Tipping the police in Mexico

After 5 days in the car we are here in La Manzanilla. Crossing the border was easy, took about 40 mins and the border patrol guy insisted on filling out the paperwork. We crossed the border and made it Navajoa the first day.

We were feeling so smug that we decided to start out very early in the next morning (just before daylight), get a head start and all.

We completely forgot that we are driving a white subaru with a thule on top that just scream's, "tourist". Not 5 mins out of the hotel parking lot and the lights of a police car are behind us, we pull over, cop walks up and say's "hola", shakes my husband's hand, smiling and tells us we ran a light, and then says, "un ticket you pay $300 dollar and bye, bye." We start protesting that we don't have $300 dollars, he comes back with "$200 dollar and bye, bye", we continue the protest and finally he agrees to "$100 and bye, bye."

So we pay the "ladron" and are on our way, upset and $100 poorer...here's the kicker, 5 mins later we get pulled over by another one!

At this point I'm mad, the cop walks over, friendly, hola, handshake, starts down the "too fast" line of bullshit and I start yelling that we just got pulled over and the other guy took ALL our money. The cop is looking at me like I'm crazy and my poor husband is now offically upset. The cop waves me off and walks back to his car and other cop gets out. I tell him the same story, "we were JUST pulled over and the other guy took ALL our money." He smiles and say's no problem, steps away and waves us off. Rick and I wondered if maybe they share the take?

The lesson here, no need to get upset. Be friendly, negoicate down as much as you can, keep smiling, pay the ticket and move along.

The next day we felt better about it all, enjoyed the last day's drive and arrived saftely in La Manzanilla to a beautiful day, sunny, not too hot, nice breeze.