The year I left my
full-time job at the TD Bank in downtown Toronto, I was fed up enough to do
something completely different for a while.
I’d been working for the TD for three years and had changed branches,
moving from Adelaide and Victoria Streets to Queen St. E. and Logan Ave., and
finally to Bay and Wellington Streets.
Despite these moves, however, my banking career wasn’t moving forward; I
felt like I was marking time and staying in one spot. I was also newly separated from my husband,
Paulo; my life, in general, had sort of ground to a halt, in a manner of
speaking.
My best girlfriend,
Gloria, who was still working full-time, was now looking for a travel-mate to
go on vacation with this year and, bingo, there I was, ready for action. It was November 1980 and we were both 28,
only a month apart in age. We had known
each other most of our lives, ever since my family had moved in next door to
her family in Agincourt, a suburb in northeast Toronto. Although we didn’t see each other all that
often, we did stay in touch frequently.
I did not know much, if
anything, about vacationing in southern tropical destinations except for a trip
that I’d taken to Florida in 1972 with Paulo and his family. His parents had asked me if I wanted to go to
Florida with them and I couldn’t say no.
Key West, the southernmost tip of Florida, was as far south as I’d ever
been. I remember that the weather had
been warm and balmy and that the Atlantic Ocean had looked very inviting. That was during March Break, I believe, while
Paulo and I were still university students.
Gloria and I had been
very curious about Mexico, in general, and Acapulco, in particular. November to March is always a good time of
year to travel to southern destinations on the Atlantic side by the Caribbean
Sea, or on the Pacific side.
Acapulco is the largest
city in Mexico. It was to be a very
popular tourist destination, up till about the year 2000. From that time onward, a lot of violent crime
would happen in Mexico, particularly Acapulco, and Canadians, among others, would
become afraid to visit there for several years.
After the year 2010 onward, people would start to visit Mexico again,
but would usually stay at the resorts in places like Puerto Vallarta and
Cozumel, which are on the Caribbean coast.
Reading beforehand about Mexican resorts located on the Caribbean coast would
tell people more about any particular destination they had in mind. In general, resorts anywhere are safer and
more secure than vacationing outside of a resort. To this end, you can purchase all-inclusive
tourist packages that include your flight, hotel, food, and a car rental, if
desired. This is considered cheaper than
non-inclusive travel.
However, we decided,
through a travel agency, to book ourselves, non-inclusively, into the Holiday
Inn in Acapulco, right on the beach on the Pacific Ocean. We had a large double room on the seventh
floor with a balcony, which faced the beach.
The view was fabulous!
Everything at this
Holiday Inn had a Mexicana theme to it, including the food. If you didn’t mind spicy Mexican food, you
might like to sample it, and we did.
However, I’m not much into spicy food anyway, so I only tried a bit of
it. This was not a package tour for us;
we had to buy our food separately.
We mostly spent our
time on the lovely, sandy beach where there were lounge chairs, a bit of shade,
and waiters who would bring us any drinks that we ordered. I drank Pina Coladas the whole week; now, whenever
I drink a Pina Colada, I automatically think of Acapulco and the beach.
Gloria and I went
shopping too – along the main drag by the hotel where various street vendors
were set up. I bought a marble chess set
for my younger brother, some souvenirs for the rest of my family, and some
clothes (summer dresses) for myself. You
had to bargain vigorously with each street vendor to get the thing you wanted
at a good price. Gloria bought stuff for
her family too and she just loved to haggle with these vendors. She was so good at it; she always got her
stuff from them at the price she was aiming for. In any event, the prices were pretty good.
The natives in Mexico are relatively poor compared to us. They survive mainly by making and selling
things to tourists like us.
Although we were having
a good time generally, there were a couple of not-so-good memories. One day, when we were coming up in the hotel
elevator to our room, the forefinger on my left hand somehow got caught on an
edge of the elevator door as it was closing.
We had just gotten off at our floor for the night. My finger started to bleed and was extremely
sore, so I got a bucket from our room, filled it with ice cubes from the nearby
ice machine, and then dumped the ice into the bathroom sink. Once I’d dumped the ice there, I put my whole
left hand into the ice and kept it there for 20 minutes at least. Finally, the pain in my cut finger subsided and
the bleeding stopped. I stuck a band aid
on my finger anyway and then went to sleep for the night.
The next day,
miraculously, my injured finger seemed to be completely healed! I could move it around freely and I didn’t
need a band aid anymore. It was
amazing! I think the prompt application
of ice did the trick. I couldn’t even
see the cut anymore.
Another incident that
was not at all good happened to Gloria.
She had been recovering from a recent illness up till the night before
we were to leave on our trip. But,
despite the fact that I decided I was going anyway, with or without her, she
also decided that she still wanted to come with me. Shortly after arriving at our hotel and
settling in, we went for a swim in the Pacific Ocean. A few days afterward, she suddenly became
very ill, running a high fever. So, I
had to call a doctor for her; it was the only thing I could do. Thank God we had purchased medical
insurance! This male doctor, who
happened to be German like Gloria, and who worked on-site part-time to cover
emergencies, came to our room, examined Gloria, and then administered an injection
of antibiotics (or something like that) in her rear end. I was very scared at this point and did not
want to leave her alone in this condition. I took good care of her after that, and two to
three days later, just as we were getting ready to return home to Toronto, she started
to look better, but not great.
Gloria had already
phoned home and spoken to her father, telling him what had happened to her. And, guess what? He blamed me for her
illness! As if I knew what had caused
it! I really think that she’d accidently
swallowed some water from the ocean; I know that she had swallowed some infected
water somewhere, but no one knew where.
I’d been drinking the water at the hotel too, but it didn’t affect me at
all. On the other hand, the oceanic
water was extremely dirty when I think about it now; that would’ve been the
worst thing for her to ingest.
What I remember best
about Acapulco was the evening we went to a disco place, the kind we used to go
to all the time at home. Only this place
stayed open almost all night long and we didn’t get back to our hotel until
after 5:00 am. What a blast! Another thing that I did was to go
para-sailing for the first time ever – where a motor boat pulls you by a long rope
and you have a large parachute attached to you by a harness. During your ride, you are at least 100 feet
in the air and when you land, you put your feet down on the beach. Some people have been known to land somewhere
other than the beach by accident, which is not a good idea because you could drown
if the parachute lands on top of you in the water. However, everything went like clockwork for
me and I landed on the beach without a problem.
Finally, water skiing, which is something I’d done on lakes lots of times,
was something I signed up to do on the ocean for the first time. Wow!
That was like jumping from one hill to another hill, going from wave to
wave. It was totally unlike any
water skiing I’d ever done before…..what a thrill though.
In summary, except for
Gloria’s unexpected and rather intense bout of illness in Acapulco, I thought
it was a fairly good trip. Gloria
recovered completely shortly after we got back home and I’m so glad she
did. Her father might never have
forgiven me for that incident. However,
eventually he did forgive me and forget; otherwise, Gloria would not have gone to
Europe with me in the spring of 1981.
During this trip, we’d been
talking about going to Europe together the following spring (1981), which I’m
sure her father would have objected to, but, in the end, we did go and nothing
bad happened to either one of us during the entire trip, which lasted almost a
month. That story is for another time though.
copyright 2014, Anne Shier. All rights reserved.
