Traveling to Mexico City
I am generally a very organized and detail-oriented person. On our journeys, I bring along a soft-sided notebook that contains all of our trip-related information. In the front is a detailed itinerary for the entire trip, allowing me to see at a quick glance exactly all of the specific information related to a particular day—reservations, addresses, possible activities, prices, contact information, etc. Then there is separate tab in the notebook for each day, with clear plastic sheets that hold actual tickets, email confirmations, maps, etc.
Our time in Huatulco and Puerto Escondido had been extremely relaxing, without any “preplanned” activities, so I had rarely consulted the notebook. I flowed along freely. The organizational muscles in my brain became a tad flabby. Indeed, I would say that my brain became deliciously lazy.
Last night, before going to bed, I checked to see what time our plane left for Mexico City today. Instead of checking my detailed itinerary, however, I went straight for the day-tab and found the emailed flight confirmation printout. As my eyes scanned the paper, I latched onto the time: 12:35 p.m. “Oh, honey,” I said to Ben. “Our flight doesn’t leave until 12:35 tomorrow afternoon, so we have plenty of time to drive to the airport in the morning.”
Although Puerto Escondido has an airport, we were flying out of the Huatulco airport (1 ½ hours away) so that we could drop off our Hertz rental car. (I won’t go into the logistical hoops that I had to jump through in trying to rent a car in Oaxaca city and drop it off at a coastal town with an airport.)
We had a leisurely breakfast at our hotel, then packed and headed back toward Huatulco. Along the way, we saw this pretty farm, with pigs:
A pretty church:
Some new, modern-looking apartments:
We wondered if this group was a soccer team was on their way to a game:
We finally arrived at the airport at 11:00 a.m., with plenty of time to catch our flight.
First, though, we had to find the rental car return. The airport was very small, and we soon found the office (inside the airport building) by asking several security personnel for directions. We arrived at the check-in counter at 11:20 to find that there was no one there, and we couldn’t find our flight on the departure screen. Only then did I look more closely at our ticket confirmation and realize that the 12:35 time referred to when our plane would be landing in Mexico City. OOOPS! Our plane had just departed at 11:15.
I felt horrible about making the mistake. We soon found a ticket agent who could help us remedy the situation. The next plane for Mexico City left at 3:10 p.m. but was completely booked. There were, however, definite seats available for the 7:05 p.m. flight. After some discussion, and paying a fee of approximately $200, we decided to get confirmed seats on the 7:05 flight, but to try and fly stand-by on the 3:10 flight.
The airport was actually a pleasant place to be. The weather was warm, not too hot, and the seating area was open.
We had lunch in the airport restaurant while waiting. The 3:10 flight did not have four vacant seats and departed without us, so we ate dinner at the airport too. (The food was not “good”, . . . but it wasn’t “bad” either.) Our 7:05 p.m. flight ended up being delayed, and we finally boarded the plane at 8:30.
We ended up waiting over 9 hours in the airport—settling into our own space, reading, walking, playing games, and doing “nothing.” I was simply amazed at the patience displayed by Genevieve and Sebastian. I did not hear one complaint from them. (I think that they knew how badly I felt about misreading the departure time.)
On the plane, Sebastian turned to me and whispered, “I made a new friend.” He shyly indicated the girl who was sitting in the seat in front of Genevieve. The girl had a stuffed animal, and Sebastian and Genevieve introduced their own “stuffies” and spent the rest of the flight playing pretend games with the girl.
We took a taxi from the Mexico City airport—a very smooth process; we paid in advance at a taxi booth inside the airport, with the price (very reasonable) based upon the zone of our destination. We arrived at our bed and breakfast inn close to 11 p.m. We had reservations to stay at the Red Tree House in the Condesa area of Mexico City, and we could not have been more pleased. We had a small apartment on the top floor, and the rooms were beautifully decorated with colorful original paintings and sculptures.
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