Whistler, BC

It’s about 4 p.m. on a bright sunny day in the spring. You’ve had about 6 or 7 good runs. You took a break for lunch at the crowded Roundhouse. You saw people sunning themselves outside the restaurant perched on hay bales. The air is pure and you feel both refreshed and a bit tired at the same time. You can feel the warmth of the reddened skin on your face. It has been a good day. Everyone you see seems to be enjoying themselves. All is right with the world for the moment. It is time for that one last run, the one that will take you right to the bottom of the mountain. As you make your way down the road that is the ski out you follow the gradual turns and notice the shadows of the evergreen trees. You are just minutes away. You know what to expect when you get to the bottom. The cool dudes and gals with their sunglasses are having a few cool ones outside of the Longhorn Pub watching the skiers as they make a few esses to slow themselves down and then there is that one last sharp cut that makes the snow or slush fly like a final touch to a glorious day. You ARE too cool for school!

The first time I ever set foot in Whistler was about 40 years ago in the winter of 1973. A friend I had met in Banff the previous winter who was from Toronto was out in Vancouver for a visit and we decided to check out the slopes 80 miles north. The road up to Whistler was pretty treacherous and it would be years before they really got serious about fixing the highway in preparation for the 2010 Olympics.

 

 

 

Back then most people were day skiers. By that I mean very few people stayed overnight. They would get on the road shortly after daybreak, drive for about 2-1/2 hours, on the hills by about 11:00 a.m., get in a half dozen runs or so, stop in somewhere for a couple of pints, head back to Vancouver as the darkness of night approached.

It was the real diehard skiers who owned or shared ski cabins back then. In later years some of them struck it rich when property values went through the roof.

We stayed at the Christiana Inn on that first trip. I remember that the room was very cold and there was frost on the floor by the windows. The window curtains were discoloured. The only other hotel I can recall at Whistler was the Highland Lodge. We skied for two days. There wasn’t much in the way of nightlife back then. The Boot (or Ski Boot?) was kind of wild and woolly place. A lot of the locals who worked on the lifts hung around there. The only other drinking spots that I can recall were two other joints, one that was kind of a cocktail bar around the corner from the Husky gas station that I think was called PJ’s and there was another place called Après Ski that was at the foot of the mountain.

The Husky gas station was kind of the center of things back then. I’m not positive but I think this was the spot where the bus from Vancouver dropped their passengers off. The train station was a couple of hundred yards away. Another place of note was Nester’s grocery store a few miles down the road.

I was kind of familiar with ski resorts having spent time working in St. Sauveur, Quebec and Banff and Jasper in Alberta. I was never an avid skier but more of a casual one. Skiing was mostly an every now and then thing for me although I did once go on a ski trip to the US that included Snowbird in Utah, Sun Valley, Idaho and Aspen, Colorado. I never had much style nor did I ever take any lessons. The skis I owned were Fischers. I was never totally comfortable with my ski boots on. They always hurt.

 

One of my early memories of skiing at Whistler is the number of times the chairlift would stop just before the last crest at the end of the line. Usually the stoppage was because someone down below had gotten tangled up trying to get on the chair. Back up at the top the chair would go up and down like a yo-yo for a few minutes. Once that stopped and that thrill was completed there was the long waiting for the chairlift to start up again. Then the cold brisk winds coming over the ridge hit you hard and you just couldn’t wait to get off the damned thing.

Over the next several years I moved around BC a bit and didn’t get back up to Whistler until about 1977. By this time things had changed dramatically. The Sea to Sky Highway (#99) was improved somewhat but it could still be a hairy road. Almost every time I drove up to Whistler I would see a close call in traffic or red flashing police car lights where someone had totalled their car. Mostly these accidents seemed to happen where two lanes merged into one and some goof thought he could squeeze in.

Whistler was starting to look like other more established ski resorts. The new place to hang out at night was the Keg restaurant. The mountain had a really long ski out. Sometimes it could get pretty slushy at the bottom of the hill and a few poor souls did a face plant in the icy slush.

Ski cabin shenanagans.

The land rush was on. New resorts opened up. Sharing a cabin with 20 or so other folks became more and more popular. The “Village” was still a few years away. I got married in 1981 and my wife at the time had been a cabin member previously at Whistler so we coughed up the fee for the winter season. We were living on Bowen Island at the time and for some reason or another we only used the cabin twice that winter. It wasn’t exactly a good investment.

A couple we knew bought a chalet near Alta Lake. I think they got the place for a steal as the previous owner was a lottery winner who was running out of funds. One summer weekend when we were up there for a weekend by ourselves I built the owners a coffee table. I wonder if it is still intact or was put to good use in the fireplace. I remember the owner of the chalet renting his place out for the summer and not being able to get the tenants out in the fall. Apparently he paid some nearby construction workers in cases of beer to help with eviction.

One summer weekend we were up at the chalet with a bunch of other people we knew and ended up spending the day at a beach on Alta Lake. Somebody had a wind surfer board and I asked if I could use it and was given the OK. I had done some sailing when I was younger but didn’t have much of a clue about how to use a wind surfing board. I ended up at the other end of the lake. I ditched the board and started on the long walk back to the beach. The easiest path was across the new golf course. I was carrying the life vest in my hand when I was approached by a marshal in a golf cart. “Excuse me sir, but are you playing golf?” he said to me with what sounded like a German accent. I thought the life vest might have been a clue. “Would you please leave immediately!” was the next thing he said. When I got back to the beach I found out that a search party had gone looking for me. I can’t recall who recovered the board.

