John Heiney <<hangglidingphotos>>
writes:

Recently I was invited to come to Chihuahua, Mexico to do demos at
an air show. They wanted two loopers so I called my friend Dino Dinaso.

Phone conversation:

John - "Hey Dino. How would you like to drive to Mexico, take a chance of
getting your head cut off and fly in a Mexican air show?"

Dino - "Sounds like a fun adventure. I need a break from my business."

We had met the man who invited us, Vico Gutierrez (uncle to our old friend Juan
Corral) years ago at hang gliding meets in Mexico and Owens Valley. He is the
same one who brought me down to Mazatlan for a beach air show last Fall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btSycp0x0dA One of Vico's projects was to fly
his trike along the migration route of the monarch butterfly from Canada to
Mexico.
http://butterflybreeders.com/public/followingthemonarchmigration.html.

Dino and I decided to take his Previa. We drove 700 miles and we were only about
170 miles from Chihuahua when we were stopped at a check point. They asked for
our car permit and our immigration papers. We didn't have no stinking
immigration papers or car permit. After a half hour of discussion and phone
conversation with Juan Corral (who speaks Spanish) they sent us back to the
border to get our papers. We had passed several military checkpoints (one with a
machine gun nest) and no one had asked for our papers. They did tell us there's
a drug war and we should not even be here.

At the first military checkpoint we came to a guy with a machine gun waked up
and wanted to look in the back of the van. I opened the door and he spotted my
backpack and opened it. As he looked through it he pulled out my desert camo hat
that one of my Marine hang gliding students had given me. His uniform was the
exact same digital camo. He looked at me with a strange look, then indicated
that he wanted to try it on. I nodded and he put it on. I said "it looks good on
you. That's yours now". He seemed happy, zipped up my pack and waved us through.
He certainly needed it more than I, being out there in the sun all day.

As we drove back north to get our papers it sank in that we were illegal aliens,
possibly breaking the law by driving without car insurance. We wondered what
would happen if we walked into a government building and admitted our situation.
If we were Mexicans in the US in this situation we would be taken into custody.

When we arrived back in Agua Prieta (the border town) we had driven six hours in
a very dry inhospitable landscape on a narrow two-lane with a strong cross wind
blowing the gliders to the side. It was too late to drive back and no one in
their right mind drives at night in Mexico. We learned a long time ago that poor
people drive without headlights / taillights because they have no money to buy
new ones once they burn out.

You may judge whether we were in our right minds on this trip. We entered Mexico
during a drug war with no passports, no Mexican car insurance, no immigration
papers, no paper road map, no phone number for our host and no address where we
were to meet our host.

We decided to see if we could get back into the USA. We were fortunate to find
an understanding man at the US border and he let us back in without searching
our car. Our best decision was to cross at the small town of Douglas AZ where
things are more relaxed. It was so relaxed that the Mexican people at the border
didn't tell us we needed immigration papers and car insurance when we told them
we were going to Chihuahua.

I heard on the radio today that gangs stop buses and take all the money from the
passengers. If they refuse they might all be killed. They are finding mass
graves now from such incidents. Mostly people traveling north from Central
America and Mexico.

Oh well. We decided it would be blown-out at the air show anyway, and we were
scared of all the machine guns we had passed. The next day we went to the great
Pima Air Museum at Tucson instead. Then we drove back home to California.

We found out later that indeed the entire weekend air show was canceled due to
strong wind. Ironically, the same storm that had prevented the air show in
Chihuahua, had produced a great four days of soaring back home at Torrey Pines.

When we got home, we felt like we could use a vacation.

"Security is a myth. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing". Helen
Keller