Scribble World Travel Blog

Walk to Matamoros Mexico

From South Padre Island, it was an easy drive to Brownsville where we found parking then walked across the boarder to Matamoros, Mexico. I was finally overcome with curiosity, and paid $1 to one of the many street vendors to find out what a corn on the cob stick with mayonnaise, red spices and sprinkled with cheese would taste like….  It was surprisingly good and unlike anything I’ve ever had before.  I had another new experience when I randomly picked out a drink that turned out to have a sweet cinnamon taste.  After walking around, we had a late lunch at the Cafe Paris.  I had the house special soup made with avocado, hard boiled eggs, rice, shredded chicken & broth.  Again, I was happily surprised.

Chris wasn’t as pleased with our Mexico experience-said he just didn’t feel very surprised by it-nothing really new.

Maybe that’s what aging is like-feeling like you’ve “been there, done that” and you measure each new experience against the best of your previous experiences, and if it does not surpass them, a sense of disappointment settles in—and you’re left wondering if all the best surprises have already come and gone—?  Just theorizing here.

Rocky Point, Mexico

Our getaway to Puerto Penasco, Mexico- or Rocky Point as we gringo’s say, was a lot of fun. It was an expensive trip however, because there were lots of kids there on Spring Break. We stayed at the lovely Peñasco Del Sol Hotel for $234 plus they charged an extra $28/additional person-there were 5 of us, I think we may have gotten a little ripped off, but it was a comfortable room, we had fun at the pool, and it was beach side, so the location is exactly what we had come for.

Several guys would stand around the sidewalk and try to sell us passes for a cruise. We stopped to hear the details, and were told the main difference between the two cruises was that the earlier one would be packed full of wild crazy spring breakers, but the evening dinner cruise would be a good place for us and the best place for the 2 year old accompanying our party.

Once we got to the site of the cruise, another guy tried to “steal” our business over to his ship instead. He said the “dinner” the other boat was talking about was just some rice and slop, but for a few dollars more we could have a real meal on his. We almost did, but then decided to go take a tour of the one we had reserved, and of course that guy was quick to tell us this was the best choice and not to fall for the other guy’s tricks-plus he was quick to take our tickets, so there was no going back. We settled into a booth and waited for the rest of the guests to arrive.

Surprise surprise, the “family” dinner cruise was also full of spring break kids looking to party and take advantage of the “free beer.” But they ran out of beer before we even left port, and we all sat on the boat waiting impatiently while we were told they had gone to get more beer. An hour later, it was like anarchy, shouting spring breakers started demanding their money back, and that sprung the motor into action and the boat swiftly left port….

So, the cruise was shorter than advertised since we started an hour late and finished at the advertised time, and the food was decent, but the portions minuscule, and no, we did not see any dolphins (another selling point from the guy on the street), but it sure was an experience and an interesting one at that. Our 2 year old guest was wide eyed from all the excitement and slept in conked out bliss the whole drive back to Phoenix afterward.

Oh, in case anyone reading this is looking for tips before your trip-bring plenty of cash, hardly anywhere accepted credit cards and it was a real challenge trying to locate an ATM.

Side Trip to Acapulco

Since this morning, my stomach has been screaming “bloody murder.” Chris seems to be sulking and I can’t say I blame him. He wanted to go to a club-drink and what not-me, party pooper (literally) that I am just wanted to go back to our hotel after dinner. I tried to go for a walk, but started feeling sick again and it was time to turn right back around. The more I move, the more my stomach hurts. I’m also quite sunburnt on my shoulders, neck and chest from walking around at the Pyramids yesterday. I’m starting to feel like an invalid-Chris puts his arm around me and I yell “Oww!”-Chris wants to go for a walk and I tell him go slower..and then eventually, slower still. I feel bad, he wants to do all this stuff, but moving around at a night club and drinking just sounds like a whole lot of pain to me.

