Corruption and an absolute cheek!

Our hotel was reached via a dirt track, a road that was still under construction and still made of rubble. It had a 40 kph speed limit, and any faster than that and the doors would probably have shaken off the car anyway!
About a minute after leaving the hotel, and about 2 seconds after crawling over a speed bump, we saw a Police Car at the side of the road. As soon as we got to them three Officers jumped out, waving what looked like a hairdrier at us telling us we were travelling at 60 kph! We weren't even doing 40 kph, let alone their alleged 60!

We pulled over, and were told we'd get a ticket and would have to go to the Station and pay a $100 fine. As you can imagine, Paul was having none of it! He got all the paper work out for the car and the flights, standing his ground that we were not travelling at 60 kph! 48kph or 52kph or something similar then maybe we'd have thought twice before dismissing their corrupt money making accusation, but 60 kph was too rounded off and just too fast! The road was a dead end, there was no need for them to be there, no one went down there expect people going to the couple of small hotels there, so they were obviously just there to con the tourists!

After ten minutes of "heated debate" one of the Policemen asked Paul his occupation. Paul said "engineer" and suddenly everything changed! Until then we were told we had no choice but to pay the fine, but after a mention of a profession that they respected we were sent on our way.

Not a great end to our time in Mexico! Paul had read in the guidebook about the corrupt Police and we can now say that it's true!

Arrived in New York about an hour late at 9pm. To top off the Wedding theme one passenger got the Pilot to propose to his girlfriend for him over the speakers. Luckily for him she said yes!
We then had to join a complete free-for-all to get through Customs. There is a lot to be said for a good old English queue! Hundreds of people, plus luggage, trying to funnel into the one Customs desk that was open. Luckily the moaning and shouting of a few Americans paid off and they opened another desk. We thought there was going to be a riot when one passenger decided he was going to ram through the barrier and got pushed back by the security officer.

Excitement over we arrived at the airport hotel about 11pm, tired and hungry. The front desk got a Chinese delivered to our room so we had a midnite feast!

Got the Subway into New York City this morning to look for Ugg boots for Helen. She has now looked for them in the whole of America and has had no luck. There is an official Ugg shortage! So to make up for it Paul had to go to Hugo Boss and buy something! Typical!
Was really nice to go into the city though - even if we were only there a couple of hours!

written by  helenandpaul on May 18, 2008 from New York, United States
from the travel blog: The good ol' US of A, and a bit of Mexico thrown in for good measure!
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