My ex and a couple of pals.

My ex-wife and I skied up at Whistler about 2 or 3 times a year back then. She knew some people who had a lot of cash who were what one might call “the fast crowd”. One guy gave all his friends elaborate looking daggers one Christmas that were used to cut the ends off of champagne bottles. We often hit the disco at night. At the time there was an older guy who dressed himself up in a silver lame suit complete with a cape. He would toss out silver foil wrapped candies to people on the dance floor. Why I have no idea.

We once went to a wedding of a couple of my ex’s friends in Whistler. The wedding was catered by two European guys, Ted and Jan who owned a delicatessen in Whistler. I had met these two guys a few years before when I sold them a cash register for a lunch restaurant they were opening on Howe Street in Vancouver called The Scanwich. It never dawned on me that they were both gay. A number of years later Ted Nebbeling became the mayor of Whistler and went on to be an MLA.

We visited another couple my ex knew that had a chalet a few times. The only reason I am mentioning this is that I left a cigarette burn on their furniture not once but twice. The first time was while holding their baby and my cigarette fell off of the ashtray burning the dining room table. The second time I burned the living room coffee table after getting too stoned in the hot tub.

The last time I skied in my life was in 1987 at Whistler when I was 40 years old. I’m not sure if I quit because I didn’t want to press my luck and break something. I think it was also about the whole production, the long drive to the ski hills, getting the gear out of the car, putting the boots on, trekking hundreds of yards across parking lots to get to the chairlifts with skis over my shoulder, the long ride on the chairlift, the white-out at the top of the hill. Who knows?

Our twins were born in 1989 and even if I wanted to, buggering off to Whistler was out of the question. I’m kind of glad they didn’t get hooked on skiing at a young age because of the costs. My son did get into snowboarding in his mid-teens.

When the kids were about 3 and 4 years of age we took them up to Whistler a number of times in the summer. We stayed at the Lake Placid Lodge a few times. We went for a walk after breakfast one day and I told my ex that I would go and get the car that was parked some distance away. As I was walking back to the car I looked over my shoulder to see where they were and saw a black bear heading straight towards them. The thought crossed my mind that I might have to defend them. Fortunately it was a garbage bear and it past by them as if they weren’t there.

My ex and I split up when the kids were about 5 and over the next several years Whistler was where I would sometimes take them on summer weekends. We usually stayed at the Holiday Inn. We went to The Old Spaghetti Factory one night never to make that mistake again. The kids rang the bell at the top of the rock wall climbing thing and we often rode our bikes around the golf course. To be honest, I prefer Whistler in the summertime.

 

I have a friend who owns a condo in Whistler and I was invited up a few times. I had helped him out along with a sales rep who worked for me on doing some basement work on his house in Vancouver and as a reward he offered his condo gratis for a weekend. The sales rep brought his girlfriend. We got pretty drunk at Buffalo Bill’s one night and I took the liberty of telling my sales rep that he could do better than the girl he was with. I don’t think it went over well. I think New Orleans Is Sinking was playing when I told him.

 

Buffalo Bills became the place I would always end up in in the 1990s. The odd 40-50 year old gal could be found there unlike places like Tommy Africa’s. One winter weekend I brought my kids up to the condo. A deal was made that the guys could go out for the night and my pal’s wife would watch the kids. The next morning I remember taking my kids to a virtual reality kind of place that was very noisy and having about the worst hangover ever. I guess it was the price that had to be paid.

The last time I got really drunk in my life was at Whistler. My friend and I were up by without family and I ordered a round of shooters at Buffalo Bill’s. Nobody seemed into it and I ended up drinking most of them myself. That was 15 years ago and I haven’t been drunk since. On another night I kind of lost track of my friend and only found out that he had been tossed out of Buffalo Bill’s the following morning.

I hadn’t been up to Whistler for about 10 years until a brief visit early last winter in the middle of the week. My friend was doing a few touch ups to his condo and invited us up. Linda had never been to Whistler before. She went off and took a gondola ride on her lonesome. I took a pass on joining her. It was nice to see the snow but for me personally ski towns are now all about the memories of actually skiing and the nightlife. I’m a little too old now for both.

 

Thinking back about spending time in ski resort areas I have mixed thoughts. There is no doubt that the mountains wherever ski hills are located are spectacular. The amenities are always first class. I have always had some admiration for those that seriously enjoy skiing, the folks that just love powder. The way they have formed long friendships with others who are like minded.

Most who work at ski resorts are only in town for a year or two. Kind of like a pit stop in life before they have to get more serious and find a real job. A few decide to stay on permanently and become a part of the community. For many who are just there for a season or two they will never forget the memories of those perfect days and hazy nights.

