The Four Seasons this is not.....Who said helping others is a comfortable affair?
Jul 23, 2013, 5:32 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 41
The Four Seasons this is not.....Who said helping others is a comfortable affair?
Welcome to my first trip report, one I hope you will enjoy, or at the very least one that won't be criticized by every single FT'erD
I've been thinking about doing this for a while, I even started writing one after first being driven on an S-class to my seat and bed in the sky, but to be honest it just didn't feel as clever, as detailed or as descriptive as many others in this forum. Who wants to write a TR only to watch it descend into oblivion?
I've been part of an NGO that helps disaster-stricken areas in Mexico, and while getting ready for our latest endeavor, the brilliant idea came write a TR about the mission, at the very worst it will be a unique report, but maybe, just maybe, I'll get lucky and people will enjoy it.
Where are we going?
The municipality of Xalisco in the state of Nayarit, approx 700 KM NW of Mexico City.
Why are we going?
Hurricane Erick decided to have some fun along the pacific coast of Mexico, one of his pranks was to flood a creek located in Xalisco, and as hard to believe as this may be, poor areas in Mexico are not particularly ready to handle situations like this one.
How are we getting there
We are flying the not very pleasant Vivaaerobus to Guadalajara, then we'll ride in a van for an eternity.
Where are we going to sleep?
Crappy hotels, much better than the original plan: The floor.
Why are you doing this?
When I first joined CADENA I was told that half of it's members were very pleasant looking girls and that they love guys who are goody-goody.
Of course it doesn't matter if it's an NGO or a crappy nightclub, hot girls only like jerks. The problem is that by the time I realized this I was already hooked, the satisfaction of helping others, and making yourself a better person while helping is a fantastic feeling.
I reckon it's a bit like starting to drink to be more easygoing, only to realize that you've become an alcoholic.
I've had about 6 hours of sleep for the last 48 hours, but don't worry, I'll be back with the rest of the trip report as soon as I'm done napping, also I don't have my camera with me at the moment, so apart from a few photos I took with my phone you'll have to wait for that as well.
The photo above is from the first mission I went to 3 years ago.
Jul 23, 2013, 10:16 pm
#4
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 41
Getting There.
Flying in a LCC can be tough, especially when said airline is owned by Ryanair and an intercity coach company, need I say more?
Do you know how wonderful it is to step into the BKK F class check in area, and being offered a drink and a towel while you wait for your boarding pass?
Now imagine the opposite, and then make it worse, and you get a pretty good idea of how awful the check-in experience is with vivaaerobus. Queuing for a ride in Disney in the middle of the summer is more like it.
Next up was security and everything went surprisingly smooth, it might have had something to do with the fact that I was in the middle of the group which meant
that the 10 guys that were before me knew better than to try to take a knife or a bottle of water through the checkpoint.
Our flight was scheduled to depart at 15:10, and up until the moment we went through security the FIDS said so, but for some reason the next time we looked at the FIDS to see if our flight had a gate they switched the departure time to 15:25, no wonder why their flights are never delayed
With an hour to go and no gate yet (gate was assigned 2 minutes before boarding started) I wandered a bit around the not very pleasant T1 at MEX and bought a sandwich just in case I got hungry later on (this would later turn out to be a great idea).
Boarding was sort of done by groups, but instead of actually boarding by groups they just made a gigantic single line where we then waited until
pretty much every passenger was queing, and then boarding started.
Perhaps this would be a good idea if there was assigned seating, but there isn't so all this leads to is to a huge mess once everybody's inside the plane.
It took a while for all the seat shuffling to end, and soon we were taxing and we managed to take-off with just a short delay, much better than expected!
Parked at MEX.
Leg Room.
Cabin shot.
With a scheduled flight time of just 50 minutes there was not much that could go wrong, and to my relief nothing did. I might be the only one, but I really enjoy short flights like this one, you never start wondering when will the torture end, you don't get interrupted by meal services or IFE. It's just 50 minutes of looking out the window, watching the world passing by, which should be all the IFE you need.
We landed at GDL 4:40, a short taxi and this was it, our cargo was off the plane pretty quickly and about 20 minutes after landing we were on our vans ready to start traveling towards Xalisco, well, at least that's what we thought.
Do you know how wonderful it is to step into the BKK F class check in area, and being offered a drink and a towel while you wait for your boarding pass?
Now imagine the opposite, and then make it worse, and you get a pretty good idea of how awful the check-in experience is with vivaaerobus. Queuing for a ride in Disney in the middle of the summer is more like it.
Next up was security and everything went surprisingly smooth, it might have had something to do with the fact that I was in the middle of the group which meant
that the 10 guys that were before me knew better than to try to take a knife or a bottle of water through the checkpoint.
Our flight was scheduled to depart at 15:10, and up until the moment we went through security the FIDS said so, but for some reason the next time we looked at the FIDS to see if our flight had a gate they switched the departure time to 15:25, no wonder why their flights are never delayed
With an hour to go and no gate yet (gate was assigned 2 minutes before boarding started) I wandered a bit around the not very pleasant T1 at MEX and bought a sandwich just in case I got hungry later on (this would later turn out to be a great idea).
Boarding was sort of done by groups, but instead of actually boarding by groups they just made a gigantic single line where we then waited until
pretty much every passenger was queing, and then boarding started.
Perhaps this would be a good idea if there was assigned seating, but there isn't so all this leads to is to a huge mess once everybody's inside the plane.
It took a while for all the seat shuffling to end, and soon we were taxing and we managed to take-off with just a short delay, much better than expected!
Parked at MEX.
Leg Room.
Cabin shot.
