Josefina acted as our alarm clock Tuesday morning (the 25th) and woke us up at 6:00. We ate our breakfast (one more nice spread of fresh fruit) and then it was time for us to go back over to the school and find out what was going to happen next. Josefina had to go to work, so Jose needed to take her to the bus stop. That meant this was the time for us to say goodbye. It's hard to say an adequate "thank you" to a family who has opened their home and their hearts to complete strangers. They didn't have to...they could have stayed at their house and Amanda and I would have made it through this tough time with the rest of the evacuees at the school. They didn't do that though. They went out looking for people to help. They fed us, they gave us a comfortable bed to sleep on, they did everything they could to make it through this incredible ordeal. How do you thank someone for doing so much? Amanda and I did our best with some hugs and a few tears. We tried to give them money and initially they wouldn't accept it. We told them that if they wouldn't accept it for themselves, then at least put it in a college fund for Coral and Ambar (which they were trying to save for anyway). We said goodbye and walked over to the school where all the other FunJet people had gathered. About an hour later, a bus pulled up and we all got on board. I snapped one last picture of Ambar and Coral as they were there to see us off.
While on the bus, we talked with two other couples that were from the Dallas area, Joe & Jennifer and Jesse & Erin. They were all really friendly and we chatted all the way to our next destination...which turned out to be a school across the street from the original shelter (the gymnasium) we stayed at for the first day. As we were getting off the bus, the six of us decided we would stick together as best we could since we were all trying to get back to Texas. After waiting at the school for about half an hour, they had us get into groups of ten and board a travel van. The six of us and two other couples got on the first van not knowing if we were going to another shelter or if we were going to Merida, the nearest town with an operational airport. Thankfully, Joe speaks Spanish very well and he asked the driver where we were going next. The driver responded we were headed to Merida! A roar of cheers erupted on the bus. We were so happy that we were finally taking that next big step toward getting home.
Take a look at this map of the Yucatan Peninsula:
You can see Cancun in the upper right corner. You can also see the road going west out of Cancun that would take us straight to Merida. There's a problem with that, however. Wilma apparently did some pretty extensive damage to that road, so we had to take an alternate route. We had to take the road going south all the way down to Felipe Carillo Puerto then go west/northwest back toward Merida. The road going straight to Merida would have taken four hours. This trip would end up taking us nine hours! A large chunk of that time was eaten up right off the bat as we ran into a traffic jam just south of Cancun airport. The picture below shows the problem:
There was still a lot of water covering this road and only one lane was passable. Traffic was backed up as we all tried to squeeze down to one lane. This added about an hour to our trip. Once we got through the water, the roads were clear. We drove through Playa del Carmen, which got hit pretty bad as well, but nothing bad enough to slow us down. We kept driving south stopping at Tulum and at Felipe Carillo Puerto for potty breaks and a chance to get some snacks. We passed the time on the van by talking to Joe, Jennifer, Erin, and Jesse. It was really interesting to go though the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula and see all the small Mexican towns and villages.
It was dark by the time we arrived in Merida. I had brought with us a small map book that we had received back in the hotel just in case...and it's a good thing I did because we quickly found out that our van driver had no idea where the airport was in Merida. He pulled over a couple times and asked locals where the airport was, but no one seemed capable of giving us a decent response. We finally came across a group of police and they initially gave us directions. Then they offered to give us an escort right to the airport! All the people who had traveled with FunJet were being grouped together outside well away from the terminal. We unloaded the bus and sat around with the rest of the people waiting to see what would be coming up next.
It was 9:30 when we started talking about trying to get some food for all of us. I was especially concerned for Amanda...it had been quite a while since our last decent meal (breakfast then only snacks on the trip). There was a Burger King up in the terminal, so "the guys" from our van decided we would go up there and get some food for the girls and bring it back. We walked up to the terminal and when we got there, I simply couldn't believe the number of people! It was a sea of stranded travelers with barely any room to move at all! We make our way to the end of the Burger King line and it's incredibly long as well. We stand there for just a couple of minutes and decide it would take too long to get anything from there, so we start heading back out of the terminal and toward the girls when we see our van driver. He offers to drive us someplace to get food! We had heard any FunJet flights were going to be delayed for quite some time, so we decided to hop in the van and go get food. We drive around and finally find a Domino's Pizza as our best option. We order some pizzas and wait while they're being made. They had a TV on and we watched some of the video out of Cancun. The shots of the damage they were showing was incredible...especially Cancun airport. In hindsight, I'm so glad we didn't try to stay in Cancun and wait for a flight from that airport. It would have taken us several more days to get home. We get our pizzas, hop back in the van, and go back to the airport. Traffic is bad driving around the front of the airport, so we get out of the van and walk over to where the girls were. At this point, we had been gone about an hour and a half. As we're walking up, one of the other girls on our van says, "You guys better hurry up or you're going to miss your plane." At first I thought she was kidding. Then she says to me, "Hurry up, your wife is right up there." I get this really deep sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I see Amanda running toward the terminal and I call out to her. She whips around and yells, "BRIAN???" I said yes and she says something to me I can't repeat here, but trust me, she was pissed. I found out later that about 10 minutes after we got in the van, the people from FunJet went up and down the row telling everyone who needed to go to Dallas that the plane was ready to board. Amanda, Erin, and Jennifer collected our things and made their way to the terminal to get us thinking that we were in line at Burger King. Of course, we weren't there and when they couldn't find us, they started freaking out. Amanda told me later that at one point, the FunJet representative told her to get on the plane without me because with her being pregnant, it was more important for her to get on that plane. Amanda had all the bags including my birth certificate and if she had gotten on that plane, I would only have my driver's license as an ID. Because of that. she firmly told them she was not getting on that plane without me.
Jesse, Joe, and I gathered around the girls and our pile of luggage. I don't know how many times I apologized to Amanda for what happened. All we wanted to do was get some food for the girls and us...and now it looked as though it may have cost us our best chance to get home. I went up to the ticket counter to see if there were any seats available and the FunJet rep said no. I went back to where we had our stuff and apologized to Amanda again...at least she was chewing on a piece of pizza. Just as I bit into a piece myself, the FunJet rep I had just spoken with comes up to us and says, "There are seats still available on this flight. Get you things and come with me." Amanda and I drop our pizza, get our stuff, and follow the FunJet rep through the packed terminal. Initially, I thought Amanda and I were the only ones who were going to make it on this plane, but there were four more seats so Joe, Jennifer, Jesse, and Erin were going to get on this flight too! Talk about luck!! We all got up to the ticket counter, check our luggage, got our boarding passes, and made our way to the plane. We sat in the plane for about 45 minutes while some paperwork was being completed. We finally took off somewhere around midnight and we were finally headed back to the United States. The flight was going to stop in Houston before continuing on to Dallas, and since our original flight took us from Amarillo to Houston to Cancun, I figured we'd have an easier time getting back to Amarillo from Houston.
We landed in Houston, got off the plane, went through customs, got our luggage, then waited in the terminal for the Continental ticket counter to open up. Once it did, we got tickets for a 9:00am flight to Amarillo. We got some breakfast from McDonald's then slept at our gate area until it was time to go back to Amarillo. The flight from Houston to Amarillo was a quiet one...we both slept a little. After landing in Amarillo and getting our luggage, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for a decent meal then went home and went to sleep...thus concluding our amazing vacation-turned-survival-adventure in Cancun. I will have a few final thoughts...an epilogue, if you will...for my next posting. I hope those of you who took the time to read this got a sense of what Amanda and I went through. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer. After my epilogue, it's back to pure baby stuff...including potential names for our little girl!
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