Security - Take Three
We mostly just played in the water and tried to relax so that we’d be rested when we got home. Natnee and I did a short mangrove tour on our last day there. It was disappointing, but we did get to see some animals. We did it mainly to have something different to do. While we were wandering around waiting for our ride, we found some buildings sinking into the sand. Someone built too close to the beach and on too unstable a foundation.
The only time we were stopped during our entire trip was just a few km outside the airport, and that was hassle-free. We returned the car. They tried to get us to pay fees for damages because a little plastic cover thingy was missing from off the rear windshield wiper. But we didn’t have to pay fees for damages thanks to a picture I had taken when we received the car (go me!). At the airport security check, we were stopped. Actually, they had questions about almost every carry-on bag we had. They said one had water in it, which it didn’t. They wanted to inspect my fingernail clippers before finally allowing me to keep them. (If they’d taken them, it would have been like the infamous Fingernail File Confiscation Incident of 2009!)
All other bags were okay except Natnee’s - probably because he looks like a gringo drug lord. Hehehehe. 
They wanted to inspect his bag by hand, so he and a security agent went to a nearby table. He looked at his flashlight, slowly pulling out the batteries like it was going to explode in his face. Then he wanted to make sure his camera was really a camera. He told Natnee that duct tape was prohibited, but let him keep it anyway. We’re talking like less than 5 inches of duct tape. That’s not enough to go around one wrist, let alone tie up a stewardess! No problem with the juggling balls this time (until the US border, at least), but he questioned the knife sharpener, which, of itself, is entirely harmless. After Natnee demonstrated that the sharpener couldn’t cut anybody, he spotted Natnee’s Bible. No questions about that, but he wanted to see his toiletry bag. Seeing nothing unusual there, he finally let Natnee go.
Once we got to our gate, they wouldn’t let us through without unzipping all our bags and feeling around one more time (for what? They’d already been x-rayed.). That makes THREE times we were searched. I mean, REALLY? Was all this bag inspection really necessary? But this is just a case in point of how little the Latinos trust other people. They are always locking and barring up their doors and peering down the streets. This fear of what MIGHT be leads them to be untrusting of others, themselves, and period.
Once we found a place to sit down, Daddy wanted some water. There was a small place nearby - a table, really - selling bottled water, but they wouldn’t let Daddy back to the gate with it. So he stood there and drank it. Grumbling. The flight back was without incident. US Border Patrol stopped us and questioned Natnee’s juggling balls (as expected) and x-rayed all our bags for illegal stuff, aliens, etc. There were some El Salvadorans in front of us who’d brought suitcases full of raw chicken and other raw meat parts. SERIOUSLY?!? Yes, and they were fined $300 on the spot for it. Ouch! Expensive mistake.
~Crystal
Posted on December 25th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Mexico | No Comments »
