The End of Rompecabeza: How To Move to Mexico

[We’re recounting the travails of becoming a legal Mexican temporary resident. You can find the whole thing in reverse order here]

We’d finally arrived in Mérida, Yucatan. The weather was nice. Ninety-ish. That’s not unusual. To wit:

It does get hotter, and when it rains, the rain falls down, but the temperature never falls below 60 degrees F here. To give you some idea of what it was like in Maine when we left, here’s a picture of the Kennebec River behind our apartment building:

I’ve shown that picture to Mérida residents. They ask me why Maine paves their rivers with concrete, and why they do such a bad job of it. However, I am at a loss to explain Maine to anyone, never mind Mexicans. I have several million words on this website to prove it.

I am also at a loss to explain the Mérida airport (Manuel Crescencio Rejón International) to anyone under the age of about 50. It’s what airports used to be like, but never are anymore. It’s pleasant, and I don’t mind going there.

The airport bustles, but it’s not crowded, It’s clean and orderly. Every poster on the wall is not some form of threat. The staff of all sorts are efficient, but never brusque. Most of the interactions you have are with pretty, tiny girls (the Maya are not tall), wearing dad’s blazer and mom’s makeup. Then again, I get the feeling if someone pitched a fit, or worse, there’d be a serious force present to restore order in a hurry.

But then again, Mérida airport is already orderly, so there’s no need to restore it. American airports are mosh pits lorded over by prison guards by comparison.

Now things were going our way. When you get into the terminal proper, you’ve got to go through immigration, then customs. There are two lines for immigration, cordoned off with those “waiting in line at the bank” ribbon/stanchion mazes that make you think, “Serpentine, Shelly” forevermore after you watch The In-Laws. If you’re under 50, you can also ask your parents what waiting in line at a bank is like.

On the left is the line for tourists, i.e.: everyone on the plane. Except us, I mean, and a few other people. We had the magic passports with the consulate special visa in them. We got to wait behind one person in the right-hand lane, the one for Mexican residents, instead of the 150 people glaring at us from the tourist line. I’ve been hated by Americans for being American before, but it was a new and refreshing sensation to be disliked for being kinda Mexican, just by dint of qualifying for the shorter line.

We’d been coached by the internet (teehee) to make sure we were processed properly for our canje status, not as a regular visitor. We had learned a series of Spanish phrases to explain this to the official, but it wasn’t necessary. He took one look at our passports with the special visa inside, said, “Canje, verdad?” and then stamped the passports and signed them with a date. That got our 30 day clock running to finish the process. His only question for us was in perfect English: “Have you ever been to Mérida before?

I realized immediately that he wasn’t interrogating me. He was wondering if we were two lost lambs, and might need some advice on getting a taxi or something. We answered in the affirmative, he said welcome, and we went on our way. If the 150 people waiting in the other line threw anything at us, we were already out of range, so I didn’t notice.

More surprises at the baggage carousel. For the first time ever, we had more bags than we could handle by carrying them ourselves. We solved this problem at the Boston airport by paying $7 (!) to rent a crummy trolley with a bockety wheel. While waiting for the luggage-go-round to load up, we espied a gaggle of fellows with those big hand trucks that made you think of getting off of a 1930s transatlantic ship and getting your steamer trunks collected by a porter.

My wife went over to find out how much it would cost to hire one of the guys, and the astonish-a-rama continued. It’s free. The airport pays their salaries, so they’re happy to help. The fellow we got was endlessly patient, and we butchered Spanish and he demolished English in return, and we passed the time splendidly.

Off to customs. Everything but us and the cat got X-rayed again. I guess our suitcases looked weird. My wife and I parted ways a bit here. She went to “Livestock and Agriculture,” if my Spanish is correct (it’s not), while I had a customs official direct me to open my suitcases.