It’s been an expensive day. It cost around US$50 in tolls to drive from Mexico City to Acapulco. ($7.50, $5.50, $10, $9.50, $6.50, $9)….it seemed like they could pretty much charge whatever they liked. There’d be a new toll booth every hour or so-and then another to enter the city, and another to go through a tunnel-it was just ridiculous. But there would usually be an armed guy at the toll booth and it’s not exactly like you can just turn around-you just have to pay up and cross your fingers that you’ll have enough. It was a pretty drive, but a lot of poverty too. The Acapulco beach area was nice We swam for a while in the luke-warm water. It was invigorating. A lady walking the beach came up to sell me something for my sunburn, she called it turtle lotion and claimed my skin wouldn’t peal from the burn. I hope nobody hurt a turtle to make that. She didn’t speak much English. We relaxed while other vendors walked by offering their goods. We tried the mango on a stick sprinkled with chili seasoning, it was surprisingly good….as were the chili coconut slices.

Acapulco

Piramides

We went to see the Piramides today. First though we walked to have a delicious and reasonably priced breakfast at a small local shop. It was odd though, the ladies bathroom didn’t have a toilet seat, just a rim. I decided to wait until getting back to our room.
The drive to the Pyramids was stressful as usual, but the Pyramids were lovely and worth the anguish of getting there. Oh, the bathroom at the Pyramid also only had rims to sit on-and no toilet paper. Good thing I had a travel pack of kleenex in my purse.

We climbed to the top of the Sun Pyramid, took pictures, and then went right on over to climb the Moon as well. The views were spectacular.

A few pesky street salesmen just followed us around, not taking no for an answer. I bought an obsidian frog for just 50 pesos ($5 US) and a Sun/Moon real silver pendant with a chain and everything for $5, a complete steal (I guess being broke sometimes pays off in that you get a great deal). I also got a glass dolphin necklace for a buck, and I was out of money, so Chris paid a guy $3 for a sun and moon glass pyramid, just so he’d stop following me everywhere. He didn’t seem to understand, “no money-nada.” He was originally asking $12 for just one (which is less than the gift shop was charging), but in the end said he’d sell both for $3.

Chris is currently reading his Mexican translation book in bed and reading aloud select phrases and making me guess what they mean…”You are beautiful, but I am more beautiful,” or “You are the most intelligent woman in the world.” I asked him why he never pays me such compliments in a language I’d understand

We stopped at Super Walmart and had to pay for parking (about $2 for an hour). I bought juice and these things that looked like jumbo grapes, but turned out to be plums. Chris bought meat, cheese and tortillas.

Oh, at the Pyramids, Chris bought a funky looking plastic bottle for $12. I think it’s kind of creepy-a guy’s head inside an Eagle’s mouth. But he really likes it.

After Walmart is when things got tense. Chris got hopelessly lost and it began to rain, then pour, then hail and get dark. After a couple hours of driving around lost, I made a suggestion-that if he admitted he was lost with no clue where we were, then how about he just go where I say to go. Even though I’m pretty much hopeless when it comes to directions, I have a funny kind of intuition (or luck) that’s gotten me out of more than a few tight spots. He agreed things couldn’t get any worse, and agreed to try it. My hunch was saying to go left..we drove past another Super Walmart, drove to the end of a road, saw a sign “Welcome to Mexico City,” so we hadn’t even been in the right city. The confusion continued a little while longer but he continued listening to my guesses and we soon found the Centro Historico District, which led back to our hotel. Our car was promptly valet parked and it was a great relief to finally get out of the car.

I’m learning more about Chris from this experience. To him, getting lost is just terrible. He likes maps and knowing exactly where he is. I’m just the opposite. I told him if I had it my way, we’d be staying someplace new every night, so it wouldn’t matter that we coudn’t find our way back-we’d just explore and find someplace new. Tomorrow, the plan is to leave for Acapulco by 7 A.M.

Piramides

Xochimilco, Boat Ride

We drove to Xochimilco where for $55 (5500 pesos) a man took us for our own private boat ride that lasted almost 2 hours. The man didn’t speak any English and communication was a challenge, but he made do with pointing and non-verbal cues. The scenery was quite lovely-floral and fragrant-very green and lush. The inhabitants of the little houses and shacks along the water seemed a colorful bunch. Passing one house, an Eminem song was blasting as a couple young men built a shack along the riverbank. Our guide motioned for us to look-there was a dead pig floating in the water. The riverbank was alive with colorful singing birds, scruffy dogs, playful kittens, chickens, cows and a bull. And there were plenty of fish-big and small.

