“Mexican standoff...”

Heading back from Playa Bruja in the evening, we start to encounter traffic as we approach the main part of Mazatlan. As the car rounds the corner I see a police officer walk out from behind a pulled over car and wave me down. Great, I think, here we go again. By now we are very accustomed to being pulled over for no reason as they see us coming and want to check out our papers. But this is Mexico. The officer says I was speeding and that I’ll have to pay a ticket. He’s got my driver’s license and says that I can get it back in a week if I pay the fine, or I can pay it right here. Are we in Acapulco again?

I tell him that it’s illegal to take my driver’s license, that it’s my personal property and that it’s not legal for the police to take my property. So then he tries to explain that it would be very difficult to find the police station and make the payment. He asks us where we’re staying and how long we’ll be here and that we probably won’t have time to pay the fine properly. I then proceed to tell him that we have driven all the way down to Panama and all the way through Central America, and are now on our way back to Canada. I tell him that we’re only in Mazatlan now because we are waiting for our headlight to show up at the Toyota dealership so we can get out of Mexico. Then the standoff begins. I just stare at him as he asks if we’re going to pay. He repeats himself, and I stare him right in the eyes. I can wait here all day, and you can tell that he’s getting fidgety. So he looks down at his paper pad one last time and then his shoulders drop in defeat as he says be careful and hands back my license. Victory. No ticket.

We managed to arrive in Mazatlan Tuesday night before the Toyota dealership closed, and therefore were able to get two badly needed front tires put on and had the headlight ordered. We have an appointment for Friday morning to put the new headlight in. That should be done by 10:30 in the morning, and since it is now light out until 8 at night, we may still be able to make it to the border on Friday, less than 800 kilometres away. For now though, we’ll spend another day at the beach like yesterday, with some powerful head high surf rolling through. Tyler’s last ride part two and three.

Tyler.