May 7, 2011- Cabo San Lucas and Crazy Customs

For some reason, I was a little apprehensive about the Cabo San Lucas trip. There wasn't one reason I could put my finger on, but I was feeling a little concerned, or rather that I wasn't prepared. Yet May 7th, I was up bright and early for my flight. I was excited to be travelling and happy to have a week away. My flights went smoothly, and I arrived at the Los Cabos airport full of energy despite the already long day. I went to the immigration desk and got my first stamp in my new passport.

(Hopefully I will fill the pages with stamps soon. Also in this story, if I mix up immigration and customs, using the wrong terms in the wrong spot, oh well.)

After immigration, you pick up your checked bag and then you have to go through customs. As some of you knew, I was travelling with a large load of Reef Safe Suncare sunscreen samples to give out at the IGFA event. I didn't think it would be a problem, as they were not items for sale, but just samples. My bag goes through the scanner and they stop me asking what all the little bottles were. We open the bag and I show them that they are sunscreen samples. The lady nods her head and says ok, waving me on through. We had a bag porter helping to carry all of the luggage, and after I was given approval to go, he takes my big checked bag and loads it on the cart to go. As I am leaving a different customs officer stops me and says that I need to have my bags checked. I am thinking at this point, ok, they looked in my checked bag, but now they want to go through my carryons. I take that over and he starts to get really upset. "Where is your luggage, we need to check your luggage." I tell him that it has already gone through and that all I have with me are my carryons. He gets really loud saying, "No that is impossible, " over and over again. Finally he gets frustrated I guess, and takes my passport, puts it in his pocket and walks off, stating that he wants me to go get my bags and come back or I won't get my passport back.

I am starting to get pretty upset at this point. (It's the whole cry when you are mad thing...) He is being rude, there is a bit of a language barrier, and everyone else in my group has made it through. I go out and tell them that he won't let me go without checking my bag. One of the team, Peter, comes back in with me and tries to talk to the officer but that make him even more upset, and he basically yells at Peter to go and leave me alone, that he can't be here.

At this point Peter goes out, along with the remaining group to the curb. I go out and ask for my bag back. Somewhere during this, different customs officials come outside and get one of the other team members, Nick. They take him and his luggage back into the building where they proceed to check his bags. He apparently was using his hunting backpack, and had left some casings in it by mistake. It made it all the way from the USA to Mexico with no problems, but they decided after he went through customs, that this was a problem, and they needed to grill Nick. As I had been instructed, I take my checked bag around the corner of the building, down an alley to the back door, where I am taken in to have my bag searched. I see Nick on the way, but then he is led away, out of sight.

The officer who had taken my passport proceeds to go through my bag and ask me what the little bottles were. I kept telling him that they were sunscreen. I showed him my packet of info on the sunscreen, including the info on the Team and tournament. He grilled me on Nick, asking in a sinister voice, "How important is he to you?" Along with questions like how well I knew him, was he a good guy, was he carrying a gun, etc. I didn't really know what answers he was looking for, so I tried to stay with general responses. Finally I take one of the bottles, open it up, and put some on. After that he hands me my passport back and says to just go.

Meanwhile, Nick is still somewhere in the building being questioned. No one will tell us what is happening to him. We are all getting hot, tired, and worried. Dad and I go around to the back door again to see if they will say whee/when he might be out. After what seemed like a very long time, but was in reality probably no more than a half hour, he is released, feeling very lucky that he was not placed in a Mexican jail for a year, or even a few days.


After that it was a rush to the hotel, a crazy check in and a challenge finding our room through the winding hallways. Melissa and Cameron eventually meet us at our hotel, and we wander through the streets looking for somewhere to eat. We finally settled on a restaurant called El Pescador.

The food was really good, or at least it seemed to be, as we were all tired, hot and of course hungry.

The "What Happens in Cabo, stays in Cabo" look. (PS, Cameron is drinking a virgin pina colada.)