Having said that, there is to me at least, always a kind of plastic artificialness about ski resorts. There seems to be a lot of posing. It is a place where rich people like to spend time and there are plenty of places that cater to them. If you want to buy some $10,000.00 sculptures or some expensive jewelry or spend a few hundred bucks on dinner or rent a suite for the night for a thousand bucks you won’t have trouble finding these things in most major ski resort towns like Whistler, Banff or Aspen. If you let it, you can become a bit overwhelmed by it all. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

I used to be a bit mystified about how really wealthy people could own property in a place like Banff considering that the town is in a national park. I also remember a number of years ago that almost every store in Banff had Japanese signs in the window when the Japanese economy was humming away and as soon as things went in the dumper for them the signs came down.

Today in Whistler it seems like more than half of the workers in town are Australian. Canadians dream of sandy beaches and bright sunshine in the winter and Australians dream of snow-capped mountains and cold weather I guess. Who knows?

If you don’t already know, Whistler has the longest ski runs in North America. Whistler is also rated at the top as far as ski resorts go. What you might not know is that it is a great place to spend time in the summer. The town has some really great golf courses and whether you are spending time there as a couple or as a family there are a lot of things to do and see.

If you are thinking of visiting Whistler I heartily recommend a condo that my friends Laura and Rory rent out year round at reasonable rates. The place sleeps 7 and is close to everything.

www.yourwhistlerhome.directvacations.com

 

 

As a matter of fact,….if you are looking for an affordable place to stay in Vancouver, minutes away from downtown, Laura and Rory rent out a very comfortable basement suite. They also rent out a gorgeous waterfront chalet on Lake Okananagan complete with a boat dock.

Tell them Colin sent you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mayan Riviera-All Inclusive

For many Canadians a trip to Mexico in the winter is like a pilgrimage to the holy land where god is this big bright yellow thing that shines in the sky. Some claim to have a deep faith in all that is bright and any talk of anything that smacks of ridicule of this far off land or its people should be written off as ignorance or the inability to adapt.

A number of years ago when I was single and in my fifties I would occasionally get into conversations on the net about Mexico and inevitably I would be told that to truly understand Mexico one had to stay away from big resorts and find more out of the way places where the locals were more natural (whatever that means) and hadn’t been influenced as much by the Yankee dollar.

My usual response to the above was that if one is really interested in rather simple people there are some blue haired old ladies and farmers in rural Saskatchewan that they could be introduced to. Try taking local transportation in Mexico and you will find that the locals don’t offer up the same smiles that they do when they are trying to extract some cash from you by selling you something or hopefully expecting a tip.

One thing that has always irked me when travelling is condescending tourists. We are all people and some of us have been luckier than others as to where we were born and raised. There is nothing cute about being poor and having to work 6 days a week at some lousy job that is leading nowhere.

I have been to Mexico over a dozen times. Linda has been there 6 times in the last 6 years and I have been 5 times in the same period. (The other year we went to the Dominican Republic.) We always stay at resorts because we like to lie around the swimming pool. Linda always has a book on the go and I am more inclined to have my headphones on while watching the passing parade. The rooms are always very nice and the food and booze is included.

We try not to over complicate things. We aren’t archeologists. We aren’t writing a book on socioeconomics. More than anything else we are in Mexico to break up the long days of winter on Vancouver Island where we live that offer us very little sunshine or bright colours.

This year we chose a resort that is part of the Bahia Principe chain. The resort is located on Mayan Riviera about an hour and a half south of Cancun by car. It is actually 3 resorts and as a guest you have access to all of the amenities provided by each resort, Coba where we stayed, Akumal and Tulum.



Walk to lobby and dining room.



Coba lobby.
 

After getting off the plane in Cancun, we found ourselves in an extended van along with two other couples from BC being driven to our destination and we arrived at about 7 p.m. in the evening. The first thing we noticed was the giant thatched roof above the reception area. It was about 4 stories high and quite impressive. We were offered a couple of margaritas while we were signing in. We were told that a lock for our room safe would be 5 bucks a day.

Coba main lobby entrance.

Lobby ceiling.

 

We found our room and within a few minutes our luggage arrived. We slipped into out tropical duds and made our way to the buffet dining room. We were told that there was a Mexican show that night that cost something like 15 bucks and took a pass. It was one of those been there, done that, kind of things.

Our Room.

One of the things I learned a long time ago about travelling to Mexico is to roll with the punches. It isn’t Canada. The warm weather and usually sunny skies far and away make up for any minor inconveniences.

For most of the first two days at the resort the skies were cloudy and there were some showers. We spent a bit of time at the pool in those two days and took a ride over to the beach. The resorts have a capacity of something like 6,000 people altogether (maybe more). There are close to 2,600 rooms.

On our 2^nd night we saw an excellent group of musicians that included a singer who was kind of an Amy Winehouse clone. An older duffer was out on the dance floor with his younger girlfriend and a stubby French Canadian guy with a cowboy hat couldn’t help himself and joined them as a threesome. The old duffer seemed to put up with it good naturedly. Later when the couple was seated the French Canadian guy asked the woman to dance with him alone. He kind of looked like he was pushing the envelope and not long after the couple departed. The singer said the band would be back the next night but they were MIA when we went back the next evening.

On the 3^rd night we spent part of the evening in a quiet lounge at another of the resorts. A Latin singer and organist were the entertainment and they were quite good. They did tunes like The Girl From Ipanema. We ran into some people from Vancouver Island at the lounge.

