The 31st of October 2018, M and I took a flight to Mexico with all our car gear that we have collected through the years and very few clothes to start our journey through the Americas. By the time we landed in Mexico we were already tired and fed up; but when you’re intending to go on a roadtrip, you need to take some chill pills and specially if you arrive at Cancún international airport.
You might think that because Cancún is a popular tourist destination, the locals have it all figured out to make the arrivals as smooth as possible, this of course is not the case. After waiting 45 minutes to get our luggage back, we were exiting the airport when a security man pulled us over to the final check because M & I had 2 big suitcases each plus hand luggage. The staff at the airport don’t speak english very well but that’s not a problem for me as I speak spanish so I tried to get us out of the situation with some clever words and a bit of charm.
A lady asked us to open the suitcases and started asking about prices of used gear such as a compressor, straps, tools, torches, tyre repair kit and even some face creams that I brought for my mum and my mother in law. Can you imagine the lady wanted us to pay tax on all of these items? The excuse is that every passenger has a certain amount of valuables that are allowed tax free otherwise we might be making a business in Mexico and not paying the right amount of tax. This is true if the products you are bringing are new and you have many of the same thing. If you ask me this is the first tourist trap you will encounter and you should be aware of it.
All of our things were clearly used and dirty and are genuine items that don’t require a special permit to get them in the country. To cut the long story short, I spoke to this lady and tried my best to be calm and friendly by telling her our story and she was amazed and agreed to let us go. This time I didn’t even have to yell or argue but I guess we were lucky to save that energy for the weeks to come.
Every time we travel to Cancun the jetlag is real and M & I like to use this to our advantage and enjoy the sunrise the following morning. This time was not the exception and we had first row seats to see the Caribbean sea in all its glory.