Our guide didn’t use oars, but a long stick to push off the ground with. It was pretty neat. The boat alone was a masterpiece-so full of color. There were many colorful boats docked, but it seemed like we had the river all to ourselves.

We had lunch at VIPS. It reminded us of Denny’s-both the price and the food choices.  Afterward, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up a few snacks for later.

It started to rain as we drove back to our room and we splashed through a few mud puddles. At a stoplight, 2 men rushed out to us and washed our windows-we said no but they did it anyway. We quickly fished for change and handed them all of about 15 cents (all we had) and I was surprised to see they were genuinely grateful for such a small amount.

It rained and rained. We got soaked walking/running to exchange more currency. We caught a 7:30 showing of the Matrix Reloaded (Matrix Recongardo) just for fun. To our surprise, the sound was in English, and it was the subtitles that were in Spanish. The theater was large and fancy with a red curtain that lifted to signify the start of our previews and show. We giggled through the mini-movie commercial for Pepsi-an old west gun fight style thing to get a Pepsi.

The movie theater was really nice and it was only US $3.90 for a night time showing. There weren’t that many people there either. One difference, small as it may be, is the popcorn-you know how in the US, they scoop it up right there in front of you-well it was already pre-bagged-so they just hand you a bag of room temperature popcorn. Kind of different-not as good, but less expensive. The movie theater was clean, spacious, comfortable and much nicer than any theater I’d been to in the U.S-less money too.

It was still raining at 10 when the movie let out, so it was an uncomfortable and cold walk back. I took a steamy hot shower to warm up.

I don’t feel much like writing tonight. I’m tired. It was a pretty good day, but long-the time doesn’t pass smoothly-this is only our second day, but it feels like much longer. I guess the day feels longer without our normal routines-without radio or internet…or fun things to read, or a bathtub, jacuzzi, or swimming pool, or mail..or stress-free driving. Tomorrow, we’re going to go see the Pyramids, then the next day the plan is to drive to Acapulco. Money doesn’t go very far. I spent $60 today, which seemed barely enough, but we had fun.

Xochimilco

Airport Nightmare, Mexico DF

Preparing for the big day-our first international flight together-we spent the night at a great little hotel in Phoenix, not too far from the Sky Harbor Airport according to our map, in hopes that we would have a smooth easy going, stress-free departure to Mexico City, DF, the following morning. Nothing wrong with a little wishful thinking…

We made a wrong turn, so just getting to the Sky Harbor Airport proved a more harrowing experience than we’d imagined, but we figured it out! After finding the long term parking section and with just 2 hours to go before our international flight was scheduled to depart-we scuttled to catch the next shuttle to our terminal, making it just in time to hurry up and wait in an exhaustively long line to get through the security checkpoint.

One airport worker, browsing through the line, told us, “I don’t think you’re going to Mexico today.” He said there was an 85% chance we wouldn’t be allowed to board. The complication arose because of a government website that stated we only needed a driver’s license and a tourist card to go to Mexico. We had been to the Nogales border town without any trouble whatsoever.  According to the airport officials we needed a birth certificate or a passport-and we didn’t have either.

We made it through security to our gate to see if they’d let us board and were told we’d need an affidavit of our citizenship- which we could get at the information booth for $2–but…and there is a big BUT-the information booth was on the OTHER side of security!

We were literally running through the corridors with our baggage.  We made it to the information desk, waited in another line, thankfully a shorter one, and discovered the lady at our gate had given us the wrong form. We fudged it anyway….filling out “I, Sandra, mother of Sandra, certify that Sandra can go to Mexico..signed Sandra.”

Rushing back to the long line at security, the guy that had given us the 85% chance of not going, recognized us and was pleased our chances seemed to be improving. He let cut in line a little, but even so, we still had a good 20 minute wait, and had to take our shoes off again and all that-and this time, they needed to search Chris’s bag because of an unidentified object-funny that they only noticed the 2nd time-makes you wonder how many things go through undetected.

We finally made it back to our gate but it was a different employee and she said we needed to have the right form-and just when it was looking like she was going to make us go back to the information booth AGAIN-the person who had given us the wrong forms showed up. She said it was her mistake and they were able to find an employee to notarize it without making us go through security again-which is a good thing because they had already begun boarding and we wouldn’t have made it.

