The great escape

Our escape plan or as I call it, breaking into prison.

If the government in its infinite stupidity decided to extend the mandatory three-day incarceration for air passengers, what do we do?

We’ve heard of people defying the order and just going home. However they get hit with big fines, so that’s not an option for us.

Some others are flying to the border and crossing by land as there is no three-day requirement just the regular 14-day quarantine. This is the option we are looking at.

Firstly we thought of flying to Seattle and then getting a ferry to Victoria and getting a one-way rental car to Nanaimo. That idea went out the window when we found that all those ferry services have been canceled.

So, the plan so far: Get our antigen covid test here in Melaque, fly Manzanillo to LAX, get the PCR test there, fly to Seattle, then fly and overnight in Bellingham where, by then, we will have received our test results. Next day, take a taxi to the Peace Arch border…..and then what. I’ve looked into one-way car rentals but there isn’t one near enough to the border to make that work. Walking’s not an option as I would complain all the way.

What we came up with is: From the border take a taxi to the Richmond Harbour Air terminal and fly to Nanaimo where we can blackmail somebody to take us home. Or, take a taxi to a one-way car rental place and come home by ferry. We’ll still need a ride home but in the meantime, we can pick up our car insurance.

If crossing the border is a problem, we plan to either tunnel or take some people we know from here, who know people, who have heard about some disused drug smuggling tunnels. Either way, we will get across.

Living on an island does have its drawbacks. For one thing the tunnels tend to get a bit damp.

On a lighter note, we went to the beach again and parked the car a few blocks away so we could get a little exercise. On the way back I noticed an ‘al pastor’ taco stand opposite the bus station. We had wanted to try one since last year so we ordered and sat down. Somehow, Rosalie got tangled up in the translation and instead of getting one each, we ended up with five tacos each! We managed to wade our way through them and only one survived.

Our waitress was a cute Mexican girl with a great smile so I had to get a picture.

It was a truly Mexican moment: Sitting in the street breathing in the fumes from the Primera Plus bus across the way; listening to loud Mexican music and enjoying good food and a can of Estrella.