From Mad Libs To Mexico - a recap of the most hellified trip ever
June 15-19, 2003

My good friend and I were so excited about our trip to Mexico that we forgot one important thing - airports are Confusing. We were supposed to fly from Chicago O'Hare to Dallas Fort Worth to Puerto Vallarta. BUT when we got to O'Hare, we were confused as to where they hid the cheap long-term parking, so we parked in the regular lot, close to the terminal. (Big mistake, they never put the cheap parking close to anything) We gathered up our luggage, which by the way, was faulty, and instead of rolling along nicely behind us like Good Little Luggages, it decided to jump about and flip over haphazardly at every crack in the road. Heading into the terminal, we stopped and asked one of the Few Non-Rude Airport Workers for directions finding the Long-Term Parking. She apparently did not know where they hid it either, but she did a good job of pretending, and also informed us that if we left our car where it was it would cost us about 175 dollars to park there. YIKES! So, with faulty luggage in tow, we moseyed back out to the car, and asked the cranky security gate lady where they kept it. She informed us that it was in fact "economy parking" NOT Long-Term Parking, and that it was located approximately a hundred miles south of B.F.E. By the time we were safely parked in cheap parking, we had about a half hour to spare to get on our international flight.

We should have given up and went home right then. But being persistent, and refusing to abide by the laws of time and physics and other what-not, we hopped the nearest shuttle for our terminal. Ok, those shuttles... I could have walked faster than that thing went. That is supposed to be speedy?? it used up about ten minutes of our precious time just standing in that stupid thing and riding to the terminal... I could have PUSHED it and got us there quicker. Anyways... we FINALLY got back to our terminal to check in, and we had about 20 minutes or so to spare... which MAY have worked, barring all that security crap and the HUGE line we were faced with...What were those people thinking, all leaving the country at once like that?? So, when we got to the ticket-clerk-lady, we were informed that even though we had about ten minutes to spare, we were not going to make it, in fact, the flight had already left, and that there were no other flights availabe to Dallas until TUESDAY (this being Sunday)...at which point in time I BURST into tears, having looked forward to this trip for 6 months, and it being the first and possibly only time i would ever have a chance to get out of the u.s...

Thankfully, the poor ticketing people took pity on us, probably due to seeing my shaky state of mind, and re routed us... We were to fly out of Chicago to Las Vegas, from LV to Dallas FW and from Dallas to Puerto Vallarta... The catch was, we would have to stay in Las Vegas for a layover of 16 hours...But hey, it was better than not going at all, right?? Well, we thought so. So, we got on the plane, feeling much better, and landed in Las Vegas at about 10:15 AM.

Well, we thought that we would just get to the Vegas airport, put our luggage in a locker, and head out to see some sights. No such luck... I guess when 9/11 occurred, they closed all the lockers. So, even tho the lockers are still THERE, we couldn't use them, even tho we are not in fact terrorists, nor do we look ANYTHING like them. Since we couldn't just abandon our luggage, and had no desire to lug the faulty luggage along down the strip with us until our plane left at 130 AM... we decided to sit in the airport... yes... all day. We sat.. We walked around... we even repacked our luggage, and tried to nap on the floor (not comfy at all). The terminal we were at was not very big, so we sat a lot, and when our butts fell asleep we got up and walked to the other end of the terminal and sat there for a while. We also made the wise decision of purchasing some Mad-Libs while there, thankfully, because those Mad-Libs are the only thing that stood between us and the complete loss of our sanity. I will forever praise God for those things!! After nearly 16 hours in that god-forsaken place, we finally got to get on our plane to Dallas, at 1:30 AM Monday morning.

That was the Worst plane trip i have ever had. Although I am never afraid of planes, and usually love even the roughest of flights, it was terrible!! I had expected to just get on the plane and go to sleep, but even though i had had only 4 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours, i barely slept at all. Our seats were in the very last row on the plane, the view out the window on one side of us was blocked by the plane engine thingy (why do they even PUT windows there??), and the stewardess hidey-hole was on the other side of us, so we kept hearing them galavanting about and making all sorts of noises. Now, the noise i could have put up with FINE if i could see out the window - but as I discovered, I somehow developed Spontaneous Claustrophobia, and from the second I sat in that seat I *knew* the plane was going to crash and we were all going to die. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep. Whatever it was, I tried to put that disturbing thought out of my mind, in order to get some sleep. Now, along with Spontaneous Claustrophobia, I also have a horrible problem with Snoring. I can wake people up three houses away with my snoring. My friends are often tempted to suffocate me. And since I was between my friend and a girl i had never met, i had nowhere to rest my head, and kept seeing myself falling asleep on the stranger and snoring in her ear... All things said and done, I got Maybe a half hour of undisturbed sleep. We arrived in Dallas/Fort Worth all in one piece, contrary to my dire proclamations of death and destruction.

Dallas/FW has to be the most ugly, smelliest airport in the world... no offense to any who have an unnatural affection for the place. It was U-shaped, and seemed to be never-ending. There were quite a few more places to eat there than at Vegas, and had i had a choice, i would have much rather spent 16 hours there, even tho Vegas was Much nicer. Fortunately, we only had to spend 1.5 hours in Dallas, before we were happily on our way to Puerto Vallarta....a whole day after we should have been there.

