Thursday, January 4, 2007
Updates
As you may have noticed, it takes me a while to get through these updates sometime... the photos are probably the most concise blog for the most exciting parts of the trip. Those are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23734961@N00/sets/72157594450930619/
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Wal-Mart Mexicano
I seriously have to pick up the pace of these posts if I’m ever going to get through this entire trip. Which isn’t looking likely, seeing as how it’s already the fifth day of the trip, and the blog isn’t even caught up through Day 1.
By this time, Danielle, Debbie, and Andrew had been at the condo alone for more than an hour, probably closer to two. I discovered later that they were spending their time in the room waiting for us, worrying about when (and if) we’d actually arrive.
Their worry was probably justified, since we spent so long at the Wal-Mart in Puerto Vallarta. We must have spent more than two hours there, probably closer to three. Our flight landed at 3:30, and it was dark before we left Wal-Mart.
The Wal-Mart was a madhouse. There were people everywhere. Simply everywhere. Trying to move through the aisles was more difficult than making your way through Costco mid-day on a Saturday. What made it worse was that there was NO ORDER to the mobs. In Costco, people generally stick to the right, move their carts off to the side to browse, and obey general traffic laws when merging and turning. Apparently, such courtesies are neither necessary nor appropriate in the Mexican Wal-Mart. People were perfectly content leaving their carts in the middle of aisles while they browsed lazily through the cartons of eggs such that there was no chance of any cart passing in either direction. Strolling down the right or the left or the middle were all perfectly acceptable. I must confess, the shoppers did obey general rules of the road when they turned their carts right from the far left side of the aisle, darting in front of heavily laden moving carts, and physics dictates that these carts have a fair amount of momentum to them. Surprisingly, I didn’t see one collision.
Diet pop is a rarity in Mexico. Apparently coffee filters are, as well, as we never found any. My only relief came when I discovered the hidden diamond buried deep in the rough: the alcohol section. It was from this section that we purchased an entire gallon of Bacardi for $13 U.S.
It was also here that I had my first chance to butcher Spanish. Ironically, it was at the meat department. We had purchased everything we needed for sandwiches except for lunchmeat. So, thinking that Mom, who coordinated the whole purchasing effort, was close behind me, I approached the counter and looked at the various meats. The woman at the counter asked me what I wanted. For a moment, I froze.
I quickly regained my composure when I remembered the phrase, “No sé,” and things progressed from there. The woman gave me a sample of “pavo,” which I couldn’t remember until I had tried it – turkey. It was actually just fine. She asked how much I wanted. I managed to explain to her that I didn’t know, I’d have to go find my mom and ask how much she wanted.
When I found Mom, however, she was already in line with Dad paying. It was too late for meat for our sandwiches, she said, we’d just buy that at the small hotel store. We paid, packed our cart full with the booty, and made our way back to the car.
I thought this was going to be the end of our Wal-Mart adventure, but it wasn’t. Wal-Mart had security guards posted, checking receipts, similar to the procedure at Costco. We presented our receipt confidently, which we hadn’t reviewed previously. Turns out the woman at the register only gave of half of the receipt. We tried to explain to the security guard – who was a few inches shorter than me and probably weighed half as much – that that was how the woman at the register gave it to us. My Spanish wasn’t nearly up to the task, however, and when the guard called over his manager, we somehow managed to communicate a need to return to the register for the remainder of the receipt, if it was REALLY that important to them. It was.
Dad returned to the register with the manager, and came back quite a few minutes later with two halves of the receipt. With the security guard and the manager placated, and both my parents quite the opposite, we loaded the tiny car and then our laps with groceries, and headed to the hotel in the dark.
By this time, Danielle, Debbie, and Andrew had been at the condo alone for more than an hour, probably closer to two. I discovered later that they were spending their time in the room waiting for us, worrying about when (and if) we’d actually arrive.
Their worry was probably justified, since we spent so long at the Wal-Mart in Puerto Vallarta. We must have spent more than two hours there, probably closer to three. Our flight landed at 3:30, and it was dark before we left Wal-Mart.
