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Mexico City, corrupt capital of Mexico.

Benito Juárez Airport, Mexico City. At ten we picked up Belén’s parents in our rental car and at ten-ten we’d already almost been almost “bitten”, not by dogs wearing a tag on the collar, but by cops wearing one on their chest. That’s the Mexican police and their famous mordidas , or bribes.

Now that we know the country a little better, we’re not that surprised. A few years ago, in Mexico, when you got your driver’s license, they used to ask if you wanted to take the exam or not. Because no one really passed the exam, everyone chose the second option, the one in which you would add a 100 pesos bill and then wait and see. From that point of view it’s a true democracy. Bribes are for everyone, that is, nationals and foreigners, the only difference being the amounts. Locals pay 200 pesos. From foreigners like us they can ask whatever amount they want, 1500 pesos to start with, and if you don’t pay attention they can lift even more. When the authorities realized the business some people had going on, they decided to stop it. In order to finish the bribing they got rid of the exam. Now everyone pays and that’s it. One has to admit that the anticorruption policies are quite original, but even better are the extortion methods on the roads:

“Good morning, sir. You just ran a red light”, a policeman tells us after stopping us.
“That’s impossible. We were in a roundabout. There aren’t any lights here”, I told him while looking at the same time for a hidden camera, thinking it might be a joke.

The rest of the conversation is surreal. Our new friend, wearing boots and with the face of a crook, impassive, lies like a rogue. I try not to make him mad with euphemisms like “maybe you were confused, officer”. Everything is going well, we follow the pre-established script, until my father-in-law gets out of the car in a rage. Because I’m so focused on my part as the innocent lamb I don’t pay attention and then can’t stop him.

“My friend from the government is going to know about this and more. Put your name and number in the fine and I will call him right away.”

Though I’ve known him for a long time, I didn’t imagine my father-in-law was so well connected. Both the extortionist and his prey looked at each other astonished. Another actor has messed up the scene. The sheriff’s apprentice that was going to be a star gets pissed off, snatches away my papers and goes to check with his superior. If my cast mate had the look of a bad guy, the foreman is even worse. He looks like Pancho Villa with stomach cramps from all the spicy food, but when he opens his mouth I’m scared to death:

“So your friend from the government…”

A tenth of a second is enough to imagine how it would be to spend the weekend in a Mexican prison. So I decide that my father-in-law has lived a full life, has a grandson and all that, but I have many fruitful years to still in front of me. Without thinking it twice, I betray him:

“Can’t we just forget about the guy from government and his bloody friend here and fix this among manitos?”

Luckily the traffic noise smothered my voice. With one hand he returns my papers and with the other he stops traffic so that we can incorporate back into it easily. “Have a good day”, he says just in case I had any doubts. My face must have been a sight to see. My father-in-law’s face looked like Bardem’s after winning the Oscar. Nor was he in a rage. Nor did he have a friend in the Mexican government. He bluffed, and he won.

But our happiness is short lived, because less than 48 hours later we’re stopped again. And this time they’re right, so the gangster with a siren won’t release his quarry without something in exchange, exactly 100 pesos. It’s not a lot, but when he asks to slip a bill stealthily through the window we see that he doesn’t write a number on it and we don’t see why we need to be generous. He himself has told us that “one can always do favors for friends”, but we are no one to him and therefore we need to take notice. So we do believe that old saying: You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

In barely two days we’ve gone from being friends of somebody in government to bribers of policemen. But the best is yet to come. Once again we find ourselves in the fateful roundabout of our first encounter and another policeman ―He has the appearance of a good man, shows us the way to reach the airport sound and safe. Safe and sound, yes, but if it were up to him a little less rich, because along the route he puts us on his colleague appears and stops us:

“You’ve made a wrong turn”
“Your colleague told us we could…”
“Yes, but not this way.”

Not here, not there. Fed up with them pulling our leg all the time, I decide to improvise, I press the accelerator and they can look for us wherever they want. While we flee without looking back, inside the car there’s an uncomfortable silence. But it’s nothing one can’t fix with some good tacos. And a good chelada, a beer with lemon juice, a refreshing cocktail we’ve discovered here, but that doesn’t compensate for the bad moments these thugs with badges have given us. And yet, we were warned before landing: “Viva Mexico lindo y corrupto! ”