Heading South

Yesterday I was up before the crack of dawn to get to the airport for my 7:30 A.M. flight from Cleveland Airport to O'Hare Airport in Chicago... the first leg of my journey to Mexico.

There have been a lot of stories in the news about the chaotic situations at airports and the number of cancelled flights.  After checking in, the long line to pass through security seemed to bear out the truth of those stories.  It was 5:30 on a Tuesday morning, and I have never experienced a wait of a half hour at Cleveland Airport just to get to security.  There were people near me complaining that they were going to miss their flight.  Fortunately, I always arrive at the airport at least two hours before my flight, so I wasn't worried.

Once I got to security, the process was not too bad.  You no longer have to remove your laptop from your carry-on luggage, so that was one less hassle.  I made it through in a fairly timely fashion.  

I then went to the gate where my flight to Chicago was to depart on schedule.

It was a dreary, gray morning in Cleveland with light rain.  We began boarding right on time, and departed right on time.  The clouds were low and I was not able to snap many photos as we left Cleveland.   

The flight is only about an hour.  It seemed that we barely reached our cruising altitude when we began making our descent into the Chicago area.  At that point the clouds began to break.

I'm always paranoid about missing my connecting flight, and usually I try to schedule at least a two hour layover.  This time, however, I only had about an hour and a half between my flights.  The flight from Cleveland arrived five minutes ahead of schedule.  O'Hare Airport was very crowded, but I got to my next gate with plenty of time to spare.  The flight to Mexico City boarded on time and left the gate just a couple minutes behind schedule.

The skyline of Chicago and Lake Michigan beyond as we take off from O'Hare.

The journey from Chicago to Mexico City is a four hour flight.  After flying over the gulf for a while, we have our first glimpse of Mexico as we reach the coast near the city of Tampico.

Cloud cover did not allow us to see any of the volcanic peaks as we flew inland.  As we made our final approach into the sprawling metropolis of Mexico City the view was rather hazy.  (Since this is the rainy season, I don't think that it was smog.) 

We flew within sight of the Mexico City World Trade Center (in the center of the photo.)  The condo that I rent is just a block away from it.

The skyscrapers along the Paseo de la Reforma are visible through the haze.

The domed structure in the center of the photo is TAPO (Terminal de Autobuses de Pasajeros de Oriente), one of the four bus stations in the city.  Buses leaving for destinations to the east of Mexico City (such as Veracruz or Cancún) depart from there. 

We are about to land, and as you can see, the area around the airport is densely populated.

When I got off the plane and went to immigration, there was a long line.  However, as the  passengers from our flight arrived, they opened more immigration desks, and the wait was not long.  It was a much longer wait, however, for the luggage, but my two overpacked suitcases finally appeared on the carrousel.  Fortunately, there was no inspection at customs, and I just walked out through the sliding doors into the terminal.  Alejandro was already there waiting for me.  He drove me to his house where I will spend the first several days with him and his family.

Yippie!  I'm back in Mexico!