Operation Mexico: To Acapulco and back in one piece!

< December 16th 2008
Day #1 AGENDA

*Flight from USA to Mexico City.
*Rent a car, find a hotel, sleep.
* Explore some of Mexico City the next day.





The mountains that outline Mexico City. Many volcanoes and steep, rugged terrain. A lot of rocks, and shrubs growing in this area.
This is the area of the famous Azteca Empire in the early 1300-1500's before Cortes invaded Mexico and conquered the Aztecan Empire.


Mexico Citys Indian name was Tenochtitlan. A Nahuatl name, from the language of the Azteca's.


With the first semester of College successfully behind Julie, and she announced that we were going to spend the holidays in Mexico! WOW! So, I go online to hunt down airflight and car rental prices, Chuy has the task of asking his boss for the time off, and Julie, well, she just has to finish her finals in one piece, pack and be ready to go.
So, Day one arrives. December 16th 2008. We wake up very early to drive a hour north to the Raleigh Durham airport. We catch the departing flight to Atlanta Georgia, debark, and board the next plane to Mexico City....all was going very well as we sat on the plane in Atlanta waiting for it to start taxing out to the runway. That is when the first glitch started........... The captain made an announcement that the engine light had come on, and he couldn't leave until it was looked at by the airport mechanics. Well, I decided right then and there that I wanted to debark and wait for another flight on another plane. I don't care how much the mechanics looked at the engine, I was NOT about to fly any where with having heard an engine light came on, even before we taxied........ I pushed the little button that alerts the flight attendant and notified her that I wanted to be given a different flight and a different plane. She tried to justify that I was OK on this plane, and that the pilot wouldn't take off it there was any impending problem. She was a bit condescending with her attitude, and I informed her that my dad was a pilot, and I had flown most of my life (this was only in response to her treating me like I was stupid and ignorant of airplanes).....after I told her my dad was a pilot, her attitude dramatically changed, and she listened to me.... we sat on that plane about 20 mins more when the pilot came on the intercom and announced that he was going to debark all of us passengers and that we would have to wait for about 2 hours for a new plane. Of course he apologised for the inconvenience, but I was just relieved to not be on that particular plane for the flight over the Gulf of Mexico!
We did disembark, and we waited a little, but soon we were put on a new plane and off we went. Julie had the window seat, Chuy the middle, and I the aisle.
Soon, we could view Mexico City far down below and we were on final approach for landing.... I suppose that is when I finally found a little excitement beginning.

MEXICO! HERE WE COME!!!

Smoothly we touched down after a 3 hour flight from Atlanta and no problems! We found the Alamo rental car booth, and secured our rental car. The cost is fairly cheap ($66.00 dollars a week), but its the insurance that gets you..... but, you better take it, cause you never know.

So, we are shuttled to the rental car lot, and get our car. A cute little VW economy car. Julie plugs in her GPS and IPOD and off we go to tackle driving in the infamous crazy city of Mexico City! Well, we drove and drove around blocks of little streets, and one way avenues that of course frustrate even the most patient driver. We would strain our eyes for a "HOTEL" sign, and whizz past before we realized we should have stopped and asked the price and if there was vacancy. Circling back, we finally decided on a small hotel directly downtown. The HOTEL NIZA. Only $24.00 for us three, and parking for the car.

Our first night in Mexcio! The Hotel was horrible looking from the street, but from experience I knew that you had to go inside to make your final decision. From the inside, we found a winding staircase, painted brightly....and very old. Pretty wood banisters and stairs, and looked like it came right out of an old western movie.

It was cheap, right in the middle of downtown and convienent. We were getting exhausted from being up since the crack of dawn, so we just climbed the stairs and fell asleep. All in all, a pretty good start for only day #1.