I know that there are many who like the music that is played at Mexican resorts but I am not one of them. It starts about 12 noon around the bigger pools and runs until about 11 p.m. near to the main lobby. Mostly it is a kind of driving beat with shades of disco and 1990s techno pop. Mindless crap mostly suited towards twenty somethings. In between the music the Mexican DJ is often screaming. We are told that we are simply not hip if we don’t turn up that night at some disco or other. Sometimes we would be exhorted to join in a game of “bolleyball” at the pool.

Most resorts have an “adult” or “quiet” pool where you can get away from the noise and quietly read a book without distraction if you care to. Not at this place. For starters the “adult” or “quiet” pool had an ice cream machine. From time to time a parent could be heard screaming at their kid(s) from across the pool. It may just be me but I am not fussy about seeing babies in diapers in swimming pools. I don’t care how much chlorine is in the water.

By 8 a.m. pretty well all of the lounging chairs around the pools had been reserved for the day with a book or beach towel placed upon them denoting that they were not available. After that the best you could hope for is to stretch out on the grass or try to marry up a pair of single chairs if you can find them and drag one of them over to the other. There are signs all over the place saying you can't reserve a chair but nobody pays any attention.

One of the pools in early morning.

Other than walking, the way to get from one place to another in a resort as big as this is to take a “train” which is basically like a larger golf cart pulling trailers with bench seats. The is a big sign on the trailers warning drunks of the dos and don’ts and absolving the resort of any responsibility should an accident occur.

Train?

Hotel Guests

People come from all over the world to the Mayan Riviera. There are a lot of Europeans and lots of Russians. The men seem partial to wearing speedos. Although the resort is on the Caribbean Sea, Canadians and Americans, who are the majority of the guests, come from both eastern and western regions of those countries. If you are into people watching this is the place to be.

The first thing you would probably notice is that many of the guests are really, really fat. (I am carrying some extra pounds myself.) I am talking about extra fat. It is as if every huge person from back home somehow managed to scrape up the cash for a trip south in the dead of winter to air the old body out.

The resort is family oriented which means there are kids of all ages around. At night in the lobby you can see the glow coming off of lap top screens and hand held devises, many of them being used by teenagers and kids even younger. Also by a number of adults. You don’t see a lot of family vacation bonding going on.

Most tourists are pretty friendly and capable of a short conversation which always includes the question “Where are you from?” A few are a waste of time trying to talk to perhaps because they are just anal or maybe distrustful in sea of humans.

You can kind of break the hotel guests down into groups. There are the Mexican cowboy hat types who can’t get enough of the watered down booze and who often like to party. There are the young fashionistas who are up date in the latest trends. Young gals in their twenties with short skirts ready for the disco and guys with leg tattoos and yellow sun glasses perched on their foreheads. There are the “first timers” who are totally blown away with Mexico and are of varying ages. You see people who have come down to attend a wedding on the beach. There are a few mothers who have had their young daughters hair dyed blonde and made into corn rows and you might be kind of tempted to tell the mothers that their kids just aren’t that special. Most people staying at the resort are over 60 years of age. If not Mexico now when?

Many French Canadians love the tropics. They tend to be cliquey and remain within their comfort zone. It is like they have transported their Quebec culture with them. Often if you try to engage them in conversation you find that they have little curiosity about English speaking people and make you struggle with the little French you know instead of speaking English which a lot of them know. Not the most sophisticated travellers I have met.

Most American tourists are fine. Occasionally you run into one who thinks the world revolves around the US.

The best conversation we had with a fellow tourist was with a gal in her late 20s from Toronto. Somehow I missed out on the fact that she was topless when we first parked ourselves next to her. Linda told me later. She told us that she had a black boyfriend from Nigeria and sure enough he turned up about a ½ hour into our chat. The gal was telling us that she was hoping to buy a condo back home and that she needed some more cash for the down payment. I suggested that her boyfriend might kick in and he rolled his eyes. It was kind of funny.

 

The tourists who really amaze me are the old gaffers. Some are hobbling. Between all of the noise and the extremely hot sun, and probably being on medication, somehow they manage to make it back to the plane home without having to be rushed to a hospital. Some of them look like they are just happy to be anywhere at this point in life.

Mexican Resort Food

The giant buffet in the giant dining room is hardly an advertisement for world hunger. Plates are stacked three times a day often with only half the food eaten. Bacon, which is deepfried is clearly the breakfast favourite. Mexicans have made an art form out of destroying the taste of food. A little bit of cilantro goes a long way if you know what I mean. Meat is usually doctored with some kind of spices and is often tough to chew. Seafood is a lost cause. Shrimp are mushy and overcooked. You need a chainsaw to cut through what is inside shellfish.

I found that I had to take 2 tours through the buffet area before putting something on my plate. Fresh fruit is always a good idea to keep the system flowing. It is hard to totally destroy pasta. Peanut butter on toast works. Some of the deserts were OK and they had really good ice cream. I never went near a hamburger or hot dog.

It is a bit of an adventure going to the buffet. Some butt in line if they see some food that has possibilities. Many are oblivious to others around them and it is surprising that there aren’t more broken plates on the floor.

The resort staff in the dining room are desperate for tips and you can tell that they are more than a bit disingenuous with their smiles. Often they tend to run around in a panic instead of logically going about their duties. Ask for a spoon and you might get it 10 minutes later. Ask for a drink and it could arrive within minutes.

