Lost days to Mexico

I know this is obvious but I can’t help smiling at the fact I left Sydney at 9:40pm on 30 January and I was supposed to arrive in Los Angeles 20 minutes earlier at 9:30pm – a whole day just disappearing into a time-travel hole.

Of course it wasn’t so easy in reality. Ten hours to Honolulu was the first leg. Or at least that was the theory. By the time we arrived at Honolulu there was a huge storm blanketing the airport. We tried twice to land – both times resulting in a dramatic last-minute abort. The pilot gave up at the point and we diverted to Maui. Meaning I missed my flight to LA.

Me with worldly goods for a month

After 5 hours on the tarmac, with no supplies, in Maui we finally made it to Honolulu. Desperate to try and make a flight that would still get me to LA in time for my flight to Mexico I ran through the airport, got advice on where to go and ran there. Only to be told the advice was wrong and I had to go back. After running 3km I still got to the desk before anyone else from my flight – thanks to no checked bags. My original connecting flight had been delayed and so I got to join everyone waiting for it. It’s 2pm departure had become 9pm which will have me arriving in LA around 4am.

My plane going round in circles

Now the hand-luggage only thing is an experiment in traveling light. It’s been a while since we travelled without walking poles and boots requiring checked bags, so I’m trying to go for a month with only cabin baggage. While sprinting through Honolulu with my worldly goods on my back, I was pretty happy with the experiment (one bag, 10kg if you’re wondering).

So at 8:45 they cancelled the flight and I joined hundreds of other people running to queue up to get reassigned. There were five queues each hundreds of people long. By dint of running for the furthest I ended up about 15 people from the front. It took three hours to get to the front where I was assigned the 2pm flight tomorrow. Then it was a feverish effort to find a hotel in Honolulu, get there, change my flight to Mexico, cancel the things I had planned for my first day there, and get a hotel for the night in LA. All of that on the back of three glasses of water and some pretzels since early this morning. Right now, that’s almost 1am for those keeping count, I’m in a hotel on hold (been that way for almost an hour) with Delta and my head is spinning. And, frankly, I feel a bit like crying.

Day 2

Feeling so much better for a sleep, some coffee, and a walk down to the beach. Then back out to the airport to resume queuing. Flight to LA currently shows as on time, fingers crossed.

Another day lost to time difference and travel. Left Honolulu at 2pm and checked into my hotel in LA after 11. Good flight though.

Day 3

Early start pulled from much-needed sleep by the alarm at 5:30am. A quick gulp of breakfast and then back to the airport. This has turned into something of a marathon effort and lack of sleep and food has left me feeling a bit spacey.

Well I’m now on the plane to Cancun. I started this post with the idea of a bit of a joke about losing time. But after the last three days of travel, time changes, hardly any sleep or food I really have lost track of time and space. I’m pretty over the process, I’m utterly over navigating US airports (not for the first time) and I’m desperately hoping that my next stages of travel getting into Mexico and then traveling south to Playa del Carmen go smoothly. Delta have advised that checked baggage may be delayed by an hour and a half when we arrive in Cancun; so, once again, feeling happy with the hand-luggage only experiment.

Arrived in Cancun and was first off the plane with a expectation of whizzing through immigration as I walked down deserted hallways. Then I got to the immigration area only to be greeted by a heaving disorganized crowd. More queuing, with post-traumatic flashbacks to the other night in Honolulu. Eventually got to the front of the queue only to have the electronic gates reject me. On to a real person who demanded to see my boarding pass – I didn’t have one, it was only electronic and evaporated when the plane landed. ‘Let me see your baggage tag’ don’t have one, only carry on. I lost it when he dismissively waved me back into the mosh pit and explained in two languages that he was asking the impossible. He grunted and stamped the passport and when I thanked him made a spitting gesture and waved me on. Welcome to Mexico.

Thank goodness I had arranged a transfer to Playa del Carmen and so I whizzed down the coast in a limo chatting to Hector, my driver whose birthday is today and sipping on a cold beer. That’s more like it.

My Playa del Carmen home

Got to my apartment and immediately headed out to the local supermarket – car tires are on special today and piled high – to get essentials for the morning. That done I dropped the supplies back home and walked across the street to my local for a margarita and a taco. And in spite of what turned into an exhausting daze of travel, I feel like I’ve arrived.

Mexico

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