The flight was a bit rough, Amy was nervous and it seemed a bit bumpy. We were both worried about catching our connecting flight. As it turns out, IAH is one of those airports that builds on terminals as the need arises, leaving weird and abnormally long routes from terminal to terminal. The good news was that were weren't landing in terminal A, where we would have to bus to terminal B. The bad news is that we were in terminal B, which was two train rides and 14 minutes of walk time away from terminal E, where our 2:10 flight was out of. When we touched down, the stewardess kindly informed all passengers to Cancun that they would need to see the attendant outside the gate, where she was waiting with new tickets in hand. She told us that we could try to make it, but if we didn't then the next flight was at the same terminal. We decided to try to make it. So we ran. We were three seconds short of making the train. We took the next one a few minutes later. We ran the rest of the way (in flip flops). We arrived at the gate at 2:05 (departed at 2:10) and the attendant dude had just closed the door. If we had made the first train, we would have made it. But, we did make what should have been a 17 minute walk in about 7 minutes. It would have been nice to make the earlier flight, but we made do. We called the rental car agency and notified them of our delay (continental let us use their courtesy phones). Then we got some Wendys and Mexican Pesos at travelex.
We were the first to board after the first classers, the plane was only half-full so we got a row to ourselves. I read our frommers Cancun book and Amy clutched my hand tight for pretty much he entire trip. About 45 minutes before landing we went over a big Island that I am wondering about, since we were surely in the middle of the gulf at that point. We also went through a fair bit of turbulence and I saw a bit of lightning outside as well, of course I didn't tell Amy this until we were on solid ground. We were handed a piece of paper that asked us about Swine Flu symptoms, to which we checked NO on everything. Customs/Migration went well, they have x-rays coming in to the country. The airport seems to be partly airconditioned. I was asked how much cash I had when I accidentally flashed my wad of $1's showing the officer my travel "pouch." Everything else was smooth. Baggage claim took no time, we walked up and our bag was there. We walked out of the airport, there were tons of tour salesmen and taxi drivers vying for our business, one guy (may have been a taxi hailer) asked what we were looking for once we got outside, I told him Carribean rent a car, and he pointed us to the kid who was supposed to be waiting with a sign with our name on it. He escorted us to a spot where we waited about 5 minutes for a shuttle to take us to the rental agency.
Dodge Atos. That's Spanish for basic transportation. $200 for a week, including full coverage insurance to cover theft, loss, etc. It's a standard, but it has cold air conditioning. The process was mostly standard fare, except for the fact that one of the tires had a bent rim, lol. The workers didn't seem to think it was a big deal, but I know that if I were to take that rim/tire to a stateside repair shop, they probably wouldn't replace the tire. So, my 30 seconds of silence and thinking sounds prompted the car-check guy to bring it up to the manager guy who called for the "other" Atos. We looked over it and the second Atos looked roadworthy. After a somewhat hurried check (hope that doesn't come back to bite us later) we were off, 18 minutes before sundown. One thing that I've noticed is that they have a lot of man power for the jobs, there were half a dozen guys at the car renal agency, when there could have been 2 or 3. I've also seen a lot of gas pumpers where there weren't any cars... maybe a useless observation, we'll see.
Ugh, I'm not going to use this EEE for blogging anymore, my wrists are killing me.
-Eric
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