Flying medical supplies to Mexico.

Since 60 years Liga is helping the poor people in Mexico with medical aid and supplies. Liga always flies to Mexico the first weekend of every month, sometimes with up to 30 light aircraft’s. All fully loaded with medical supplies.

This October trip I joined Liga as volunteer.
My story:

Day of departure, wake up at 06:00 hrs LT and drive to Whiteman airport.
Preflight of the Beech Bonanza A36.
Take off at 0730 for a 25 min. flight to Rialto to load al the supplies.
We were welcomed by Jim Ott who is THE specialist in loading aeroplanes.
When I say loading, I mean LOADING. No square inch will be empty. I never Realised, even in my wildest dreams, that a Bonanza could take so many boxes of stuff.
Departure with the heavy Bonanza at 09:45 hrs LT. Destination as filed in the flightplan was Obregón. 700 Nautical miles to the south.
We climbed to level 95 were the air was smooth, the temps were acceptable and the tail winds was no more then 3 kts. (Unfortunately)
After 3 ½ hrs we landed in Obregón. Time to stretch our legs and go through all the paperwork and formalities.
Normally this takes 1 hr as everybody in Obregón knows that Liga is there to help the local people.
Unfortunately there were two new female employees at customs and they ordered us to unload the aircraft for inspection.
A short look at each other and the answer was, No, way Jose!
In the mean time we were surrounded by six people and some of them were carrying serious weapons. The situation became very uncomfortable and Ramon an I realized that we had to make a serious plan. First call headquarters of Liga and ask them to contact customs. No answer to the phone :-(

Than we decided to split the team. I was going to concentrate (smooth talk) on the two ladies from customs and Ramon focused on the immigration officer.
My approach to the customs included a tour to the aircraft and explain again, what our mission was all about. I suggested to have them inspect some boxes, at random.
They agreed. So I unloaded five by them selected  boxes and explained what was in it. Fortunately my experience as laproscopic surgeon convinced them completely.
One officer wrote down the content of the five boxes while the other officer wanted to know a bit more about surgery. I told her we were in a hurry because patients were waiting for us at the clinic.
Finally the green light came, and walking back to the main building we made jokes and chatted in a kind way. So, this problem was solved in a good typical Mexican way.
It was 36 degrees celcius and I can tell you that sweating serious.
Finally our paperwork was done and we departed runway 31 for the last hop over green Mexico to El Fuerte. We buzzed the village twice in order to announce our presence and make sure that Rodolfo would pick us, and the medical supplies up.
All worked fine and at 17:00 hrs LT we had our first Pacifico (very nice local beer)
After a good meal and some beers the bed was the place to memorize an interesting day.

As soon as we are back in Los Angeles I will publish a fotoalbum about this trip.