Part of the deal at the resort is that you could choose 3 so called “ala carte” restaurants to have dinner at. We only chose one, a Japanese place called The Mikado. (I never was much of a Gilbert & Sullivan fan….never mind if you don’t get the connection.) We were led into a room that had seats that surrounded a grill. Our fellow diners were all French Canadians, a group of three couples and a small child with an ipod, and an older couple who sat beside us that were from Quebec who never mumbled a word during dinner. The worldly French Canadians stuck with spoons and forks and knives. I’m not sure if they took the chopsticks home as souvenirs.

Mexican/Japanese cook.

We tried to engage the French Canadians in a bit of conversation even mentioning that I was born in Montreal but that went nowhere and they resumed chatting to one another in French. I have pretty well given up on French Canadians. The sashimi was surprisingly OK as was the soup. The chef turned up and did his act of spinning the cooking utensils around in the air. Nothing that appeared that dangerous but a decent act just the same. Some rice and fresh vegetables were spread out on the grill followed by pieces of fish, chicken, and beef.  The latter out were portioned into chunks which made them look like stew meat. Did I mention that not a soul who worked in the place was Japanese? I passed on the prawns knowing that they were just going to be recooked. I also took a pass on the “mystery” fish. The chicken and beef were kind of passable by Mexican standards. I am glad that we didn’t bother with the other 2 ala carte restaurant meals.

Smoking.

You can’t smoke in the resort rooms, in the lobby, or the dining room, or on transportation. Other than that the resort is kind of a smoker’s paradise and I smoke. It kind of felt like the old days when you could smoke on a plane or walk around puffing on a butt in a supermarket.

I haven’t seen so many smokers in one place in years. You would see people coming out of the dining room with a smoke and a lighter in one hand ready to puff away. I saw an old guy smoking while he pushed his wife in a wheelchair.

Back in Canada you would probably be verbally assaulted if you displayed your smoking habit so openly. At the Bahia Principe any dislike for smokers was camouflaged. Not a place for brave anti-smokers to voice their opinions.

Fending off the hucksters.

There were two entrances to the dining room at Coba. One had a number of steps that led directly into the dining room and the other was an entrance way off of the main lobby. The latter had a number of time share and condo sales booths that you had to pass in the corridor. You were free game if you chose this route. The standard plan is to keep walking and ignore the hucksters. I got a few chuckles from them one day when I asked them if they would be interested in buying a condo in Victoria, BC.

A couple of good looking young Mexican gals patrolled the edge of the lobby. They weren’t your typical looking dining room staff. A few “kills” on selling condos and they could make a damned good living. Neither gal made eye contact with one another. I think the deal was that they couldn’t harass the guests but if someone engaged them at all…..that’s another story.

One morning, we were sitting out in the sun having a coffee (and a smoke) when we were approached by a dignified looking middle aged Mexican gent. He started to go into a pitch about some “privileged club” and Linda cut him off and told him we were in the middle of a conversation. Having spent most of my life in sales I, apparently, am more amused by sales BS than Linda. The guy asked us if we were Americans and when we told him he weren’t he went into a 5 point rant about rotten Americans including some court stuff. My guess is he had an ex-wife in the US who had sued his pants off.

Noise

If you like noise and lots of it, this is the resort to go to. Turn on the TV and almost every Mexican commercial involves screaming or loud voices. The announcers all sound like they were trained to do American tractor pull events. Make the voice deep and drag the word out slowly. “Waaaaaaaarner Brothers”.

All Mexican all-inclusives have a pool DJ and you can pretty well count on hearing “Oooha Ooh” at least 10 times a day. That sound ranks right up there with “In the hole” on golf broadcasts on US TV. I’m not big on guns but…

Directly across from our room was a fenced off area where they were building a kid’s water park. The fence was covered by some green fabric so it was hard to see what was going on. Every morning at 7:30 p.m. the chainsaws, circular saws, and hammers would get going. It went on all day. Aside from the DJ yelling at the activity pool from about 12:00 a.m. to about 4 p.m. there was also some dancing or entertainment going on near the reception area from about 7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. 5 year old kids dancing in the dark with strobe lights is not cute and probably the last place a single person wants to be.

The resort management, in their wisdom or lack of same, made a decision at some point that nobody would care if construction on the new water park went on to 10:30 at night possibly figuring that nobody would care when noise was already coming from the nightly deal near the reception area.

One morning at about 7:00 a.m., I could hear a kid crying and screaming from one of the complexes nearby. It wasn’t exactly the sound of morning birds whistling and chirping.

And then there was the one of the coffee cups in our room that had a chip in it. It was there for 7 days which made me wonder if they used one of our used towels to clean it.

All in all I don’t think the management could give a rat’s ass about any discomfort they put their customers through. It seems to be all about the money and moving the herds in and out.

When I got back to BC I read some of the reviews on the resort. One person wrote about finding mold in their room at the sister club across the highway by the golf course. Another wrote about stepping on a spider and all the little baby spiders running around the room.

Upside.

The water at the beach is crystal clear and schools of fish swim by. There are a number of pretty looking birds (orange, yellow, red) that make their homes at the resort. It is quite common to see long tailed critters that look a bit like racoons. You see iguanas everywhere and the occasional gecko. One morning we saw a creature that looked like it was part of the pig family. The grounds are well manicured and you can tell that you are right next to the jungle.

