D travels for work a lot – sometimes, anyway. She’ll be around for a few months, then suddenly her employer (and herself) come up with important things for her to do that can’t be done from Oregon, let alone from her home office. Home offices are pretty cool for those who like to attend meetings online or via conference call in their pajamas. The conference calls are even cooler, because they allow attendees to engage in important mulititasking.
Note: if you’re attending a phone meeting while weeding the garden, ensure that you don’t work hard enough that you start breathing heavily to the point that others ask if you’re ok.
Since the beginning of the year, D has been on a repeat whirlwind tour of Points East for some work related stuff. Those of you who use computers or laptops or televisions will enjoy the fruits of this labor in the next several months (and it’s no longer secret stuff, but it’s fun to pretend that it is). Anyway, she went to Shanghai, Tokyo and Bangalore – three stops in two weeks – three separate times. Gone for two weeks, back for two weeks. Lather rinse repeat.
The good thing about this kind of traveling is that D collected a shit-ton (that’s a technical airline term, I’m pretty sure) of frequent flier miles. She also racked up a bunch of compensation days (‘comp days’ to you among the uninformed). At my level of employment, given that everything I’ve ever done to create this mythical thing called a “career” has served only to push my FAIL button, Comp Days don’t exist in my world. You work and you get paid (sort of). If you work more than 40 hours a week, you get paid for more than 40 hours a week. Some places pay you more than the regular hourly rate (many, however, do not, even if you’re working for the family business). Working weekends (if you’re smart like D and work for a company like hers) gives you these Comp Days, so you get to take off a normal day for every weekend day you’ve worked.
D worked for 10 weekend days during her repeat whirlwind tour of the East, which pretty much sucked, but gave the cool result of 1) lots of days she could take off from work; 2) none of those days encroaching on any vacation time she’s accrued. Pretty cool.
After lots of work and long hours in foreign countries and then returning to Portland and its seemingly endless rainy season, D asserted (she’s good at this) that we’d be taking a trip to somewhere the sun shines and the beach is actually a beach instead of the cold clammy thing we Oregonians optimistically refer to as “the coast.” We looked at the Yucatan but it’s supposed to be hurricane season (I’m told this is worse than the rain we have in Portland) so we scratched that off the list. Then we looked at Hawai’i, which sounds great even though I still don’t think white people belong there given the circumstances under which they joined the Union of the United States. Not that the people of Hawai’i were treated any better than the people who lived in what we now call the North America part of the USA, but for Hawai’i, gaining-statehood-under-threat-of-war took place recently enough that I’d like to think we knew better by then, or that we'd have abandoned the whole expansion-through-imperialistic-brutality thing.
Then we looked again at Mexico. We love Mexico, love the climate, love the people, and especially for me, love the food. I could eat Mexican food every day for the rest of my life without any regret. I told my mother in law, G, that my two favorites are Mexican and Italian. G agreed, though she did express that Italian is just a teeny bit better. Makes sense – she’s Italian. But then again, she hardly ever eats anything, so I’m not sure how much she likes Italian food anyway. Maybe she just likes being Italian. Or maybe it’s because she’s never been to Mexico. One thing I do know: when we go to Italy, we gain weight. Kind of a lot of it. When I come to Mexico, I eat as much as I can and I don’t gain weight. Less formaggio and fewer carbs I think.
We decided we’d come to the Pacific side of Mexico to escape the hurricanes. La Paz is really nice, but more touristy than we wanted, and Cabo is nice but WAY too touristy for us. I’ve been there before and watched what happens when a cruise ship offloads 2500 heavyset arrogant loudmouthed American tourists who then flood the market, blocking walkways and thinking that if they just shout “DON’T YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?” louder than everyone else who’s already shouting it, that the person working the booth might suddenly begin to comprehend.
As you probably know, almost everyone in Cabo understands and speaks English anyway. But the American sloths still use the ‘insanely high volume’ approach to ensure that’s the case. Heaven forbid we use an inside voice and politely ask, in Spanish, if they might speak English.
