A little over a week ago Ashley was up north working. She worked some flights and others were just outright cancelled. She had planned on being back for the Semana Santa holiday and for our spring break trip the first weekend in April. The two weeks of school leading up the holiday weeks had been cancelled and the schools were scrambling to get some kind of plan together to be sure the kids had some kind of structure to follow for their studies. Kid's activities were still happening but some precautions were being implemented to keep the kids safe.
Then things were about to change in a big way. Canada called back it's citizens from whatever international location they were at. The USA had already declared that International travel was going to be effected but now cross border travel would be restricted between Mexico as well. Suddenly everything got crazy. Mexico added an additional week of school closures which would give the kids 5 total weeks off including the 2 week holiday. Just about every tourist in the area or part time resident had to make an effort to get back to their countries. All kids activities were cancelled and the beaches were essentially closed in Nayarit.
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| People trying to leave Puerto Vallarta ahead of border closures. |
I had to make one more appearance at Mexico Immigration. One week previous I saw the first signs of things changing in Mexico due to the virus. Hand sanitizer outside the office at the check in desk. That was all. Upon arrival this visit I found that all the seating had been taken out to the adjoining hallway except for a few seats inside. No more than 5 people at a time would be allowed to wait for service inside the office. Good plan to try and keep people apart except that as the morning went along, more and more people were piling up outside the office in a line defeating the purpose of separating people in the office anyway. I do not pretend to understand but at least the agents at the counters were in a safer work environment without 20-30 people sitting and waiting the their turn just in front of them. Fortunately, I was able to get in and out of there with what I needed. The kids renewed VISAs! Now we had all our documents back in hand and updated should we need to travel for some reason and wouldn't have to return to this usually crowded office.
The biggest problem we had was that Ashley was on the wrong side of the border! She had another week+ of trips scheduled but started offering her trips up for others to take as soon as the border restrictions were announced. She wasn't going to chance what "might" happen and knew she was coming up on close to three weeks off anyway so she ditched her remaining schedule and jumped on a plane headed to Puerto Vallarta...but that's not the end of it. The flight was oversold coming back from Mexico to the States but only had 4 people on it going south in the direction she was going. It was an uneventful flight for the most part until the plane open it's doors at the gate. A flight attendant on the flight noticed that one of the four passengers had gotten ill during the flight and had thrown up in the lavatory. This sent up HUGE red flags when arriving across the border. Was there potentially an ill person on the flight? Was there a reason why they were ill? Did they have Corona Virus symptoms? Would the crew and passengers be made to isolate and quarantine for two weeks or even be sent back to the USA? So, Ashley was literally on the other side of the door from being home for the foreseeable future and someone barfs in the bathroom preventing everyone on that flight from going anywhere. Well, turns out the guy, who decided it was a good time to go to PV on vacation, had too much to drink and got sick during the flight. Throwing salt in the wound of the whole event was that this idiot, who shouldn't have been trying to travel anyway, was an airline employee flying on benefit passes from another airline and not even a paying customer. Things got sorted out and everyone was given the ok to disembark. Ashley was super relieved once she cleared the airport terminal and left the airline world behind for a while. Fortunately, she did not strangle the drunk idiot after having to be be quarantined for two weeks before seeing her family.
Ok, so now were all safe at home. No school, no work and advised to stay at home. How have we been doing? The first week went pretty well. The kids received assignments from their teachers online. Lots of sleeping and some limited home projects. I really tweaked my back close to two weeks ago so to Ashley's frustration, I have not been able to do much. While that has progressively gotten better I have been struggling with either bad allergies or a spring cold. I am not a popular guy to take out of the house when coughing and slurping all the time. It just creates the wrong kind of attention. I have been taking long walks in the jungle. Ashley and Alex have been doing some video workouts and the kids even took their race boards out for an hour since there has been no one on the beach and no one in the water. We all took a hike this morning too. Everyday you have to do something or go crazy.
