Nostalgia can be an eccentric tour guide.
Yesterday I was making my final plans for my return home to Mexico. Plans that turned out to be a bit more convoluted than I had anticipated.
Maybe it is my age. Maybe it is my love of music. But the more I tried to focus on setting up my airline reservations, the more I could hear Mary Travers's warble: 'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane/Don't know when I'll be back again.
I thought my return to Mexico would be rather simple. I was going to buy a motorcycle and head south around the end of October.
That plan fell through when my right ankle refused to heal enough to handle the weight of a nice road bike. There would be nothing more humiliating than dumping an eighteen thousand dollar piece of machinery simply because I had the ankle of a ninety year old anchorite.
That left airplanes. And I knew snowbird season would quickly limit my options. About six weeks ago, I look at flights to Manzanillo for 30 October and 6 November. Almost completely full on both days.
My return date depended a lot on the Latin American Bloggers' Conference in mid-November. Because the conference is on the other side of Mexico (in Merida), I decided to fly -- until I saw the prices for internal flights in Mexico. I could fly to London from Portland for the price of a ticket.
But I remembered a little trick used by a Mexican business friend. He often takes flights from one Mexico city to another by adding a leg to a city in the United States. His advice was sound. I could save $500.
So, here is my drill. I will be flying to Cancun from Portland on 10 November where I will meet up with a blogger friend. We will drive to Merida for the bloggers' conference, and spend a few days touring Yucatan. There should be plenty of blog tales there.
Then I will fly to Los Angeles from Cancun -- and on to Manzanillo. Even flying first class, I will save money.
There is a lesson here about the downsides of airfare regulation. But that is for another post.
For now, I am simply happy that I have plans to be heading to Mexico on that elusive jet plane. Fueled with nostalgia.
But I remembered a little trick used by a Mexican business friend. He often takes flights from one Mexico city to another by adding a leg to a city in the United States. His advice was sound. I could save $500.
So, here is my drill. I will be flying to Cancun from Portland on 10 November where I will meet up with a blogger friend. We will drive to Merida for the bloggers' conference, and spend a few days touring Yucatan. There should be plenty of blog tales there.
Then I will fly to Los Angeles from Cancun -- and on to Manzanillo. Even flying first class, I will save money.
There is a lesson here about the downsides of airfare regulation. But that is for another post.
For now, I am simply happy that I have plans to be heading to Mexico on that elusive jet plane. Fueled with nostalgia.