We thought the trip was getting better once we finally got on the Mexico bound plane... but BOY did we have another think coming!! We arrived at the airport in Puerto Vallarta (the FOURTH one we had visited since the start of the trip) and made our way to customs. My friend got to go through without her luggage being searched, i was not so lucky, and got the "red light" (I dont know how it is elsewhere, but in PV you push a button and if you get a green light you don't get searched, but if you get a red light, well, you get searched.) Surprisingly, the Mexican governments idea of searching luggage for smuggleables was unzipping my freakishly full luggage, opening it, okaying it, and laughing in my face as i tried to stuff all my "necessities" back in. Ok they didn't really laugh, but im sure they thought wanted to. After I finally got my misbehaving luggage zipped up, we proceeded on to find a taxi to take us to our hotel. Basically, we stood around outside until one of the very-polite-yet-still-scary mexican guys asked us if we needed a taxi. We arrived at our hotel, Los Tules Resort, a short time later. Upon exiting the vehicle, we nabbed our luggage before the darned bellboy could, since if they so much as touch it they feel entitled to a tip. My luggage was delivered to me neatly and without incident, but when my friend received her overstuffed, misbehaving bag, the cabbie practically threw it at her leg, causing a grapefruit-sized bruise that was still there three weeks later. We headed up to the reception desk, where the check in guy flirted shamelessly with us, asked us to join him and his friends the following night, and was so bold as to suggest that I participate in a wet t-shirt contest. Mind you, some may not even bat an eye at that, but we are small town girls who have never been out of the country before. So we politely declined his invitation and he directed us to wait on the couch for the manager, who would take us to our room.

Now, from the moment i had set foot on the property of Los Tules, an overwhelming Stench of Mold permeated the air. The place was dark, dank, and any tile or metal that was exposed to the air was sweating, and therefore wet and slimey. We sat on the couch and the wonderful dampness and smell of mold overwhelmed me...Meanwhile, the reception guy and everyone else seemed completely oblivious to it. Forty minutes after we arrived at Los Tules, we finally were getting situated in our room.

Ahh, the room. The room smelled even worse than the lobby. The entire ambiance was like something from the sixties, only dirty. The wood was dark, the appliances were avocado... you get the idea. To make matters worse, though, we discovered bugs on the bed and in the bathroom, mold on the spigot of the "safe" bottled water (which, for the record, wasn't even cold), and everything we touched was just... greasy feeling. The floors were all dark brown ceramic tile, so it was, of course, sweating due to no air conditioning (which we PROMPTLY turned on), the kitchenette was dark, with no lighting, and mold in all the cracks, the "beds" consisted of a rock hard mattress on a slab of concrete with a sheet on it... in short, it was completely disgusting, and we were both afraid to touch anything. We tried to make the best of it though, for about six hours. I even cleaned the dead bugs off my bed and took an hour long nap (the first sleep i'd had in 48+ hours). When I woke up, my friend had finally figured out how to call home and was on the phone with her mother; her eyes were red, and i could tell that she was both exhausted and that she had been crying. When she got off the phone, we both agreed to make light of it to our families (to avoid any "i-told-you-so" responses)and not one minute later the very LOUD sound of Jack-hammering came from the very next room. We stared at each other in shock, and realized that this trip could not get any worse if the devil himself had planned it!! We determined to go find the manager, Carlos, and to ask him if there was anything we could do, such as switch rooms, etc. I will tell you, I think Carlos IS the devil. Never have I encountered a less polite, more abrupt individual in all my life!! Plus, we discover later on in our adventures, that he is also a Big Fat Liar. More about that later.... Carlos the Devil informed us that he would not switch our room until the next day at the earliest, but that he would rid us of the jack -hammering morons in the next room. He told us that they were not supposed to be jack-hammering after six PM anyway, and we could tell he doubted our truthfulness. Still, he sent a maintenance guy with us to chew them out. I do not think the jack-hammering morons appreciated that, and loited in the next room for several hours, glaring at us as if they were about to attack us everytime we passed by, which we could not avoid if we wanted to leave our smelly room. And, since the lock on our door was the bathroom door push button variety, we did not feel very safe, what with the marauding Mexicans next door. Eventually, we decided to get the heck outta Dodge. We gathered our luggage, and proceeded to go check-out. However, the lady at the front desk informed us that we would have to traipse all the way back to our room (the grounds were very large and all the buildings were far apart) WITH our misbehaving, wrist twisting, jumpy, stupid luggage in tow, Over the sidewalk made of WHAT ELSE but Jagged stone for our luggage to protest very mightily over (i tell you NOTHING went our way, NOTHING), yes, we would have to suffer through all this, PLUS the glaring jack-hammer men, to go back to our room and get BeachTowels that we had acquired from the front desk earlier that day. I tell you i was never happier than when we got out of Los Tules Resort and settled into the infinitely much nicer Fiestamericana Resort, right next door. With actual Beds and EVERYTHING!! And Modern conveniences, like door locks, phones that worked, and blankets!!!

Due to the exhaustion of the trip, we pretty much just slept for the next day... went swimming once or twice, walked around a little, saw the very very dirty disgusting beach that no sensible human or animal would swim in, and slept some more. All in all, the remaining three days of the trip was pretty boring, compared to the beginning. We did a little shopping, ate at a Pizza Hut, went to the Mexican Wal-Mart, avoided time share salespeople who told us we were gorgeous and asked us if we were on the movie "Titanic" - you know, normal vacation stuff!!

We left Puerto Vallarta on June 19th, Never to return again.

Just as a side-note... We were reimbursed by Expedia & Los Tules Resort* for our hotel room there, after Carlos AKA the Devil said that we violated our contract by not checking out of the Devil's lair. We did check out, as you will recall, and we had the receipt to prove it.

*I would not recommend Los Tules Resort to anyone who wishes to be clean, comfortable, or free of bugs on their mexican vacation.