Mexico: The Ungrateful Bitching Edition

Travel

So, Maggie! How was your awesome Mexico vacation?

Thanks for asking! There were some snags.

For example, someone removed most of the awesomeness from Mexico and put it somewhere else for a week. Was it with you? I hope so, because if so, it must have been raining glitter and cocaine where you live.

Mmm. Delicious glitter cocaine.

What happened, you ask? Well, have a seat.

Two days before our trip, Bryan left for Illinois to help our family bury his very sweet grandmother. We tried to postpone our trip so all of us could go, but tickets to Illinois were one jillion dollars each, and our cheapo tickets to Mexico were of the non-refundable, non-transferable variety. So Bryan flew out and arranged to meet us on our layover in Phoenix.

After this inauspicious start, the trip unfolded in such profuse layers of inconvenience and stress that I’m resorting to bullet points in the interest of time:

  • Two hours of sleep before leaving for the airport at 4 a.m. with our friend Libby and a sleepy baby.
  • Two hours of struggle when our US Air tickets somehow turn out to be with United, and United almost refuses to let us on the plane, because they are giant dicks.
  • Hank’s luggage is suspiciously absent from the conveyor belt.
  • Bryan and I go out for New Year’s Eve around 8 p.m. Bryan feels ill. Two hours later, he has trouble walking home.
  • Bryan sleeps for two days with a vicious flu/cold combo.
  • On New Year’s Day, Hank wakes at 4 a.m. He continues this charming habit for the duration of our trip.
  • Our friend Libby wakes with the non-alcohol-related urge to boot. Happy New Year!
  • Hank’s bag arrives at the hotel, sans both our camera battery chargers, which I’d groggily (read, stupidly) tucked into the suitcase in a 2 a.m. daze.
  • Hank gets Bryan’s vicious flu/cold. He is screamier about it.
  • Due to fruitless charger hunt, we leave too late for the house we’ve rented up North. We are driving in the dark, on isolated dirt roads, in the Mexican desert, with a toddler.
  • We arrive at the house to find another couple there. The house has been double-booked for the night. I briefly consider offing the nice couple from Rhode Island, as we are in the Mexican desert, and I’m not even sure that’s illegal here.
  • Instead we drive to a hotel in the dark, on isolated dirt roads, in the Mexican desert, with a toddler.
  • We return to the house the next day. After our first meal, we discover that the dishwasher runs but doesn’t clean the dishes no matter how thoroughly we rinse. This is irritating, as the water isn’t safe for dishwashing at tap temperatures. Hmm.
  • The bathtub tap doesn’t work.
  • I unwittingly take a swig of contaminated tap water. I immediately take two Immodiums.
  • Bryan rigs a bath by heating water on the stove. The next day the nice neighbor tells us it’s not safe to bathe in the water, because we have “other orifices” besides our mouths.
  • My intestines begin to roil.
  • When the nice neighbor showers, he keeps a dry towel nearby to wipe his eyes and mouth, in case any spray gets on his face. Do go on.
  • The nice neighbor says if you happen to drink the water, whatever you do, don’t take an Immodium. It blocks you up, and then the bacteria just breeds in your gut. Good to know.
  • Hank’s left eye begins to weep suspiciously. I first notice this when he wakes at 3 a.m.
  • I come down with Bryan’s vicious flu/cold.
  • Hank’s left eye becomes crusty, and his right eye begins to weep in a foreshadowing manner.
  • We head to the clinic in the closest town, about an hour away. Hank has a double bacterial eye infection and an upper respiratory infection. Hurrah!
  • Every two hours, we pin our child down as he screams and pry his eyes open so we can administer mystery medicine drops.
  • On our last night, the house runs out of propane, which means we can’t cook because the stove doesn’t work, and there’s no more hot water for showers. After all the neighbor’s advice, I suspect the lack of showers is a blessing in disguise.

Is that it? I think that’s it. Oh, wait. When I got home, I also contracted a mystery eye ailment. So that’s been fun.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the good parts, because there are always good parts, right? Right.

Let me sleep on it.

Published

82 thoughts on “Mexico: The Ungrateful Bitching Edition”

  3. I spent a summer in a small town about two hours south of Mexico City and showered by pouring bowls of warm water over my head in an outhouse. I also brushed my teeth, washed my face and washed my clothes in the water from our outside tap. I never once got sick. It sounds like your neighbor was a bit of a freak and an ass for making you feel like every thing was going to kill you.

    Sorry your vacation sucked!

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  5. Gosh, that sounds scary, dangerous, and horrible, Maggie. See, that’s why I don’t go to Mexico! Next vacation go somewhere safe and restful. Where that could be I don’t know because after reading your bullet points I’m afraid to leave the house.

