The first time my bus was pulled over by the Federal Police, the officer who boarded walked right by me without a glance. He asked the young man behind me where he was going and demanded to see his ID. All the way to the back, he questioned and checked the papers of young men. Five of them were eventually hauled off, lined up on the shoulder and patted down, following which their luggage was removed from the bay and searched. Everyone on the bus craned out the right-hand windows, trying to figure out what was going on. “Que pasa?” I asked an older couple. “Pensamos que son Hondurenos sin papeles, pero no sabemos por cierto.” We think they are Hondurans without proper identification, but we don’t know for sure. Finding nothing, the officers allowed all the men to reboard and we were on our way again.

The second time even more of the passengers were questioned, but again the officers studiously ignored me. “What am I, invisible?” I muttered under my breath. When we stopped in Culiacan for lunch, I asked a guard at the station if this was normal. “Si, they are looking for drug and guns and illegals without proper ID. Nothing to worry about,” she insisted, wishing me safe travels.

Back on the bus, it wasn’t long before we were stopped for a third search. This time, the officer stopped at my seat and turned toward me. Black boots buffed to a high shine peeked from beneath his crisply pressed uniform. A coal black mustache was perfectly trimmed a millimeter above his upper lip and not a single strand of hair was out of place. My face reflected back at me from mirrored sunglasses that masked his eyes; I looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Como estas?” he asked, his chilling smile revealing perfect, pearly whites. “Bien……bien,” I stammered, wishing I was invisible. During the ride we were stopped and searched four times by the Federal police and a fifth time for a “plant inspection,” turning a six hour bus ride into eight hours.

This was just the latest in a series of problems that had begin 24 hours earlier when I arrived on Sunday afternoon at the ferry terminal to sail from La Paz to Topolobampo for the first phase in my Copper Canyon adventure. Although the schedule on the Baja Ferries website showed a boat leaving La Paz at 11 p.m. every Sunday, when I tried to buy a ticket the girl behind the window shook her head and said. “No hay,” – there is none. “There is a boat at the dock,” I insisted. “Where is it going?” Between her indifferent attitude and the thick plexiglass that separated us, I couldn’t understand a word she said. Time and time again I tried, but the more frustrated I became, the less Spanish I understood and each explanation she offered seemed to somehow contradict the last. Finally, she shrugged her shoulders, repeated “no hay,” and turned her attention to the next person in line. Continue reading →

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