So we chose Todos Santos, on Baja. Not so big, not so many tourists (we hoped), and it’s about halfway between Cabo and La Paz. Being the amazing trip planner that she is, D figured out our flights (Portland to San Francisco to Cabo) and the bus ride that would get us from Cabo to Todos Santos. We went out Friday night to a going away bbq party for a friend of ours who is leaving the country (the medical procedure she needs costs over $30K in the US but only 1000 quid in the UK – don’t get me started on the horrible scam that is the US health care system) so she has to either surrender her house, or sell everything and leave her dog behind while she heads overseas. Stupid privatized for-profit crap.
Anyway, we went home after the bbq (which was terrific, by the way), did the last of our packing, and went to bed around 11pm. At 4, the alarms woke us up and I was happy to realize I’d properly programmed the coffeepot and that the Go Juice was already brewing. We showered, had coffee, and were one foot out the door when each of our phones rang. Not good. The automated message explained that our flight had been canceled. D called the 800 number and talked to a friendly guy on another continent, who took up 15 minutes of our time before telling us he couldn’t do anything and we should head over to the airport to see if anyone there might be more useful than he was.
We agreed: next time, we’ll call from the car so we’re at least en route while someone is wasting our time being unhelpful.
D drove us to the airport. I think it was the early hour that helped her not realize we were still in the US, as she was channeling her “this is how driving is done here in Italy” self. We made it to PDX in record time even though we drove right past the exit to the long term parking and had to flip a U turn right next to the big sign that says “no U turn.”
Inside the terminal, we found the lines at the United counter quite long despite the early hour. Happily, D is a ‘Platinum Gold Preferred Frequent Flier Goddess’ so we went to that line instead of the ‘normal people’ line. Unhappily, the people behind us were hustled up to the front of the line even though we’d been there a good 20 minutes longer than they had, and the ‘normal people’ line was getting a whole lot better service than our Goddess line. While we stood at the front of our line, we watched as the good people from United helped everyone in the other line. They cycled through that whole big long normal line fully twice while we stood in the preferred line, waiting to be treated preferentially. The long line that wasn’t ours snaked back and forth, and held between 40 and 50 people. I know this, because my passive aggressive score keeping self counted all of them several times over just in case anyone would ask my opinion on how well the staff at the ticket counter had handled this instance of a canceled flight. D was on the phone with the 800 number again and kept saying “we’re not going to make it” and “we’re going to be stuck here” and “it’s not going to work” while I kept saying things like “something will work out” and “it’s gonna be ok.” It’s unusual for me to be the voice of optimism and D to be that of skepticism and we don’t do so well when we get these roles switched around. After about the twentieth time D said “we’re not going to make it,” I finally abandoned my ill-assigned role of The Optimist (wasn’t working anyway) and said, loudly “Fine. If we’re so sure this isn’t going to work, let’s fucking go back home instead of wasting our time here.”
All the nice people in earshot stopped talking and gave me a surprised look. I don’t know why, exactly, because none of them were using very nice words either. D gave me a “what’s wrong with you?” kind of look and went back to her 800 number phone call. And very suddenly, the person on the other end of the phone call managed to get us onto some other flights that would land us in Cabo just a couple hours later than we’d originally planned. Fabulous!
We scanned our credit cards and passports and ran for the boarding gate. This time, the Preferred Goddess line worked like it should and we skipped past the hundred or so Normal People in line, tossed our shoes and bags onto the x ray conveyer, stepped through the DNA scrambling scanner machine so the TSA people could carefully inspect our junk, and ran to the gate, arriving exactly two minutes before boarding.
The airplane, as they called it, was a tiny little thing that took us on a bouncy and noisy jaunt up to SeaTac. I think the stewardess must have had a cabinet open by accident on some other flight, because she was slamming the carry on bins closed with extreme force. Lucky for me, the one that held whatever supplies stewardesses need on the flight from Portland to Seattle are kept in the cabinet above my assigned seat, so I got to listen to this thing slam shut about a million times. She’s a witty one, too – most of the occasions she’d slam the thing shut were timed exactly to match that special moment of peace we feel when we’re still awake enough to realize that we’re now finally drifting off to sleep. Then BANG! we’re not drifting off to sleep.
After flying north to Seattle, we then flew south to San Francisco, then south again to Cabo. By the time we landed, the bus on which we’d reserved (and paid for) seats had gone and the office was closed. There were a couple employees still there (when I get off work I like to go home, but whatever) so D asked one of them if we could either get a refund or use the tickets for our return to the airport at the end of our vacation. The woman said ‘yes’ in that special ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about but I do know that saying Yes won’t annoy you as much as saying No so that’s what I’m going with for now’ way. Once that was handled we went back outside to find a way to the bus terminal in Cabo, where we’d catch a Normal People bus from there to Todos Santos. A nice guy set us up with a ride in a very air conditioned van that had super dark tinted windows that would cost US$10 each to get us to the bus terminal.
