Trouble in Paradise

My favorite part of the school year had finally arrived (winter break) and my family was going to Mexico for a week...how perfect!

Well, it would have been more perfect if I didn't have to run while I was away.  During break we were all supposed to run just every other day.  That's not so bad, but still.

As I stepped off the plane and onto the stairs at the airport, it hit me.  The humidity was overwhelming and I immediately started sweating.  I was wearing leggings and a long-sleeve because it was snowing back home.  That morning, before the sun even rose, we were trudging in our snow boots through the foot of snow that had accumulated on our driveway to our friend's car.  It was crazy.  Don't worry, I didn't wear snow boots in Mexico, we changed our shoes in the car.

It was an extremely long travel day for us because we had a layover in Mexico City.  Luckily, we took care of the Customs stuff in Mexico City so we could go straight to our condo once we got off our second flight in the small fishing town of Zihuatanejo.  Once we safely stowed our bags in the trunk of the taxi, we were off.  As we turned a corner, about a mile from our condo, there was a loud thunk.  I assumed we just hit a pothole or something so I didn't mention it.  Claire looked out the back window and noticed the trunk was open.  Uh oh.  She alerted the cap driver but he didn't pull over for a while.  The roads are narrow and there are a lot of cars so it wasn't exactly safe to do so immediately.

A map of Zihjuatanejo.  We were on La Madera Beach. 
Photo Courtesy of: Zihjuatanejo Condos

We watched the driver get out of the car to shut the trunk.  Now, there were three of us and we each had a bag.  He was aware of this fact and once he saw the trunk, he took of running.  We knew what this meant right away.  My whole family got out of the car to see what was happening.

There we were, three women, alone and standing by a running cab with the keys still in the ignition, in a strange Mexican city we had never been to before.  What could go wrong?  We were partially blocking the road, so traffic had slowed down and as the cars passed us (they knew we were the ones who had lost the suitcase because we were obviously tourists standing by an abandoned taxi cab) they would tell us conflicting information.

This one guy leaned out of his truck and started to tell us things in what little English he knew.  These fragments included things about a broken suitcase, a Cocoa Cola man, and the police.  My mom would try to clarify things he was saying and the guy just agreed to whatever, not understanding what she was saying.

It was late and we were tired and worried, fearing the worst.  We took away from the truck guy that someone with a Cocoa Cola had stolen the bag and the police were chasing after him.  Yikes, that doesn't sound good.

There was this really sweaty guy lurking behind us and I was thinking that he was going to like steal the cab or something.  He told us to get in the car.  Uhhhh....

He ended up being chill and was a friend of our cab driver and worked for the same company, he was just very sweaty.  We turned around and met Antonio (I think that was his name) so he could put the suitcase back in the trunk.

We stayed in the top level of the building to the left.  Photo Courtesy of: Clarita (my sister)

Once we got to our condo, we assessed the damage done to Claire's suitcase.  It was scratched up and had a large dent in the top, but nothing was broken.

So that's how the first thirty minutes of my vacation in Mexico went.  More on the rest later...

Ciao

Camille

Some piñatas that the locals make for the holiday season.  There were hundreds!  Photo Courtesy of: Clarita

The town on our second night in Zihua.  So festive!  Photo Courtesy of: Clarita