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  6. Oof. Sorry. All I can say is the fact that you are still married is a very good thing. There’s no stopping you guys now!

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  9. Oh my god. Where the hell did you go?
    Water that you cannot touch? Who the hell was your neighbor??? Tap not safe for diswashing? Whaaa? Are you sure you were in Mexico? Are you sure you were in this planet? You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.
    We must have do-overs in Mexico! You should definitely come back… but then again, if you pay a cheap vacation, you should expect a cheap vacation. That reminds me of that horrible phoenix/motel6 “vacation” in 2000. Never again!

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  10. Yeeeeeouch. You win the Clusterfuck (Not Occurring at Employment or Home) Award for this month.

    For those who are skeptical about the water stuff, it doesn’t sound like the place they were staying had processed/treated water via standard plumbing. Given the “isolated roads” and the “nearest town, about an hour away,” I’m guessing that the water for the houses was probably untreated well water or whatever they call it when rainwater is collected in a big container outside. Several colonias where I live, on the US/Mexico border, have the same “don’t brush your teeth” issues because their water – even though it might come out of a pipe inside the house – is not processed and not safe for use unless it’s been boiled. For someone who hasn’t been acclimated to it, and especially if her immune system was already bottoming out from exposure to other illnesses, I can see where it could really do a number on one’s system.

    (Maggie: I learned the same “no Immodium” rule after a bout of C.diff colitis that landed me in the hospital a year or so ago. It is one hell of an unpleasant lesson to learn, so I sympathize!)

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  11. Hmmm.

    I know you had an honestly craptacular vacation in Mexico (that cannot be denied), I’m kind of not feeling the vibe of everybody saying “No to Mexico!” Shit happened, but I don’t think everybody should just…condemn the poor nation. That’s like people who come to Puerto Rico, only visit the capital, and then feel they can make some sort of completely justified assessment of how everybody and everyplace on the island is. :/

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  16. Oh crap, none of those things are on your Mighty Life list. Here’s hoping everyone is now well on the road to mental and physical recovery.

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  18. Oh honey, poor you. I know it’s a little wading through the backwash of mediocre compliance, but all-inclusive is the way to go in Mexico. If you need the hot with clean water and food.

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  19. I thought 3 cases of yuletide pink eye in the Adirondacks sucked ass, but I think you totally trumped it with your hacienda de suffering.

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  20. We had the glitter coke in DC. Sorry we forgot to share. Coke makes me forget my manners.

    Sorry your vacation was such a dickhead. You need a make-up vacation to get Mexico out of your system (umm, literally).

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  22. Oh.My.God.

    You poor bloody thing. I can’t even imagine. I was all busy throwing myself a giant pity party – but I instead hereby dedicate it to you.

    That. Blows.

    It blows so bad I think I might just throw myself down on my knees and thank-heebus that my problems are not gastro-intestinal in nature.

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  23. I also had a “don’t drink the water” vacation, and while that part was fine, my experience with UNITED was the same–DICKS! I got to the airport at 5:15am for a 6:25am flight, wait in a line that doesn’t move, get to the front of the line at 5:38am, at which point the person directing the line walks away. I get to the computer terminal at 5:41am, at which point they tell me that I can’t get on my flight–check in time has passed by ONE MINUTE. Then they try to make me pay for a new one. When I complain, and tell them it was their fault, they tell me they’re short staffed and can’t do anything. I swear, those people are outrageous–I would write and complain!

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  25. I have to say, everybody I know who lives/works in Mexico on a regular basis insists the water is A-Okay almost everywhere (I can vouch, I drank the water all over the Yucatan without problem.) Where in the WORLD were you??

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  28. If it makes you feel any better my one and only trip to Mexico was on my honeymoon. Two hours after we got there I got hit by a gigantic wave in the ocean which did damage to my knee equivalent to being tackled by a 400lb linebacker (they do tackle right?!) I spent the next 9 months on crutches, had a major surgery, a blood clot and endless months of physical therapy. And yet….I would go back tomorrow. That guac and tequila was freaking awesome!

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  29. Where was the tequila this whole time? You could have bathed in it. It takes away colds and the flu. A little drop in the eye would have killed the bacteria…of this I am sure. When in doubt, alcohol it all out. Sorry you had that kind of trip.

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  31. Dear heavens. That blows in a huge way.

    I don’t know whether anyone else said this, but if you ever have to do eye drops again, instead of prying, put the drop on his tear duct, and once he opens, it will go in. Someone told me this after days of prying and crying.

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  32. If ever there has been written in a blog entry anything as funny as this, I’ve not come across it:

    “For example, someone removed most of the awesomeness from Mexico and put it somewhere else for a week. Was it with you? I hope so, because if so, it must have been raining glitter and cocaine where you live.”

    Bravo.

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