It was December of 1982, as the airplane circled in for its last descent over Acapulco Bay, I found myself questioning just what I was getting myself into. I was 24 at the time, fresh out of university, wanting to quelch my wanderlust by taking a job as an overseas rep for a charter vacation company. I had never been west of the Mississippi, and now I was about to land in a third world country I knew nothing about.
My dream was to go and live in Europe. Growing up in New Hampshire, my exposure to Mexico was very limited. I must admit, for the first few months I was here, I was not enamored with the land of the Aztecs. Keep in mind, this was 1982. President Lopez Portillo had just nationalized the banks, and the peso was plummeting in value weekly. Vallarta and Cancun were just fledgling resorts, Acapulco was the destination for foreigners. Everyone and their mother was coming to take advantage of the devaluations. I had 600 tourists a week coming in on my charter that I had to find rooms in a very overbooked destination. Tourists were sleeping in the lobbies of the hotels on their suitcases, busses would constantly be 2-3 hours late, a nightmare basically. On the upside, the photo above was my first home in Mexico. I lived in that hotel for the first year of my Mexican existance.
It is funny, when I look at this photo taken in the first months, all four of us could very well be Mexican. Truth is, we were all shellshocked tour reps from Canada and the USA, escaping to a sailboat to get away from the raging tourists!
It is now 2008, I am still here in my adopted Mexico, living in a small town on the outskirts of Morelia, Michoacan. In the coming days and weeks, I hope to share some of the adventures that have made me grow to love this wonderful land over the last 25 years.
