First of all the power of prayer kept us safe.
We had 6 days of beautiful blue sky, sunny, 33 degree weather for our Puerto Vallarta trip. It was Thursday when the topic of a hurricane came up. We took an excursion out of the resort to the Mega store (Mexican Walmart) to buy some snacks for our flight home on Friday. Upon entering the store, a man name Jesus (normal name in Mexico) was trying to sell us a fishing charter and amidst the conversation asked if we were buying supplies for the hurricane. We shluffed off the comment and said "no, we are buying supplies for our airplane ride home tomorrow with two toddlers". And we were on our way into the store of glorious produce and Mexican candy :)
Back at the hotel, we jumped in the pool and continued the norm of counting down for Enzo to jump into the pool and go down the waterslides. Then we see some grey clouds roll in and it starts to drizzle. The lifeguard blows his whistle and we were all to get out of the pool. It was 6pm, so about time anyways to get out, dry off and head down to the buffet for dinner. No big deal.
We arrive in our room and there is a sheet under our door informing us of Hurricane Patricia headed our direction and to stay calm and wait for further instructions. We enjoyed the rest of our night listening to the entertainment and headed to bed.
9am Friday morning, we are both in bed snoozing still, Enzo is watching Bubble Guppies. BANG BANG BANG, aggressive knocking on our door. I jump out of bed, open the door to a housekeeping lady who told me something in spanish and handed me another sheet of paper.
We need to evacuate the hotel as Hurricane Patricia is headed right for us. Pack your things, clean out your safety deposit box, pack pillows, blankets and sheets, come to the lobby where you will be bused out to Universidad del Valle.
Holy Crap.
First things first, I grabbed Kara's ipad and went on facebook to send a message to our families that we are being evacuated. Upon opening up facebook I see I have received a couple messages from my brother who is the ultimate definition of calm. His first comments are "I'm concerned..." and led into some research he had done on potential flight options out of Mexico. All which after looking into on his behalf were cancelled due to the hurricane. From these notes from Jeff I began to start to process the severity of hurricane Patricia. I sent a message to both sides of the family via facebook and included the University name that the note we received from the house keeper said we were being evacuated to so that they had some concept of where we would be.
We loaded up our suitcases with out belongings, 2 pillows, 2 blankets, and 2 sheets and headed for the stairs. There was no way I was taking the elevator at this time, so we huffed our stuff/stroller/two year old down the 6 flights of stairs to the lobby where there was a huge gathering of people already.
Chandeliers were being tied down, the fan blades were being taken off of the ceiling fans and then the general chaos of roughly 500 people and their luggage in one space ensued. Everyone was standing shoulder to shoulder waiting for busses to come pick us all up and take us away from the ocean. We stood for at least 2.5 hours in the lobby waiting for a bus. Each bus held 45 to 46 people. We were slowly grouped into airline groups. We flew down with Sunwest, so we gathered to the left of the lobby with the other 4 flights of people that flew with Sunwest. After 2.5 hours the sunwest buses showed up, everyone was pushing forward, true colours emerged. We made it on the second sunwest bus. At the front of the bus were two designated handicap seats, and the bus was 90% full so we sat there with Enzo.
Away we went, happy to be moving away from the ocean and the crowd. We had no idea where we were going or how long it would take to get there. It took us somewhere between 30-45 minutes to reach our destination, which in my mind did not seem very far away. Especially since driving was uber slow as there are speed-bumps at every corner. We passed gas stations packed with cars, and the streets packed with cars. Everyone was heading for the hills. I was so thankful for these Mexican sunswest employees that were not with their families but were taking us to safety.
We arrived at a university which had small roosters running around. The university was two buildings side by side, two floors. It was very small. We were taken to a room on the second floor. The room was tiled and had stacked chairs in it and windows on two sides of the rooms. And so the feeling of being in a refuge began. Our group of 6 people (Jon, myself, Enzo and our friends Ryan, Breanne and their two year old Taylor) headed for the corner of the room to claim our space with our luggage. It was sprinkling but there was no wind. We hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch and were running out of diapers. There was a steady flow of us tourist refugees to the corner store outside the university. Everyone was buying food, diapers, and whatever else they needed for the time being. They didn't raise the prices and were happy with their shop being bought out. So thankful for this little shop being open!
Time ticked on, we explored the grounds just to give our kidlets the opportunity to burn some energy and use their legs. We saw a horse, and kicked the soccer ball for a little while. Back to the room.
