Back in the saddle again

Day 1-2

It’s time to dust off my forefingers and get to the serious business of writing. It’s been 7 months since I last opened my brain to the creative arts.

February 2020 finds us in Bucerias, Mexico for the 8th? time. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it they say. Once more we’re staying at Hotel Corita right on the beach on the Bay of Banderas.

Day 1, Monday. The 6 of us piled into the car; Carol, myself, our two phones, Fred and Wilma, and our two tablets Randy and Julie. We had travelled the three hours to Spokane, poked around a few stores, then booked into our airport hotel so we would be fresh for our early Tuesday flight leaving at 6 a.m.

Day 2, Tuesday, found us flying from Spokane to Seattle on about 3 hours sleep. After a 2 hour layover we were airborne on the 4 hour flight to Vallarta.

About 5:30 local time we landed, followed by the smoothest immigration/customs trip through the airport in modern memory, then we whisked past the battery of time-share/money-exchangers barking lies at us as we passed with roller-luggage in tow out into the humid tropical air. Great start, but storm clouds were brewing; no seriously the sky was slate grey with ominous dark clouds blowing towards land… storm clouds were actually brewing.

What the heck! This wasn’t what I signed up for! It NEVER rains when we’re in Mexico, it’s a rule! Who’s in charge here!

A quick 20 minute cab ride to our hotel, followed by a few brief introductions to our new pool-mates, and soon we were ambling down the cobblestoned avenues looking for local sustenance. The roads were still damp from the previous day’s monsoon but we managed a wonderful curbside $6 taco dinner and not a drop in sight, although there also wasn’t any locals in sight either. We decided to press our luck and venture toward Centro with the skies filled with lightning all around us. Hmmm, it looks like it will miss us I mused.

‘Hey look, it must be mating season. I see all kinds of animals travelling in pairs. Gee that’s weird eh?’ Yes, it was the second coming of Noah. Water poured off of roofs in torrents. Streets turned into canals and trees drooped under the sheer weight of the deluge. We huddled under a few overhangs on our way back to the Corita but it was too little, too late. Some locals were standing in their doorways, backlit by their TVs staring at the newbie gringos that they would be sharing their town with for the next few weeks. In true Mexican entrepreneurship they would remember our countenances for when they saw us on the beach or at the market and put us on their mental sucker list. Hey señor you want to buy some chocolate-covered geckos?

Towel-dried, we snuggled into bed, Carol with her latest book and me with my tablet (Randy). There seemed to be a problem with the air-conditioner but at least we had a ceiling fan.

The fan had once been shiny white but a thick layer of grime and rust had oozed it’s way back from the leading edges and gave it a brownish hue. The center cap, where on the deluxe versions would harbor a light fixture, was still in place, unlike some of the grittier rooms that we had stayed in in the past. That was a good sign.

Where the fan met the ceiling the hole in the plaster was cut too large and the sides of the electrical box were exposed. I remember a similar situation in Zihuatanejo where a gecko had made that shallow area it’s home and wandered between it and a broken light fixture on the wall near the tv; cheap entertainment after an evening of margaritas. It was nothing a couple of tubes of Big Stretch caulking couldn’t fix. If MacGyver had Big Stretch nobody would ever of heard of duct tape.

Anyways, ceiling fans aren’t only for staring at when you can’t sleep on the concrete Mexican beds, they are made for inexpensive, simple, air movement. Our little (54″) beauty had a wall-mounted control featuring five speed choices and two ‘off’ positions (?). So you wouldn’t have to waste your time turning the dial back to the beginning everytime I suppose. I was quite excited to take this baby for a test drive because I’m quite the expert with mechanical devices.

I grasped the state-of-the-art 1970s dial and clicked onto #1. Whrrrr… whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Wow! This fan’s got quite a bit of power, let’s try #2… hmmm… no difference. #3… nope nothing changed. #4…#5… nada. So basically it’s a single-speed fan with 2 shut-offs. Wait, it does seem to be chugging along at quite a clip and there’s a discernible wobble to it too. Click, click, click… still no response, nothing is slowing this sucker down. It’s quite noisy too, like a helicopter… or freight train. By now the window curtains are flailing against the glass and it’s getting a tad chilly in here.

I give the aircon one more try but it’s not about to spark to life anytime soon. It’s hot and humid outside so the ceiling fan wins with no competition and there’s going to be a lot of tossing and turning in room #10 this night. We can barely hear the fan now because the rain outside is hammering the walls of the hotel so hard that the concrete must be getting eaten away. I wonder what $60 a night would have got us?