Sunday, February 16, 2003
Beep, beep, beep, beep... 5:00 a.m. already? All
right! Time to go. Tom's dad, Jack, will be picking
us up in 30 minutes. I grab a cup of coffee, and then
I hear "Oh, no" coming from downstairs. After four
days and four nights of torrential downpour, our
basement has flooded. That's never happened before.
What great timing. This vacation is off to an
inauspicious start. Thank goodness for family nearby
though. When Jack arrives, he graciously offers to
handle the flood, and we get to the airport only 20
minutes later than planned. We arrive at Knoxville's
airport at 6:20 for our 7:30 flight. No worries.
We flew through Atlanta and then on to Mexico
City, where we are to catch the final leg of our
flight. The Carpenters are playing over the sound
system, and not just one song, but a medly. Nothing
says Mexico like the Carpenters!
¡Bienvenidos a México!
Gee, the Mexico City airport is disorganized. In
our quest for the immigration counter, we
accidentally took a wrong turn, wound up outside, and
had to re-enter the airport. Nice security. It would
be a big problem trying to leave the country later if
we didn't get our passports stamped and receive a
Mexican tourist card upon entry. So we continued to
search for immigration, and finally found it
mysteriously labeled as "Gate 18."
That hurdle crossed, we next checked the
departures screen to find our gate. The screen had
our flight listed as leaving from "Gate B." In all
our wandering so far, we had only seen gates with
numbers. We soon found signs leading to Gate B
though, but when we followed them, they led to
(drumrole, please) the food court! We found a help
desk and were told they usually don't post the gate
number until 30 minutes before flight time. I guess
"B" stands not just for "food court," but also for
"to B announced."
The flight into Villahermosa is very pretty. The
land is a deep, lush green of rivers, swamps,
pastures, and palm trees. It's not at all as we
pictured it. We'd read the state of Tabasco is
90-percent deforested and largely in the business of
oil exploration, and we pictured a Mexican Houston.
We were pleasantly surprised.
The taxi ride into the city was a ridiculously
inflated jab price of 150 pesos. The exchange rate is
about 11 pesos per dollar, so that's almost $14. A
ride of that length not involving the airport would
probably be about five bucks.
Winding down from the flights
We checked into the Howard Johnson's, located in
the heart of Villahermosa, the Zona Luz, and after
dinner we went out to explore and experience. The
Zona Luz, or Zona Remodelada, is a section of
pedestrianized streets with a little square, the
Parque Juarez, at one end. It was Sunday night, and
the place was alive, full of people and movement and
music and street life. There were marimba bands and
taco stands and singing and selling. The volume of
activity was exciting. We were out for two hours and
didn't see another gringo.
The view from HoJo
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