How I Found Mexico!

It happened nearly by accident, as good things in life often do! At 45, I had not yet thought about retirement homes, foreign travel or big life changes; my husband and I were busy parenting our daughter & two sons, and operating our small motel that happened to be located on a spectacular Oregon Coast cliff-top.

Greg & I were actually in the final chapters of hands-on parenting, with Shane fourteen and Mat & Desiree already living away from home. Still, when I half-heartedly chirped to my Dad on the telephone that "sure, I would take a winter trip to Mexico with him", I thought we were only bantering back and forth in fun.

My Dad was a ship captain, working summers in Southeastern Alaska where my husband and I grew up. When winter came, he and a buddy or two loved to make trips to exotic locales. When he called me that day in February 1995, lamenting the fact that none of them could go to Thailand with him that year, I had suggested he go to Mexico instead: the peso had just devalued big time, and he'd never been there. So when he said he didn't have anyone to go with...

The next day, in the middle of my usual tasks, having pretty much forgotten that part of our phone conversation, I answered the phone to hear my Dad's voice upbeat and a bit excited. "Do you still want to go to Mexico?" And before I could answer, he said "We could go this month!"

I had never traveled anywhere alone with my Dad, nor had I been past Ensenada in Mexico. It was drizzly and gray on the Oregon Coast. Greg was about to leave for Alaska to go winter crab fishing. We had a trusted employee who not only was capable of running the motel, she adored our son and was happy to look out for him in our absence.

Greg generously gave his approval; he would try not to think about tropical sun or beach bars as he de-iced the deck of the boat each morning before they could haul crab pots! What a guy. He also reminded me that his Uncle Burton was married to a nice Mexican woman and lived at Lake Chapala, maybe we should go see them too.

That very day I booked flights from PDX to GUAD; Dad and I would indeed make this little 10 day trip together! We would first pay a visit to Uncle Burton, who Dad had known years ago in Alaska, and figure out where else to go from there.

It wasn't until I was back home in the States that I realized just how deep an impression the few days in Chapala had made on me! I found myself longing for the simple but profound pleasures I had experienced there, and wanting to share them with the rest of my family: the soft parade of various animals' sounds throughout the nights... chickens, goats, cats, dogs, cows and whatever else was responsible for the bleating, scratching, barking and mooing as they seemed to circle the modest home. The many salutations and hugs that delayed Aunt Anna & I each evening as we walked the handful of blocks from her home to that of her very elderly mother. The utterly refreshing degree of respect and congeniality shown to the elderly... even by the teenagers! Anna's own seventeen year old niece left her friends by nine every night to go sleep at Grandma's house so she wouldn't have to be alone! The matter-of-fact way Anna would quip: "Watch out for the beeg hole!" each time we left her house, because at some point a huge hole had been dug at the abrupt edge of her sidewalk and apparently was now just a part of the local landscape, maybe forever. The way that people bought what they needed, when they needed it, though it did seem Anna took it a bit to the extreme: I swear she made more than eight trips from her kitchen to the little mini-super across the street while she prepared our breakfast, each time buying just one more thing!

I never quite figured out the Ben-gay incident, but it endeared this sweet woman to me even more for some unknown reason. It was our third day in Chapala; Dad and I had gone to a local travel agency and had chosen the location for the rest of our Mexican adventure. We would fly to the Pacific beach resort town of Zijuatanejo/Ixtapa the following morning! So, for our finale in Lake Chapala that evening, we invited Burton and Anna to be our guests at the nicest restaurant in town, their choice. We were ready to venture past the beeg hole one more time and head for the restaurant, everyone gussied up just a bit. Anna had obviously taken extra pains for the special night out and looked prim and pretty in her beige A-line polyester skirt and pale flowered blouse. Her hair coiffed and sprayed, she had put on a nice rose-colored lipstick. But just as Burton reached to open the door, Anna said "Momentito, por favor" and disappeared back into the bathroom. In no time at all, she was back with us again, saying "Listo!" (ready) but offering no explanation whatsoever for the thick white coating of Ben-Gay cream that now covered her nose entirely! Keep in mind, she had not even a hint of sunburn, scrape or blemish and it was way past sundown. We enjoyed a lovely meal and wonderful conversation, Aunt Anna her sweet chatty self and seemingly oblivious to all the glances her very white nose was getting!