We boarded the already full plane and I found a girl in my window seat who didn’t understand English, but after everything else, getting my seat was the easy part of the day.

While waiting for the plane to get underway, it was both amusing and appalling to watch the baggage boys unceremoniously dropping and whipping luggage into the cargo bay…at least that was one thing we didn’t have to worry about as we had carried everything on with us…although we were a bit short on leg room as the overhead storage space was already full.

I had the most deliciously satisfying Campbell’s tomato juice as my beverage of choice after taking off and Chris had a Heinekken.

After three hours, our plane landed safely in Mexico City-where it was a very cloudy and humid 73 degrees. The local time was 2 hours ahead, or about 2:30 in the afternoon. Going through customs was smooth sailing. The lady didn’t even flinch when I presented my affidavit, rather than a passport.

Next, we found the rental car place where we waited an hour for the one customer ahead of us to be helped. Meanwhile, I sat down on the bright blue sofa to relax, and observed my surroundings including the cleaning lady. She finished washing the windows and stood around as though waiting for something-was she waiting for the window to get dirty again? Was that her only function-keeping the place tidy and passing the time? After a while, she went to talk to a girl (fellow worker) and their space bubble was very small-just inches from one another. I wondered if they were sisters, but they didn’t look much alike. The window washer was probably mid-thirties and overweight, dressed in old clothes, while the other girl was young and slender and dressed very professionally, in a suit. The bigger girl put her arm around the younger girl and they sat in close proximity in a sisterly way. It was just interesting, something I’ve never seen in the states.

Finally, Chris made it up to the counter, but when he gave his credit card, it wouldn’t go through for some reason. Finally I coughed up my credit card, and that worked, but we were both aggravated to see we were being charged more than double what our online reservation had been for. The weekly rental price of $130 became almost $300 after taxes and insurance.

We were taken to the place to get our rental car, which wasn’t exactly what we had reserved but close enough, a little blue economy thing. A guy went around the car with us noting every scratch or ding on his chart. I took a seat on the passenger side (Chris would have to do all the driving since i was under 25). The three guys working there helped Chris look at maps and find the best route to get to our hotel. This took 10 or 15 minutes. I was surprised how much time they all had on their hands-they seemed so laid back and unrushed. We were the only customer there.

Once on the road, the comfortable slow pace abruptly ended and things got scary. Mexican drivers have a very different method of driving-they’re crazy! Sometimes there weren’t any stop signs or lights and it was like a free for all with cars coming from 4 or more directions all at once. It was very unorganized and dangerous. I watched in horror as a bus side swiped a taxi right in front of us and both just kept on going as though this were a common occurrence.

The road was filled with old dented and beat up cars. There were taxis everywhere, and I really wished I was in one, as Chris was getting really stressed out and there often weren’t even dotted lines to help distinguish one lane from the next. There would be 5 cars racing along at highway speeds, switching lanes left and right without blinkers, on a road clearly not meant for more than 3 cars.

There were many very close calls and it was such a relief to finally get to our hotel sometime after 5P.M. Checking in was the easiest thing we did all day and they valet parked our rental car. A bellboy showed us to our room and even insisted on carrying our bags. He turned the lights and TV on and promptly departed too quickly for us to even fish around for a tip (which is unusual). We found a bank and each exchanged $60 for $601.50 in Mexican moola. We went out to eat dining on green rice with chicken, I don’t know what the green sauce was, but it was good.

We walked around a little while and stopped another place for dessert-some fancy mini-cakes. We carried our leftovers back to our hotel. Everything seemed to be closed, it was already dark and starting to sprinkle.

This is an unusual hotel room-but not very fancy for a 4-star. The ad said there was a pool, but there doesn’t seem to be one, no fridge or microwave. But on the bright side, the king bed is comfy and inviting and the hotel soap is circular and cute. The TV only has 10 channels and no remote. It looks like it’s from the 80’s. I’m not complaining though, just observing. Considering we only had a 15% chance of getting here, I’d say today’s our lucky day!

Mexico City

Mexico City (Cont.)