The Wal-Mart was a madhouse. There were people everywhere. Simply everywhere. Trying to move through the aisles was more difficult than making your way through Costco mid-day on a Saturday. What made it worse was that there was NO ORDER to the mobs. In Costco, people generally stick to the right, move their carts off to the side to browse, and obey general traffic laws when merging and turning. Apparently, such courtesies are neither necessary nor appropriate in the Mexican Wal-Mart. People were perfectly content leaving their carts in the middle of aisles while they browsed lazily through the cartons of eggs such that there was no chance of any cart passing in either direction. Strolling down the right or the left or the middle were all perfectly acceptable. I must confess, the shoppers did obey general rules of the road when they turned their carts right from the far left side of the aisle, darting in front of heavily laden moving carts, and physics dictates that these carts have a fair amount of momentum to them. Surprisingly, I didn’t see one collision.
Diet pop is a rarity in Mexico. Apparently coffee filters are, as well, as we never found any. My only relief came when I discovered the hidden diamond buried deep in the rough: the alcohol section. It was from this section that we purchased an entire gallon of Bacardi for $13 U.S.
It was also here that I had my first chance to butcher Spanish. Ironically, it was at the meat department. We had purchased everything we needed for sandwiches except for lunchmeat. So, thinking that Mom, who coordinated the whole purchasing effort, was close behind me, I approached the counter and looked at the various meats. The woman at the counter asked me what I wanted. For a moment, I froze.
I quickly regained my composure when I remembered the phrase, “No sé,” and things progressed from there. The woman gave me a sample of “pavo,” which I couldn’t remember until I had tried it – turkey. It was actually just fine. She asked how much I wanted. I managed to explain to her that I didn’t know, I’d have to go find my mom and ask how much she wanted.
When I found Mom, however, she was already in line with Dad paying. It was too late for meat for our sandwiches, she said, we’d just buy that at the small hotel store. We paid, packed our cart full with the booty, and made our way back to the car.
I thought this was going to be the end of our Wal-Mart adventure, but it wasn’t. Wal-Mart had security guards posted, checking receipts, similar to the procedure at Costco. We presented our receipt confidently, which we hadn’t reviewed previously. Turns out the woman at the register only gave of half of the receipt. We tried to explain to the security guard – who was a few inches shorter than me and probably weighed half as much – that that was how the woman at the register gave it to us. My Spanish wasn’t nearly up to the task, however, and when the guard called over his manager, we somehow managed to communicate a need to return to the register for the remainder of the receipt, if it was REALLY that important to them. It was.
Dad returned to the register with the manager, and came back quite a few minutes later with two halves of the receipt. With the security guard and the manager placated, and both my parents quite the opposite, we loaded the tiny car and then our laps with groceries, and headed to the hotel in the dark.
Mexican Driving Lessons
After we got the car that we paid too much for and didn’t even want, we had to make our way to the highway towards Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart would have been a straight shot if we could have just taken a left turn out of the rental lot. But, I’ve learned that Puerto Vallartans go out of their way to make driving as complicated as possible. This includes divided highways, sub-divided on each side. Of course, you make your left turns from the division farthest to the right. Sometimes the left turn lane is in the left lane of the right division, but most of the time you make left turns from the lane farthest right. Sometimes there are two left turn lanes in the farthest right two lanes. I haven’t figured out how you distinguish a left turn lane from a straight lane, or figure out when there is only one left turn lane or two, except that maybe there’s two lanes if the guy in front of you is also turning left, and maybe not. Oh, but watch out for the divided roads where the left turn lane is actually just the left-hand lane. Those will get you every time.
We pulled right onto the highway, as we couldn’t cross the divider at that point, or go right to make a left. We went around the block and immediately after pulling off the main drag we found ourselves repeatedly bottoming out on pothole-laced dirt roads. Dirt is the norm for Mexico. Roads in nice neighborhoods are cobblestone; paving is strictly reserved for highways and resorts, but only if the crew doing the paving then goes back and creates an adequate number of potholes to make the road both dangerous and comfortable for those used to the dirt roads after a flood.
We pulled right onto the highway, as we couldn’t cross the divider at that point, or go right to make a left. We went around the block and immediately after pulling off the main drag we found ourselves repeatedly bottoming out on pothole-laced dirt roads. Dirt is the norm for Mexico. Roads in nice neighborhoods are cobblestone; paving is strictly reserved for highways and resorts, but only if the crew doing the paving then goes back and creates an adequate number of potholes to make the road both dangerous and comfortable for those used to the dirt roads after a flood.