We rode in the back of the van behind some Americans who were clearly eager to spend some time with like-minded Americans in that fabulous destination that is Cabo San Lucas, listening to their conversation as it bordered on offensive while they talked about how things work in Mexico. We sat in the back wondering what our driver, a Mexican who understands English, might think about these folks. Acting superior and en route to the very best wet t-shirt contests that the American owned bars in Mexico have to offer.
The ride was really interesting. The president (of Mexico, not Obama) was using the same road as us, and we could see the motorcade from our van. The presidential motorcade is lucky – they just cruised right through the checkpoints manned by Federal Policia dudes. I didn’t know there were so many police officers, nor so many machine guns in all of Mexico. They’ve got jeeps and black SUVs and helicopters with rocket launchers and airplanes too. Pretty cool.
We arrived at the bus stop and the driver told us it wasn’t US$10 each. It was US$18. We told him we’d been told that it was ten, so he called someone on his phone and said some words in Spanish, then explained that it was ten bucks to go to San Jose del Cabo, not Cabo San Lucas. We were sure that isn’t what we’d agreed to, but there wasn’t any sense in arguing (and we really didn’t want to be considered as the same ilk as the others in the van) so we paid up. Walked inside, found the nice lady who sells tickets, bought tickets, and asked when the bus would be leaving. “Now!”
We ran out and onto the bus, they closed the door, and we were away.
After an hour or two we arrived in Todos Santos. We knew we were at the right place, because at the prior stop D and I had each turned to the person(s) next to us and asked “Todos Santos?” The guy next to me said ‘no’ and the guy next to D said ‘si.’ So she jumped up with her bag in hand and headed for the front of the bus until everyone else nearby who’d heard us asking said ‘no no – Todos Santos blah blah’ and pointed further up the road. Of course, another Mexican fellow who spoke perfect English was there and he explained it all. Todos Santos was the next stop.
We could tell when we arrived at Todos Santos because all of our new friends looked at us, pointing out the windows in all directions saying “Todos Santos! Si si!” We got off the bus and walked in some direction that seemed promising, then turned right and went up some street that looked promising. We passed by the Hotel California made famous by The Eagles, then the Sushi Bar (we agreed: we are not eating sushi in Mexico. I don’t like sushi and I’m not going to waste a single meal that ought to be Mexican food on some other thing that I don’t want in the first place. I’ll eat Mexican food in Japan but I won’t eat Sushi in Mexico.) We stopped at some little taco bar and ate the best tacos we’ve ever had.
By now it was dark, but D had a hand drawn map along that told us where we needed to go. Simple, really – the lady at the B&B had told us it was a 10-12 minute walk from town to our lodging. So off we went, feeling happy to have arrived and to have tummies full of Mexican Awesomeness. After we’d walked 10-12 minutes we realized that everyone here must walk really fast because we weren’t anywhere near anything other than a dirt road with a barbed wire fence on one side and a very confrontational barking pit bull on the other. About every fifty feet was a streetlamp but no one had thought to turn these things on, so we were really in the dark. I’m happy to say that the pit bull allowed us to pass and for whatever reason, didn’t venture out into the road to greet us up close.
After another 10-12 minutes (are we really walking half as fast as the locals, or did someone overpromote the convenience factor here?), we met up with a very friendly young woman who said something like “Buenos noches, blah blah Spanish asking question blah?” D responded “blah something Hotelito.” Hotelito is the name of the place we were going to stay. The nice young woman sighed, smiled, and said ‘ok,’ and began walking with us. Turned out she’s the caretaker at the place and had been waiting for us to arrive since well before we would have arrived if we’d been on the flights and buses we were supposed to be on. She was very sweet, and took plenty of time to show us to our room and explain where everything else we might need could be found.
By now it was about 9pm and we were exhausted. We kicked back on the giant bed, promptly fell asleep, and didn’t wake for something like twelve hours. Our first day of vacation wasn’t as relaxing as we’d hoped, but the second certainly was.