As people waited, the scene looked like this... Half of each room was full of their people, the other half of the rooms people were hanging out on the outside hallway balcony. Smoking. So many people smoking. The railings on the hallway balcony were horrendously unsafe. Huge gaps between the rails, and the railings were horizontal so it was perfect for small children to climb up like a ladder, or slip through like a chute. Mama Mia. Stress upon stress.
There were about 6 or 7 workers some from the hotel and some from who knows where, making tacos and delivering them to each room. Dinner, yes! Served early because the hurricane was coming. Each room held roughly 30 people. So thankful for the Mexican workers who were aiding us by cooking us food and not being with their families. I couldn't help but think that if this was in Canada I most likely would have ditched out of my work responsibilities to make sure my family was safe, but these people did not and I am so thankful.
We were getting updates that the hurricane would arrive at 3pm, This was still an hour away. We took the kids out to the center courtyard between the two buildings where they ran around happy as clams with all the other children in their croc's, diapers, and t shirts. Hurricane? What hurricane. Ignorance is definitely bliss.
In preparation for the hurricane all of the windows were being covered with packing tape in one big X across each window. This was to keep some of the glass together instead of shattering into the room on us. After the tape was put on the windows, plastic and sheets were put up over the windows, held up with weak packing tape. Again to try and stop shattered glass from coming in our room. We got told the blankets we had brought were not supposed to be used for laying on but to cover us when the winds come to avoid the potentially shattering glass. We were also hearing that Manzanillo has been hit.
We got an update that the hurricane would now arrive at 4pm and that we should be wearing shoes and socks. We were told Puerto Vallarta got hit really bad (poor information, this was from someone who was able to use their phone). Some sort of muncipal or official Mexican workers counted how many women, men, and children were in each room.
It was so hot in these rooms that we waited in. Especially with the windows now totally covered.
We got an update that the hurricane would now arrive at 5pm but has been downgraded to a stage 3 instead of a stage 5 hurricane, yay! An Italian couple offered their phone to us to make a call to our families. Jon called his sister Teresa and told her that we were okay and about the change in the hurricane stages, and also to update my family. Upon hearing a voice from home, I no longer could keep it together. Tears. Hugs from Jon. I love him so much. He is perfect for me. So thankful for him.
We got the warning that it would be here in 20 minutes, and this was your chance to go to the washroom, and that each classroom door would be closed for good until the storm passed. Our classroom door was the only door that would not stay closed and didn't have a lock. Thankfully we had a large 300+lb man that said he would sit on a table in front of the door to keep it closed. So thankful for him.
In our room we had a group of 6 Mexicans with one child, multiple elderly people, some young couples and our combined families of 6 with two 2 year olds.
My mind was trying to figure out how to best protect my boy from being cut from anything, glass, flying objects. His soft skin is so delicate, and I had images of bloody screaming children from other tragedies running through my head. Jon was trying to think of how he could best lay over Enzo so that he wouldn't die. These thoughts were not communicated until arriving back in Canada.
When the 20 minute warning was given, the idiocy of certain people arose. "What if I have to go out and have a smoke?" "What if I need to use the bathroom". Obviously they are clueless on the potential 249+ km/hour winds for the stage 5 hurricane Patricia (predicted bigger than hurricane Katrina) that was headed our way. Jon said to the guy "If you were in our room and you went outside for a smoke you are not getting back in our room." Opening the door during those winds can suck people (especially small 2 year olds) right out the door. Idiots!
Again our kidlets were happy as pigs in mud watching bubble guppies on the ipad. So thankful for the ipad.
Longest 20 minutes of our lives, this whole day has been waiting, but these 20 minutes were definitely the worst. The outside weather was grey and rain and a slight wind, but nothing aggressive.
And then.... it just never came...
The municipal workers that were coming to give us the updates came for the final update. They would speak to the Mexican people in our room and then one of the Mexican ladies from our room would try her darndest to translate to english for us. So thankful for her. She said in broken english, that we will not experience a hurricane but only a tropical storm. OMG HALLELUJAH. Seriously Halle-frickin-lujah. Hallelujah.
Well now we just had to wait until the morning when we would be shuttled to the hopefully undamaged airport to catch our airplane home. The workers brought us some cut up papaya, then an hour later, brought us some cut up watermelon, then at about 10pm they brought around cereal and milk only for the kids. Seriously these people are serving us, and they are not with their families, and I am so thankful for them.
