There’s something magical about travel. It is as simple as making you look at ordinary things differently or notice the difference in ordinary things. 

I had boarded my flight just over 24 hours earlier in Sacramento. Originally I intended to fly to Puerto Vallarta from San Francisco after visiting with my family in Sacramento, but that involved catching a train from Sacramento to Oakland at 6:25 in the morning and switching to a metro train to get me to the airport for an 11:30am flight. 

Online, that all seemed feasible, but I don’t like to be so far from the airport on the day of my flight. It just invites too many variables, so a couple days before, I looked into flights from Sacramento to Mexico. It turns out there was a flight leaving from Sacramento at 6:25am, and it arrived in Puerto Vallarta about the same time as my flight from San Francisco for about the same price.

I quickly made the purchase and canceled both my San Francisco flight and train trip. One of the better things to come out of Covid 19 is the removal of cancellation and change fees. True, I wouldn’t get a refund for either, but I could use the cancellations towards future air and train travel that would inevitably be a part of my future.

The area around the gate was a little crowded for my comfort so I found a place I could sit away from the masses but still see when the movement to boarding began. I was easily able to create a six foot distance for myself sitting so far from any of the boarding gates while I worked on my computer.

Boarding took longer than usual as the airline wanted to avoid people bunching up in the jetway, but once my ticket was scanned, I walked directly to my seat without further delay. It was my first time traveling with my new backpack, but I managed to get past the airline staff without them weighing it. The pack can hold 20 liters more than my previous one, but I tried not to take advantage of that by overstuffing it.The key is to have a backpack that does not appear above your shoulders when facing the gate or ticket agent. They assume it’s a normal backpack, even though I know it’s well over the allowable weight.

The bonus of having an empty seat next to you on flights currently is that you can take the under seat luggage space of the person not occupying that seat. In this way I was able to fit both my backpack and my carryon bag under the seat in front of me, and I didn’t have to worry about overhead bin space.

Though I wore a mask the entire flight, as required, I felt comfortable having heard repeated stories of how the HEPA filtered air was cleaner than even that of a hospital operating room. Just to be sure, I reached up to open the air vent above me with the thought that it would blow all those Covid viruses away. It did occur to me that it could also be blowing them right toward me as well, but I gambled on the initial theory.

I had a three hour layover in Los Angeles, but with modern WiFi availability in terminals, you can pretty much do anything in the airport that you can do in your living room. That’s one of the reasons I don’t mind getting to airports early anymore. I just grab a coffee and pop open my laptop as if I were at a coffee shop back home. Why stress about arriving at the airport on time when it’s almost as comfortable as the time you kill at home to avoid leaving too early?

My second flight was a bigger plane with three seats on each side of the aisle. That meant I had someone sitting within six feet of me, but we were friendly to each other, and decided to assume we were inside each other’s safety bubble.

My safety bubble was popped, however, when the woman behind me pushed her passport and immigration form into my arm. I had to quickly revive my Spanish, and even then it took me a while to piece out her unusual request. I’ve been to enough communal countries to know that there’s an expectation that the young care for elders, so I grabbed her passport and filled out her immigration form. It reminded me of how my grandma at times used to leverage her age to get others to do things for her.

Customs in Mexico was nowhere near the ordeal it had been in the past. I had downloaded several podcasts in anticipation of my hours-long wait, but I was through the customs hall and outside the airport in about 15 minutes. Some of that was made easy by filling out my customs form in advance and only having carry on baggage, something that held up many others as I was waved to the head of the line.

The first thing I do at the airport is to change a little cash so I can get small change for the local bus. The exchange rate is always the worst at the airport but not nearly as bad as the taxi rate from the airport. I brushed off offers from all the exclusive airport cab drivers and worked my way over to the bus stop.

Having been to Puerto Vallarta many times before, I knew that the bus stop was just outside the terminal and I would be taking the bus with the locals. What I didn’t know is that they had gotten rid of the blue and white busses that go to Centro, and after waiting about 30 minutes, I asked a local about the Centro bus. I was told to look for the new all white buses.

At one point during my wait I looked into catching an Uber since they are convenient and usually only about $5 USD from the airport. As I did the calculation, I realized I had lost about that much in the poor conversion rate of the airport money changer. I made a note to not make that mistake again.

The bus I did catch to downtown was air conditioned which was a relief since it was 90 degrees outside with 80% humidity, and the old buses relied on open windows to cool passengers. The relief from the cool air was enough to justify the potential Covid risk of being in an enclosed space with a bus full of people. I had double masked since the plane trip so I felt relatively comfortable.

My hotel was easy to find as I booked it in my favorite neighborhood, Zona Romantica, the old part of Puerto Vallarta. My room is on the top floor with a great view of the hills behind the city and a view to the ocean in the other direction. The room has two beds, a bathroom, a sitting area, and a kitchen. I thought it to be a pretty good deal for $30 a night and an even greater deal considering I could prepare my own meals.

Preparing my own meals is important in Mexico as Mexicans tend towards protein with a side or starch or vice versa. I prefer vegetables with a side of protein, and there is nothing like that in their street food. I headed to the market and filled two bags with local fruits and vegetables despite the earlier warning that going to the market ensured I would get Covid19.

To be fair, that information came from a couple of Americans I met while checking into my hotel. I’ve found it ironic that people who spend year after year here still cling to all their fears about Mexicans despite being surrounded by them for the winter.

While it’s true that any gathering place is at risk for spreading the virus, I was more comfortable at the open air market than I would have been at an enclosed supermarket, with questionable air handling. New at the market this year are hand sanitizer bottles and disinfectant shoe mats at the entrance to the food stalls. Hand sanitizers I’d seen before, but the disinfectant mats were new.

I’d gotten to the market too late in the day to buy meat, so I decided to treat myself to a meat dish that evening. I found an Mexican place close to the hotel, and the waiter assured me that the meat sauce included zucchini and onions as well as tomatoes. When it arrived, the sauce was nothing but tomatoes, and I was glad I bought my own vegetables earlier. Perhaps there was zucchini minced up in the meat sauce, but while Mexicans have wonderful fruits and vegetables in their markets, they never seem to make it to the dining table. So despite my efforts to avoid a meat and carbs meal, that’s exactly what I ended up with.

I woke up this morning and was pleased to hear that I would not have to change rooms today. I had extended my booking twice in an effort to get out of the US before Covid reached me, but that meant that I might have to switch rooms mid-stay. I asked the woman at the front office what time I had to be out of the room, and she asked me if I wanted to move. I said, “no”, and she said “stay then”.

I had planned to hang out at a nearby coffee shop while they cleaned my room and prepared for the switch, and I decided to stick with that plan despite my good fortune. I found a delightful little shop around the corner with sidewalk tables, and I ordered a latte. 

While I sat and waited for what would be a delicious cup of coffee, I watched the delivery men tossing goods from the truck to each other and into the businesses surrounding me. It was something that I’m sure happens in the same way back home, but on vacation, everything seems different and special. Let the magic begin.