Like everywhere in the world the economic repercussions will be severe here. Pretty much every job is dependent on tourism. Hotels, AirBnBs, restaurants and shops have closed. Many will never reopen. Some of the eateries have adapted and offered take out and delivery which is great but we know people here who have experience tens of thousands of dollars of cancellations in the last few weeks for small time nightly rental operations. They do not know how they will make things work since who knows when this may be over enough for people to have travel restrictions lifted again and come here. This also means all their support employees will be unemployed as well though some employers have tried to pay employee wages for the weeks to come. We have kept our small operation simple and though we only experienced two cancellations it wasn't a big blow to anything but the SUP equipment budget and some additional money for expenses. Our more immediate concern is what happens to the airline industry and Ashley's job and wages. When will things get running again in any form that resembles even just a month ago? Will there be layoffs, early retirements, how much will pay cuts be, what will routes and hours be like etc. All just a mystery right now and trying to predict things is just a waste of energy. We are just hoping for the best. For now town is quiet and it is nice but it is for the wrong reason.
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| Monday morning but you wouldn't know it. |
So what is next? Semana Santa. By the end of the week there would normally begin the mass migration of nationals heading to the coast for some beach time. It is not just a young people's holiday as it might be up north. The young, old and everyone in-between packs up coolers, loads up cars, trucks and tour busses for their chance to sit in the sand all along the coast of Mexico. Sayulita, San Pancho and Guayabitos are all very popular destinations and over a hundred tour busses arrive everyday just in Sayulita. Town is normally packed beyond capacity. So packed that many residents close up, pack up and leave just like we had originally planned to. There has been an official "recommendation" by the government saying that everyone should stay home until the end of April but nothing yet to help ensure the crowds stay away from the beaches. So frustrating and repercussions could be HUGE. The whole idea the last two weeks has been to stay at home and now the entire country's germ pool will be mixed and scrambled totally in a matter of two days? I hope Mexico is learning from the USA's mistakes on things like this and will require the whole two week holiday be a time to stay home for it's residents. Our town is already mostly shut down with few eating or lodging options will be overrun. The yearly local volunteer effort to mitigate the the effects of so many visiting people will be pretty much not existent. The town will be overrun and will be a disaster beyond the disaster of any potential virus spreading. The coastal towns need boots on the ground type of enforcement so badly in the coming weeks. For now, the locals are circulating these kind of messages below to try and let it be known to travelers to stay away this year. We have seen people arriving or trying to rent outside the area escaping the big city. Like the same issues up north with people leaving the big cities for less populated place we just don't want Sayulita to be a landing spot for people running and not isolating where they are from. Even worse making a holiday out of it while parking is good and the beaches are quiet because everyone else is following the stay at home guidelines. We chose not to go on our spring break trip for this reason. Just selfish in my opinion.
People have asked me about supplies. I have done some heavy shopping and Ashley has even been to Costco recently and all is fine. The supply chains for Puerto Vallarta, Riviera Nayarit areas are designed to support residents and tens of thousands of tourists. Well, most of the tourists are gone, many of the part time residents have gone home too so that is a lot of people who are not out shopping currently. Plus, a lot of people are out of work so not everyone is buying for the apocalypse. The only things we have seen that stores are sanitizers and wipes. Everything else seems to be in good shape for now. Mexico is just entering it's curve for infections so we will see how it goes from here but no problems to report currently as far as supplies go.
So, here we are for now but it is early and no one has tried to put anyone in a choke hold just yet. School work, Youtube, Netflix, board games and daily exercise have helped. I just got to kick this funk that I have and get my back to a good place so I can use this time to get fit again. Ashley is super motivated and moving daily which is good to see too. Oh, I turned 51 during this pandemic as well and will never forget it. Alex made me a cake. Only a gazillion calories and no one to come over to help eat it. One layer cake, one layer brownie, one layer cookie and home made frosting.
More updates as we get them. Our family's best to anyone out there who reads these occasional insights into our lives in Sayulita.
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