Ok, we are reconnecting with an age-old blog from when we were spending alternate Winters in Argentina and Europe. Silvia (Ondina) persuaded me that it would be a good idea to resurect it. Now I have to see if I can remember how to use it.
It is currently October 17th October 20th and we have been in Mexico for over a week, so I'll do a quick recap as the first entry so that everyone I share this with will be on the same page. Many of you will know some of it, probably no one was told all of it - such is the advantage of an 'all in one spot' type of blog rather than multiple emails. The email wont disappear as many sharings are more private, but at least I can have a spot for all the boring details. :)
The above is a picture taken from a small public beach in Cabo San Lucas, sort of as proof we are here, even though neither of us is in the picture.
Well, one of us is here to be sure.
There we are - two happy travellers and a cactus.
Now back to the story.
Our flight down here involved a long stay in Vancouver - 11 hours - after originally booking a hotel we decided that we would be 'young and foolish' and spend the night in the airport. That very long night made us exhausted for the flight down to Mexico and so we were pretty spacy by the end of it, which led to a couple of forks in the road.
1) We were a little shocked to discover that the Immigration papers that we had so carefully researched how to fill out (as we were not coming down as 'mere tourists') were no longer in existance - at least they were no longer being used at the San Jose del Cabo airport. That put us in a bit of a tailspin, as everything we had read so far said that we HAVE TO fill out this form correctly otherwise we could jeapordize the whole temporary residency process. Thank goodness I had my trusty, Spanish speaking partner by my side. This whole process is very new and slowly working its way across Mexico, however, not all immigration personnel are fully trained on what to do with people coming in to do 'Canje' or visa exchange for temporary or permanent residency. After some discussion with the immigration official we got through that one OK. BTW the expected long line up and wait did not happen, whatever they are implementing it is getting people through very efficiently. We were quickly through both immigration and customs and out into Terminal 2, which led us to the 2nd incident:
2) Our instructions from our Airbnb host was that the simplest way from the airport was to take one of the hotel shuttles and ask to be dropped off at Hotel Santa Fe in El Centrol. Before we actually got that far we were whisked away by some 'carded' smoothy to a booth to 'help us with booking our shuttle!' Half an hour later we got out of there with shuttle tickets from and back to the airport, but we had also put a deposit on a dinner and boat cruise, plus a free breakfast in return for listening to a time-share pitch. In our defense, we were exhausted and in a different dimension. :)
Thankfully, we did end up on our shuttle and not just on the sidewalk. An hour later we were safely ensconsed in our little airbnb and laughing at our stupidity for getting caught in a scam, though surprised that it is so supported by the airport.
We started making plans for how we should move forward with our residency request when the process was is total flux. Again, I am so thankful that Silvia was there, I would not like to go through any of these processes without someone speaking fluent Spanish. We had booked an airbnb within walking distance of the Immigration Office, so we set out to explore the town and find out exactly how to get there the next morning. We also had to find some food..... Our airbnb host had left a very informative map with recommendations within walking distance.
