One of my favorite pastimes at Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico (ie Guadalajara airport) is sampling Tequilas at the Dufrey duty free. We've had several layovers here and have always enjoyed a little shot. Even at 6 am, the tasting cart is placed at the entrance. It offers a pleasant selection of brands and it seems that after a couple of samples, I'm always willing to purchase a bottle or two. Funny how that works.
We've had a little hiccup this layover. The luggage all arrived. We snagged 3 luggage trolleys and successfully juggled them through the winding crowd control line to Customs. For those of you who have traveled to Mexico, you know that Customs has a random system for determining whose luggage gets searched. The "Red Light - Green Light" system for customs...if you write "Nothing to declare" on the form, you are asked to push a button. If the light is green you can exit without inspection; if the light is red you will be subject to inspection. In the past, I've pushed the button and received a "red light." Miguel & I were debating who should push the button this time. The last thing that we wanted was to push all this luggage through the X-ray machine. I was "volunteered" and to our great relief the light was green.
We were feeling pretty lucky until we went through Security again. We only had our carry-ons, 2 backpacks and 2 carrying cases for the Crystal Singing Bowls. M discovered his affinity for the healing elements of the bowls in Kauai at Crystal Harmonics Sound Art Later expanding his collection at Crystal Tones Mt. Shasta We had no problem passing Security in Fresno though M did get the full body pat down. They said that his backpack was tagged for an explosive element?!? Then as our bags were scanned in Mexico, M was pulled aside AGAIN! He was carrying the larger of the Bowl carrying cases. The officer said that Mexico Transport standards don’t allow items of glass or ceramics in the terminal. So Michael went back out to the Check-in desk to discuss with the airline. They packaged it up securely and Michael had to wait until 3 hours before the flight to check that piece of luggage. This all happened at 7 am. And he had a problem because we will now have 11 pieces of checked baggage and that is over the limit.
I spent the morning with my other traveling buddy, Tobes. We chilled with a Mocha and the other Bowl travel case that wasn't detected.
Tobes has been my life traveling buddy since Christmas of 1986. My dear sister, Liz, mailed him to me in a box with a bar of Toblerone chocolate. I was living in Perth, Australia. We've traveled across the hemispheres and across continents. There were times when he lived up on a shelf or even for awhile in a box. I couldn't leave him behind after all these years.
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