My wife had more fun than I did. The internet instructed us (har har) that it’s no longer a requirement to take your cat to the veterinarian and get an official-looking stamped form that testifies that it’s perfectly healthy, and has all its shots up to date, within ten days of travel. We ignored that advice and brought one anyway. The young lady at the Livestock and Agriculture card table grabbed it, and that was that was that. Oh, except our cat is a Russian Blue (a bit mutt), and identified as such on the form.  This confused the official. Why do they say it’s blue? It’s gray!. Then she asked if she could pat the cat, because she was “so cute.” Sure, why not? She’s catatonic by now, after being stuffed under a seat for fourteen hours.

My inspection interlude took a little longer. I was asked what was in my suitcases. I said, “Las ropas, y los libros” (clothes, and books). “Libros?” “Si, libros.” All four suitcases were the same. When you opened them and laid them flat, one side had nothing but clothes in it, and the other side had nothing but old hardcover books in it. He picked one up, flipped through the pages, even sniffed one, and shrugged, “Libros!“. The only exception was one suitcase that had two jigsaw puzzles in it. They come in a cardboard tube, and are somewhat fancy. We included them because they didn’t weigh much, and the suitcase was already freighted with books like O. Henry’s entire output, and other assorted doorstop tomes. My teeth almost broke trying to say puzzles in Spanish, “rompecabezas.” It’s a wonderful Spanish word, that means something like headbusters.

He waved us through, and just like that, the rompecabeza part of our travels was done (almost). We got a cab, gave the porter a big fat tip, and drove off into the sunshine.

[To be continued]

Don’t Know When I’ll Be Back Again: Moving to Mexico

[We’re recounting the difficulty of obtaining legal long term residency in Mexico. You can see the whole saga here, in reverse order]

John Denver, just like Jimmy Buffett, had one good song in him. Unfortunately, their entire careers happened after that one good song. It’s the way of the (music) world.

At any rate, our bags were packed, and we were ready to go. A hard deadline concentrates the mind. Plane takes off on a certain date at a certain time. No backsies. No refunds, no exchanges. Be there or be square.

We stuffed each of our four suitcases with 49.5 pounds of our old life, and set off on for a new one. We’d been up since 2 AM the night before the night before, and we never did go to sleep on Hejira Eve. We left for the airport at around midnight, to catch a 7:00 AM flight. Yeah, traveling is like that now.

Go ahead laugh at me. Of course, we were driving to Logan Airport in Boston. I had no idea exactly what would befall us there, but in my experience, Boston is the epicenter of befalling shit, including the occasional tunnel ceiling slab. My friends here in Mexico chide me for looking both ways before I cross a one-way street. They’ve never been to Boston. I don’t mention that I also look up after looking left and right.

Go ahead, laugh at us. There was a bomb scare at the airport that overnight. The Gropers weren’t on strike exactly, but they were still unpaid at that point, and none too happy. The lines were prodigious, even at 4 AM. It wasn’t debilitating enough, so they made us take the cat out of the bag.

I can’t believe we actually let the cat out of the bag. I’ve heard that expression umpteen zillion times. I’ve uttered it septillion more times. But until then, I was never asked in earnest to let the cat out of the bag. In an airport TSA line, with a thousand onlookers, a bunch of dogs present, machines beeping, lights flashing, a cover version of Leaving on a Jet Plane by the Fifth Dimension playing on the muzak, between microphonic excoriations to stop leaving our pistols in our carry-on bags.

The cat was freaked out already, of course. She’s quietly crouched in 1/10th the total volume of the tiny bag she’s in, shuddering, drinking nerve tonic and chain smoking. But they want us to double down, and let the cat out of the bag.

My wife, who is shy  and polite, but quite brave, volunteered to take one for our team. I was busy explaining all the various tech equipment in my carry-on to an agent who didn’t know what a computer was. So my wife let the cat out of the bag, and held onto it for dear life. It went spastic, but somehow she held on to it.

