Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen.

I have strong suspicion (~85%) that the Salvation Army crew that came by to pick up our donated furniture departed the scene with my camera. Not a tragedy -- there are better cameras available today, and it was insured. I will attempt to cause a little bit of difficulty for the people I think took it.

The trip was... interesting.

One thing I learned is to advise anybody thinking of making such a move the way I did it don't even think about it unless you have some experienced and capable across-the-border help. Let me qualify and explain.

We did the "Lista de Menaje" thing, where if you have FM2 (or better) immigration status, you are entitled to a one-time-only duty exemption on household goods. You must prepare the Menaje list and submit it for examination to the local Mexican consulate for approval before departing. This is for your protection -- they will point out problem areas that you can then correct before reaching the border. They don't always find all of the problem areas, as we found out later. There are some restrictions and qualifications. For example, the exemptions allow only a single computer per household. (Not per person, but per household). We prepared our Menaje and got it approved first time through, 163 boxes plus 20 or so unboxed items like furniture and bicycles, and loaded it all into the bus. Sometime you should get into a 44 passenger school bus, imagine its cavernous size with all the seats removed, and then visualize how much STUFF you can put into it if you stack it wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Contents included two 18-foot long kayaks, and a pair of 18-foot long Sunsetter awnings. Made the packing up rather interesting.

So, off we go to McAllen, Texas. Jean drove ahead in the Honda, let me know where we were stopping for the night (primary requirement for a stopping place was parking for the bus, the damn thing is 34 feet long and has a turning circle about the same as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.) Miserable cold heavy unrelenting rain for all the time we were in Texas, four days I think, anything not paved was either flooded or mud bog. And that's where things became difficult.

There we connected with Carlos (the man from whom we bought the condominium) and his brother Hector. Also there to help was Carlos' son David, and Jose', a professional driver. First order of business was to get temporary (1-year) import permits for the vehicles. Through an incredible bit of serendipity my insurance agent in Alaska was unable to insure the school bus as a bus, their rules didn't allow that. So we re-titled it as a Motor Home. Those two letters "MH" instead of "Bus" in the Body Style portion of the title were the ONLY reason I was able to get the permit.

Then, Carlos hired a customs broker to prepare the official Menaje list that the customs officials would scrutinize. This broker went through my list item by item, looking for problems, and indeed he found one. Item #78, "Vino, 14 botellas", shut down the whole operation. "Absolutely impossible, completely forbidden, subject to heavy fines and possible forfeiture of the bus and its contents. Don't even think about it." So, back over to Texas where the bus was at the broker's warehouse, and remove the wine. They let us use their loading dock to unload the bus, and we did indeed unload over a ton of merchandise to find the wine, as the boxes were loaded in the bus in no particular order. We did this in the cold, mud, and pouring rain. Lots of fun.

Then, time for the actual crossing with the bus. To no-one's surprise, they waved us off into the inspection area, at which point we were told that we would not be allowed to take a bus into Mexico. Muchas problemas. Carlos and Hector were unable to assist here, we were in impound area, no visitors allowed. Fortunately my driver spoke Spanish, pointing out the magical "MH" on the title. Then they couldn't find the actual chassis number on the bus. Finally one of them climbed under the bus with a rag and wiped the dirt and grease off the frame rail by the right front wheel and found it, bless his heart (if he hadn't the bus would probably still be sitting in Reynoso) and sure enough it matched the number on the title. After three hours and $250 mordida, they finally decided that the bus (err…. Motor Home) could proceed. I found out later that my $250 contribution was only a small part of the… encouragement that was paid to allow things to proceed.

Hector's contribution was invaluable. He has strong political connections in the state of Tamualipas, which is why we crossed there rather than at some of the more common places. These connections gave us protection as we drove the bus towards Guadalajara. Protection against los bandidos? Well, sort of. These were the bandidos in black SUVs with "Policia Federales" on the side. Whenever we were stopped, Hector would intervene and shortly thereafter it would be all smiles and handshakes and viaje seguro.

My driver Jose' was really good. Confident, capable, knowledgeable of Mexican driving conventions, and absolutely not a risk taker. Patient and safe are the words that come to mind.

I don't believe that it would have been remotely possible for Jean and I to have successfully negotiated the border crossing shoals and subsequent trip to Ajijic without the assistance and guidance of Carlos and crew. It was my first up-close and personal experience with Mexican bureaucracy, and I came away with the impression that it is the process and not the results that matter. Exceptions are not easily dealt with. If they can't put their check marks into the proper boxes (like a Motor Home that is clearly a School Bus) then the process grinds to a halt.

Understand that I am NOT complaining about this. This is their country, I moved here voluntarily, I don't expect them to change their culture on my behalf. This is the way things are where I live now, and I am not only going to put up with it, I am going to embrace and enjoy it to the best of my ability.

If I had this move to do over again, I would have had a dozen garage sales to get rid of what I could, then the rest would go to charity. As it was, we gave to Good Will/Salvation Army/Discovery Shop over $100,000 (new replacement cost, not current value) of merchandise, and still brought with us at least twice as much as will realistically fit in our small condominium. I wish I could have persuaded SWMBO to come down here with the clothes on our back and our credit cards, and then buy what we needed one item at a time with the proceeds from the garage sales. The problem is, she has/had really nice stuff. I had a computer and a couple of bicycles that were dear to me, the rest I didn't care about.

Final thoughts? Don't try a menaje style move unless you have really good and experienced help on the Mexican side of the border, and a good bit of ready cash for mordida.

Now I sit here with my computer jerry-rigged with Ethernet cables strung across the room and a 50-foot extension cord for power while Victor (one of Carlos' workers) painstakingly chisels a 12-foot long channel in the brick interior wall to run conduit for telephone, electric, and cable to the location where SWMBO and I have our computer hutches set up. It took me about six hours to get my computer system unpacked and running (very complex -- there are ten 110v things plugged into the UPS, my 7-port USB hub isn't enough for all the peripherals, something like 40 separate and distinct cables to route and connect.) This is the fifth time I've moved the system and I'm getting pretty good at it. Of course, when I finally powered it up, it wouldn't run until I opened it up and reseated the power and data cables to the four internal hard drives. Then, since it is now connected to a Mexican ISP, I had to reconfigure Google and persuade it I wanted to talk in English.

So, the adventure has really and truly begun. We'll see how it goes.

tanstaafl.