Nissan Tsuru?
Luckily, we were on the end of the “foreigner” lines nearest the “Ciudadanos Mexicanos” (Mexican citizens) line. There were maybe three ciudadanos Mexicanos on our flight, as well as the three or so flights before us that we were in line with, so the gentleman at the ciudadanos counter was taking people from our line as well, essentially doubling the speed people passed through our line. We got through with maybe a thirty-minute total wait. When we finally made it up to the front desk, we waited with anticipation for the customs official to finish stamping the documents, and raced through to – well, to wait for Andrew to finish getting his documents stamped in a different line. But he was only about thirty seconds behind.
At the Puerto Vallarta airport, the customs area bottlenecks as it runs through ticket counters at the end of the international terminal. Most of the airport is relatively dark and dirty, but the international terminal has been recently updated with – of all thing – drywall and white paint! There are quite a few holes cut in the drywall, that I’m sure served a purpose at some point (if nothing more than keeping the airport from looking too civilized), but the white paint was a refreshing change.
Shortly after the white ticket counters, the international terminal opens up into the rest of the airport, and you’re immediately accosted by taxi drivers, tour guides, shuttle drivers, and various other in-your-face sorts. We made our way to the Dollar rental counter. At first, they couldn’t find our reservations. We’d rented a midsize car anyway, with one large bag each and three bags of Pete’s things we’d brought down to leave with his friend here, so we sent Danielle, Debbie, and Andrew, and a number of bags ahead on a taxi.
After quite a few minutes, the reservations magically appeared in the system. We then continued to wait through a few more phone calls in rapid Spanish between the counter woman and presumably the lot, when she finally gave us directions to the rental shuttle. We made our way through the thick mass of various salespersons, and boarded the Dollar shuttle. We disembarked the Dollar shuttle five minutes later, directly across the street from where we boarded the shuttle.
When we arrived at the rental lot, everyone was in high spirits. That is, until the lot brought out the rental car. It was a beat-up Nissan Tsuru, which the rental agent swore was a 2006, but which didn’t look like it could have been newer than 1998. I wasn’t familiar with the Nissan Tsuru, and I don’t believe that Nissan sells a comparable car in the U.S. So, it may very well have been a very 1998-looking 2006 Nissan Tsuru, but Dad wasn’t having it.
The thing about Dad is, he doesn’t always handle things well that he’s not having. He tried to ask patiently for a different car, but the patience lasted all of about thirty seconds. The agent opened the trunk with the key (because there were no power features on the car other than steering – maybe), and tried to show him how much room there was. When the agent offered Dad a Jetta for significantly more money, promising that the original-Neon-sized Tsuru was indeed a midsized car, Dad made very clear that he was not taking the Tsuru or paying more, and that we were walking down the street to rent from a different company.
The short of it is, we ended up with the exact same car from Budget – with more than a few dents – for more money. The Dollar website won’t tell me what their midsize cars available in Mexico are. I have since confirmed that, according to the Budget website, a Tsuru is labeled as midsize.
At the Puerto Vallarta airport, the customs area bottlenecks as it runs through ticket counters at the end of the international terminal. Most of the airport is relatively dark and dirty, but the international terminal has been recently updated with – of all thing – drywall and white paint! There are quite a few holes cut in the drywall, that I’m sure served a purpose at some point (if nothing more than keeping the airport from looking too civilized), but the white paint was a refreshing change.
Shortly after the white ticket counters, the international terminal opens up into the rest of the airport, and you’re immediately accosted by taxi drivers, tour guides, shuttle drivers, and various other in-your-face sorts. We made our way to the Dollar rental counter. At first, they couldn’t find our reservations. We’d rented a midsize car anyway, with one large bag each and three bags of Pete’s things we’d brought down to leave with his friend here, so we sent Danielle, Debbie, and Andrew, and a number of bags ahead on a taxi.
After quite a few minutes, the reservations magically appeared in the system. We then continued to wait through a few more phone calls in rapid Spanish between the counter woman and presumably the lot, when she finally gave us directions to the rental shuttle. We made our way through the thick mass of various salespersons, and boarded the Dollar shuttle. We disembarked the Dollar shuttle five minutes later, directly across the street from where we boarded the shuttle.
