the journey to mexico
After spending the day on Friday with Ian, I dropped him back with his mom, went to my parents' house, finished packing and proceeded to get very little sleep. (Finished packing around 2AM and left for the airport at 6AM.) We've rented a house on the beach in Akumal, about an hour and a half south of Cancun. At this point, all I know is that beside myself, our party consists of my parents, Bob & Fran Riemenschneider (family friends), Steve and Deb __________ (friends of Bob & Fran), and someone from Deb's work who's joined the party at the last minute because my brother and his girlfriend can't come after all. There are 2 blog entries (essays, books, movie rights...) in my future entitled, "Never travel with your parents" and "Never travel with your parents' friends."
The trip to Mexico was your average uneventful flight. I drew a picture of the airplane seat back in front of me. Will see about scanning that so I can post it here -- that's definitely something worth preserving for future generations.
What struck me as interesting was the actual arriving in Mexico...
the long wait
Off the plane (down the stairs and onto the runway tarmac) in Cancun, they had 2 buses waiting to shuttle passengers from the plane to the airport, one for those who deplaned at the front exit, and one for those exiting at the rear of the plane. They have armed guards to keep passengers who unwittingly happen to choose to exit the opposite door from the rest of their party on the correct bus. I found this out the hard way but thought better of it when my bus left first.
Clearing customs was incredible. I have never felt more like a sardine in my life. I have no pictures because we were told no cameras were allowed -- in fact, we were told no electronics of any kind were allowed to be on until we'd cleared and exited the building. I chose what looked like the shortest line and settled in for the long, long wait, pushing my luggage with my feet every few minutes when forward progress was made. I watched and waited for the rest of my party to show up.
I saw Bob & Fran first -- they're easy to spot because of Fran's wheelchair. And Fran's wheelchair serves as a sort of free pass to the front of the line. Their long wait would be on the other side, waiting for the rest of us to clear. And as it turns out, the wait through customs was just a warm up for me.
Deb's friend from work was on a later flight. This was actually a huge relief for me, because I'd seen Deb talking and laughing with 2 women at the airport back in SLC who were on our flight. They were both very large women, with short cropped hair. The age difference suggested they were related -- mother and daughter? (Deb confirmed this later, they were actually aunt and niece.) They were both wearing black t-shirts (because they thought they were slimming?), shorts, sandals with socks, and the brightest colored straw cowboy hats I've ever seen. They were LOUD, and I'm not referring to just the hats here. I was mortified that they were our last minute additions and would have considered abandoning the trip altogether had I not been already checked in for the flight.
So once we were through customs, Bob had already collected our checked bags and everyone was ready to go get the rental cars. Everyone but Deb who wanted to stay and wait for her friend to arrive. Somehow I'm the one who got to stay and wait with Deb, so we sat on our luggage on the other side of the glass doors, watching the herds of people come through customs. For hours. I saw every kind of lesbian couple you can imagine. For some reason, they were everywhere. Butchy bull-dikes, hippy treehuggers, high-heeled fashionistas... you name it and they were there. I doubt if there are enough Subaru Forresters in the entire country of Mexico to accommodate the number of lesbian couples that walked by Deb and me as we sat and sat, waited and waited for Madeline.
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