A friend of mine, Tim from Indiana, once told me this story. He worked in Mexico years ago, before escaping back to the US for good. I may have embellished the details, but he did admit to me over a beer that he has an unhealthy fear of bats, and yes, he screams like a girl: On a Wednesday evening in Mexico, with the salt air rolling in from the beaches of nearby Guaymas and the acrid, diesel reek of the …Read the Rest
With the roar of an ill-maintained Jake Brake from a passing semi-truck rattling the hotel room windows, I woke from a dream in which I was trapped inside a bag of Orville Redenbacher popcorn, slowly roasting toward a climactic death in a convenience store oven. I ripped the covers away, jumped up, ran to the thermostat, ran back to the bed because I forgot my cheater glasses on the nightstand and can’t read a fucking thing anymore without them, ran to the thermostat, stepped on the …Read the Rest
Several years ago, I was working in Mexico a great deal and my employer rented a house for me there (FYI: I still work in Mexico a great deal, but now I stay in a hotel – you’ll understand why in a moment). It was a nice house, except for the nest of dead baby rats which my wife discovered one day while scrounging for spare change under the couch cushions, abruptly ending her heart-felt commitment to live with me …Read the Rest
And just where in Mexico do they find all this crappy toilet paper? The best two-ply down there is half a micron thick, if you’re lucky, so just be aware you will stick your finger through the paper, even when it’s tripled up. Yuck! And why are the rolls always smashed flat, like the guys down in the loading dock drove a truck over the box? There you are, you’re taking care of business, hauling away on this defective roll …Read the Rest
If you need laundry service while staying in a Mexico hotel, you must first try to cram three pairs of jeans, four shirts, and nine pairs of socks into the tiny plastic laundry bag which you will hopefully find in the closet. You should list the contents of the bag on the form with the microscopic letters and then leave the bag in the middle of the room. However, nine times out of ten she will forget the bag in …Read the Rest
The laundry room in a Mexico hotel is usually in the damp, smelly parking garage deep underneath the building. This means your bathtowels will come in one of two scents – Oily Exhaust Fragrance, or Eau-de-Mildew. I prefer the mildew-scented ones, but will usually just air dry naked in front of the air-conditioner, otherwise I find myself sniffing at my arms all day as I check whether the bathtowel smell has evaporated yet
Winter in Mexico can be quite cold, but apparently us gringos from Arizona are the only ones who require heat in their hotel rooms. If you’re lucky, the thermostat in your room will kick in before the room temperature falls below freezing. When it does, be aware that the noisy, dusty, oily, dirt-covered heating unit which hasn’t been turned on since the previous winter will begin to emit a foul stench and fill the room with smoke at three in the …Read the Rest
If you like to drink coffee in your room, you should get up early and walk down to the local OXXO store (the Mexican version of 7-11) and get a to-go cup (don’t even think about room service, especially in the morning). If you do happen to have a room with a functioning coffeemaker, and the maid does remember to leave coffee packets for you at all, they will almost certainly be the wrong kind, and you will have to …Read the Rest
The maid will invariably forget to leave shampoo or toilet paper, which you will not discover until the next morning when you take a shower or have to do the necessary. This means you will end up calling down to the front desk at six in the morning and try to explain to the Spanish-speaking operator that you need to wash your hair or wipe your ass. Eventually she will give up talking to you and suddenly transfer your call down …Read the Rest
You should bring spare batteries for the remote control, otherwise you will have to get out of bed to change the channels because there are no new batteries in Mexico, anywhere. If you attempt to get the hotel to supply new batteries by disassembling the remote control, setting the batteries on the counter, and writing a note to the maid “baterias, por favor” she will simply reassemble the remote control with the old batteries and place it neatly in the …Read the Rest