San Miguel De Allende – Mexico

Flying Out of Tijuana and Our Airport Experience

Flying Out of Tijuana was interesting and a learning experience.  We learned we might not want to fly out of there again.  The air fare was really good but all the incidental expenses added up.  At first our flight was leaving at 12:30am but then when I checked in on/line, it was leaving at 1:52am.  We weren’t sure which was the correct time.  We had our Uber guy pick us up at 9:30pm and arrived at the Tijuana entrance about 10:45.  We walked into the the building and looked around and didn’t really know what to do.  I asked an official looking guy what we needed to do.  We had to pay to cross into the Mexican airport – round trip cost was $60 for both of us.  Then we had to fill out an immigration paper and we only filled out the top part because we asked someone standing next to us and they said we didn’t have to fill out the bottom part.

We got through the gate and it was a very long walk to the airport. We went through a security checkpoint before getting into the Tijuana airport. While standing in line to go through customs , we learned we had to fill out bottom part of the customs paper.  We had to get out of line to do it.  Finally, we found Volaris (airlines) and checked in, and next we went through another security checkpoint.  We were cleared to find our boarding gate B-16.  All of that process took  about an hour. We found our gate but it was packed with waiting passengers and the sign didn’t say our destination.  We walked all the way to the end of the area and saw another gate with our destination information.  We asked someone official and they said we needed to go to Gate 15.  It still said another destination.  We actually went between gate 16 and 15 about 4 times and each official we asked told us a different gate.  Finally, the last guy looked on the computer for us and the real and final gate was 15. It was about 1am by that time.  

They lined us up by baggage category and I had opted for extra baggage allowance which I really didn’t know I was paying for but because of that, we were in the second group and got on board quickly. We managed to find our seats.  Shawn and I had aisle seats across from each other.  Shawn was lucky and had an empty middle seat.  The only other weird thing that happened was that when we were served drinks, I ordered tea and then found out I had to pay for it and I didn’t have any pesos.  Shawn had his credit card handy but when the flight attendant tried to slide it, it wouldn’t go through.  Exasperated, she finally told me, it was free!  The trip took 21/2 hours.  

When we arrived, we had to go down steep airline steps and then walk about a mile before we arrived at the airport entrance.  Knowing our luck – we weren’t surprised that our bags were the last ones off.  We were just happy to have them.  There were tons of people with their luggage and all had to be checked to make sure they had the correct luggage.  It was a crowded mess.  

At last, we found our driver who was taking us to San Miguel de Allende.  It cost $20 each and took an hour and a half. He drove all the winding roads like a “bat out of hell”.  Shawn and I slept off an on as we were both exhausted.