“I’m looking for your entry stamp. Where is it?” muttered the US border guard. He didn’t look impressed. I was at the US-Mexico border in Tijuana, trying to get back into the US after hitchhiking around Baja Mexico. My travel buddy Kat and I had been dropped off earlier by the last in a long line of kind strangers we hitched with through the desert. Since then we’d waited for an hour in the overloaded pedestrian line with hundreds of others, seemingly all locals, to get into the US customs building.
“I entered the US in Port Angeles in Washington in in April,” I replied. “It should be there somewhere,” I continued. The border guard didn’t look up. “This is a problem,” he shrugged. Great.
It was a far cry from entering Mexico a few weeks ago. We’d driven straight through the border line, not even coming to a standstill before the barrier went up and Marcus, Kat and I were on our way to carne asada tacos in Rosarito without even so much as a fluttering of our passports. Since then Kat and I had hitchhiked 3000km down to the tip of Baja and back, sat in the back of pickup trucks, in big rigs, camped in the desert and on the beaches, swam in crystal clear oceans, hung out with people we had no common language with and had no problems.
Now here I was back at the border on the way overland to Canada, and it turned out a Washington borderguard had forgotton to give me an entry stamp into the US. I felt bureaucracy about to kick me in the face. It was their mistake but it was my problem, and despite there being a record of me entering the US on the date I’d mentioned on the computer I wasn’t allowed into the country. Welcome back to the west.
“Put your bags through the X-Ray machine and line up over there,” I was told. The border guard motioned to the long line of bored looking Mexican folk all waiting outside the “Permit” office. Brilliant. I have a UK passport – I don’t need a visa to visit the US. I even have a valid visa waiver covering me for the next year or more. But no. Not today. Now I was in for an official border molestation session.
I sat down in the line. Kat, with her Canadian passport, had long since cleared customs and was sitting on the ground in the peaceful and clean environment of the San Diego sunshine. I was 30 yards away the other side of the glass, trapped in no mans land. Damn I wish I didn’t have another 18-months before I could get my Canadian citizenship, I thought. Hopefully I could soon negotiate the red tape and enter the US without a multiple-hour interrogation about what I’d been doing in the US with no entry stamp for two months, and why I was smelly, covered in dust and dirt, and using a bike pannier as a backpack whilst being about the only white person (Kat withstanding) crossing the OTHER Tijuana border, rather than the one all the foreigners usually use.
I didn’t really want to leave Mexico anyway. It was an amazing time. I felt so safe and so happy there. We met friendly people, ate cheap and delicious food and life was so simple. As I looked through the glass I could see in the distance the manicured gardens, trash free sidewalks, McDonalds, smooth tarmac, no stray dogs. Basically everything we westerners take for granted. Where I’d just come from – dusty, tumbledown buildings, cracked sidewalks, street dogs, tatty cars with broken windows, a lack of order. I preferred that. Getting rejected wouldn’t be so bad. I’d go hang out in La Paz or Todos again. Or just fly to Canada from Cabo. And it’d mean I’d get to hitch through Mexico again.
An hour passed. Nobody in the line moved. I looked in the office. There wasn’t even anyone behind the desks. No US border guards, just a row of computers, fingerprint scanners, cameras for taking photos of people trying to enter this country, empty chairs. Kat had been back inside to find out where I was. Still waiting I’m afraid. She went back out into the sunshine, and freedom. I slumped down on the ground and waited.
Another 30 minutes passed. A couple of border guards finally appeared. The line slowly cranked into life. People awoke from their daydreams, families hastily grabbed their passports and other paperwork, I checked I still had my UK passport, green sticker marked “no entry stamp” within it’s pages. Woo-freaking-hoo.
I looked inside the office again. I caught the eye of one of the border guards processing a family. He eyed me with a look of mild intrigue. Why was a gringo in this line? He must be sketchy. I sat back down and made the most of a password-free wifi network within range of my phone, caught up on some emails, and continued to await my fate.
Another 30 minutes passed. The line had moved up and up. I was almost there. Almost. Another family went in and began their application. A few minutes later I was called in. My border guard asked for my passport. He had a thick Russian accent. I tried to act friendly and asked where he was from. “I wish I could tell you everything about me,” he replied. “But today. Today is all about you, buddy,” he added in his thick Slavik twang. I tried not to look amused. The border guard who I’d exchanged glances with looked up again.
The Russian border guard went through my passport. Where was my entry stamp? Why was I in the US? Why in Mexico? Was I in the US for business or pleasure? Was I ready for a full cavity search? I explained my bike trip, and further travels in Mexico – carefully to use the word “ride-sharing” rather than “hitchhiking”. The other border guard looked up again. “Where is he from?” he asked my Russian friend. “England,” I replied. “But I live in Vancouver.” he flicked me another glance.
Mr Russian Guardman continues going through my passport, studying the visas in there. Looking closely at the fine print and writing. Eventually, obviously satisfied, he pulled out a form, having barely looked up from my paperwork the whole time. I filled in the form, all my personal details, how I wanted to enter the country, where I was going, where would I be staying in case they needed to drag me off to some secure room somewhere. Eventually, this done I had photos taken, fingerprints recorded, was given my passport and directed to the booth marked Cashier.
Cashier? I have a valid visa waiver. I shouldn’t have to pay anything. I got to the booth and a couple of minutes later yet another guard came along to the cashier window. More burly officers walked past, one of them with a huge German Shephard dog, clearly looking for drugs. The cashier studied my passport, again going through the visas. A couple of minutes of perusal later he looked up. “That’ll be six dollars,” he told me. “Six dollars?,” I retorted. “I have a valid visa waiver. Why do I need to pay six dollars?” That’s two days worth of food in Mexico. “Look,” he responded. “Pay six dollars and get in. Or – don’t pay and you won’t. Simple as that.” Great. Not even back in the US and I’m already being bankrupted.
