are your papers in order?

The world of travel has opened, not with a T.S. Eliot whimper, but with a bang.

Some experts had predicted that travelers would dip their toe in the shallow end of the travel pool as the worst aspects of The Virus recede. Instead, travelers have come rumbling out of their isolation like bullies cannonballing into the deep end.

Europeans are flocking to America. Americans are flouncing off to Paris and Berlin. Canadians are emulating Ward Bond in caravaning across the American plains and mountains to their winter nesting grounds in Mexico.

Those same experts have now revised their estimates of travel predicting that American air travel over Thanksgiving will increase almost 80% over last year. More telling, air travel will even exceed pre-virus 2019 numbers.

But all of that travel comes with certain complications. Especially for the international traveler.

I started flying to Oregon monthly out of Manzanillo when the airport re-opened in July 2020. I quickly adjusted to the mask restrictions. The only new boarding requirements were the completion of a Mexican health certificate (that soon was available on my telephone) and a negative covid test taken within three days of the flight. After doing it once, the process became rote.

But everything changes. And so are those requirements. To a degree.

America has not yet required its citizens to be vaccinated before flying to The States. But the Covid test rules now have a vaccination incentive. Vaccinated passengers can take the test no more than 3 days before the flight. Unvaccinated passengers must take the test within one day of the flight.

That distinctinction is true for only Americans. All others flying to The States must have a negative test and they are (in the poetic words of the CDC) "required to be fully vaccinated with an approved COVID-19 vaccine and to provide proof of vaccination status prior to boarding an airplane to fly to the United States."

And there is the rub -- in two parts. First, determining what is an approved vaccine.

For those of us who received our vaccinations in Mexico, the vaccines used here were a mix of approved and non-approved vaccines. Rather than list them all, here is a link: Accepted Covid-19 Vaccines (look for Table 2).  

The second problem is what constitutes "proof of vaccination status." When I was vaccinated here in April, I received two pieces of paper containing my name, date of birth, my unique CURP number, and the dates of my two jabs along with the manufacturer's name. Last month, when the regulations were announced, I looked at the draft rule: Types of Proof of Covid-19 Vaccination (look for Table 1).

The rule allows two types of proof. The difference between the two is that one has a QR code; the other does not. My documents do not have a code, but they meet all the other requirements. I thought I was home free. After all, I had just flown around the world last month using my vaccination documents and had no problems. To be fair, the airline check-in staff showed little interest in them.

It appears that has changed. One of our immigrant residents from up northt tried to board an airplane to The States this last week with documents similar to mine and was refused boarding because Mexico provides a document with a QR code upon request.

That sent me over to the Secretary of Health's site to print off my certificate. I have flights to Canada, Argentina, and the Caribbean in the next few months where I will need it simply to board the aircraft.

I am not an automatic complainer, but the process to print off the form was one of the most excruciating and needless exercises in bureaucratic legerdemain that I have ever experienced. But a combination of the website, a couple of tricks on WhatsApp, and the guiding hand of one of the permanent resident's network saved the day. 

I will spare you the details. 

It may have taken a good portion of the day to be able to say I am now ready to fly to wherever the world will admit me. That is, until someone else with a milk monitor's sense of power requires another piece of paper.

But my letters of transit will be in order. Even if they are not signed by President de Gaulle.