With a scheduled flight time of just 50 minutes there was not much that could go wrong, and to my relief nothing did. I might be the only one, but I really enjoy short flights like this one, you never start wondering when will the torture end, you don't get interrupted by meal services or IFE. It's just 50 minutes of looking out the window, watching the world passing by, which should be all the IFE you need.
We landed at GDL 4:40, a short taxi and this was it, our cargo was off the plane pretty quickly and about 20 minutes after landing we were on our vans ready to start traveling towards Xalisco, well, at least that's what we thought.
Jul 25, 2013, 8:52 pm
#8
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 41
Getting there #2
The ride to our final destination was going to be a pretty straightforward affair, a 2 hour ride on a major highway, and it started that way. Soon after landing we were on our way, we raced though the airport roads for about 3 minutes and then we stopped, the driver told us he needed to go to some kind of office and that it would take him about 5 minutes, maybe 10.
5, 10, 15 minutes went by and there was no sign of the driver, let me tell you we were not in a hurry, no one signs up for this kind of trip expecting to rest or do any kind of leisure activity. It was the heat, that's the only thing we had on our minds, heat, heat, heat. I had always wondered what were those dogs stuck in the parking lot for hours under the sun were feeling, now I know.
You might be asking yourselves why didn't they left the van? Well, we loaded it with as much stuff as we could, so getting off would've meant unloading and the loading everything again, too much work. On the upside we soon started to make good use of our time on the bloody oven as it provided an excellent opportunity for everyone to fit into the group. About 30 minutes into our sweaty ordeal the girl seating next to the tiny window decided that she wanted a bit of fresh air, so in what can only be described as a very agile move the girl proceeded to climb out of the window.
Why am I telling you this? Turns out the girl couldn't climb back into the van, so we had to unload everything anyway, but hey at least we were all friends by now! After an hour of sweating the driver finally came back, turns out he had to pay some kind of right of way, and obviously you can't expect the Mexican government to be anything that might end up approaching efficiency.
Remember that 2 hour ride I wrote about? It ended up being a 5 hour ride.
Nothing particularly remarkable happened. By now the group was more like a team, you never know how a group of people will behave under this kind of situation, luckily everyone was very easy going, meaning no punches in the face or obscenities thrown out.
The views were pretty, nothing to write home about, but pretty nonetheless.
That was until we arrived to Tepic, the city where we were going to spend the night. It has to be the ugliest city I've ever seen, I mean, I can't even begin to describe how utterly atrocious that place is. Here's my advice, don't go to Tepic, not even if your life depends on it.
On the next post: we start working, and then we spend a night in a hotel with no AC, it wasn't pretty.
5, 10, 15 minutes went by and there was no sign of the driver, let me tell you we were not in a hurry, no one signs up for this kind of trip expecting to rest or do any kind of leisure activity. It was the heat, that's the only thing we had on our minds, heat, heat, heat. I had always wondered what were those dogs stuck in the parking lot for hours under the sun were feeling, now I know.
You might be asking yourselves why didn't they left the van? Well, we loaded it with as much stuff as we could, so getting off would've meant unloading and the loading everything again, too much work. On the upside we soon started to make good use of our time on the bloody oven as it provided an excellent opportunity for everyone to fit into the group. About 30 minutes into our sweaty ordeal the girl seating next to the tiny window decided that she wanted a bit of fresh air, so in what can only be described as a very agile move the girl proceeded to climb out of the window.
Why am I telling you this? Turns out the girl couldn't climb back into the van, so we had to unload everything anyway, but hey at least we were all friends by now! After an hour of sweating the driver finally came back, turns out he had to pay some kind of right of way, and obviously you can't expect the Mexican government to be anything that might end up approaching efficiency.
Remember that 2 hour ride I wrote about? It ended up being a 5 hour ride.
Nothing particularly remarkable happened. By now the group was more like a team, you never know how a group of people will behave under this kind of situation, luckily everyone was very easy going, meaning no punches in the face or obscenities thrown out.
The views were pretty, nothing to write home about, but pretty nonetheless.
That was until we arrived to Tepic, the city where we were going to spend the night. It has to be the ugliest city I've ever seen, I mean, I can't even begin to describe how utterly atrocious that place is. Here's my advice, don't go to Tepic, not even if your life depends on it.
On the next post: we start working, and then we spend a night in a hotel with no AC, it wasn't pretty.
Last edited by bbeliko; Jul 25, 2013 at 9:09 pm
Jul 27, 2013, 1:52 pm
#9
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Arizona
Posts: 5,689
You are a caring giving person posting on flyertalk? I thought i was going to read about the port wine not being satisfactory or the brie cheese not acceptable. Best wishes to you and people like you in the world that make it a better place.
Jul 27, 2013, 8:18 pm
#11
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Sedona
Programs: UA Platinum, SW A-list
Posts: 110
Nice work. Thanks for this. Somehow I find this far more uplifting than a recent thread whining about the lack of quality nonstop first class service between New York and Maui. Safe travels.
Jul 28, 2013, 1:21 pm
#14
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 41
Thanks for the kind comments.
I know some of you find the lack of champagne and extensive onboard menus disappointing, but fear not, because later on there will be an alcohol related adventure.
Meanwhile hear are some scans from the airline's BOB menu.
Sorry for the lack of updates, I was a bit busy this week, I will post another part of the report tonight and hopefully I'll be done within a couple of days.
Once again thanks everyone for the nice comments.
I know some of you find the lack of champagne and extensive onboard menus disappointing, but fear not, because later on there will be an alcohol related adventure.
Meanwhile hear are some scans from the airline's BOB menu.
Sorry for the lack of updates, I was a bit busy this week, I will post another part of the report tonight and hopefully I'll be done within a couple of days.
Once again thanks everyone for the nice comments.