When we arrived at the rental lot, everyone was in high spirits. That is, until the lot brought out the rental car. It was a beat-up Nissan Tsuru, which the rental agent swore was a 2006, but which didn’t look like it could have been newer than 1998. I wasn’t familiar with the Nissan Tsuru, and I don’t believe that Nissan sells a comparable car in the U.S. So, it may very well have been a very 1998-looking 2006 Nissan Tsuru, but Dad wasn’t having it.
The thing about Dad is, he doesn’t always handle things well that he’s not having. He tried to ask patiently for a different car, but the patience lasted all of about thirty seconds. The agent opened the trunk with the key (because there were no power features on the car other than steering – maybe), and tried to show him how much room there was. When the agent offered Dad a Jetta for significantly more money, promising that the original-Neon-sized Tsuru was indeed a midsized car, Dad made very clear that he was not taking the Tsuru or paying more, and that we were walking down the street to rent from a different company.
The short of it is, we ended up with the exact same car from Budget – with more than a few dents – for more money. The Dollar website won’t tell me what their midsize cars available in Mexico are. I have since confirmed that, according to the Budget website, a Tsuru is labeled as midsize.
Giving Up
This story thing was fun for a while, but turns out it takes a REALLY long time to include all of the details necessary to make for an interesting story, and as a result, I’ve written nothing. So, I give up on the whole interesting narrative thing and all y’all will just have to deal with this.
We’ll go over the first day kinda quick. The short of it is: stayed up until 4:40AM cleaning the house. And guess what? IT ACTUALLY GOT CLEAN! Not just like organized clean, but like every random thing that was sitting on the counters and tables found a home! (Okay, so I didn’t get to my office, but that’s not really part of the house, right?) I didn’t get to the vacuuming, but Rich is really good at that, so I figured that wasn’t the end of the world.
The limo arrived at my parents’ house at 5AM. So, not knowing when Rich would return from his jaunt in Winthrop but certain that it wouldn’t be before the kids expected breakfast, I fed the kids, kissed them goodbye, and drove over to my parents’. The limo arrived shortly after, and we all piled in. The next 10 minutes were spent not in transit, but in watching Dad try to coach the limo driver out of our convoluted driveway. The driver did an exceptional job, and soon enough we were on the road to the airport.
I was TIRED. And for me, tired is bad because it means that cranky is soon to follow. But, I managed to wait patiently while the airline desk person spent a full 22 minutes checking us in. I also managed to wait somewhat patiently through the obscenely long airport security line, with only minimal loud bitching about how the terrorists have won. I even managed to stumble my way to purchase a quick breakfast to bring on the plane.
But then, when I sat down on the small, four-seat-wide commuter plane, it was all over. The first flight, from Seattle to Salt Lake City, was about an hour and a half, and I had the most glorious airplane sleep (assuming that such sleep can even reach a level appropriate to be dubbed “glorious”) the entire way. The crankiness subsided, but didin’t dissipate completely.
I confess, I don’t recall much about the Salt Lake airport, or switching planes. I do recall admiring the surrounding mountains, and being surprised that one could see so many from the airport. The boarding gate itself is a complete blank, and my next memory begins as I was halfway down the aisle, wondering at the relative largeness of the six-seat-wide liner we were boarding. There was some confusion about our seats, but in the end we all sat six across in the same row, with me, Mom, and Dad on one side of the aisle, and Danielle, Debbie, and Andrew on the other.
The screens came down as the plane was taking off. At first, they simply showed the airplane’s location and direction on a map for about 10 seconds, alternating with a five-or-so second slide that showed the flight number, estimated remaining flight time, and estimated time of arrival. “I like the airplane show,” I told my mom, but I don’t think she heard. Hm, looks as though we were scheduled to land a few minutes early. Time to get back to napping.
When I woke up again, we only had about 40 minutes left in the flight. My family was all filling out customs forms. I joined the party, and after a number of cross-offs and requesting a new form once, (reading directions is not my forte when I’ve just woken up,) the form was complete, and I wrestled between sleep and awake, knowing neither which I preferred nor which I could manage for the remainder of the flight. In the end, both won.
