My love affair with travel began late in my life-on my honeymoon during a trip to Puerto Vallarta. Until then, I had never been on a plane or ventured close to an ocean. Although we have never gone back for another visit, I know the city has changed and grown since 1983. There is one event from that long ago trip that I can still recall almost as if it happened yesterday.
It happened the day before we were scheduled to return home. We'd had a great time touring the city, eating and shopping. We even had a taxi driver take us to his home to meet his wife and newborn baby. That's another memory I'll never forget. On this particular day, we were laying out by the pool when a tour guide that we had gone out with several times that week came by. He was heading up to a restaurant in the mountains and wondered if anyone wanted to join him. We went along with several other couples. The drive took quite awhile as we slowly drove up a twisty, curvy road, farther than we'd ever traveled that week, but he promised it would be worth it. Soon we arrived at an open air restaurant that was reached by climbing down a long staircase. Everyone sat down, looking at menus and just enjoying the atmosphere.
All of a sudden, we spied a young boy riding down the stairs on horseback followed by a dog. He had what appeared to be a clean, men's handkerchief tied around his mouth, looking much like young boys do when pretending to be cowboys. In his hand he carried a long stick with some type of knife attached to the end with masking tape. He slowly began walking around the restaurant without causing much of a stir among the employees and there were not many guests yet. Now, what do you think was running through our minds at this time? Were we frightened? Screaming? Crawling under the tables while clutching our valuables? No, remember this is 1983 and we were Americans. Obviously, this was a SHOW, staged for our viewing enjoyment. We continued this line of thinking until the "bandito" came our way and demanded our purses, cameras and any other valuables he thought we'd give up to him. Then, he slowly turned around and went out the way he came, his faithful dog still following behind him.
You're probably thinking we all jumped up and chased after him, right? He didn't have a gun and we clearly outnumbered him. No, we all sat there like stooges, waiting for him to return with our valuables, because this was a SHOW. As you can imagine, this wasn't a show and we never saw any of our things again. Every picture we'd taken on that trip was taken along with our camera. We did what we thought we should do when something like this happens. There was some type of visitor's office in the town, but nobody spoke English. Luckily, we were able to get a few pictures from others who had been with us that week and I'm grateful for that. The best thing about this event was that it made for a good story. People would laugh until their eyes watered when hearing this story. I mean, how could we have been so stupid?
The lesson we learned from this is that when you leave the U.S., the rules change. In fact, there might not be rules. Always be careful, constantly looking for a young boy (guess he'd be an old guy by now) riding on horseback, followed by an old dog while holding a long stick.
Until next time,
luv2travelwithme
I recently booked some friends on a cruise leaving from Hawaii. Unfortunately, they weren't on it. Why you ask? There were a number of reasons, none of which were their fault. They left Kansas City on time but the plane developed engine problems and had to come back. I received a frantic plea of help as they were desperately attempting to get to Honolulu on time before their ship left the port without them. Let me point out their first mistake-flying into port on the day your ship leaves. This is never a good idea, but in an effort to save some bucks, lots of travelers do this. Their second mistake was not buying travel insurance, which according to the information below, would have helped them financially. They would have still missed their ship, but it wouldn't have hurt quite so bad. 
