A big story recently was the Fyre (read: Fire) Festival, a music weekend in the Bahamas. Basically, a bunch of rich kids paid a lot of money and flew down for a festival that, well, didn’t really exist. The lodging wasn’t ready (they threw up tents on the beach) and nothing was in place – one girl even was quoted about the horror of no phone charging stations! Well, it was a little worse for me and a few of my college pals on Spring Break 2000.
I worked year round in college, barely went to bars or ate out and scraped by – most of my disposable income was to go to Spring Break. More because the other alternative was sitting in my empty frat house watching my roommate curse at Lara Croft from Tomb Raider and smoke Slim Price Lights. I could do that year round for free. I got asked to jump in on a trip to Cancun, all in one. I had enough cash and had never been to Mexico, so I was all about it. E Student Travel (.com) took my money and then the fun began.
A few days before we were to fly out, we found out there weren’t any plane tickets. We held out hope they were just late, but it turns out something more sinister occurred. These college booking groups figured a really high cancellation rate, so they overbooked, which is cool – as long as the cancellations actually happen. They didn’t in 2000! The day of, with no tickets and no refund, we decided to go to the sorority annex, crank the heat to 80, put on swimsuits and drink like fish. We were even putting on suntan lotion and sunglasses. About six hours into the “party”, the phone rang. A family friend in a legit travel agency found a way to backdoor stick the website with the airplane tickets, but we had to fly out of Pittsburgh and oops – we had to be there for a midnight flight and were all shithoused. A team of parents showed up and helped us get there, equally annoyed and entertained by this gypsy band of idiots too drunk to walk to gas station to get hot dogs, but who were now about to fly to Mexico at midnight.
We had a layover in Atlanta – the plane had engine trouble. We ended up being there for nearly 24 hours, hungover and without access to our luggage, which was all checked for the long trip. The greasy lotion made the duckbutter worse and I would have stabbed someone to brush my teeth. We did get two meal vouchers though, which is almost the same as lying on an airport floor with a tequila headache, unable to sleep due to the stifling heat and lack of human comforts.
We finally flew to Cancun and arrived after midnight. Our local guide was a young Mexican kid, very angry that we were late. He spoke fast and ripped us up and down for making him wait all day. Bad move. He almost got tarred and feathered, but he was also our lifeline. We shuttled to the Jack Tar Village, a five star resort. After a heated exchange, in Spanish, our guide returned to tell us there were no rooms. Our plane delay, plus the overbook, meant our rooms had been given to someone else. We asked him what the next step was. We went to another hotel, probably more like one star. The next step for him? It was to run full speed down an alley. Well, ain’t that grand?
There we sat, at a tiki bar on the beach in Mexico, our stuff piled into a heap, with members of our crew dropping like flies into beach chairs. A group of little kids ran up, grabbed some of our shoes, and scattered like the wind. This appears to be the theme of Cancun, we surmised.
Around 3 or 4 am, a very drunk man claiming to be a manager, with a mustache and floral button up shirt, unbuttoned of course, walked up smoking a cigarette speaking limited English. “You want room?” He handed one of us a key. “Oh wow! Thanks!” Without any reaction, he then said, “You just have to throw the guys in the room out. It’s yours.” I was attempting to pry the bar cabinets open before, but now we had a new fun game – assault the passed out strangers in a bizarre gringo survival match. After some debate, wiser heads prevailed. No good can come from charging a room like the Alamo.
Another drunk approached, this time an American college student. “The girls can use my shower!” No, I’ll go too. I didn’t really trust this guy, plus I really, really didn’t want to miss this shower. “No man, just the girls, I’ll watch out for them.” I bet you will, creep. I go, or no one goes. He finally let us all in and as a parting gift for him trying to be a peeping Tom, I left my two day old undies on his bathroom floor. Enjoy, scumbag.
So, now it was about 6 am in Cancun. I had slept about 2-4 hours since waking up Saturday, I had no underwear, and we still had no hotel room. KINDA WORSE THAN NO CHARGER, HUH FYRE FESTIVAL? To be continued…