Back from MEXICO!!!

Well hello hello... I've been home now for a couple of days and have been quite busy upon my return and unable to post up until now. I warn you now that this will likely be a long post as I'll try and recount my adventures from down south!

It all begins last Friday...

Day One - Friday
Early out of bed at the wonderful hour of 5am I get ready and head out to the airport. The departure is for 8am and there is much to prepare for a trip to Mexico. For one, I'm gonna stock the crap out of the airplane and make sure we have lots of goodies on board, just in case we end up being called away for other flight while we're down in Mexico. We depart on time and it's a very nice and uneventful flight to Tucson Arizona, where we are to clear customs in the states and get some fuel before crossing the border and heading down to the very bottom tip of the Baha Peninsula. It is my leg to fly from Tucson to Los Cabos. It's pretty uneventful aside from hearing the Mexican air traffic controllers talking both in English and Spanish.. quite a surprise to us! So after about 7.5hrs of flying I bring us in and land at a very busy little airport. An Alaska flight has just landed before us and a private jet is lined up behind us. We taxi off the runway and park over at our special executive terminal area. We have arranged a handling agency that will help us through customs, getting fuel, arranging parking and so on. They are very helpful but that is because this entire business runs on tips. So tipping is everywhere. We have a lot of US cash on board the aircraft when travelling to Mexico just for this very reason. After a lot of tipping the passengers are cleared through customs and on their way. We get all of our stuff together and get a taxi to take us to our hotel. It was a Best Western and quite nice. However, our handling agent told us we could get a great deal at a better and fully all inclusive resort just down the road from the Best Western. Well, we were stuck for one night at the Best Western. But it was still pretty nice. We got some of the best rooms in the hotel, our view out of each of our rooms was of the sandy beaches and ocean just meters away! We check in and promplty head to the bar where the drinks are free (just not the food here) so we have a couple of beers and then find out from the front desk that there's a great little place down the road called the "Rusty Putter". So we find the joint and it's quite nice, and it's pretty damn cool. We each have a couple of Corono's (hey.. when in Rome!) And I order some fajita's. Very good! We head back to the hotel and it's still sweltering hot. Oh.. did I not mention it was to be 35 degrees in the day and 25 at night! Hot hot hot! Back at the hotel we have one more drink then off to bed, it was a very long day.

Day Two - Saturday
We arise and have a little breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Was great food and we ate on a patio that overlooked the Sea of Cortez. We toasted our Orange Juice to our tough life that day, haha. We had some time to kill before checking out of this hotel and then heading over to the other. So we sat down on some patio chairs beside the pool and ordered some drinks... by 2pm we were both already a little loopy. It's now time to check out and we walk down the road and check in at the Royal Solaris hotel in Los Cabos. This was what it was all about, a fully all inclusive pimpin' resort! After getting settled in our better equipped, but less view friendly rooms, we headed downstairs to the pool area to check it all out. Once again the drinks began to flow. Rum and cokes for me and Bloody Mary's for the other pilot. At one point he is hot and decides he's heading into the pool. After a few more drinks I find myself in the pool too! As most of you know I'm not a big fan of pools/ocean activities, but the booze took over all reasoning and I was in the pool in my shorts (I luckly had enough sense to take out my walet and money before hand). We chatted up some people and by this point I'm well onto my 12th drink of the day and it was barely 6pm. The other pilot is out of the pool and relaxing on the patio chairs.. I continue to chat up other drunkards in the pool for a little while longer and then make my exit out as well. At that exact moment I'm later told that the other pilot (Colin) turned sideways on his chair and puked out most of his booze pool side... nice. I think it was about 7:30pm and we were booth way beyond trashed. Up to the rooms, I took a shower and hit the sack.. was in bed quite early I guess, but I was in no mood to do anything else.

