Military Checkpoint How-To

After our first uncomfortable incident at a Military Checkpoint we tried a slightly different approach this time. We pretended that we knew NO Spanish. We were pulled out of the line for further inspection and directed to a parking area. It took them a good twenty minutes to get to us while a young soldier with a Very Big Gun watched us from behind his sandbags. I suspect this was to get us nervous if we were hiding anything. Norma had to pee but I told her to hold it because if she headed into the back I was sure it would attract their attention and not in a good way!

Soon two young soldiers walked up to my window and before they could say anything I stated, "No hablo Espanol". He said, "No Spanish?" and I said, "No, sorry". He motioned for me to get out of the cab and he pointed to the Honda and said something. I made an opening motion with the key and he nodded. I opened all the doors and the trunk. The two of them spent a good deal of time checking the trunk. As one was checking out the contents of a cooler the other looked at me, tapped the Honda and said, "Expensive". I think he was referring to the whole motorhome and Honda combination so I said, "No, they are very old". He nodded, temporarily satisfied that we were not rich Gringos.

One of them then walked over to the side door of the motorhome and I did the opening motion again to which he said, "Si". He went in and spent a couple of minutes in the bedroom where I could not see what he was looking into and on his way out he looked around the kitchen a bit. He got out, said something to his partner who nodded, turned to me and said, "OK, thanks" and motioned for us to leave. We exchanged smiles and "thank you's" and waves to the guy with the Very Big Gun behind the sandbags and we were on our way. This was a much better resolution than last time and will be our new model for all future Military Checkpoints. The only thing we did not do was to display a Canadian and Mexican Flag. That probably would have made it even smoother.