Well we eventually buckled down for the night and laid our party of 6 in a row on top of all of the blankets. So hot. 30 other people also laying down for the night in one room on tile flooring.
Both kids finally fell asleep. Then we hear cheering and we were like seriously, people are partying instead of sleeping? Not cool.
Then another message.
The mayor of Puerto Vallarta drove out to our refuge and said "I just drove out here with my family in the car from Puerto Vallarta, there is no reason why you should stay here. You can go back into Puerto Vallarta and sleep at a resort." Hence the cheering.
This was good news as after 45 minutes on laying on tile floor I knew we would hardly get any sleep. More waiting. Waiting for the buses that were just called. Jon spoke to the organizer and asked if people with kids and elderly could be shuttled back before the rest. They said yes, great idea, and so the boys waited down stairs with all of our luggage and Breanne and I stayed with the sleeping kids up in the rooms until the buses came. I'd say about an hour and a half later.
Still raining, still hot, getting muddy we finally got loaded onto the buses despite some obnoxious people without kids, disabilities or being elderly. I think all of us had certain strangers we wanted to punch in the face for being so stupid or annoying but that's not the way to go about things...
Back to the resort we went, definitely went through some flooded streets, but saw no major damage on the roads.
We did not go back to our hotel but went to Riu Jalisco as they were a hotel that was willing and able to take people in. There were about 6 front desk people working their tails off trying to assign rooms to people.
We got our room number, then we were directed to a fold up table where the resort chef had a humongous pot of chicken soup, and sandwiches made. I was feeling barfy I was so hungry, and let me tell you this was the best chicken soup I have EVER had! So thankful for this chef and this food!
Up to the sixth floor we went to find our room, where there was one man running around opening up each room door for all of us. When we got in there, it was a weird experience, because like ourselves, the people in this room had been woken up and told to evacuate ASAP. Everything was left half used and awry.
A big turd in the toilet, razer blade in the sink, used make up remover pads on the counter. Personal paper work on the dresser. The king size bed mattresses were standing on their edge against the windows with a big wood dresser behind them. No blankets or sheets.
We went to work, took out the mattresses from behind the dresser, and pulled out the one blanket and 2 pillows we had brought with us from the refuge (thank goodness), and went straight to bed.
Enzo was a champ through this ordeal despite his rolling around and stealing all of the one blanket we had to sleep under that night. After waking up cold I told Jon I have no blankets, so we rectified that, and straightened the little gaffer out and wrapped all three of us together again.
Whew.
Up at 7am, the hotel had their buffet working! OMG I did not expect that, so thankful for these kitchen workers. Into another line in the lobby to wait for our bus, and there we transported to the airport and caught our flight home to home sweet home Canada.
The following days have been recuperating from the stress of the situation. It's hard to recognize stress until it's obvious because your baby wants to go to bed at 9:30am and sleeps for 3 hours and you do too.
Upon returning home I hear of both of our families praying for our safety and for the hurricane to go back into the ocean and away from land. My mom spread the word, she calls up her bible study girl friends and their church, and so the prayer chain begins. I swear my mom keeps me safe with all her praying.
The lyrics that resonate and repeat in my head after this experience is "The Lord is gracious and compassionate, full of mercy and rich in love".
I just am so thankful.
Hurricane Patricia, how you went from a stage 5-worse that hurricane Katrina-aiming right at Puerto Vallarta to a tropical storm is amazing, and I am so thankful.
So here come our adventures from Vancouver Island, Canada to Europe. Can you see the intrepidation in this quick last minute snap shot of the fam before we jump onto good ol BC Ferries to start out adventure? Look at us closely and you will see utter innocence of what is about to happen (Enzo, holding a dollar store bag of immediate pleasure type of objects or food) and tips and tricks with traveling with kids to a whole bunch of cool places including Paris 》Milan 》Finale Ligure 》Varigotti 》Noli 》Pietre Ligure 》Final Borgo 》Cinque Terre 》Levanto 》 Genova 》Gallipoli 》Ostuni 》Otranto》Bari 》Brindisi 》 Lecce. An adventure it shall be. We are hoping to experience the communities and people, progress in the Italian language, and make amazing family memories; oh, and eat delicious tomato salads, pasta, croissants and much much more!
