I am often asked by friends or coworkers to share stories from traveling that are funny or memorable.  I can’t think of a better first blog post than this throw back story from our honeymoon back in 2012.

Cancun, Mexico is one of Kendall’s favorite places in the world.  He loves the beaches, the pina colada’s, insanely blue water, but mostly the street tacos.  So of course this is where we decided to spend our honeymoon.

If you have ever been to Cancun and rented a car, you probably have been pulled over by the policia.  In my experience it does not matter if you are obeying every traffic law and going even slightly under the speed limit, you will get pulled over and offered the opportunity to pay a cash fine to the cop or be taken to jail.

In this particular story, we were driving to Chichen Itza to see the ancient ruins on a toll road in the middle of the jungle.  We had just stopped and paid the toll to continue on the highway road.  We are just starting our car again to leave the pay station when a cop car comes behind us and pulls our car to the side.  (Btw, I am extremely lucky that my husband is trilingual and is able to speak to this cop who has pulled us over.)

Now remember this is in the middle of the jungle in Mexico.  The cop, who is holding his gun up to us just incase you were wondering, is saying that because we aren’t carrying our actual passports with us, just copies of our passports, that we are breaking a law and can be taken to jail. But don’t worry, if we pay 100 pesos each we can continue on our marry way.

So as Kendall opens his wallet, the cop sees Ken’s drivers license and wants to take a look. He looks over Kendall’s license and immediately starts laughing out loud.  He is laughing and speaking in Spanish while Kendall is racking his brain trying to translate the word the cop keeps repeating.  He is laugh-speaking “Osama Osama” over and over again.

I burst out laughing realizing that in Kendall’s drivers license picture, he had a huge beard and truly did look like a young Osama bin Laden.  That is one word that needs no translation.

Kendall didn’t think it was so funny.  We paid our peso fee and continued on our way.

On our next trip to Cancun a few years later, we learned the tricks to avoid having to pay off the policia and how to avoid being robbed at the gas station (which happened on our honeymoon, but that’s another story. Makes me wonder why we ever went back to Mexico ha.).

Until next time,

Carrie

P.S. I cannot find any pictures of our honeymoon.  Only one was a throwback from Instagram 🤦🏼‍♀️.  The second pic is from our second trip to Cancun.