My Honeymoon Disaster:  

This is one of my most-requested internet posts ever.  It's all true (oh, that it were not), but after 18 years, we are finally able to laugh about it!

Our Honeymoon Disaster

I suppose I should have suspected. It really didn’t mean anything that the silk bouquets weren’t quite right, and that my cello teacher couldn’t make it into town in time for the rehearsal. I mean, these were normal pre-wedding problems.

But when my brother Dan, who was supposed to play the flute for the ceremony, fell out of a tree and broke both his arms just ten days before the wedding, I should have suspected something. But the breaks were not serious, he got the casts off with two whole days to spare, and Craig and I tra-la-la-ed blindly and blissfully on towards lurking disaster.

The perfection of the wedding itself did nothing to alert us to our impending doom. The music was perfect. The program was perfect. The reception was perfect. Everything went exactly as planned. (Later, my cello teacher described it as “something like a Hollywood production, with the bride in the director’s chair.

I had successfully planned and pulled off this remarkable feat called “a wedding.” I leaned back happily in our freshly vandalized car as my wonderful new husband whisked me off to a family luncheon before the onset of what we envisioned would indisputably be the single happiest week of our entire married life.

The first real sign came before we reached the luncheon. “Well, Kathy,” Craig said contentedly, “that went great! The wedding was perfect, the reception was perfect, you have the tickets for the honeymoon...”

What?

“I thought you had them, dear,” I said, startled.

Thus began the frantic search for the lost plane tickets while all of our out-of-town family and guests waited for us at the party my Aunt Madeline had prepared — snickering all the while, I was convinced, at these two giddy newlyweds who couldn’t even attend a short luncheon without making up some dumb excuse to get back alone to their apartment!

It was two full hours before Craig found the plane tickets tucked safely away in my nightstand. To this day, I have no memory of ever having seen them before that moment. Craig says I just “had on my blonde wig.” But I am sure it was a frantic ploy by our guardian angels, who, having better sources than we, were desperately trying to keep us off that flight!

But to no avail — love, you know, is not only blind but deaf... and very, very dumb. So there we were, the next morning, awaiting the Mexicana flight that would sweep us off to that tropical paradise of Cancun, where vacation perfection was absolutely guaranteed by every travel brochure in North America.

The plane left two hours late.

Our first hopes were dashed the moment we stepped off the plane. I was just sure we had been sent to the Amazon jungle by mistake. It was hot! Hot, hot! And extremely muggy. Hazy, too. I looked a Craig doubtfully, but he assured me that the beach would be different.

Oh, and he was right! Our little shuttle bus, as it arrived in the resort area, stopped at one after another gorgeous hotel, bathed in glowing sunlight, mere steps from exquisite beaches and the crystal clear Caribbean. Our excitement soared. Which would be our honeymoon haven — our week-long paradise cabana? That towering white marble resort? The flamingo-pink hotel with the windsurfers frolicking out front?

But the shuttle passed one... after another... after another... and ours was not called. Soon, we noticed that the resorts were getting smaller, and less beautiful. And as the bus turned at the far northeastern corner of the island and headed away from the Caribbean up the Gulf side, the island was beginning to look down-right shabby! Soon, we were the only couple left on the bus.

By the time our driver pulled up to the “Casa Maya,” we were almost, but not quite, prepared for what awaited us. The beach was five miles (and a $5 taxi ride!) behind us. Bulldozers were carving up the front landscape of the hotel. The lobby, under construction, was draped in plastic dropcloths and drywall dust, and the man behind the temporary counter (once we located it) spoke no English.

There was no air conditioning in our room. There were no appealing restaurants within walking distance. Our “complementary breakfast” turned out to be a sales pitch for a $50,000 condominium scam, and when we admitted that we didn’t have quite that much in our newlywed bank account, they turned us away hungry.

And they were draining all the water out of the swimming pool.

By dinnertime, we had reached another alarming epiphany. Remember all those stories about Mexico being a real bargain? Well, they’re myths. We could not afford to eat! For what we had budgeted for a single meal, we could each have a bowl of soup and a glass of wine (which we really didn’t want, but which seemed safer than the water or soft drinks).

Finally, we wandered into the main city of Cancun and discovered San Francisco’s grocery. Gloomily, we purchased a week’s worth of staple items and headed back to our room to watch cable TV. Evidently, many of the other tourists were as disillusioned as we were, because on the way back, no less than three other American couples ran up to us, pointed excitedly at our plastic grocery bag and demanded, “Where did you get that Coca-Cola?!” or “I’ll give you five dollars for that jar of peanut butter!”

Craig was still determined to salvage the honeymoon (“Oh, is that why we’re here?” I wondered), so the next day he announced that he was going to take me sailing.

