MEXSEVEN
A
Forced Return to Mexico…
Because
of our choice to be bumped at the end of our honeymoon, we had
significant vouchers with Alaskan Airlines to cash in within a year.
They were for one free flight apiece to anywhere they flew. I wanted
to go as far south as possible, and that turned out to be
Zihuatenejo, Guerrero. Guerrero is a few states down the Pacific
coast of Mexico, past Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacan,
and Colima.
Now we weren’t
actually forced to do this, but I think the honeymoon trip of summer
2000 began or confirmed what turned into a sort of craving for me,
similar to my quest to visit all the American states. I had managed
to visit some of my last needed US states in the late 90s, (South
Carolina and Arkansas in 1998, Delaware in 1999), and now I fancied
it as a goal to get to all the Mexican states. After all, there are
quite a few less states in Mexico than the US (about 18 less). This
trip would take us to potentially four or five new ones. I had
already been to Tamaulipas, Quintana Roo, and both Baja Californias.
I would be able to double my state count in one trip!
After looking at the
possibilities along the “Mexican Riviera”, a goal since
personally thinking of honeymoon plans since 1997, we decided on
Guerrero over Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and perhaps one other port
city, like Colima. The main idea was to get as far south in the dead
of winter, and even though California winters are balmy in comparison
to what I am used to from living most of my life in southern Indiana
and central Utah. But we had a year to plan it, and the biggest break
not in the sweltering summer would be during Christmas and New
Year’s.
I forget which month I
finalized the tickets with Alaska Airlines, maybe it was right before
Thanksgiving. I had to work with what was available, and I was
comparing a couple different cities like Puerto Vallarta and
Mazatlan. We had the idea that the Christmas holiday would best be
spent with family so we went up to Doug and Denise’s house in
Kelso, Washington, for the time before, and then returned a day after
Christmas.
We flew out the (30th)
because that was the most feasible day after X-Mas and before New
Year’s, according to flights available that far in advance. We
would fly early in the day and be able to take a bus to arrive in
Acapulco that night. This was the plan. Plus, the return date
couldn’t be until the 10th of January, which meant I had
to find a substitute teacher for three days. I thought this was no
problem since I had 10 paid absences per school year, but later I
learned they would not be paid since these days were starting
consecutively after an extended holiday.
But first was our big
driving trip up north, counted down from Friday 29, Thursday 28,
Wednesday 27, Tuesday 26, Monday 25, Sunday 24, Saturday 23 (Friday
the 22nd was the last day of school for me). We left a bit
after school to go stay the night in Redwood City with Jenny and Evan
in the Bay Area near Palo Alto. Jen and I struggled to remember this
fact until after I wrote this part about visiting Doug and Denise,
and this was the first stage of our northern trip. She seems to
recall the food we ate that Friday night with them. Although, I am
not sure, because we visited them a few times: the first was February
2000, after we knew each other a month, the next time was for
Thanksgiving of 2000, and finally this time after Christmas prior to
the new millennium. (I don’t exactly recall if we visited them in
August, the same month that Linda and Jen came back with me to
Indiana, Nauvoo, and Chicago).
We
drove early that Saturday from there. It is approximately a 16 hour
drive and we got there late that night. It was already dark as we
drove through Oregon and it rained for a stretch in the mountains. We
made it in one day, supping somewhere in northern Oregon before
passing Portland and doing the last hour past the Columbia River.
We left on the 27th
of December (Wednesday) in order to have a whole day of rest before
our flight to Mexico on Saturday. On the way back we stopped for the
night at a motel in Grant’s Pass, after taking a detour to the sea
and checking out a few dunes that we went too fast on and Jen got
sick/ queasy (she had overcome her morning sickness in the previous
weeks and this was a brief relapse). We stayed the night off the 5
freeway and made it back to southern California the next day.
Our
trip to Mexico was from the 30th until the 10th
of January, 11 nights and twelve days.
Our itinerary of days
was as follows:
Saturday 30 Arrive in
Ixtapa and take the bus to Acapulco
Sunday 31 Spend day in
Acapulco, New Year’s on the Bay
Monday 1 Get tickets,
go to DF at night
__________________________________
Tuesday 2 DF
Wednesday 3 DF
Thursday 4 DF
Friday 5 DF
Saturday 6 DF
Sunday 7 Attend church
in Mexico City
Monday 8 Went to campus
after getting tickets, at night, very late, take bus back to
Zihuantanejo_________________________________________________
Tuesday 9 Spend the day
in Zi-town, last night
Wednesday 10 Fly back
to Los Angeles, arrive late and dark
We
were able to leave early that Saturday from LAX, and we left our car
at long term parking in B or C lot. (This would prove to be a slight
problem afterwards, and this will be explained later.)
We made it to Ixtapa,
Guerrero, in good time, and the weather was tropical and humid, as it
is in the tropics. It was sometime in the early afternoon. From there
we managed to get to the bus stop and discover that all the day’s
first class bust tickets to Acapulco were taken. That meant that we
could buy tickets and ride second class, and welcome to the Third
World! Oh man. The bus was way overcrowded because it was overbooked,
and we found ourselves spending an inordinate amount of minutes
jockeying, pushing, and floundering towards getting on the bus.
Jen being four and a
half months pregnant didn’t help the situation of little space.
That was hard on her, and made me feel a bit distressed as well. So
we stood among a cramped front of the bus for the first twenty
minutes or so. I told Jen I would ask someone to give her a seat
since she was pregnant but she demurred. After a half hour or so she
got a seat when some people moved. I got a seat next to her about an
hour later. This was a second class bus that not only made frequent
stops for people to get off and occasionally get on, but there seemed
to be an exaggerated amount of annoying speed bumps which were both
slowing to our progress and uncomfortable in the actual process of
crossing them
It got dark during our
warm and tiresome voyage to Acapulco, passing towns with the names
of______________, ____________________, ______________________, . For
a long stretch we watched small homes and huts off the side of the
road in an extraordinary darkness, but there was light (perhaps from
the moon) to see many surroundings. It turned out a “planta de luz”
was burning and therefore there was a considerable power outage for
many miles. Is was a surreal sight to see this multilevel plant
oozing flames and smoke in the dark of the night, more a bizarre
nightmare than anything.
We finally arrived in
Acapulco late that night and walked around with our suitcases in the
streets close to the bay. We walked by a few hotels and they were
either full our too expensive to our tastes. We went further towards
the beaches and the bay, turned a corner and came upon a cheap place
with vacancy. We finally found one. We then found a nice restaurant
that opened especially for us, it was officially closed. It was
really filling for us weary travelers.
We took up our
own towels to and slept all right after getting the proper
ventilation es
(April 8, 2023- Editing this and found that it ended without a finish. Did I save this on an old thumb drive? Or did I never finish it? Both are possible.)
Hmmmm...
Will edit this chapter this morning, too. Just did Chapter 7.
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