Up, Up, and Away!

I knew that July 30^th would be a long day for all of us, but I figured the adrenaline would help us summon up the strength for the last push. We were up pretty early to get the rest of the “necessities” crammed into bags, say goodbye to even more friends, and try to catch Wally the cat who had been spotted outside the night before – he’s an indoor cat but obviously knew something was up and decided to opt out.

By 11:30 the house wasn’t ready but I just couldn’t do any more so I left Ben with lots of piles to address. We squeezed into Elizabeth’s minivan and had an uneventful trip to the airport. We were really early so we found Annie some grass in Revere and then went back to the airport where we hauled all of our checked baggage and the dog in her crate to the AeroMexico counter. I’m not kidding when I say there was a team of ayudantes working on us. Luckily there weren’t a lot of other people checking in because we were still pretty early.

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Most of our checked bags were a kilo or two overweight, so our choices were to a) take stuff out, b) pay $15 per kilo, or c) upgrade 1 ticket to first class. At that point I didn’t feel like digging through each bag and negotiating with the kids on what to leave behind, so Adlani ended up sitting in first class which in my opinion was a waste of free booze and a “gourmet” meal. Later when I asked if he had eaten dinner he said, “Yes, I ate a bun.”

We had plenty of time for an overpriced airport lunch and then waited at the gate through a 1-hour delay. We flew to Mexico City because it was a direct flight and I thought it would be easier and safer for the dog, but with the delay we were not going to arrive until about 10 p.m. There wasn’t anything we could do about it, so we just dozed through the 5-hour flight. Going through Immigration was easy, we found our luggage right away and followed the barking to find Annie. Two unlucky porters piled our bags on two trolleys and took us to SAGARPA – La Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentación.

I had read a lot about getting pets into Mexico, and our awesome vet (Wellesley Animal Hospital) put together a folder of official-looking documents with lots of stamps and signatures. They worked! I had to fill out a short form, the guy made a copy of my paperwork, and spent half an hour typing it all into the computer. He glanced into the crate at Annie, made us put the blanket she was laying on in a biohazard bag, and we were off to Customs where they x-rayed and opened every single bag. I don’t know what they were looking for, but there wasn’t anything that they questioned so we finally exited the baggage claim area around 11:15 p.m.

I found the driver holding my name right away, and headed in his direction. Imagine me, all happy and relieved, la-la-la, followed by 3 kids, a dog, and 2 porters. The first thing the driver said to me (in a super-grumpy voice) was, “I’ve been waiting here two hours.” I knew that it would take a while for us to get from the plane to the driver, so I had discussed this with the shuttle company twice and had been assured that it wouldn’t be a problem. He told me (in front of the kids) that it was very dangerous to drive at this time – in fact, it was too dangerous to let the dog out to pee.

Once the porters got everything squeezed into a giant SUV, we swerved through the streets of Mexico City as if we would be carjacked if we stopped at any red lights. We finally got on the highway and about an hour after we left the airport he stopped at a gas station so I could let Annie out. She would NOT pee – way too much to see, hear, and smell. We got back in the car and I started praying that she wouldn’t pee in the back seat because the guy probably would have left us on the side of the road. He stopped for a smoke break about an hour later and I let Annie out again – the driver did not join me in my victory dance when she peed.

Luckily the kids all fell asleep so I was the only one scanning the roadside for banditos. I don’t know exactly what the dangers were because the driver barely spoke and wore headphones the whole time. I know it’s not recommended to drive in Mexico at night, but we were on the highway with lots of other cars and we had no other option anyway. There was a period of about 8-10 miles after we got off the highway that we drove through an area where we only saw another car every 2 minutes or so, but there was nobody around.

The streets of San Miguel were deserted when we arrived at 3 a.m., and I nervously told the driver that I had to stop and get the key from our friends’ house. He was not happy. Well, tough sh*t. It took me less than a minute to run in and get the key, and their house is 150 meters from ours. When we got to the house I had a heck of a time getting the door unlocked because it involved turning the key 360 degrees counterclockwise, and then turning it clockwise to approximately 2 o’clock and pushing the door at just the right moment. Meanwhile the driver had piled all of the bags on the street and would have driven away and left us there if I had already paid him. Luckily I hadn’t, so he got the door open, collected his money, and took off.

We all revived a little bit and quickly checked out the house, then piled into my bed and were out cold in seconds. I can’t believe we’re actually here!!!