Puerto Vallarta Journal

The Trip Down : Part One

July 29th, 2006

We left Calgary, once and for all. After waiting until the last minute to order our tickets to Mexico, we discovered that, contrary to what we had observed in the way of airfares for the previous few weeks, there was nothing available for less than $1100 per person within the week or two that we had planned to leave. After a little panicking, (not the last of that we'd do) we decided to take a more circuitous route through Toronto-- and SAVE!

So we had our tickets. The departure was a few days earlier than planned, true, but there you go. In the days before we left, we packed madly, and ended up with a small corner of a room containing all our worldly possessions. Now the only trouble was getting it all in suitcases. In the end, we crammed it all into a mere three bags: two weighing 70 pounds plus, and the third coming in at a mere 25 pounds. No problem, and not that much for all of our worldly possessions, right?

Our flight to Toronto was with WestJet. While checking our bags, we found that at the last minute the weight of one of the larger ones had mysteriously ballooned to 90lbs. Oops. Well, no problem; we just paid our $40 in overcharges and that was that. Onwards, to Toronto!

Calgary had other ideas, however. As we waited at the gate and the minutes to departure ticked away, we could see dark clouds gathering around the airport. As the time drew near, ka-blam! A massive thunderstorm with hail the size of small rabbits bore down on the airport, keeping us in Calgary for a precious few hours we could have spent seeing the wonderful sights of... the Toronto airport at one in the morning. Que sera sera.

So off we went, finally, and about five hours and two excessively dear and disappointing roast beef sandwiches later (how could you, WestJet? I expected so much more from saran-wrapped airline food!), we were in the Windy City. Well, not really, but Toronto isn't really interesting enough to have its own appellation. (And no, T.O. doesn't count-- does anyone care that New York is technically NYNY?)

Upon claiming our luggage, we were greeted with the happy news that no, not all of the taxi cabs waiting outside were the non-beating-and-robbing kind, and that the airport security would be quite happy to not deal with complaints of that nature ANY MORE, thank you. That, and the fact that, while luggage carts were free in most every other airport we've seen, the luggage carts in Toronto are so deluxe that they require a fee of two dollars-- and the wheels are pre-broken! Anyway, bags in hand we were off to the terminal.

We needed to be at terminal C for departures. We could clearly see signs for terminal B (as indicated by a bus) and terminal A (as indicated by a... train?) so we wondered a bit at the prospect of how exactly we were supposed to get to terminal C. Horse and buggy, perhaps? Furthermore, we were confused as to exactly where this mysterious terminal was, as there was no sign indicating its position, or indeed any sign of where we currently were. After the same security guard as earlier, tired of handling muggings, told us that we were in fact IN terminal C, and after stealing a luggage cart from a small boy in front of said security guard, we went to the elevator he had directed us to for departures.

Here the mystery of this airport deepened. On the outside of the elevator, the appropriate floors were indicated with letters, and a list of corresponding locations on each floor. Inside the elevator, however, floors were indicated with numbers only, and a shorter list of locations completely absent on the listing outside. So we took a stab at which floor we needed, and for once got lucky.

So now to check in! We originally had about six hours between flights, but the rain in Calgary had reduced it to about three. What would we do with all that time? First of all, I had to use the washroom. At that point, I hadn't been to the washroom in about eight hours. Little did I know it would be another hour before I managed it. Apparently, the Toronto airport has a system for cleaning its washrooms. That system is to hire a whole mob of cleaning personnel, for the sole purpose of cleaning every single washroom at the same time. But they have to economize somewhere, so they take as long as humanly possible to do it.

While I was waiting anxiously for that, Danielle was waiting at the ticket counter, where there was another mysterious system at work. This one involved a helpful customer service agent making repeated trips across the entire airport complex to retrieve items necessary for basic transactions, one item at a time. But there must be a delicately balanced ecosystem in all this, since as I finally returned from the washroom, I arrived just ahead of the customer service agent carrying the coveted tupperware container full of tickets. Tickets in hand, we made our way to the Skyservice counter to check in.

To be continued...

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