Mule Train Back to Mexico
March 2008
We’re back on board after a three-week trip to the states for business and family. We ‘d left Wandering Star snuggled into Barra de Navidad’s Grand Bay Marina, and knew she would be fine.
It was fantastic seeing family and friends, we really had a fast, but productive trip. However, immediately after our arrival we had to plan our departure as we had so many things we needed to bring back, things that were just not available in Mexico and were likely to become even scarcer once we moved onto Central America. Ade had been ordering must have items for the boat since Christmas, and as our mail is all sent to BB, he had everything shipped there. As packages arrived, Heather and Ted dutifully loaded it all into our bedroom…that is, until there was no more room, then they started to stack it in the garage.
Ade had to get right to work on business and the ATPA, which meant the whole team was in Las Vegas - so I took a quick trip to BB to see Mom and the kids. I arrived when no one was home and when I opened the door I could not believe my eyes…what was all this stuff and how would we ever get it back to the boat in Mexico…in fact, how was I going to get it all into the 4 Runner and back to LV? Boxes of all shapes and sizes from every imaginable boating catalog company were stacked on the bed and into every corner of the room. Then I remembered the stuff in the garage…oh my! We were in trouble. Included in the mix were a new, slightly smaller dinghy, a huge dehumidifier, bumpers, lines, SSB radios, and lots of essential parts. Add to that the items we’d promised to bring back, like 36 paint sets for the kids at the school in Colimilla, boxes of other give away items to villagers, and of course, the girly items that I can’t find here and are every bit as essential to ME as the other stuff was to the boat.
I was able to discard enough of the packaging to get it in the car and back our HQ in the desert and see how Ade figured this one out.
He did, send back the items that really were too big (the dehumidifier that was the size of a dorm refrigerator) or just not right, and made piles of things that might have to wait until we return in July…but still, it looked impossible to me. Ade somehow got it all into three huge suitcases and one box, all over the weight limit for the airlines and then we packed ourselves like Sherpa’s with backpacks, carry-on’s, etc.
After weeks of concern about how we would ever pull this off, combined with a healthy dose of playing the positive “wouldn’t it be nice if…game” (where you imagine everything going very well and say to yourself, and each other things like, “wouldn’t it be nice if everyone we encountered today loved their jobs and were good at it” and you know what, it was one of those rare perfect days to travel. We arrived at 4:30AM on a Sunday morning to an already crowded Las Vegas airport, with long long lines just to get into the check in counter, and were dragging our luggage out of the taxi, when magically, a large, bald, non-uniformed man appeared at the curb and said he could check our bags for us, and loaded the four 50- 75 lb bags on his unmarked cart and took us to the front of the lines. Okay, so far so good. Then he asked for our passports, tickets and a credit card and disappeared with our baggage into the massive crowd. We were smiling when Ade suddenly frowned and said, “we just handed over our luggage, passports, credit card, etc. to a stranger who we have lost sight of…find him”! Shaken from the blissful feeling of the success of my “wouldn’t it be nice if… game” I quickly ran after him. Oh ye of little faith, there he was all the way at the end of the counter working with a uniformed employee - I tried to stay hidden as I watched them handle our luggage and paperwork, and raced back before he could catch my distrustful actions. And voila, 10 minutes after our arrival, we were checked in all the way to Manzanillo with only a minor fee for excess luggage, even though we were using multiple carriers! It was like that all day.
Ah, but here come the sweaty palms again, as we now have to get all this stuff through Mexican customs with random receipts, official boat import paperwork and really sketchy Spanish. “Wouldn’t it be nice if, wouldn’t it be nice if…” and it was magic time again! A baggage handler loaded our stuff onto his cart, Ade stepped up and pressed the Red Light/Green Light button (they way they randomly check luggage) and got a green light and we started to waltz our way out the door when, Oh-Oh, the Aduana- customs man signaled for us to stop and pointed to our massive load of luggage. Drat! Ah, but he only wanted to see one of the bags, and only one section of it…and wouldn’t you know it, it was the compartment with all my girly stuff in it. He nodded to Ade with a knowing look, like, ‘Whoa, this is ALL HER stuff, she must be seriously high maintenance!” If only he knew!
