Arrival Night

First, a word or two on our arrival experience. Aaron grabbed the window seat for the flight into the city. Lucky guy!

We each woke from brief naps to hear the pilot announce our decent into Mexico City. Wiping the sleep from our eyes we turned to our left and glanced out the tiny window. Lights! A sea of lights spread like a glowing lake as far as we could see. I’ve flown into Los Angeles at night. I’ve flown into Las Vegas at night. I’ve flown into a handful of other cities in the darkning hours of the evening and seen these lakes of light before, but none have compared in size or scope to the lights of Mexico City.

I must give another shout of praise to the Lord for the painless walk through Mexican customs. In the moments before we exited the flight I warned Aaron and Debbi of the terrors foreign custom officers can hold.

“They’ll dig through all your luggage. They’ll try to ask you questions in English, but you won’t understand a word of it. Had customs existed five hundred years ago Dante would have listed it as the outer level of hell.”

Not a word of that proved true. We picked our luggage right off the moving track, carried it to some officials who ran it through a scanning machine, handed over our custom’s forms and - vola- we were done.

Within minutes Bethany found us and led us to the tiny vehicle in which we were throw all our many pounds of luggage.

“We’re putting all our stuff in that?” Aaron asked.

Apparently the answer was “Yes” because within minutes Kurt, Bethany’s fiance, pushed, pulled, and prodded the last of the giant suitcases into place. With much effort and two tries he succeeded in closing the hatch. That only left four bags for each of us to carry on our hour long drive to the other side of the city.

Bethany asked me to heap my hulking 48 lb. backpack on her lap once she got seated. That took care of her. Aaron offered to hold two of the cayy-on bags. That took care of him. Kurt couldn’t take anything as driving through Mexico City is dangerous enough without piling a 50 lb. suitcase on his lap. Debbi climbed into the middle of the back sit and let me climb in beside her. I hoisted the last suitcase on top of myself but had to lay it across both our laps since it was too large to fit any other way.

One last problem, how to close my door? Thankfully a kind Mexican gentleman closed the door for me, thus solving the problem.

Driving in Mexico City- how do you describe it? Debbi compared it to riding a roller coaster, just without any of the safety features. I liked the comparison, but I’d add that you have a thousand other roller coaster carts all competing for the same track.

Huge semi trailer trucks weaved across the lanes of traffic, lanes that are left completely unmarked on the roads. Endless barios stretched off into the distance with walls covered in graffiti. Huge puddles filled the roads. Potholes waited to swallow tires. Motorcycles weaved among the traffic. It was different, very different from the United States.