Exit - Laredo - Truck

Posted by Rick (Lyle's Dad) on June 4, 2013, 8:14 pm
8.24.30.168

Hey all, 1990 miles in 3 days, a haul and it was all ok except for the Aduana at the border in N. Laredo. I hit 2 Military Check points between Guad and S.L. Postosi, 3 Federal Police check points between S.L. Potosi and N. Laredo. 4 of 5, I was given the "don't bother with that guy" wave and 1 Federal Police stop the guy wanted me to have a further inspection at Lane #1. So at Lane #1, the sun-glassed guy ambles up and launches into Spanish so fast that Speedy Gonzalez would only get 1/2 of it. I shook my head to clear my sences and was just about to utter, "Mas Despachio por favor" but following my head shake, he beat me to the punch with "Tu no habla Espanol?". Well, as long as he offered the out, I took it. I shook my head no and he tapped the truck and put me on my way. At N. Laredo I went to get the sticker taken off but they wanted the registration. That is the paper that the sticker came from within. My truck was nearly stolen in May of 2010 and all the contents in my glove box were taken which included that registration. Yes, I should have copied it. I didn't. The Delegado there in L.M. wrote me a nice letter and had his signature and the police guy in La Huerta sign it to give my name, my license plate number, full description of the truck, VIN, etc. claiming it was stolen. For the 1 stop I had 2 years ago in Manzanillo, this was fine. It had everything a police guy would need to know it was this truck that was nearly stolen. Not good enough in N. Laredo. Plus it was a Sunday and while I would like to think that on the holiest of days in a Catholic country, one might get a little bit more leeway, I was wrong. The jefa on that day seemed to want to prove something to the underlings. She ordered a security guy to follow me to the truck to see if it was indeed a White truck with Red Camper and all the stuff matched. The sticker on the windshiled has my name. He wanted Passport, Perm. Res. Card, Colorado Registration, Title, etc. He came back and told the jefa that it seemed ok and he let her read the letter from May 27th, 2010. She then sort of flipped! She asked the guy if I could speak Spanish, as opposed to asking me I guess, and he said more or less, "Yes". She ordered him to take me outside to wait in the sun and to more or less hold me. AFter about 45 minutes she came out and said she had called the top Jefe who was at home on Sunday and could not come in to figure out what to do about this. She said there was at least going to be a big fine and she might call the Federal Police to come and take me for the night and bring me back on Monday for the Jefe to spank me I guess. Yes, it was not a fun turn of events. She then went on to explain in rapid Spanish which I was struggling a bit with that I would probably be fined for driving w/o a registration for 3 years, and they'd want to then make me pay for the deposits that came into being after my entry and they would keep those deposits b/c I had not renewed my registration and on and on and on and seemed to stop just shy of reparations for loss of Texas to the USA. I wondered who would pay who for that one. I did not joke with her. I had to cool my heels in the sun some more. I think she thought she was "Boss Keene" from Cool Hand Luke. She came back out some time later with the Banjercito guy and explained that they were finding it difficult to determine what my deposit would have been and also, they did not know on a Sunday how to determine what the fine was for driving w/o a registration. I thought, "Humm" perhaps I should have just driven out of the country with the sticker and then stayed in the Aduana/Banjercito computer system for however long they needed and thought screw it what the heck do I care? I was trying to do the right thing here and they were all over me with this and that for 1 1/2 hours now. She gave up and rolled her eyes and smack/cracked her chewing gum and gave me the non-verbal of "Man, you gringo's are always mucking up our system here!" So I returned the look of "Man, your distant cousin in Miguel Hidalgo should not have tried to 'boost' my Toyota and steal my papers!" The immigration guy was so kind. 30 seconds tops to fill out my exit card, tell me have a nice trip and I left. Needless to say, the up and down of the anxiety of the situation was something that inspired me to drive until the glow of the sunset over West Texas left the horizon and I was then about 350 miles from N. Laredo after having driven to N. Laredo from Matahuala. Lesson learned. If you loose that piece of paper, just don't say nuthin from nuthin and you're golden. Pipe up and you'll be sorry. At least she did not try to run over Filomena!

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