They weren’t interested in the cat all that much. They just looked around the bag to see if it was stuffed with Claymore mines or cocaine or something worth stealing. Then they let my wife put the cat back in the bag. They proceeded to wipe down my wife with cloths to make sure she didn’t have an explosive residue on her. You know, from our cat, Patty Osama bin FARC Red Brigade Hearst. My wife asked if all the blood on her hands, arms, and chest would interfere with their ministrations. They said no, so we were passed on to the plane, in search of peanuts, Sprite, and band-aids.

Go ahead, laugh at us. We got to Miami, the only stop before heading over to the Yucatan, and got on the next plane. A woman’s voice came over the intercom. This the captain speaking…

Please insert hidebound, bigoted comments here, about wishing you heard some form of Top Gun voice from the cockpit. I don’t have the strength. But I will admit my wife and I rolled our eyes reflexively at the same time. And we weren’t disappointed. By that, I mean we were disappointed. The plane backed up ten feet, and shuddered to a halt. Then we were treated to two solid hours of staring out the window at the same patch of pavement, while the pilotess chimed in every few minutes with announcements like: it’ll just be a few minutes, minor technical problem, teams are on the way to diagnose, just a few more minutes…

Many of the passengers grew restive. I was sanguine, mostly because I was getting a lower back massage for two hours from the little girls sitting behind me, kicking the seat non-stop. Very invigorating. They perhaps sensed that I hadn’t slept in 36 hours, and wanted to help me stay awake.

After two hours of this, another voice came over the intercom. Unlike the last 22 announcements, It was pitched in the Barry White register, and sounded like Clint Eastwood. This is the captain speaking…

So they’d found someone who knew where reverse was on a 737, and plugged him in. Hallelujah. Five minutes later, the plane took off, and nothing could stop us but antiaircraft fire, and I hear Cuba is fresh out of that, among other things. When we landed in Merida, we filed out of the plane, took that familiar left turn at the cockpit door, and almost felt sorry for the female pilot, now sitting in the right-hand seat, looking sheepish.

Almost.

[To be continued. Many thanks for reading, commenting and hitting our Ko-Fi tip jar. It is greatly appreciated]

Not a Swinger’s Party for Realtors, or: How To Move to Mexico

[We’re outlining the perils, pitfalls, and benefits of obtaining Mexican residency. A catalog of entries is here, in reverse order]

Reader and commenter Jed sniffed out a void in our info about moving to Mexico yesterday. I’d mentioned that we were limited to four suitcases, 50 pounds each, a couple of carry-ons, and a sack full of cat. He’s seeking sense and sensibility in our actions, and not always finding it:

Four suitcases sounds too extreme. Makes me wonder what options are available, and how tenable they are, for retaining a larger set of possessions, and shipping them to you once you’ve gotten settled into a suitably large place.

Well, Jed’s right to wonder. We looked into this deeply, and settled on the course of action I’ve outlined. There are others. For the most part, they’re reserved for people with more money than we have.

The internet often mistakes our lack of squalor as access to scads of money. We don’t look like trailer park folks, so they figure we have enough dough to avoid that kind of life. But even the US Senate is at least half-filled with People of Walmart now. More money just buys more squalor with Gucci bags thrown in. I have often opined that nearly everyone was like us once. Now almost no one is. More money doesn’t enter into it much, except to allow people to graduate from meth to coke, and better lawyers to bail them out of jail.

So Jed’s right. You can have more, and larger, and heavier bags than we did. This is an international flight, though, for at least one leg, and they charge like crazy for extra baggage. The sliding scale for bag weight gets eye-watering quickly, so we bought one of those suitcase scales and made sure we were under the limits. We had to pay something like $40 for the first bag, $50 for the second, and $200 if we wanted a third. No checked bags were free on our flight, and we weren’t flying steerage, either, although not first class.

It’s funny, and I don’t know when it morphed, but I’ve noticed that first class on a plane is always filled with the sketchiest-looking people on the plane. It used to be freighted with guys in business suits getting comped by their companies. Now it’s the bar scene from Star Wars. And we’re not flying Southspirillegianontierwest Low Bidder Airlines, either.

