My Spring Break Vacation - Part 1
In college I had a close friend, Jim-a senior, that was planning to do something out of the ordinary for Spring Break. Instead of setting out for Fort Lauderdale, FL as our destination, he wanted to have us drive through Mexico on our way to Acapulco and possibly visit some of the Mayan ruins in the surrounding area along the way. I had just completed some archaeology coursework including studying the Mayan Indians and that appealed to me greatly. Jim had two other guys that were seniors as well wanting to come along for the trip as their last chance to do something so carefree. At the time, I was just starting Graduate School and, outside of owning my car, I was flat broke more so at this time than at any other time while in college. While the other guys had cars, mine was in better shape, was the only one that was air conditioned, and it was definitely not a “gas hog” as their cars were.
I offered the use of my car as my contribution to the trip and they agreed to pay for all gas, insurance, and food & lodging expenses in return. Gas was very cheap then, under 40 cents per gallon and food and room accommodations were similarly inexpensive. The trip of 1800 miles each way was meant to be accomplished by rotating all four drivers, driving straight through for two days each way. We had a total of nine days to accomplish our trip. We loaded up the car and headed out the last weekend in March only to be greeted by 3- to 4-inches of freshly fallen, powdery snow that failed to stick on the highway. So far, so good.
By the time we got to Laredo, Texas we were already aware that we would have to acquire additional car insurance for Mexico. The insurance agent warned us of five things we needed to know before we got on our way.
1. You must never, ever drive on the highway at nighttime because livestock are free to roam and also found its warmth pleasant to sleep on;
2. You must never go to a hotel without first checking on their providing 24 hour security for the parking lot. Also, word to the wise, before bedding down, he recommended removing your hub caps before parking your car overnight;
3. Should you have an accident, regardless of who is at fault, both parties cars will be immediately impounded and will remain impounded until the court case is heard. In other words, you just as well kiss your car goodbye;
4. While in Acapulco, should you go to the beach at night, never go alone, and;
5. It is not uncommon to see wild horses and donkeys walking freely on the main boulevard without supervision.
Then, we had to get through customs. My passport was still good and the others arranged for temporary visas for Mexico. All was going well until we passed through customs and each of us had to declare how much money each was carrying. Because I was “totally broke” at the time, being honest I told the authorities “nothing” and they were in total disbelief and started giving me HELL! Their facility with English was almost as bad as my high school Spanish background. They spoke so fast, I could not begin to understand them. Finally, everything halted when I showed them proof I was the owner of the car.
Upon our crossing the border, I was amazed by all the clotheslines full of drying laundry that adorned the Mexican side of Laredo like a theater curtain. The density of people was many times greater on the Mexican side as well. I realized immediately this was going to be quite different from my travels in France and Germany. Livestock was suddenly everywhere, blocking the road. We slowly worked our way through our first exposure to Mexico in their native environment. We passed through this throng of humanity and got on the highway heading south to Mexico City and later on Acapulco. We spent our first night in a old, but charming hotel in Monterrey. The rooms were cheap in this old hotel but the baths were shared with other guests and not nearly as charming. No provisions were made for A/C either. In the morning, we went down to load the car and two 7 year old boys with an empty Folgers Coffee can and a rag took it upon themselves to wash my car. As we appeared with our luggage, immediately the hands came out. There were many more palms to grease along the way, but intersections had my unassuming air-conditioned Rambler completely engulfed with a mass of humanity, total strangers wiping my windows and wanting money as if we were rock stars. We soon learned to drive on regardless of the crowd and were very fortunate no one got hurt. Because of fearing being involved in an accident, I made the “executive decision” I was going to be at the wheel whenever we were in a town of any consequence. I didn’t want to blame the other guys for any careless accidents.
Within our cozy car, let me introduce those along for the ride. Jim was a student from modest means that had a love for chemistry, Nick was the best looking one with long blond hair and a laid-back attitude. He sported one extremely low-hanging ball out of the two and he complained frequently about it so we were all well aware of it’s precarious vantage point, and then, we had the least known passenger, Ralph. He was a self-declared expert on all females below 60 years of age and a friend to no one in the car. I never knew how he was chosen as a passenger. He broadcasted from the back seat everytime we came close to a female, filling thee silence with an almost endless mantra of…”GEE, I couldn’t FUCK THAT!” and on and on it went until finally after several hours, I had my fill of his chauvinistic blather. Turning toward him, I finally blew up at Ralph saying…” if he was such a stud after all, he would find the rougher girls that much more exciting in the conquest, that should have been sufficient proof of his “studly masculinity”, no less! Right or wrong, I shamed him enough that he finally stopped all his disrespectful announcements, much to my great relief.
Because of free-range livestock inhabiting the highway at night, we were now forced to adjust our projected driving time for sightseeing down to only 3- out of 9-days of our trip. It was now going to require 3 days driving each way instead of just 2. Before arriving at Mexico City, we could tell the air was getting extremely thin because my car was no longer capable of traveling above 35mph and it was stalling every time I had to stop at a light. I noticed almost all cars appearing on the street had huge non-factory “homemade hood scoops” to capture as much air as possible into the carburetor. There were what looked like some 5000+ feet drops to be had beyond the guard rail, while driving through the higher elevations leading to Mexico City.
On our way out of Mexico City, there was a perceptible gradual dropping in altitude as we were approaching the sea level resort of Acapulco. Before our arrival, we stopped at a hamburger joint a few miles short of our destination. We were approached by an American now living year-around in Mexico. He saw our Arkansas car tags and introduced himself saying “You guys must be from the States”. We said our hellos and he gave us in return a lot of useful information, almost what you would expect from a travel agent had we had one. We didn’t bother with room reservations before leaving Arkansas, and we were concerned about finding an air-conditioned hotel room at a reasonable price. He told us about a hotel where the rooms were real cheap, it was air-conditioned with a private bath. It was right across the main drag by the beach and he assured me they had a full-time guard watching the parking lot. What unbelievable luck! In fact the room cost only $14 per night total with individual beds for all four guys. Yes, that does sound unbelievable but what we didn’t know was that our arrival was after tourist season had closed down. That meant the beach was almost completely abandoned. So, we found this place and we checked in, changed into our swimming suits, and headed directly to the beach where we stayed until this big flash of RED. You guessed it. After two hours of cooking directly under the hot sun, we each were “fully cooked” and red as lobsters. We returned shortly aching and groaning all the way back to our room like some 80 year olds. You see, no one told us we needed to use sunscreen. I guess we must have thought it was optional.lol
Anyway, we spend the rest of the evening walking like half-dead survivors of an atomic blast to frequent a nearby 24 hour pharmacy that we could locate large jars of Noxema to cart away to our safe haven. We carefully coated each other’s burnt remains of our fellow travelers shoulders and backs. We even ventured out to obtain a hamburger later on remarking about the undeniably horsey taste it had. Regardless, we ate and vowed never to return to this questionable burger stand. Because I could not rest my back against the seat back while driving, I was relegated to holding on to the top of my steering wheel as if for dear life like some life preserver, to avoid any unnecessary contact of my back with the vinyl upholstery. Also, that was my first experience having the back of my knees were so very burnt that each time I stepped on the brake or the clutch, sighs of pain filled my car’s cabin. The rest of the crew was just as badly burnt.
Stimpy
over this!
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