The plane sat on the runway for a while after landing, and the pilot, (who made a point of pronouncing the “Ls” in “Vallarta”,) explained that there was another plane in our place. We waited for about 10 minutes, and finally pulled into the parking spot. There was no gangway – only two busses waiting to take us to yet another destination, one waiting at each door. We exited out the back, boarded the bus, and joined droves of other Americans waiting in the long Customs line.
By this time, I had to use the restroom relatively badly. So, I sneaked out of line and found the WC. I carefully hung my backpack – which has a separate padded pocket for the laptop – on the hook on the door, admiring the marble floor.
BAM!
The backpack had slid off the hook, and hit the marble floor – hard. A loud crack had accompanied the landing, and I hoped desperately that it was simply the computer landing on the water bottle, or one of the plastic clips on the pack hitting the floor just right. I was terrified to check my computer, and too grumpy to deal with it if anything was wrong anyway, so I happily picked up my backpack, washed my hands, and trotted off to join my family in line.
Much to my chagrin, they had made little to no progress. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if any of the ten or so lines were open.
We’ll go over the first day kinda quick. The short of it is: stayed up until 4:40AM cleaning the house. And guess what? IT ACTUALLY GOT CLEAN! Not just like organized clean, but like every random thing that was sitting on the counters and tables found a home! (Okay, so I didn’t get to my office, but that’s not really part of the house, right?) I didn’t get to the vacuuming, but Rich is really good at that, so I figured that wasn’t the end of the world.
The limo arrived at my parents’ house at 5AM. So, not knowing when Rich would return from his jaunt in Winthrop but certain that it wouldn’t be before the kids expected breakfast, I fed the kids, kissed them goodbye, and drove over to my parents’. The limo arrived shortly after, and we all piled in. The next 10 minutes were spent not in transit, but in watching Dad try to coach the limo driver out of our convoluted driveway. The driver did an exceptional job, and soon enough we were on the road to the airport.
I was TIRED. And for me, tired is bad because it means that cranky is soon to follow. But, I managed to wait patiently while the airline desk person spent a full 22 minutes checking us in. I also managed to wait somewhat patiently through the obscenely long airport security line, with only minimal loud bitching about how the terrorists have won. I even managed to stumble my way to purchase a quick breakfast to bring on the plane.
But then, when I sat down on the small, four-seat-wide commuter plane, it was all over. The first flight, from Seattle to Salt Lake City, was about an hour and a half, and I had the most glorious airplane sleep (assuming that such sleep can even reach a level appropriate to be dubbed “glorious”) the entire way. The crankiness subsided, but didin’t dissipate completely.
I confess, I don’t recall much about the Salt Lake airport, or switching planes. I do recall admiring the surrounding mountains, and being surprised that one could see so many from the airport. The boarding gate itself is a complete blank, and my next memory begins as I was halfway down the aisle, wondering at the relative largeness of the six-seat-wide liner we were boarding. There was some confusion about our seats, but in the end we all sat six across in the same row, with me, Mom, and Dad on one side of the aisle, and Danielle, Debbie, and Andrew on the other.
The screens came down as the plane was taking off. At first, they simply showed the airplane’s location and direction on a map for about 10 seconds, alternating with a five-or-so second slide that showed the flight number, estimated remaining flight time, and estimated time of arrival. “I like the airplane show,” I told my mom, but I don’t think she heard. Hm, looks as though we were scheduled to land a few minutes early. Time to get back to napping.
When I woke up again, we only had about 40 minutes left in the flight. My family was all filling out customs forms. I joined the party, and after a number of cross-offs and requesting a new form once, (reading directions is not my forte when I’ve just woken up,) the form was complete, and I wrestled between sleep and awake, knowing neither which I preferred nor which I could manage for the remainder of the flight. In the end, both won.
The plane sat on the runway for a while after landing, and the pilot, (who made a point of pronouncing the “Ls” in “Vallarta”,) explained that there was another plane in our place. We waited for about 10 minutes, and finally pulled into the parking spot. There was no gangway – only two busses waiting to take us to yet another destination, one waiting at each door. We exited out the back, boarded the bus, and joined droves of other Americans waiting in the long Customs line.
