La policia Mexicano

Gringo :grin·go\ˈgriŋ-(ˌ)gō\
noun
:a foreigner in Spain or Latin America especially when of English or American origin; broadly : a non-Hispanic person.

I am a gringo. 

Today, the Mexican po-po tried to catch me ridin' dirty . 

What happens when gringos drive through Mexico? They attract attention and get pulled over. 

It was a muggy, stifling hot day . Dinh and I were driving south from San Carlos to Los Mochis. 

Halfway through our commute, we drove through a smaller town. I happened to be driving at the time. I was obeying all traffic rules when I noticed a police car behind me. 
POLICIA on my tail. I immediately became uneasy . 
"He's going to pull me over, Dinh", I announced. 
"No he's not, just stay in this lane", was Dinh's rebuttal. 
I change lanes. The police follows. Within seconds, his red lights were flashing. I pulled over to the dirt shoulder, not surprised. 
As Dinh gathered papers from the glove compartment, I whispered, "I have a bad feeling about this". 
While doing research on driving through Mexico, I couldn't dodge the ambiguous warnings about the crooked cops. Everyone had something to say about the matter. 
"So it's finally happening", I thought. This is where the cops pull us over and try to extract as much pesos as possible from us, accusing us of absurd acts or planting drugs on us. We go to jail and our parents go broke trying to bail us out. I prepared for the worse. 
As I daydreamed of what it would be like to live in a Mexican jail, a police man quickly appeared at my window, startling me. I rolled down the window and he asked me if I spoke Spanish. 
"No", I lied. 
He stammered through his English. "You own this car?" he asked. 
"Yes", I said with a nervous giggle that I tried to hold back. 
Dinh showed him the permit we had obtained for driving through Mexico.
I handed him my passport with a shaky hand. 
"Ellos son Americanos!", (They're Americans),  he yelled back to his partner that was standing by the squad car. 
Uh-oh. Is that good or bad?
My palms began to sweat.
Locals driving by rubber-necked at the gringo the cops had pulled over, hanging their heads out their dusty pick-ups windows. 
Before anymore could be said, Dinh whipped out his police badge. 

Another tidbit on Dinh: he worked as a police officer for 10 years in Orange County and is now retired. 
This isn't the first time that badge has helped us out. 
The police man looked at the badge. This is where there was a change of events. Dinh is one of THEM. They were instant buds. 
I felt a tremendous amount of relief. 
Dinh asked to take a picture with them. He said yes, but not to put it on Facebook. Lol. 

After a friendly exchange in Spanish about police officer stuff, Dinh shook their hands and off we went. We had just escaped a possible doom. 

Moral of the story: If a Mexican cop sees a gringo with California plates driving through a small town in Mexico, even if she isn't doing anything wrong, more than likely, she WILL get pulled over. But, the cops aren't as crooked as one thinks.

Hmm.... I wonder how many times we'll get pulled over before we reach Nicaragua. Good thing we have that badge.  

In other news, Mexico has Walmart!!!