Beach

 

Ring tailed varmints.

Gecko.

Iguanas.

 

Tulum.

I had been to the Mayan ruins at Tulum about 15 years ago when I stayed in Cancun. Back then you could climb the steps of the pyramid but not anymore. Our hotel liaison person didn’t recommend Tulum as a place to see and suggested other ruins possibly because of a kick back. The going rate from the resort to Tulum and back was 75 bucks a head. Linda and I have never been adverse to taking public transportation in Mexico (it kind of gives you a local feel) and our trip to Tulum ended up costing us a total of 24 bucks for both of us including the entrance fee and transportation.

Tulum.

Tulum

Linda.

Tulum

Tulum.

 

Summary.

Did I have a good time? Yes I did. As I said earlier I always roll with the punches when in Mexico. I will be 66 in a few months and spending a week in Mexico and people watching along with the natural and unnatural beauty of the area is enough to break up months of grey skies in the winter on Vancouver Island. I’ve always liked an adventure.

Would I go again? Definitely not! Next year we’re going to Maui where things are a lot more peaceful.

Adios.

 

Puerto Vallarta 1980

The first time I went to Mexico was in 1980, about 33 years ago. The furthest south I had ever been was to Florida a year or two earlier. I chose Puerto Vallarta partly because I had seen the movie The Night of the Iguana with Richard Burton and read the stories about Liz and Dick in Mexico in the newspapers and it seemed like an exotic place. The movie was made in 1964 and by 1980 the town had grown a lot but it still had the feel of a undeveloped tourist destination.

There weren’t a lot of high rise hotels back then. The biggest hotel was probably the Holiday Inn at ten or twelve stories. It was a common sight to see the locals washing their laundry in the creek by the “new” bridge. Donkeys loaded with firewood could be seen being led through the streets. On Sundays the local men would get their shoes shined and take their families for a stroll along the waterfront after mass.

Donkeys

Shoe shine guys

City square with Catholic church

 

I made my trip plan to Mexico with a Vancouver travel agent. I probably went about it a little differently than most others. I wanted to drive down to San Diego and catch a plane to Mexico from there. This is pretty well what I ended up doing except that I caught a plane from San Diego to Los Angeles before catching another one to Mexico.

I left Vancouver around the third week in January. I was driving a chocolate coloured Camaro at the time.  It took me about 2 days to get to San Diego. Mostly I travelled on the coast highway, route 101, through Oregon and California. I ended up at a giant motel in La Jolla that had over 100 units.

I can’t recall much about the road trip south other than seeing the waves crashing against the shore. I know I heard the Spinners singing Working My Way Back To You and the Pina Colada song a number of times on the car radio. I also got a speeding ticket in Northern California.

Speeding ticket from California

The plane landed in Puerto Vallarta and a young guy who worked at the hotel I would be staying at, the Playa Los Arcos, greeted us. On the way into town he told us the dos and don’ts about vacationing in the tropics. When we got to our hotel I was a bit surprised that the front desk was open to the elements and that the building didn’t have glassed windows but had shutters. The hotel was only three stories high. It had a plain looking swimming pool and a gate that led to the beach.

Playa Los Arcos

Playa Los Arcos swimming pool

In the week that I spent at the hotel the weather wasn’t that great with only a few bright sunny days. I remember seeing stewardesses stretched out on the beach chairs trying to get a few of the evasive rays of sun. The Hotel was not an all-inclusive and I had to fend for myself as far as eating was concerned. I ended up with a case of the Mexican trots or whatever they called it and spent a fair amount of time reading in the bathroom. Bottled water wasn’t as prevalent at it is today.

Crappy weather day

I read about a book a day that week. One was an abridged history of Mexico. Man those people revolted a lot. Sometimes I would be up in the middle of the night reading. Up on the ceiling there appeared to be things that looked like wads of gum. It took me a bit of time to realize that those wads of gum moved about. I never did figure out what they were. I almost freaked out when I saw a gecko disappear behind a heavy mirror on the wall in my room.

I checked out a local nightclub called the “City Dump”. There was a short line-up to get into the place and they seemed to let the locals in and any single women. After waiting for about an hour I was finally allowed in the joint and was surprised to find the place wasn’t crowded at all. I figured it out that they had some kind of deal going on where the locals had a better shot at the single “Gringo” women if the Gringo men were left waiting outside.

I ran into the local guy who had given us the lowdown when we arrived at the airport. Not knowing a soul in town, I offered to buy him a drink when he recognized me. He ordered a Courvoisier cognac. He later told me he spent his nights sleeping on whatever rooftop he could find. He didn’t have 2 pesos to rub together but apparently had discerning tastes in alcohol when some tourist was buying.

Air cooled VW

Back then they had the parachute rides off of the nearby pier. It didn’t seem like the way I wanted to end my life so I just watched. The beaches were always crowded and you could drag a lawn chair from the hotel pool down to the beach if you cared to.

I hung out with an American gal at the beach for a day or so but that never went anywhere. I remember another American gal who was into yoga. She did a kind of handstand thing not knowing that part of her pubic hair was sticking out. There really wasn’t any acceptable way of letting her know.

