Mexico 2026 - How it Began

 I don't recall how the idea formed. My Travel Buddy swears it was my suggestion to go to Guadalajara, he suggested San Miguel de Allende and we both came up with Mexico City. By the time all was said and done it was a 15 day trip.

As soon as possible post tax day, my Travel Buddy is an accountant, we woke up exceedingly early on a Saturday morning and were taking off by 7:30. In the classic movie All About Eve Bette Davis utters the infamous line "Fasten your seatbelts everyone, it's going to be a bumpy night." Exchange the word night with flight and you get a description of the next few hours of our lives. 

The 2 male flight attendants looked like they might frequent bear bars at home. I imagined plaid lumberjack shirts packed next to their polyester uniforms in their flight bags. The tiny bathrooms made me wonder how anyone of size could fit in them. Smaller than phone booths I conjured up an image of Superman attempting to change into his supersuit in them. I always wondered what he did with the cape in his Clark Kent persona. Did he shove it down a pant leg? When discussing it with an avid Superman fan years ago he suggested that maybe it came in a little pouch, but I digress. The turbulence was so extreme beverage service was halted right as the cart came to my row. It was just as well, if they had served me orange juice would have been splattered all over the interior of the plane as well as me. It wsa a roller coaster of a plane ride. 

Arriving at Houston a shuttle dropped us off at a barren terminal that looked like something out of a third world country. It consisted of bare cinderblock and uncomfortable benches. When my Travel Buddy went off looking for a restroom he was told that we were supposed to go upstairs. It would have been nice if this knowledge had been relayed to us when we got off the shuttle. Upstairs was the sort of airport environment we were more accustomed to. When it came time for our plane to board we were led through double doors back to the bare cinderblock area and found our seats in the small 48 seat vessel that would carry us to Guadalajara. I remarked to my Travel Buddy to imagine how buffeted about a plane that small would be if we experienced the same level of turbulence we had on the first leg of out trip.We did, as the bruises that appeared on my arms after deboarding bore witness. 

With smaller planes you see, in detail, more of your fellow passengers. There was the tall, exceedingly handsome man whose once powerful, muscular physique had succumbed to time and tide. His Under Armour tee shirt, perhaps a relic from his iron pumping days, now stretched over the acquired rolls he had accumulated. There was the younger gentleman across the aisle who kept his hood up and sunglasses on making him resemble the Unibomber. The woman seated next to me was wearing clinging silk on an ample body that nothing should really be clinging to. 

After being jostled about for a couple hours we landed and our Mexican adventure began. 


  



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mexico 2026 - Guadalajara - The Southward Trend Cotinues

 For the sake of convenience we had breakfast at the hotel the next morning. We went out, ordered an UBER to where we thought we were going which turned out to be not where we were going. A guidebook had misled us.  We ended up by a beautiful, venerable cathedral. It was Sunday. There were a couple of black robed monks outside, the sounds of a mass emanated from within. We stood in the doorway, mindful of the service, and looked at the grand interior. We wandered through stalls outside the cathedral courtyard walls and started walking down a road that seemed right though we were soon to discover that it wasn't. We suffered several moments of total desolation and utter futility. I suggested we put the neighborhood in as a destination as opposed to a specific address. We got a hit, a driver would be meeting us shortly.
Read more

South Florida 2025 - A Meal With the Mob

Adjacent to our condo was a fairly large shopping center which included several restaurants. Apparently the area where we stayed is sometimes referred to as the Russian Riviera. At dinner one night this came home when we found ourselves among a large number of swarthy individuals talking at various tables about God only knows what. At one table two carried on a conversation which seemed, through volume and gestures between them, to indicate that future events would not end well for someone they were acquainted with. Huge bodybuilders, leaving the gym in the center, swaggered by with a "nice place you got here, it'd be a shame if something happened to it" demeanor, spoken in Russian of course. The group behind us was celebrating something, champagne was being downed in a rapid fashion, and their table groaned under the weight of the abundance of food. I dined on a wonderful creamy pasta with a generous amount of shrimp garnished with parsley sprigs, shaved parmesan cheese ...
Read more

South Florida 2025 - A State Park , the Beach and Fully Retiring on an Oceanfront Balcony

 At the condo complex where we stayed bikes can be borrowed, although ridable they are old, rickety and poorly maintained. Despite this we took off one morning to explore a nearby state park. It sits along a riverbank which is somehow connected to the ocean but I have no idea how. The system of channels and inlets was a mystery to me the entire trip no matter how often my patient condo mate attempted to explain it to me. It was a tranquil oasis. Birds sang and lizards scuttled among the rocks letting the sun warm their cold blood. A bright green one rested on a stone, it's brilliant hue on full display. We chatted with a leanly built fisherman casting his line along a shoreline of protected coral reef. Cityscapes loomed in the distance over the emerald foliage which grew in profusion. As we left two large green lizards, black stripes wrapped around their verdant tails, raced across the bike path.  We stopped by the condo before riding to meet the other 3 members of our group a...
Read more