Crossing experience and a question.
We crossed south at Lukeville on the 6th of Feb. I noted that the Homeland (U.S) guys have moved their portion a bit to the left and into an official looking booth, different than last year. We were asked the standard questions, no inspection and passed thru, well. passed through slowly. They make it a bit of a challenge cause it seems as if its more narrow than the north bound lanes. Didn't hit anything, which was good. Mexican side. Gate was down and had to move forward to get a Green light. Our friends following in the rv behind us got stopped. I pulled over and sent the wife back to help/translate.
Coming to the question part. The three border guards said the gate arm was broken and would not come up. At first the 3 guards told our friends towing a car to back up. I made sure to tell the wife to tell the guys, Not happening with the car in tow. This was about a minute after we had just gone through the same gate.
The wife of course tried to hit the three guards with the common sense approach and asked them to just manually swing the gate out of the way. No can do, they replied and instructed her to go see the supervisor who was inside on the phone. They told her the Supervisor needed to retrieve some type of component that would open the gate and that they couldn't do it. The Sup tried to waive the wife away while he was on the phone. Yeah, it doesn't work for me either when I try to ignore her , cause she just stayed right there and bugged him till he came out. The Supv was a pain and didn't want to be bothered. He finally came out and manually raised the same arm the 3 guards wouldn't touch. No component, No repair.
All the while our friends were kinda just sitting there (their first trip south in years) a little tense wondering what was going on. I didn't get the "flavor" of the whole encounter cause I stayed with our rv. The wife (has lived in Mexico) said it began to get a little suspicious and didn't "smell" right.
Nobody behind our friends waiting to go thru. We were the only 2 vehicles. our friends were stuck behind the "broken" gate for about 10 minutes. Did not see if the gate worked after we left.
The question. Has this happened to anyone else?
Is this a new effort to grab a"tip"? or Was this what it prbly was, a hiccup and a malfunction in the gate?
http://www.rockypointtalk.com/images/smilies/clown2.gif
Other than that, fairly easy crossing. We're back.
We crossed south at Lukeville on the 6th of Feb. I noted that the Homeland (U.S) guys have moved their portion a bit to the left and into an official looking booth, different than last year. We were asked the standard questions, no inspection and passed thru, well. passed through slowly. They make it a bit of a challenge cause it seems as if its more narrow than the north bound lanes. Didn't hit anything, which was good. Mexican side. Gate was down and had to move forward to get a Green light. Our friends following in the rv behind us got stopped. I pulled over and sent the wife back to help/translate.
Coming to the question part. The three border guards said the gate arm was broken and would not come up. At first the 3 guards told our friends towing a car to back up. I made sure to tell the wife to tell the guys, Not happening with the car in tow. This was about a minute after we had just gone through the same gate.
The wife of course tried to hit the three guards with the common sense approach and asked them to just manually swing the gate out of the way. No can do, they replied and instructed her to go see the supervisor who was inside on the phone. They told her the Supervisor needed to retrieve some type of component that would open the gate and that they couldn't do it. The Sup tried to waive the wife away while he was on the phone. Yeah, it doesn't work for me either when I try to ignore her , cause she just stayed right there and bugged him till he came out. The Supv was a pain and didn't want to be bothered. He finally came out and manually raised the same arm the 3 guards wouldn't touch. No component, No repair.
All the while our friends were kinda just sitting there (their first trip south in years) a little tense wondering what was going on. I didn't get the "flavor" of the whole encounter cause I stayed with our rv. The wife (has lived in Mexico) said it began to get a little suspicious and didn't "smell" right.
Nobody behind our friends waiting to go thru. We were the only 2 vehicles. our friends were stuck behind the "broken" gate for about 10 minutes. Did not see if the gate worked after we left.
The question. Has this happened to anyone else?
Is this a new effort to grab a"tip"? or Was this what it prbly was, a hiccup and a malfunction in the gate?
http://www.rockypointtalk.com/images/smilies/clown2.gif
Other than that, fairly easy crossing. We're back.
