have been starting later than usual after the excitement of the previous day's political rallies*. We got mildly lost trying to follow both the maps and the signposted route to Tijuana and the border, and we had some issues with hidden stop signs**, but we got out, and hit the toll road north.
First military checkpoint of the day saw some excitement, with Anoushka staging an intervention between Craig and the soldier with the big gun. By this stage we'd successfully managed umpteen checkpoints, and been speaking Spanglish to officials in a charmingly-incompetent way for almost two weeks. So it was somewhat surprising that it was at this point that Craig's recent, adult Spanish went AWOL, leaving him with what we figure he must have picked up as a youngster from exposure to Manuel from Fawlty Towers. We stopped at the checkpoint, and the soldier with the big gun rattled off the by-now-familiar-yet-still-incomprehensible string of high-speed Spanish words. Standard practise for us in this situation had long since become a combination of words, gestures, and face-pulling, all intended to convey something along the lines of:
"Despite my best efforts to learn your language, I have had only limited success - probably because I'm not very bright. I'm very nice though - everyone from New Zealand is. No-one from New Zealand would ever do drug- or firearm-smuggling, because we're too nice. I, in addition, am not very bright. No need to search the vehicle. These aren't the droids you're looking for."
This time, though, Craig said: "Que?"
We think the guard probably thought he had a Spanish-speaker with impaired hearing, and repeated his initial statement, just as rapidly as the first time. Craig said: "Que?"
At that point Anoushka, mastering her urge to fall about laughing, stepped in, and said something along the lines of "This is my husband. Despite my best efforts to teach him your language, I have had only limited success - probably because he's not very bright. We're both very nice though - everyone from New Zealand is. No-one from New Zealand would ever do drug- or firearm-smuggling, because we're too nice. My husband, in addition, is not very bright. No need to search the vehicle. These aren't the droids you`re looking for."
We tried not to laugh until we were out of range of the soldiers' big guns, but failed dismally, which was somewhat nerve-wracking.
Not long after, we reached the town we`d dubbed 'Ciudad de la Zombie Jesus,' because of its enormous Jesus statue, which stands atop the hill behind the town, looming over the city with arms outstretched in a very non-benevolent "I want to eat your brains... BRRRRAAAAAAIIINNSSS!" kind of way.
And then, before we knew it, we were in the queue for the US border crossing. Craig stroked a ceramic monkey in a green-and-white-striped bathing suit, we marvelled at the expression on the faces of the ceramic turtles, the sensible red-shirt-wearers (Anoushka and Nick, believe it or not) restrained el stupido green-shirt-wearers (Craig and Janine) from eating the churros (which had been sitting uncovered in the sun for an unspecified number of days)... basically, the hour-long queue was hawker heaven, with mobile pedlars giving way to a series of fixed-site stalls as we got closer to the border. These stalls had runners, who went car-to-car, seeking a need. When they found one - as they did with our hammocklessness - they'd then visit as many stalls as it took to find what was sought, with return trips for different size or color option requests. In our case, the poor guy had run several hundred metres by the time Janine started haggling with him in earnest, and he'd not quite finished telling us how hammocks were made*** when we reached the clear zone before the border control booths and he waved us a friendly goodbye.
For some reason, the clear zone seemd to have an exemption clause for little old lady beggars, so we decided to get rid of our coins. In another display of linguistic mastery, Craig yelled "Hello, Mister" at her to get her attention. She didn't seem to mind, although she didn't seem particularly impressed with the handful of metal that was dumped into her polystyrene cup. She had a moustache anyways.
The border crossing itself was incredibly anti-climactic after all the interest we'd had from soldiers during our Baja sojourn. The man in the booth looked at our passports, gently queried the lack of entry stamp in Janine's****, then waved us through. No search. No vehicle X-ray. Nothing. Obviously we weren't the droids they were looking for.
* = We passed through red town, yellow town, and blue town, all of which had been extensively decorated, both with massive banners and posters, and with painted buildings. All were being whipped into a frenzy by men with loudhailers. No female candidates until we reached cosmopolitan***** Ensenada. We each adopted a candidate, and, if we remember, we'll check the election results next week (or however long after the election the final, massaged results are published).
** = If you want people to stop, don't hide the stop sign behind other signs.
*** = Something about fishing nets and car tyres and prisoners. We think.
**** = And then didn't stamp one in it - what the...?
***** = We could tell it was cosmopolitan because most of the feral dogs were alive, and because there were obviously-homeless people. And female political candidates. And car thieves******.
****** = Would-be car thieves. Yay Reaper!
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