Tag: Holidays In Retirement

Day 54 

 

Mexico was a whole new country for us. We love visiting new places and were looking forward to discovering interesting people, places and things in this fascinating town. To make it even better we were arriving late afternoon and over-nighting: leaving the following afternoon. We headed into town to experience some Mexican specialty foods and to Skype family using the restaurant’s free WiFi.

In the morning we were booked for a shore excursion. Expecting the usual busses, we were quite surprised when a fleet of people movers turned up to take us all off for the day. Our van had a large 13 in the window and our friendly driver, Fernando, greeted us with a cheery “I hope you are not superstitious”.

Weaving our way through the town our van headed to the Pink Flamingo Hotel overlooking the bay. It was a slice of the past: right from the halcyon days of early Hollywood movies like Sunset Boulevard and boasted that John Wayne had stayed there while filming. There were old movie posters everywhere and the décor, while a bit tired was certainly interesting and gave the place a lovely, quiet atmosphere that was sea-breeze cool in a morning which was already heating up. Enjoying a real orange juice while gazing about at the interesting décor and beautiful view, we returned at the appointed hour to get back in our van for the next stage,

Interestingly our driver had the hood of the van up and was intently examining something under the bonnet.

“Is it broken?”. I asked.

“No, no. Nothing to worry about, I just need to get a little start from my amigo”.

Amigo backed his van up to ours, attached jumper leads and our engine spluttered into life.

We drove on to La Quebrada where the famous cliff divers were to perform for us. It was a spectacular show and spectacular scenery. We were very impressed. And dutifully bought souvenirs and paid tips for the performance in the approved manner.

It came time to move on, and, yes you guessed it: driver was under the hood again. More jumper leads from another amigo and we spluttered back into life and proceeded on our way.

“I suppose you need a new battery”.

“No, it’s quite new. It’s just some connections a bit loose”.

 

Back through town, in fact right across town, we progressed and up into the hills on the other end of the bay. We arrived at a chapel: built as a memorial to their son by a local family. The building was lovely, the views breathtaking and we enjoyed exploring native flora and architecture before heading back to our van.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t like to comment this time as it was getting a wee bit embarrassing. However, a quick jumper lead exercise (getting quite good at this now) and we were off again back to the ship.

 

The driver was lovely. He talked about his family and about life in Acapulco. That was much more interesting than the impersonal list of facts often given by many tour guides. We arrived safely back at the quayside, embarked into familiar surroundings, were welcomed by our friendly crew and soon slipped our moorings heading out into the Pacific.

 

Day 19

Sometimes Good Ideas need a little encouragement.

We arrived at Gare de l’est on a Sunday afternoon and got a taxi to the apartment we had arranged to rent. We wanted to be in the 10^th and were expecting a slow trip through busy Parisian streets. However, the roads were relatively quiet on a Sunday afternoon and the taxi bustled along and got us to the address quite quickly. And cheaply!

We had been given the address and told the owner’s mother would be there to meet us. Entrance was a narrow door between a delicatessen and a café. We entered. Post boxes for tenants (no names on them), a couple of bicycles but no ‘Mother’. We had been told our apartment was on the 5^th floor – with a nice view. We had been assured there was a lift.

There was a lift. A 2 person lift in the corner of the downstairs area. It was out of order.

And it had been such a lovely day so far!

Nothing for it, I would have to climb the stairs in search of mother. Leaving Rae by the 3 large cases, I climbed up 5 floors of the tiny, circular staircase. On the 5^th floor were several apartment doors. Which one? No numbers or names were to be seen. I called out. No answer. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon; no one seemed to be home.

Climbing back down was easier than going up, but didn’t result in any solution. We had a phone number for the owner, but were using a data sim in my phone so couldn’t call it. Some people had entered and left through the front door. A couple of young guys came in – saw us looking bewildered and asked if we were OK. They offered to phone the number for us. Unfortunately they got a voice mail message and could only leave a message.

You do feel a bit lost in these situations. However, ‘Travel’ is about being brave – intrepid even! I set off to explore the neighbourhood, leaving Rae with the cases again. She was getting less attached to those cases by the minute! Just up the road I found a hotel. A budget hotel. Yes they had a room, and would hold it for us for a few minutes.

I dashed back to Rae, collected the cases and dragged them to the hotel to check in: very relieved we wouldn’t be sleeping rough this night. The hotel had WiFi, so, as soon as we were in our room, Rae sent an email to the owner asking what had gone wrong!

The owner was now in the USA, having recently moved there, leaving Mother to manage bookings. (And omitting to remember to change the contact phone number to Mother’s). We were Mother’s first clients. She had been waiting in the apartment all afternoon, not realizing we didn’t know which apartment to go to. Frantic emails resulted in Mother arriving at our Hotel, paying our bill and arranging for us to go onto the apartment next day when the lift was to be repaired.

All in all quite an adventure. It was fairly scary at times, but in the end everything worked out very well.

All the people we had contact with as we tried to resolve our situation were delightful, helpful and friendly. ‘Mother’ was upset we had been put in a frightening situation and went to extra lengths to make up for it – even calling round on our last day to take us to the station for the next section of our voyage.

The apartment was ideal. The views great, the facilities were all you could want. And the neighbourhood was just as we’d hoped.

Even when you are being a little daring and resourceful people will look after you in Paris. Obviously Paris is always a good idea!

 

Our travel budgets are intrinsically linked to our planning. As we are planning a trip through Europe, with most time in France, we know we’ll want to have quite a food and wine focus. Local food markets, wineries, and good local restaurants will be planned into the itinerary. If we have heard about a particular restaurant and really would love to try their food, we’ll decide that it is worth eating simple, cheap fare for a night or two so that we can indulge in their sumptuous food. Many fabulous memories are based on wonderful meals.

The cruise home will take us through parts of the world that are new to us, so we will probably choose to do some of the planned onshore excursions even though they may seem expensive. They can help you decide whether you want to return to a place and explore it further. Where we are returning to a place we tend to do our own exploring of the harbour or town.

 

Gray has been known to say, “you can only spend each dollar, once”, so therefore it is important that we make sure we know how much money is required to enjoy the experience. Getting the balance right is important to us. We don’t want to be so constrained by our budget that we cannot enjoy ourselves but on the other hand at our age we realise that the holiday fund is not an infinite pot of gold. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were? We have travelled with folk who noted down their spending each day, often whilst we were out and about. We felt very uncomfortable by this and are sure that they were not having much fun either. Once the spending has been planned and agreed, we believe it’s time to enjoy ourselves.

So this ‘philosophical statement’ as Gray defines the budget, is a good guide to ensure we make the most of our experiences away. I interpret the budget as ‘an enabler’, stretching it as far as possible to enable us to have a good time. Together we manage to make successful budget decisions and keep on enjoying traveling.