I had brought my tennis racket with me but never noticed any courts around. One day I asked a taxi driver if he knew where there were any tennis courts. “Sure” he said. He took me for a long drive out in the jungle and when we got to our destination the place was padlocked. It was a complete waste of time and cab fare.

I watched the Super Bowl in a bar with a number of Canadians and Americans. The TV picture would disappear from time to time. The windows in the joint were covered up to make it easier to be able to focus on the TV. The Piitsburgh Steelers beat the L.A. Rams 31-19.

I checked out the local popular watering hole and hang out, Carlos O’Brian’s. Beer in a pail of ice. What a concept! I never could figure out why Corona is such a popular beer. It seems like it is pretty watered down stuff. Maybe it is the lime wedge?

Carlos O'Brian's

I got to the point, what with spending so much time in the bathroom, that I started to buy canned juices and packaged cookies. I didn’t have any faith left in chowing on the local cuisine. The funny thing is, out of all of the trips I have taken to Mexico, this was the only one where I had back end problems.

When the week was over I caught a taxi out to the airport. I was standing on the tarmac with the other tourists when a well-armed federale approached us. He asked me “You pack a knife?” I thought about saying “Not today Jose.” but thought the better of it.

I got back to La Jolla, California at about 11 p.m. in the evening. My taxi driver was a flustered British guy. When we got to my motel where my car had been stored we discovered that the place was shut down for the night and that there wasn’t anybody around except a security guard who was no help. To top it off there was a Shriners convention going on and it was very hard to find a motel room anywhere. We drove from one place to another without any luck. It was about 3 a.m. before I finally found a vacant room.

The next day, after recovering my car, I decided to check out the San Diego Zoo. I must have been sleep deprived because almost all of the photos I took of the animals were out of whack. I also went to Disneyland in Anaheim.

It wasn’t a perfect trip by any stretch of the imagination but it was interesting never the less. In few days we will be going to the Mayan Riviera for a week. It will be our 5^th and Linda’s 6^th trip to Mexico in the past 6 years. Linda went to Cabo twice last year. Apparently that first trip, some 33 years ago, didn’t scare me off.

 

Golf

I’ve played golf for about 45 years, badly. Over those 45 years I’ve hacked my way down fairways from Webhannet in Kennebunk Port, Maine to Crown Isle on Vancouver Island and as far south as a golf resort in Innisbrook, Florida where the sight of alligators is not uncommon. I’ve seen a herd of deer come out of the woods at Upper Canada Village in Ontario, strolled a course in Saskatchewan with sand greens and small cacti where you stuffed your green fees into a mailbox kind of thing on the honour system.

Innisbrook Golf Course, Florida

To me, golf courses are some of the more beautiful places on the planet. A regulation par 72 golf course takes about 3-1/2 to 4 hours to play and being with others in a foursome for that amount of time you get to know a bit about who you are playing with in ways you might not ordinarily pick up on.

Something like 1% of people who play golf rarely break 100. When you consider that most professional golf tournaments are won by a pro who finishes the four days under par (72 is par on most courses for 18 holes) you kind of get the idea that is a fraction of that 1% who are the crème de la crème and even they have really bad days.

Before starting my golf stories let me get a few golf jokes out of the way.

Why is it spelled G-O-L-F? Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden.

Why is it called “golf”? Because the “F” word was already taken.

When I was a kid in the 1950s, I used to caddy at a golf course in the well to do district of Montreal called Hampstead. Hampstead Golf Course was a bastion for white Anglo Saxons. For a number of years there was an unwritten rule in the community that houses were not to be sold to people who were Jewish. While caddying it wasn’t uncommon to overhear anti-Semitic jokes. In the early 1960s, the golf course was bulldozed and today the Town of Hampstead is mostly Jewish including the mayor. Revenge is sweet I guess.

We used to sit on a bench amongst a grove of trees several yards away from the pro shop on hot summer days waiting sometimes hours on end for a golfer to come along and say he needed a caddy. Sometimes the whole day would go by with nobody looking for a caddy and we would take the long walk home dejected but still found ourselves back on the bench the following morning. Every now and then some older boys would turn up and let us know in no uncertain terms that they were first in line. The going rate for a caddy back then was about a buck for 18 holes. I’m not sure if we should have been admired for our persistence or pitied for being gluttons for punishment.

Back in the 50s nobody wore a bicycle helmet and if you were thirsty on a hot summer day and not close to home you simply got a drink of water from the garden hose tap at the side of someone’s house. It shouldn’t be surprising that there was something on golf courses back then called “shagging”. Shagging was chasing around and picking up the golf balls that a golfer was driving off a practice tee. There is a reason that driving ranges today have covered carts that are used for picking up practice balls. I think I got winged a few times back then. At least an ambulance didn’t have to be called.

One early evening I was out shagging golf balls for some guy and at the dinner table that night I told my father that I had made a fairly quick 50 cents shagging balls for a guy named Ben Hogan. I could easily be duped at that age.

Ben Hogan

I bought some golf clubs when I was about 21 years old. I had 3/5/7 and 9 irons, a putter and a driver. The first golf course I ever played on was a 9-hole place called Grovehill which was near Dorval on the west side of Montreal Island. I remember hitchhiking there. For some odd reason I found that the most comfortable way to swing a golf club was to do it cross handed. Over the years this type of grip was commented upon more times than I care to remember. I once had a guy in Kamloops who had finished in the BC juniors close to the top of the leaders list try to help me change my grip but it just wouldn’t work. I am stuck with it.