Day Three - Sunday
A little rough around the edges I'm not feeling so hot. We head down for the breakfast buffet which was incredible. ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING you could ever want for breakfast was offered. Even a chef waiting to make anything else you could think of that wasn't somehow there, or just a specialty like a custom made omelette. I didn't eat a whole lot of breakfast as I was still a little "off" from the night prior. We then head out to the lobby of the hotel and just relax and people watch for a while out of the sun. The day before we both got too much sun, and it was clear that we needed to be outta the sun for a while. After a couple hours we're now into the early afternoon and Colin heads to go to the "washroom", but actually he walked over to the bar and got us two Pina Colada's. That son of a... oh well.. it was actually quite refreshing. We each had a couple of those and then checked out the hotel a little more. Some more relaxing in the room and then it was time for Dinner. It was outside by the sandy beaches, what a great little buffet. Tasty tasty tasty. We headed to the lobby after dinner as we heard that there might be some sort of entertainment on the go. True enough, it was time for Kareoke! No, I did not partake, but quite a few ppl did. Some were good.. and some were not. But everyone was having a good time. I even caught myself singing along to a few of the songs. We also bupmped into another air crew, I guess we all kind of stand out. We never really looked like people on vacation and so it's easy to spot us out. I chatted with this other pilot and they were in for a couple of days out of Denver with a private jet. After the entertainment we headed up for some shut eye.

Day Four - Monday
More breakfast, yummy, more relaxing in the lobby. This time however we were determined to have a drink prior to 11am, just to be part of the Mexico experience. Well, I think it was actually closer to 11:45 but we sat down and were playing some cards and ordered a couple of Tequila Sunrises. Nice drinks, they even look like a sunrise! Well.. a few more of those and then we transitioned to Margarita's. After a few of those all of a sudden the freaking straight up Tequila shots some how started showing up.. after a few of these I was beyond loopy and was back on the Margarita's to try and "slow down". Yeah right.. we were both trashed. We ended our card game probably quite late at around 5pm and then headed back up to the room. I barely recall much of what then began to happen. The Mexico crazyness begins. We decide to go back to the Rusty Putter for dinner. Well, I don't even recall walking to this place and I ordered a beer and chicken wings, but couldn't stomach the beer at all. And actually, after about 1.5 chicken wings, I was heading to the bathroom to attempt to puke out some booze. It wasn't happening... back to the table.. nope.. back to the bathroom.. again no luck. I tried really hard too to get those vile toxins out of my body! Well we walk out of this place and Colin says "we're going to Cabo tonight, it's tonight or never!" Cabo San Lucas was a good 30min drive away, but that's where all the night life is and more of a touristy and Americanized part of Los Cabos resides. I vaguel recall us running through traffic trying to grab the bus. These buses will actually stop wherever, not just at bus stops.. So I flagged one down in my drunkiness and he never actually full came to a stop, so we had to jump on! Crazy! So now we're on our way to Cabo! Just enough time to sober up a little and get composed. We arrive in Cabo and man, what a place. We are looking for a couple of bars/night clubs we've been told about. We find one right away called "Squid Roe". But it's 8pm only and the bar isn't very full. The guy at the front says come back at 11pm and it'll be rockin. Ok.. now how to kill some time? We walk around the marina that's near by and get approached by all sorts of individuals.. it was crazy. One got kept on asking us if we wanted to get high! Others were trying to get us to check out the "naked ladies". It was quite the place, especially when I was already drunk. Somehow we kill enough time in the are and head back to Squid Roe which is definatly much more alive at 11pm. We get in and immediatly grab some drinks. This bar is freaking cool... It's two levels with a big dance floor in the middle of the main floor, and you can see it all from the second level. Oh, and there's no roof! Totally open air bar! So cool. Suddenly I'm attacked from behind, it's the shooter girl, she's just shoved a jello shooter in my mouth.. smacked me in the head and then pinced my nipples. I was shocked but was having a great time... it didn't matter at all! YMCA came on the speakers and the guys that work at this place are totally into pumping up the crowd so they're screaming into mics and totally getting everyone up on the tables and chairs and making sure everyone is having a good time. It worked! Some more beers and then all of a sudden they call out "Tequila Congo line!" The whole bar gets in a big congo line and at various locations they've got ppl with big flavored Tequila bottle pouring it into your mouth as you congo by! Now that's what I'm talking about! Another beer or two later and we decide to check out some of the other bars that we've been told about. We find them, but they're not as happening as Squid Roe so we head back. As we walk in the main MC guy is in the middle of the dancefloor on a stepping stool shouting out while holding a nearly empty bottle of flavoured Tequila "who's wants the rest!?!" I immediatly push Colin into the dance floor shouting "Him him!!" and the rest of the crowd joined in and Colin was thrust into the middle of the crazyness and downed at least a full cup of this blue liquid, it was crazy! Only in Mexico.. man the good times kept rolling. Some more drinks and we were dancing with all sorts of ppl. I even started chatting it up with some girl who's name I believe was Trisha.. but I couldn't recall! Around 2:30 in the morning the party was begining to die down and so we decided to head out. Now, no buses were running and the only way to get back to the hotel would be to cab it, quite costly. Colin wanted to sleep on the beach and wait for the bus in the morning, but I'm glad I had enough sanity to grab a taxi to take us back. Not too bad, we arrive and it's off to bed and some well needed rest. We really did party it up that day.. I didn't even really eat aside from a LOT of booze. I hit that bed hard.