By this time, I had to use the restroom relatively badly. So, I sneaked out of line and found the WC. I carefully hung my backpack – which has a separate padded pocket for the laptop – on the hook on the door, admiring the marble floor.
BAM!
The backpack had slid off the hook, and hit the marble floor – hard. A loud crack had accompanied the landing, and I hoped desperately that it was simply the computer landing on the water bottle, or one of the plastic clips on the pack hitting the floor just right. I was terrified to check my computer, and too grumpy to deal with it if anything was wrong anyway, so I happily picked up my backpack, washed my hands, and trotted off to join my family in line.
Much to my chagrin, they had made little to no progress. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if any of the ten or so lines were open.
Monday, January 1, 2007
The Vacation Begins
Since this is a story about a vacation, it seems to make sense that I start where the vacation begins. The trouble with that, however, is that I’m not sure when the vacation will begin; this despite the fact that significant traveling has taken place. But as of yet, no vacation. Although, as I write from the lanai four stories up overlooking white sand beach with the vast ocean beyod, swimming pools stylized like sparkling tropical waterfalls and fountains, and an open bar at 9AM, the vacation part of this vacation is slowly beginning to take shape.
None of this solves the problem of where to begin. I suppose the beginning will have to be some completely arbitrary point in time, designated as the last time I woke up from a fill night’s sleep. This was Friday morning. Rich had left Thursday late morning for Winthrop, and I’d suffered through the previous night all alone with my cat and dog. At least I thought of it as suffering, but as I already knew, the cat and dog make for wonderful company, and I actually managed to sleep through the night, a feat that hadn’t occurred but once over the past few weeks.
I woke up on Friday, feeling oddly refreshed, and ready for nearly a full day’s work – I’d hoped for the half day, but the boss had called the evening before and assigned a few extra tasks so that I anticipated being able to leave work around three or so. I was more than pleased, then, when I found myself wrapping up around noon. I excitedly packed away all my files for the week, changed my voicemail and set up the email autoresponder, sent a final work IM to Rich, and trotted out of the office. It was finally time to start thinking about vacation.
I made a few quick stops on the way home – exchange a Christmas gift for a different size here, have the glasses store adjust my sunglasses there – and finally I was home to pack. The packing didn’t happen as quickly as I’d hoped, as I spent my first few hours at home just trying to figure out where all of my money went. Oh well, I’d have far less spending money on vacation that I’d thought, but with the parents paying the major expenses of transportation and lodging, I wasn’t too concerned.
None of this solves the problem of where to begin. I suppose the beginning will have to be some completely arbitrary point in time, designated as the last time I woke up from a fill night’s sleep. This was Friday morning. Rich had left Thursday late morning for Winthrop, and I’d suffered through the previous night all alone with my cat and dog. At least I thought of it as suffering, but as I already knew, the cat and dog make for wonderful company, and I actually managed to sleep through the night, a feat that hadn’t occurred but once over the past few weeks.
I woke up on Friday, feeling oddly refreshed, and ready for nearly a full day’s work – I’d hoped for the half day, but the boss had called the evening before and assigned a few extra tasks so that I anticipated being able to leave work around three or so. I was more than pleased, then, when I found myself wrapping up around noon. I excitedly packed away all my files for the week, changed my voicemail and set up the email autoresponder, sent a final work IM to Rich, and trotted out of the office. It was finally time to start thinking about vacation.
I made a few quick stops on the way home – exchange a Christmas gift for a different size here, have the glasses store adjust my sunglasses there – and finally I was home to pack. The packing didn’t happen as quickly as I’d hoped, as I spent my first few hours at home just trying to figure out where all of my money went. Oh well, I’d have far less spending money on vacation that I’d thought, but with the parents paying the major expenses of transportation and lodging, I wasn’t too concerned.
Welcome to the Mexico Diaries
My family, minus Dawn, plus Andrew, is in Mexico for New Year's! We arrived on December 30th in the afternoon, and we'll be staying until January 7th, 2007. (Which, by the way, is one more night than we actually have a hotel for. That should be interesting.)
I fully intend to post daily updates here, and photos are here and those are definitely getting updated.
I fully intend to post daily updates here, and photos are here and those are definitely getting updated.
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