Honeymoon -Day 1 - Friday 2-2-07 We spent last night at the Days Inn in Medford so we could get to the airport in plenty of time for our 7 am flight. Our pre-arranged yellow cab picked us up at 5:15 am and had us at the airport before 5:30 am. After getting all checked in, checked out, and checked over we were waiting for our airplane to come in when a fire truck - lights flashing raced down the air strip. A few minutes later an Alaska Airlines plane pulled into the gate we were waiting at - no doubt our plane. The fire truck followed it in. Over the loud speaker it is announced that our plane will be having some maintenance work done and our departure will be delayed.

I called my family and left messages on their recorders that I love them! Jack paced.

Our connecting flight leaves Los Angelas at 11 a.m.. The flight takes 2 hours. 7:30 then 7:40 rolls by. At 7:50 we boarded the plane and quickly took off. Hope the maintenance went well!


I am always tense flying. Jack was amused. He never dreamed I had any problems with flying - I never said anything about it. Being an ex-paratrooper he doesn't have any issues with flying but is anxious about us making our connecting flight. We arrived in L.A. at 10:30 a.m. - 15 minutes to spare! The flight was in the same terminal so we had time for a quick trip to the bathrooms and for Jack chang $50 into pesos before boarding.

This leg of the trip was 7 hours. At times bumpy. Jack is very conforting - letting me clutch his hand and upper arm when the plane drops or shudders. The fare doesn't include meals these days but you can buy a turkey sandwich for $5. Evidently most the people on the plane didn't have time between connecting flights because the sandwichs were all gone after Jack bo;ught our two. The passenger behind us was pretty angry and declared he would be writing Alaska Airlines. The stewards handled him as well as they could. I gratefully ate the stale turkey sandwich! It was now 2 pm and we'd only had coffee and a muffin at 6 am.

















Customs and Immagration went smooth at the Zihuatanejo Ixtapa airport. We breezed right through!

The air was muggy it was so warm! I stripped down to my tank top. We took a private, air-conditioned taxi to Casa Elvira! Luxury! It cost $28 which we were informed we could get back if we would sit through a presentation at an Ixtapa hotel. They would buy us breakfast & refund our cab fare. Ok, Ok we set a time for next Sunday...we're not greedy - we just wanted to go!

Walking into the courtyard at Casa Elvira we were met with long looks from the women there. I recognized the woman from my stay there 5 years ago and addressed her, introducing myself in my limited spanish and saying we were here for our 10 day stay. I got no response. I asked for Uberto and they sent a young girl in to the resturant for him. Uberto did remember me calling and us setting up the reservation-he talked to the manager. The news was bad.

They had written down the wrong date. They did not have room for us. Jack was doing laps around the stack of luggage, pausing and looking at me when I explained each piece of bad news.
I asked Uberto if he could call this other place Jack had found on the internet - Hotel Vic-Mar. I pulled the page Jack had printed and we had in our Zih folder (that contained all the information we'd gathered on what we wanted to do while we were there) It contained the address and phone number. Uberto called and asked if they had room and told him we were on our way. We flagged a taxi. I shook hands with everyone and climbed into the taxi where Jack had gone without a word.

My heart sank as we drove further and further from the bay and in to a more "native" section of town. The Vic-Mar was the nicest looking place in 3 blocks. We were definately out of the "tourist area". The clerk would only accept pesos. Since we'd paid the cabs we only had enough to pay for one night - and that took all the mexican money we had. It was $250 pesos which equals $25.The clerk looked and acted like Egor in the Frankenstien movie. Big bulging eyes, no smiles, total veathy. He lead us to our room and left. We had a place to stay we repeated to each other. We were grateful. But the pictures had been complinentary. The beds were like boards. We changed in to shorts and headed back in to town on foot - we needed an ATM to get more pesos. We didn't have anything to pay for transportation or food although we had about $1000 on us!
















Because we'd printed off maps of Zihuatanejo marked with where the resturants were that we wanted to go to we knew where we where. We were not to far from Casa Cafe - owned by two Oregonians and a gathering place for English speakers - so we headed there. It was closed but Jack asked the man picking up around the tables if he could direct us to the nearest ATM. It was Pedro - the owner - and he graciously gave us a map marked with the all the ATM's in town. He also explained Frebruary is the busisest time of year - rooms could be scarce. He advised if we found something available and we liked we should hesitate in paying for it. He said he'd ask around for us this evening and told us to come back in the morning.

It was a short walk from there to the closest ATM and Jack withdrew $1500 pesos. We were going to look for place to have dinner and ran in to a couple just outside the bank. We asked where they were staying and they pointed to the place. It was just two doors away. They said it wasn't fancy but they liked it. They recommended we ask to look at the room before renting it as there was a range of accomodation levels there. We went right there and asked if they had rooms available. The clerk didn't speak English so it took sometime for us to get things ironed out with my limited spanish but she gave us a key and we went and looked at the room.

The room was huge and brightly painted, with tile floors, kig size bed, air conditioner,TV, balconey, and private path. We loved it immediately. $500 pesos ($50) instead of the $200 pesos a night but centrally located and nice. We paid for 3 nights and it was a struggle to get her to understand we didn't want to stay there tonight but would come 'manyana". We were broke again!
















Back to the ATM and then off to discover that Antonys Tamales Any - one of the restruants on our list was at the end of the same block! Finally a break - we were very tired and hungry. I had one of their signature tamale's in a plantain leaf and Jack had pazole. We also had a huge 2 litre bottle of water. Everything tasted wonderful.

















After eating Jack let me talk him into walking the 2 blocks to the Paseo de Pescador along the bay front. The italian ice cream shop wasn't on the corner by the peir anymore but we got an ice cream from the little store there and reviewed our plans for the migration the next day as we ate it and strolled the peir.

We caught a taxi back to Hotel Vic-Mar - it's $20 pesos anywhere in town. "Egor" let us know check out was at 11 am. NO PROBLEMO!

The room was stuffy even with the ceiling fan going full bore. I developed a headache and my nose plugged up then drained. The sheets were bumpy and threadbare. The pillows were lumpy and did not smell very fresh. I tossed and preasure on my sinuses built-up again. I had to sit up to breath- head was splitting. We didn't have any water in our room for me to take any Sinus pills with. There was no question of going anywhere to get any either.

It was a LONG night. A rooster crowed at 2:30 am giveing me false hope the night was nearly over. Dogs barked all around the area around 4 am. Finally the bio-feedback excersizes and pinching the area between my thumb and index finger(pressure point for sinuses) worked enough I could go to sleep. We are not going to miss this place!

WHAT A DAY!