The conclusion of our really long journey is in Guadalajara, Mexico, a city and country that I have never been to before. I did zero research about this place before coming here because my family lives here, so I really didn't know what to expect.
Looking around LAX airport at near midnight made me believe that there wouldn't be very many people on this flight but that was a very untrue presumption. The flight was totally full and I played the role of Good Samaritan by giving up my premium seat to sit in an exit row because one older women was deemed unfit to sit in an exit row. The staff were so impressed that I would be willing to give up my seat that they gave me 5000 miles on their frequent flyer program. I am not a member of this program nor do I know if 5000 is worth anything. Whatever! I didn't do it to be rewarded for it, I did it because it was the right thing to do.
So this flight from LAX to GDL was 4 hours and after what I had been through with the 12 hours form Taipei to Los Angeles and the near 9-hour layover in the airport this seemed like a really easy task to accomplish. Mostly I was just delighted to get the flights over with and especially to get out of LAX, which as was likely clear in my last post, is just as much of a confusing mess as I thought it would be.
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Like a lot of people, I kind of unfairly presumed that Mexico was going to have not so modern airports and when we first landed I thought that was the case. There was no jetway, just some stairs for us to walk down, which were dangerously shaky, and then we got on a bus. There were a lot of disabled people on our flight to simply getting off the plane took about 40 minutes. I got a bit of a chuckle about the people that just like in any other flight I have ever been on, immediately stood up as soon as we landed only to be forced to remain standing for quite a long time.
I am one of those travelers that sits there and waits for the people in front of me to get off the plane before me and honestly folks, if everyone utilized this same strategy, all of us would get off the plane faster.
I'm starting to get long-winded with my words again so lets talk about the image above. This is the first place in the world that I have ever been that my immigration was completely automated. You put your passport on the scanner, then a little gate opens up in front of you and you stand in there and have your picture taken. Then something gets printed out, you take it, and that is your visa. At no point in time did I speak to a human being and I also wasn't grilled for "WHY ARE YOU IN MEXICO?" the way that you get needlessly harassed in other countries. This is the most efficient immigration system I have seen anywhere in the world and I can't believe that it is happening in the relatively poor country of Mexico. Well done you guys!
Unfortunately, that was basically the only modern part of the entire airport.
In the baggage claim area it just looks like they have given up on trying to make it look nice and you know what? That is just fine with me. I am not here to admire the wonderful floor patterns, I'm here to get my bags and get the hell out of here.
The bags arrived pretty quickly and that is likely because as far as I could tell we were the only arriving flight which makes sense because it was 4 in the morning.
one thing I definitely wasn't prepared for was how cold it was in Guadalajara. I was still wearing my clothes from Vietnam where it was blazing, sweat immediately hot and as you can tell by what the people are wearing that are also waiting for their bags, it was chilly. I was shaking at one point and when I got my bags I opened it up and got one of the two long-sleeve shirts that I own.
Customs here were a bit more militaristic than I had expected. I say this because who is smuggling anything INTO Mexico? The customs people were wearing military outfits and were quite intimidating. When I was spoken to by one of the guards or officials, I panicked and said in Spanish "No Hablo Inglés" which means "I don't speak English." The guard kind of chuckled because even he knew I meant to say that I don't speak Spanish but well, we got through it.
I don't know what it was about me, maybe I just have a look of someone that is definitely not trying to sneak anything into the country, but I was one of the only people in the masses that was allowed to bypass customs inspection. That was a nice treat because I am exhausted at this point and really just wanted to get the hell out of there.
The next part of our dive into the unknown began anew from this point because even though my sister was picking me up we hadn't agreed on a particular place that we were going to do that and Guadalajara is the 2nd most populated city in Mexico. Thankfully, and just by dumb luck, she just happened to cruise by the same place that I was standing out by the street. I had no data on my phone and the wifi didn't extend out to the street so we just got lucky.
Here is one thing about Mexico that I had all wrong in my mind and I feel a bit bad about that. I wouldn't say it is racism but just me being ignorant about the fact that Mexicans generally are not as dark skinned as I had imagined. A great deal of the population looks just like I do and this is why people and officials were always speaking Spanish to me. I do not speak Spanish.
When I got into my sister's car and knew that the journey was nearly over this was a massive relief to me. The longest journey of my life was over now and I don't know if you have been in similar situation in your life but it just seems like it will never end.... but it does. I am now in my parents' house in Chapala and am going through getting over the jet lag. Some people say that they are not affected by jet lag and well, I admire you people and I don't see how that is even possible. For the next 3 days at least I am going to be waking up in the middle of the night and am going to be exhausted by 6pm.
It's been many years since I have had to deal with this but like all things, it will pass.
So in the end the moral of the story here is that if you ever are finding yourself needing to fly to Guadalajara, the airport is significantly more streamlined and convenient than I was expecting it would be. It was actually one of the easiest airports I have ever been inside of in my life. The only downside I would say is that there weren't very many people that could speak English, which was surprising to me.