Day Five - Tuesday
This day.. was a write-off. I couldn't move until 3pm. And even then I wasn't moving much. Just little bits here and there. It wasn't until 6pm that I left my room. We had a little bit of dinner at 7pm and then it was right back to bed to recover some more. What a gong show the day prior had been. We checked out our camera's and couldn't recall half of the nights events until seeing the pictures again. Ouch!

Day Six - Wednesday
Another chill day. Some breakfast in the morning, but still feeling ill from the bender from Monday night, not much was consumed. We wandered up the road to check out a huge grocery store nearbye. Just like a superstore this place had lots of stuff and it was all super cheap. We would come back here again for sure to get some goodies to bring home. We then wandered over to McDonald's.. haha.. yup.. that's right, just had to check out the Mexican McDonald's. They had jalapeno's next to the Ketchup! We walked back to the hotel on the beach with the crashing surf at our feet. It was very refreshing. Felt great. The ocean was so nice and warm, but was too rough to really swim in. Showered up and ready for dinner we found out that it was a dinner theater event! Pretty cool, we now realied the place had a little theater that also had a dinner buffet that night. We grabbed a plate of food and headed into a big showroom. First they just had a big screen showing some Cirque de Soliel acts. Then the main event came on. A bunch of the workers acted out a lot of famous Musical numbers from many differnet movies like Grease, Chicago, West Side Story and Moulin Rouge. Really it was quite a great little show. We had a few drinks (now that I was able to stomach them again) and enjoyed the free entertainment. After the show it was back up to the room for some shut eye.

Day Seven - Thursday
Up for breakfast and mmm... now I was able to actually fully appreciate it all with a healthy stomach. After that we relaxed some in the lobby and just chilled for the first part of the afternoon. The plan was to head back to the superstore to pick up some goodies, but we'd also check out some of the local stuff around that was more outside of the resort area. We walked into the streets of the towns and went into a couple of little shops. Very different place I must say. I grabbed a bunch of goodies from the superstore on our way back including some cheap booze and some hot sauces too. Everything was super cheap!!! The dinner that night was a great grill night. Everything was fresh off the grill... so tasty! Afterwards it was back to the room after a few last drinks of the trip. It was time to pack up and prepare for our travels the next day. It was quite the challenge to communicate with our office from there. Our blackberry's and cell phone's did not work at all. So email was really our only option and we tried to have some documents faxed to the hotel, but that didn't work out. In the end we had to transfer some files via floppy disk from a hotel computer to another hotel computer just to get some freaking paperwork required for the next day! After it was finally all sorted out it was off to bed. Have I mentioned the language barrier at all yet? Most people spoke some broken english, but that made things interesting.. I learned a little bit of Spanish while there and was able to communicate a few things effectively, and some not so effectively! Really, all you need to know is "cervesa por favor". BEER PLEASE! :)

Day Eight - Friday
Time to go home... shucks. We are picked up at the hotel by our airport shuttle driver and we get there early to make sure we have everything arranged perfectly. It is early in the morning but the temps are already soaring into the hight 20's! The passengers arive and we load up and depart from our awesome little all expenses paid vacation! It was sad to see the Mexican landscape below us become smaller and smaller, but it was time to go home and get back to the normal life. After another fuel and customs stop in Tucson we were back in Calgary after close to 8hrs of flying. That is a lot of flying for us in a day. Quite exhausting. Back on Canadian soil where the temperature was 7 degrees! Not the same as the 35 we had just left that's for sure!!!

Well, this has been a crazy post for me. Looking at the time it took me an hour of pretty much continuous work to produce it! I hope you stuck through and read it all.. it really was an amazing trip, and a very rare occurance to have stayed as long as we did. I will be posting pics up soon... that'll help shed some light on a lot of the crazyness that happened in my Mexican adventure.

Well.. until another time!