So we decided on two large (38″) checked bags each. Larger suitcases, volume-wise, were available, and able to be checked, but they were useless to us because of the weight. Fifty pounds isn’t a hard limit, but go even one pound over, and it’s an extra hundred bucks. And no bag over 70 pounds, no matter how many martinis you qualify for in first class.

Jed is still further correct: There must be another way. There is: menaje de casa. It sounds like a swingers party for real estate agents. In reality it’s just a one-time gimme from the Mexican government to let you bring in your household belongings without being classified as an importer.

Pretty much everything you bring into Mexico except the clothes on your back, and what you can stuff in four suitcases, makes you an importer. That includes driving a car in. There are tariffs and taxes and rules and regulations and problems out the wazoo if you’re classified as an importer. But Mexico understands that if you’re going to become a legal resident, you might want to bring a household’s worth of stuff in to the country, so they give you a shot at it. The nature of this opportunity isn’t a gravy train on biscuit wheels, however:

You can only do it once. You can only do it within three months before arriving, or six months after. Everything you bring must be used. If any item is still new in a package, you’re back to being an importer. Better not bring more than one of anything, either, or you’re back to being a wholesaler in addition to being an importer, which is a whole ‘nother kind of trouble.

So it’s possible to use the menaje to bring your stuff. Clothes, furniture, dishes, books, knick-knacks, hobby stuff (but probably not much in the tool department), belongings like that. No food, booze, guns, or other fun stuff. We’ve talked to several couples who have done the manaje. They reminded me of talking to Vietnam vets in 1974, muttering the horror over and over.

First, there is the cost. Only certain moving companies can do the deed. One couple we know paid $9,000. Another $7,000. The last people we talked to didn’t mention the price, but they did mention how the moving company packed up their stuff, transported it just over the border, then unceremoniously dumped everything in a pile in a parking lot, waiting for the Mexican leg of the moving daisy chain to pick it up. A lot of their stuff arrived busted. Some didn’t arrive at all. Other people said their stuff was left out in the rain, to boot.

To qualify for the menaje, you also have to compose a bill of lading, in Spanish, of every item in the load, and I mean every item. You can pay someone to do that for you too, I guess.

There is yet another way forward, and we took it. It’s quite common in the Yucatan to rent places by the year completely furnished, with most everything you might bring with you in a menaje. Many, if not most houses are sold completely furnished, too. The place we rented has everything from shot glasses to percale sheets.

So four suitcases it is. The realtors will have to tie each other up without our help.

[to be continued]

Your New Life Will Cost You Your Old One

[We’re recounting the procedure for becoming a temporary Mexican resident. The entire series is here, in reverse order]

We’d made a terrible mistake. That’s our stock in trade: mistakes. We were in Mexico last October, and we entered into a rental contract starting in March 2026. If there is a better definition of “your ass in the breeze,” I have not seen it. We can’t afford one set of rents. Two gets comical, and we’d have to start elbowing the cat out of the way and eating out of her bowl. But we were tired of the AirBnB life, and weary, after one try, of renting a pig in a poke of an apartment, like we did in Augusta.

While we were there, we got a tour of our prospective Mexican casa, and more importantly, we got to hang around the neighborhood all day. We could see they weren’t testing missiles next door. There was no rendering plant across the street. No halfway houses for murderers who won’t go all the way nearby. We were especially interested in avoiding another gay disco over the back wall. We enjoyed that once, at an AirBnB in Santa Lucia. The nightly throom, throom, throom still rings in my ears a bit. There is no cure, only palliative care.

The casa on offer suited us fine, and the neighbors were regular folks for the most part. We had avoided “Gringo Gulch,” the locals half-joking sobriquet for the AirBnB rental ghetto for expats.  But we were still in the heart of things. So we took a wild guess, and thought October to March would be enough time to get our affairs in order. We were nearly right. We’ve found that nearly right is right enough for horseshoes, hand grenades, and international travel.