Now this was promising. Craig’s bookshelves are lined with sailing trophies that he and his dad and brothers had accumulated over the years, and although I had never set foot in a sailboat, I was confident that the honeymoon fun was about to commence.

Fifteen minutes later, packed like a couple of sardines into a little four-foot long boat with a handkerchief for a sail (Craig insists that it was a fourteen-footer, but I know better), it did indeed seem like Craig was at last in his natural element. The water was clear and warm, and the wind brisk.

Then, in a fit of generous stupidity, he said to me, “Here, Kathy — hold the tiller for a minute.”

“What’s a tiller?” I asked innocently.

Two seconds, we were in the water. Craig never even knew what had hit him. I came gasping and gurgling to the surface, frantically trying to retrieve two sets of flippers, goggles, and snorkels, our new waterproof camera, and a ziploc bag of personal effects, all of which were guaranteed to float, and most of which were slipping quickly out of sight towards the ocean floor. By the time I rescued them, Mr. Ace Sailor, who could not manage get the toppled sail out of the wind, was about a hundred yards downwind screaming for me to “put the centerboard back!”

As I would have indignantly pointed out had I not been drowning, I was using that centerboard to keep my own lungs out of the water. And for the time being, I was sorry, but he could not have it!

By the time we got everything put back together, I was in tears, and Craig’s sunglasses were at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Amazed, all Craig could mumble was, “I’ve never seen anyone tip over a sailboat into the wind before!”

Welcome to my world, sweetheart.

Not content with our current level of embarrassment, we had to insist on looking for Craig’s lost sunglasses. So for another hour or so, he sailed around the area of our recent capsize, while I dragged along behind the boat with my goggles on and my rear end sticking up out of the water. Of course, what we did not realize was that even if we had located the glasses, that wonderfully clear water was a lot deeper than it looked. (That probably explained the snickering on shore as we returned.)

The next day, in an attempt to salvage our failing budget, I washed some clothes in our hotel bathroom. A ten-year-old faded jumpsuit which had never bled in its life turned all of Craig’s T-shirts and underwear — as well as several of the hotel’s white towels — hot pink.

We were beginning to weary.

So our expectations were not high as we rented a VW bug and headed south to see the Mayan ruins of Tulum. But we were looking forward to a peaceful, quiet, relaxing day, far away from the touristy uproar of Cancun. All alone... Just the two of us...

After an hour and a half of rattling down a narrow two-lane highway (that looked like it had been hacked out of the jungle with a machete) in the soft luxury of a rented VW bug with no air conditioning and all the windows rolled down for sheer survival, we arrived at the ruins — in the midst of a huge Cinco de Mayo festival.

The Mayans would have been appalled.

On the way back, we stopped to do some snorkeling at Xel-Ha. That really was fun. The water was clear and warm, and the fish were fascinating. No serious disasters.
We tried again the next day. This time we took the VW across the ferry to Isla de Mujeres. Another American couple (married two hours less than we, but every bit as worn out and disillusioned), pulled up in a Jeep beside us. The young man leaned over and pleaded pathetically, “Ingles?”

“Sure,” Craig replied.

English. That was all we had in common, and all we needed. But Wayne and Rene — with their huge cooler of Corona — were entirely prepared not to drink the water. By the time the last ferry of the day arrived to take up back, Wayne was hanging off the bow of a perplexed Mexican man’s fishing boat just offshore, while Rene was very intently trying to communicate with another local resident.

“Piz-za!” she insisted, slowly and as clearly as she could articulate the word, and pointing to her mouth. “Piz-za!”
“Are you hungry?” the man responded in perfect English, and proceeded to give her detailed directions to several restaurants in the immediate vicinity. She, however, was evidently too drunk to comprehend her own language, as she just kept shaking her head and repeating one of the few words left in her rapidly degenerating vocabulary — “Piz-za!”

They finally wandered off to find something nearby. Later, we saw them again, trying drunkenly to bargain a 12-year-old Mexican boy down on a straw hat. He simply was not going to sell it to them for less than $8.00, no matter how much they argued. We watched for awhile, and every now and then, the boy would look towards us and roll his eyes.

Finally, very pleased with themselves, they bought the hats for $6.00 each. He came over to us and sat down, still laughing at them.

I wanted to apologize on behalf of all Americans everywhere, but finally just said to him, “Those really are kind of nice. How much?”

He shrugged and handed me one. “Two bucks.” he said. We never had the nerve to tell Wayne and Rene.

The last we saw of them, Wayne had passed out in the middle of an argument over which of them was still sober enough to drive, and Rene was trying not to steer the Jeep off the end of the ferry.

By now, we were thoroughly disillusioned and completely embarrassed to be Americans. We began to consider cutting our losses and heading for home.

“Tell you what,” Craig promised me, “if one of us gets sick, we’re out of here!”