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White beaches, blistering sun, cool blue pools, swaying palms, musica mexicana, and utterly incredible food. We had truly discovered paradise!

We had arrived at Ixtapa late in the afternoon without hotels reservations, and took a taxi to the La Ropa beach area of Zijuatenejo because that's where the driver suggested. The Hotel Catalina y Sorrento sat high above a gorgeous stretch of sand and looked like just the place we wanted to be! It wasn't new and touristy-looking, but rather very Mexican, tropical and somewhat exotic with an expansive nautical-inspired, white-railed terrace encircled by tiny thatched roofed tables. The view was absolutely incredible! We paid for a room & headed off to get settled.

To say the Hotel Catalina's rooms were incredibly sparse is truly an understatement. Hard, thin mattresses with a strong hint of mustiness, bare lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling, a bathroom that was also a shower and very strange to me! I didn't yet understand that C on the control knobs meant caliente (hot) & F meant frio (cold), but my ensuing struggle beneath the surprisingly strong water pressure was quite a horrific learning experience! Fumbling about and nearly scalding myself, I tried frantically to turn one off and the other on, knowing neither which knob would give me the tempurature I was looking for nor which way to turn them!

So, we didn't do so well on the room choice, but we did EXTREMELY well on the location! After I'd survived my shower ordeal (I can't say that I won that battle), the two of us headed down the many, many, many steps to the white sands and beautiful sparkling ocean below. Nearly spellbound and without a word uttered, my Dad and I walked in tandem straight into that blue sea, drawn almost like magnents and not hesitating until we were both gliding through the warm tropical water, well away from the shore. I will never forget the feeling of that perfect swim shared with my Dad, floating without a care in the balmy Pacific Ocean under a piercing Mexican sun.

Our week went quickly, yet in some ways seemed like forever. After a couple nights in the Hotel Catalina room, we opted to upgrade and found a small beachfront property in Ixtapa a few kilometers away. Ixtapa was a slightly more developed touristy area with numerous hotels and restaurants, where "Zijua" was the authentic mexican village (we returned to it often during the day.)

We read, swam and, when we needed to get our of the sun, watched the OJ trial in our room. Dad went deep-sea fishing and caught TWO sailfish in one trip! Each evening, we'd dress up a bit and walk to one of Ixtapa's many fantastic restaurants, taxiing back to our room once we were sufficiently wined and dined.

It was very hot! Sweat poured down our estados-unidas-pacific-northwest backs but we loved it. I sat on the beach, taking it all in and wishing that Greg were experiencing all this with me instead of being cold and wet in Alaska.

And, oh yes, I did indulge myself with just a little time spent pursuing my favorite hobby/passion: real estate! Asking a local realtor my usual question, "What is the best deal you know of here right now?" lead Dad and I down a really dusty road several kilometers south of Zijua. As we rounded a bend, we beheld what came to be one of my most precious visual memories of Mexico: a little boy with a huge smile, wildly pedaling a delapitated bicycle ~ totally engulfed in a huge cloud of dust and wearing perfectly starched and ironed, brilliantly white shorts, shirt and vest (such as a child wears in a wedding party.) Maybe his extreme speed had kept the dust from settling, I'm not sure, but somehow he'd managed to stay impeccably clean!

The house we looked at on the beach was enchanting and included a pair of pigs taking siesta in the grassy back yard.... no need for a lawn mower, it was pointed out. I knew I was only a lookie-loo, but the fantasy of owning that casita on a remote beach in mexico felt very exotic and wonderful. If only Greg could see all of this!

So my first trip to mainland Mexico had been memorable in many ways, not the least of which was this rare time spent with my father, a man who kept most things to himself and hadn't been all that verbal with his two daughters as we were growing up. I know he fell in love with Mexico that week just as I did; indeed, he, Greg and I made many memorable trips there together in the years to come. I smile as I remember how that first time, Dad would get so frustrated because he couldn't understand the language. "I just don't know what they're saying!" he'd grumble, even as attentive, very polite bellboys and waiters spoke to him in perfect English.

This adventure with my Dad was only the beginning for me in Mexico, but of course I didn't know that yet.