But I ask you. Could you pare down your possessions to fit in four large suitcases, a carryon, and a cat in a sack to stuff under the plane seat? That’s what we were attempting. We ended up with only thirty days to accomplish it. Oh, and by the way, each suitcase can only weigh fifty pounds, max. That’s what we were up against.

And oh, that cat. If we gave up our apartment in Maine, we’d have to walk out the door with the cat under our arm and board a plane the same day. Not bloody likely. A cat is worse than a toddler. We couldn’t camp out, literally or figuratively, for a short interregnum between households. Not literally camp out, because actual camping in Maine in February is considered brisk even by esquimau standards. Only the cat would survive, now that I think of it, and she can’t fly alone. And camping out in the short term rental world ain’t easy if you bring a cat. We came up with a solution.

We built a Time Masheen and took a short jog back through the calendars to our younger days and had two sons instead of purse dogs, iPhones, and eight dollar lattes every day. By the time our predicament rolled around in the present, these children were huge adult people with opinions and shaving gear and driver’s licenses. They offered to move our furniture out of our apartment after we left.

One is suspicious of instructions to leave the country ASAP when you get them from your children. It is possible that my wife raised two pleasant and helpful humans. The alternative explanations are too grim to contemplate.

We had already flensed the whale of our belongings when moving from a giant Victorian house to a pokey pied-a-terre in the metrop of Augusta. We pulled a tremendous dodge to get rid of a lot of our furniture. There was an antique marketplace in the next town. It rented booths by the month, and then manned the checkout line to collect the tariffs on whatever junque some unsuspecting stranger might buy. Since our belongings were either flea market finds, or phony antiques I had made, we fit right in. We priced everything lower than market rates, so the stuff more or less ran out the door. The people who ran it would occasionally scratch their heads when we sold something like an antique bench, and I’d show up the next day with another one just like it. They never did catch on the the true reason we were renting the booth was the square footage of the booth was cheaper by the month than the square footage of a self-storage locker. Getting any money for the stuff was gravy. We ended up selling almost everything, and we gave the few remaining things to the lady across the antique store aisle.

I spent two solid weeks taking digital scans of every document and photo we’d accumulated over the years. If anyone wants a copy of a photo of me grimacing at my high school graduation, taken by my mother, I’ve got one. I put all my important tax documents into a hard drive, which I hoped would fall out of the cargo hold at 12,000 feet. If the plane went down in flames, everyone else would have screamed and rent their garments all the way as we spiraled into the ocean. I’d be sitting there with a beatific look on my face, secure in the knowledge that the hard drive was going to be smashed or drowned along with me. Cheaper than travel insurance, too. The hard part was the books.

Jayzuz, the books. We might have 1,000 of them, I don’t know. Maybe more. Maybe a lot more. I don’t buy bad books very often, so I never have a big box of Dan Brown books out on the curb for the trash man, to free up shelf space. My wife doesn’t read trivial stuff either. You don’t give 100-year-old hardcover Henry James novels the heave-ho when you’re done with them. The usual route of lending them to friends and relatives doesn’t work for us, either. Everyone my wife knows reads ghostwritten autobiographies of second-string Red Sox shortstops. I’d give them a pass if it was Rico Petrocelli, but it’s always some imbecile from ten years ago with cogent advice on how to step out of the batter’s box seventeen times to adjust their batting gloves. We can’t give our books to the library, either.  They’d  burn our books in pyre outside the coven of perversion they’re running, and dream of doing the same to us. They hate Shakespeare now. What chance does my Kipling have?

It was easy to pack away the yards of shelves of books about furniture and building stuff. Where I’m going, everything is Fred Flintstone in the architecture department. There isn’t enough wood in the whole of Yucatan to build a picnic table, never mind a house. After that, it got harder. We set up a biblio-triage, holding up a second edition Life on the Mississippi and a 1946 translation of Don Quixote. Cervantes won, but mostly because Twain himself thought it was one of the greatest books ever written, and I had already earmarked ten Twain books for the Go pile, and my wife said enough, basta, and demasiado at the same time.

[to be continued]