Our last day in Mazunte was New Years Eve. I’m not quite sure how it happens (actually, I blame my sister Cheryl for booking inconvenient flights), but somehow I always seem to be in transit. Last year Marieke and I found ourselves flying from Sri Lanka to Indonesia, then spending the whole night looking for a drink. Another year I remember arriving in Bangkok a couple of hours before midnight and celebrating with Chips Ahoy and Coke. A healthy start really.
A very nice airport indeed!
This year, we had both booked flights out of the Huatulco airport, about an hour a half east of Mazunte. We got in one last swim before our noon checkout (the check out times have been very reasonable in Mexico so far) and grabbed a taxi to Potchutla. The cab driver tried to convince us to take us straight to the airport, but our flights weren’t til 5pm so we had time to kill and money to save. We weren’t quite sure how to get to the airport from Potchutla as we had read conflicting reports, but the driver dropped us at the bus station and we had soon purchased tickets for a fancy bus (but cheap!) an hour later direct to the airport! Talk about a win! We grabbed some food next door and were dropped off at 3:30 a few hundred metres from the airport.
The Huatulco airport has to be the most relaxed airport I’ve ever been to. It reminded me a lot of the airport on the big island of Hawaii, minus stressful American customs and security. Most of the airport was outdoors and shaded, with the terminal roofs constructred out of the local palapa (palm tree tops). It was awesome. I waited at least 30 seconds to check in and another 30 seconds to get through security and pretty soon we were having one less Indio beer (our favourite beer which was a bit darker than the usual lagers and actually had a bit of flavour), watching our planes land.
Walking to the Huatulco airport
Cheryl’s flight was about 20 minutes late so I left first, and headed back to Mexico City for the night. I had booked a hostel for one night near the airport as I had a flight out the next day to Guadalajara, and walked 15 minutes to my hostel. I dropped my stuff off, grabbed a shower and headed out to find dinner before everything closed. Too late. 15 minutes of walking around the neighbourhood later, I was getting desperate. It was time to face facts: McDonalds or bust. I located one a few blocks away and braced myself. Note: while I do eat fast food a few times a year, generally at airports, I don’t think I’ve eaten anything at Mcdonald’s in about 10 years, never mind a full meal. I laughed to myself about what a stellar New year’s eve meal this would be, but soon arrived to a very dark restaurant. Even Mcdonald’s was closed!
Huh. So I trekked back to the airport, knowing I’d at least find a Mcdonald’s there. And I did. And it was closed. Wow. Literally the only things open were a 24 hours Starbucks with no seating, and a Cinnabon. I decided to save my Starbucks card for a latte the next day, and had a (pretty delicious) cinnabon bun for dinner. Full of sugar, I walked back to the hostel where a full out dance party of two was happening in the common room, and retreated to my bunk to make use of the best internet I had encountered since the Puebla coffee shops. Have I mentioned I’m supposed to be working on my final Master’s project this trip? I had finally gotten around to working on my lit review in Mazunte, but couldn’t log into the UVIC website. What the hell?
I was super frustrated and suddenly worried about my planned surf/homework week on the beach in San Blas. What if I can’t log in to the website in Mexico?
Obviously this didn’t make any sense, but the internet never makes much sense when traveling. It turns out there was a problem with the site on the university’s end, during the two hours I was trying to access it, the first time in a month. Go figure. Anyway, I spent the night (happy new year!) and next morning downloading a bunch of articles so I could work on the project offline at the beach and when waiting in the airport. I’m currently sitting in the Mexico City airport (at Starbucks, not Cinnabon), writing this blog post rather than doing homework. But of course…
Happy 2018 everyone. My resolution is to finish my Master’s project (hopefully by July, but in less I get my butt in gear it might be closer to 2019).