The next day, he woke up with a debilitating head cold. The only cold medicine I recognized at the local farmacia was Actifed. It helped a little, but we soon discovered that it has — shall we say — an unfortunate and rather undesirable side affect on young, newlywed males.

Discouragement deepened.

That evening, I ate a red snapper who had evidently never been told not to drink the water. By the next morning there were some very suspicious rumblings in my lower intestines. I had had enough.

“Craig,” I said as emphatically as I could under the circumstances, “I want to go home!” He did not offer a single objection. We thought the ordeal was about to end.

We were wrong.

First, the airlines charged us $20 for the privilege of changing our tickets. Then, Craig had to leave me alone with the luggage while he waited in line for our boarding passes. I was beginning to feel a little weak when he left, but otherwise okay. But by the time he returned, I had turned a pasty white and literally could not lift my face up off the floor.

Understandably concerned to see his new bride reduced to a pale puddle of mush, Craig stared at me stupidly and asked, “Do you think you can walk?”

Since my body felt about as limber as a 125-lb. bag of wet flour, this seemed doubtful. But our gate was at the far end of the airport, and we had to get there somehow. So he packed our three suitcases over his left shoulder and draped me over his right arm.

I made it about ten steps before I passed out cold on the airport floor.

When I opened my eyes again, a crowd had gathered, and several Mexicans were chattering in my face in Spanish and trying to force Diet Coke down my throat. One of them was a doctor.

“Too much tequila?” she queried.

“No,” I answered, “Montezuma’s Revenge.” The Spanish chattering took on a confused tone, and I finally realized that none of these people seemed to have ever heard of Montezuma.

Finally, I managed the word, “Dy-sen-ter-y.”

“Ooohhhh,” they all nodded knowingly and in unison. The doctor wheeled us off to her office and gave me a couple of pills, which, she promised, should keep me from becoming sick at my stomach.

Half an hour later, waiting for our plane (again, an estimated two hours late), I realized that the pills were not working. With an enormous effort, I managed to lift my head about two inches off Craig’s lap and search for the ladies’ room. There it was, an impassible twenty feet away. I knew I could never make it.

Two women whom I had never met offered to help out. They had to practically carry me to the bathroom, which they did somewhat too cheerfully. (“Too much tequila?” one of them asked.) Of course, the place was standing room only, and I ended up being sick in a maid’s bucket while waiting for someone to vacate a stall.

Once they understood what was wrong, they again nodded knowingly. “Here,” one of them said. “Take this. It will help.” I recognized the tablets she was holding out as Lomotil, a muscle relaxant often prescribed for this sort of problem.

“This is a prescription,” I objected.

“Not here!” she responded cheerily. “You can get anything you want!”

Since I had taken it before and knew it would help, I thanked her and took two of the tablets. What I had forgotten was that Lomotil has the effect of turning even the strongest skeletal system to jelly, so what little ability to walk I had left was gone by the time the plane finally arrived.

As Craig dragged me out onto the tarmac, I gazed dubiously up at the miles of stairs leading to that little door. I’ll never know how I made it, but at last, I saw the inside of the plane. I knew home was finally near.

Our two seats were at opposite ends of the plane.

“Relax,” Craig ordered, dumping me into the nearest seat. “No one is going to want to sit next to you anyway.” And he went off to find the flight attendant.

In the meantime, the flight attendant found me. “You look awful!” he said, grinning sympathetically. “Too much tequila?”

I shook my head. “Montezuma’s Revenge.”

Again, the blank, confused stare.

“Dysentery,” I croaked in an agonized whisper.

“Ooohhh,” he nodded knowingly, and rushed off. After a hurried consultation in Spanish, the flight attendants informed Craig that I had to get off the plane. I could not fly with them until I had seen a doctor, they insisted, because they could not be responsible for me if I died.

Of course, dying sounded like a fair option by now. So while Craig explained that I had seen a doctor, I was ranting something about they could just close that door, lift off that plane, and head for Dallas — because I was not going to set foot on Mexican soil ever again, never in a thousand years, not if you paid me, thank you very much.
At last they dubiously agreed to let me stay on the plane (I think under Craig’s strict assurance that he wouldn’t sue them), and gave us two seats alone in the very front of the plane next to the bathroom.

I slept all the way back to Dallas. Texas. U.S. of A! Where the water is safe. Home! We were both relieved as we stumbled off the plane and into the familiar airport — just in time to discover, as we claimed our luggage, that all three pieces of our brand-new tweed luggage had spent the entire trip face down in a puddle of spilled raw shrimp.

After battling Friday rush hour traffic all the way home from the airport, we pulled up in front of our new apartment, utterly defeated. “Well, Kathy,” Craig said to me as we sat there, too exhausted to get out of the car, “the honeymoon... is over!”

“Thank God!” I gasped with sincerity.