Eclectic Parent

Yesterday was enormously long. All day travel. The kids were amazing. So excited about Mexico they earliest woke at 4:30 AM. We headed for the airport at 630; well, our ride arrived at 6:30, we headed out the door at 7:00. Racing to the airport in morning traffic is bad enough, but standing in line to check in was painful. We always use curb-side check-in. I hadn’t thought about international not allowing the option of racing up to the curb and leaping out. Nope long old line. Actually let me change that to slow old line. People having to adjust all their bags because they weighed too much, moving clothes from bag to bag and reweighing; closing lines as soon as we got toward the front; taking first class passengers in front of you.

We finally got checked in and had to run to the gate. We are usually sitting waiting with the kids so we have time to get through. Not this time. One security lane open and by the time we cleared it our plane was boarding. No chance to grab breakfast or go potty. Luckily most of slept on and off through the 3.5 hour flight to Miami.

Three children, five backpacks, one enormous camera bag and one car seat later, we grabbed sandwiches between flights. Poor D had started feeling yucky on Sunday. No food all day and threw up that night. We had him lay on the couch all day Monday hoping that rest would cure him before we started traveling. The kid is never sick – ever – and gets sick right before we head off for 14 days. After laying on the couch and sleeping all day Monday, we hoped we were good but he threw up in the night again. We had crossed our fingers and put him on the flight (con’t even think about rescheduling an international flight for five people at the last minute). In Miami he wants to eat. Normally I’m all for my kids eating but he’s been sick twice in two days and we’re about to board a plane. So he starts eating an apple and color slowly returns to his face. We start talking and figure outt he poor kids hasn’t eaten a think since Friday night and it’s now Tuesday. And what a condition to head to Mexico in - a sore, uneasy stomach.

The kids are troopers though. One more flight: Miami to Cancun. Then through customes. Then baggage claim. Then lost baggage reporting. By this line the were finally getting a little wiggly. We never travel with a stroller but had brought one because D had been sleeping all day for two days. Now all three kids are playing musical stroller and starting to fight over who gets to sit and who gets to push. Through the airport and out to the buses. We stop to find out how to get from Cancun to Merida. The guide books, which I haven’t picked up in about four months since planning this, had said there were numerous buses so we hadn’t gotten to hung up on pre-planning. We found a bus to Merida - no problem. We just have to take a shuttle to this other terminal and then get a bus into the city center bus station.

Thankfully there was another woman there going to Merida at the counter at the same time. She was Mexican and spoke absolutely fluent English. I felt so much better that she was confused too. We met up with her again outside trying to find the shuttle. Even with her – obviously – perfect Spanish, she couldn’t figure out where we were supposed to catch the shuttle either. We were like lost puppies following the poor woman around. After a few back and forths dragging all our stuff, we finally all caught the shuttle to yet another airport terminal. We’d all only shared sandwiches in Miami and didn’t know if we’d get another chance to eat, so D and I raced into the terminal with our newfound friend. Pretzels and gatoraide weren’t exactly what I’d had in mind but better than nothing. We ended up scattered throughout the bus in the few available seats left. A bus from the airport to the city center doesn’t sound like a big deal but Cancun is a big city. And it was rush hour. We slowly inched our way across town with me pointing out Christmas lights to B and D sitting in front of us watching Cars in Spanish.

B and I talked to a man who’d missed his flight back to the states from Cuba. I love that about travel. At home one usually doesn’t strike up conversations with total strangers. But B was chattering away about Cars being in Spanish and then about not speaking Irish so she couldn’t go to Ireland. I told her they spoke English there, which is what she speaks. The man in front of us said she could always learn Gaelic and the conversation began: where are you going? And you? Easy.

We made it to the bus station. Luckily we’d purchased the tickets back at the tourist-friendly airport where most people spoke English. Our buddy wondered up and down the lines of buses asking drivers which was the 7 PM bus to Merida. Yes, 7 PM. We’d started at 6:30 Am and were still traveling. We spent a while playing chase and showing our friend, Mariella, how high everyone could jump. She taught everyone how to say their ages in Spanish.

Finally our last bus began to load. The kids were totally troopers; it’s us dragging enough luggage for five people for fourteen days, no one has really eaten and we’ve been traveling over twelve hours. It’s a lot of numbers but it gives the idea of the day. At this point we were flagging but the kids were still chanting “Mexico! Mexico!” We got everyone settled on this bus. We had been teasing the kids that we’d been in our car, two planes, a shuttle and to buses that day and we’d take a taxi to the hotel; if we could only fine a train and a boat we’d pretty much covered all modes of transportation. We rode and rode and rode. After more than two hours, I finally asked someone when we were supposed to arrive. I had it in my head that it was a two hour bus ride but it was four. So . . . we arrived into the bus station at 11:20 PM. Taxied to our very small hotel where they were luckily waiting for us. Kids bounced off the walls until well after midnight, happy and finally here.

We will probably have some down days coming up to balance this out. But almost 18 hours of happy cooperative travel with 3, 5 and 7 year old is no small miracle.