Not Just Ants
by Jenn Lopez
I’m not going to lie. It was sooo very hot. We had arrived during the end of the rainy season, where the humidity sent temperatures around 40 degrees celsius plus for the first two weeks of our stay.
We spent four days fighting with the ants before we called it and moved to an Airbnb. Along with the ants, there was also construction of a several storey building happening directly off the patio that our VRBO host didn’t bother to mention. We let the VRBO host know what was happening and he said he’d charge us for the four nights we had stayed. Sounded fair enough so we agreed. Little did we know that he didn’t keep our current rate per night. He jacked up the nightly rate. Our four night stay was equivalent to over half the cost of our monthly stay. It was a hit, and we complained to VRBO but apparently there was nothing to be done. We will never again book with VRBO.
Our second home in Puerto Vallarta was beautiful. A few ants, and bugs, but when you’re in a jungle, expect a few bugs.
Edgar had gotten a heat rash and his arm blew up like he was the hulk. So during the whole ant thing, he was drugged on benadryl and tried his best to grease it regularly with aloe. Another fun thing that happened, was the evening before we were moving to our Airbnb. We went out for supper, since cooking in the ant place was a no-go and when we got home, we started to pack up our stuff and get ready for bed.
I usually charge my phone at night, so I went to get my phone and couldn’t find it anywhere. It’s one of those phone cases that also has your wallet attached to it… yeah one of those and it was nowhere to be found. Edgar tried calling it but we couldn’t hear it.
Thank god for find-my-iphone, because we could have wasted all night searching. When he said the words, I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. “Your phone is moving, and it's downtown Puerto Vallarta.”
My hands were shaking. What do we do? Wait, we had thought of something like this happening when we were home and prepared. Edgar called my phone over and over then activated the ping on the phone from the app. Meanwhile I was on the online banking app locking our cards. It took me probably three times as long as it should have because my mind and hands were not working like they should.
Eventually a lady answers my phone and it’s the uber driver that dropped us off earlier. She had gone home for the night and heard the phone pinging when she parked. She was willing to drive all the way back to us to give me my phone.
You’d think I’d be happy. You’d think the stress would be relieved, but no. It wasn’t until this lovely woman showed up with her husband and handed over my wallet explaining that we were her last ride of the night and nothing had been taken, that I collapsed on the side of the busy road, crying. Edgar pulled me up and I hugged the woman and thanked her over and over before collapsing again. Edgar gave her whatever cash we had as a reward as words couldn’t express how grateful we were.
Wow!! What a horrible thing to happen!! My credit cards, debit card, license, phone, everything gone in another country in one careless moment. But all my faith in humanity was restored by this kind, honest woman who didn’t even want to take our money when she did the hard thing and drove a half hour back to us in traffic after she had already ended her day.
Her actions, although most would say was the right thing to do, was actually the harder thing to do. She could have kept it or thrown it away, or even made me wait until she was around my area next. But instead she got aboard her car, at the end of her day and had to deal with a hysterical foreigner, hugging and thanking her in very bad Spanish.
Unfortunately not everyone chooses to do the hard things, but thank goodness this woman did. With Edgar’s arm on the mend, us moving to hopefully a better location, sans ants, and now my wallet and phone returned, things were on the up and up. I mean things happen when you travel. Things get lost, people get sick, places you stay are less than ideal, we knew in the 9 months we’d be traveling, things like this would happen. We just didn't think it would all happen within the first week. That said, we thought that while the beginning of our trip was rough, the worst was behind us. Right?