 

A few years later, I was living in Toronto with two roommates who I had gone to high school with in Montreal and they were both into golf. A lot of English speaking young guys had moved to Toronto and for a few years there was kind of an unofficial golf tournament for ex-Montrealers. I remember seeing rats as big as cats near the Don Valley Golf Course. I also remember seeing one guy throw his ball over some trees so that it landed on the green.

I moved on to Banff and played the course at the Banff Springs a few times. Once I nearly brained some old ladies on a park bench nearby with an erratic tee shot. Golf and I were not simpatico. I like the game but I’m not very good at it. My cross handed swing didn’t help any. I don’t think I ever played golf more than 10 times in any given year.

 

I finally settled in the Vancouver area and tried my hand at golf again. I knew people who were really into the game and found myself playing with them on mostly public courses in and around Vancouver. Fraser View, Langara, Musqueum and other courses like Green Acres, Hazelmere, and Country Meadows. I even went across the line to Washington State to play a few times. I never progressed very much. Occasionally I would hit a decent shot or have a nice putt and that seemed about all I could hope for.

 

One summer I went down to Lake Okanagan to visit a friend at his country place and we ended up playing golf at a beautiful course near Vernon, BC called Predator Ridge. It was a brutally hot day and the course was a bit on the hilly side you might say. I was really struggling in the heat and shanking a lot of shots and I could see that it was throwing the other guys off a bit. When we got back to the clubhouse I made the decision to forget golf for a while. I didn’t touch a club for about 5 years.

 

I was a businessman in Vancouver and from time to time I would get freebies like tickets to the Vancouver Molson Indy and the Canucks. Once I even got floor seats to a Vancouver Grizzlies-Seattle Supersonics basketball game in Seattle including dinner. I wasn’t a big golf fan but did take advantage of yet another freebie which was tickets to see the Greater Vancouver Open golf tournament at Northview Golf Course in Surrey, BC.

My supplier was in the paper business and they set up an entertainment tent on some scaffolding near the 18^th hole.  I saw more than a few chunky guys who were in the printing business work their way through the buffet and booze bar.  Mostly we just hung around the 18^th hole if we ventured away from the tent.

 

 I saw some of golf’s greats in the early 90s. People like Mike Weir (he won his first pro tournament at Northview) Sergio Garcia, Mark Calcavecchia, Rory Sabatini and the late Payne Stewart. The road up to the clubhouse at Northview is now called Payne Stewart Drive. It is a beautiful course but unfortunately the skyline is spoiled a bit by power lines.

Just for the record, Dow Finsterwald won the British Columbia golf championship in 1955. Dow Finsterwald. Now there’s a name.

I started to dabble at golf again in the late 90’s. I was hardly anything more than a dabbler at any time in my life. Around 2005 I sold my business and retired to Vancouver Island. I played golf a number of times with my son. One weekend he brought some friends over to the Island and we played a nifty executive course called Arrowsmith about an hour away from where I lived. A few years earlier my son had caddied for me on the same course and he kind of slowed things down by hunting for turtles in the ponds.

My son has a friend named Lucas who is kind of a slight looking guy with a wry sense of humour. One weekend my son brought his friends over to play golf. Lucas hit a nice tee shot over the water and I followed him with a drive that ended up within feet of his. “Looks like you are in Lucas country.” Lucas said to me. Priceless!

16 year olds at Arrowsmith Golf Club, Lucas putting, my son Dean in blue.

Vancouver Island has some really great golf courses. Olympic View is impressive in Victoria. Morning Star and Glengarry are two really nice courses near Qualicum Beach. Crown Isle up Island in Courtenay is as good as it gets. The clubhouse even has a cigar room that overlooks an antique car collection.

 

For the past few years I have played on an executive course called Winchelsea View that is close to where I live. From the back nine you can see the small Winchelsea Islands below. Last year my girlfriend gave me my first Big Bertha. I always was and still am a hacker but every now and then I can put 2 or 3 shots together in a row. I’m still cross handed but…I can whack that little orb over 200 yards once in a while. My girlfriend joins me on the course now at least once a year and I have pointed out that I’m not the best guy to get tips from, but she continues to ask.

Linda swinging away.

 

Winchelsea View Golf Course

 

Winchelsea Islands in distance.

So…what do I know about golf other than that I generally suck at it?  Well I know it is great way to spend a sunny day for a start, a decent way to get some exercise. I know that most golfers have a weakness to their game. Maybe they have a tough time with their putting or short game. Maybe they have trouble with a hook or a slice. For some it is just focussing. No disrespect (well maybe) but I have come upon more than one golfer over the years who thought he was a lot better at the game than he actually was.

I’ve always like the idea of turning up at a golf course and joining complete strangers for a round. You meet some interesting folks out on the links. Last year I turned down the opportunity to share a joint with a guy I was playing with even though we were about the only 2 people out on the course. For some reason, on this particular course during the week, if it gets really really hot out nobody turns up for a round. Or maybe it is that the green fees are slightly higher than other places?

Years ago I played golf with a British guy who was a very good golfer. He told us that shortly after coming to Canada that he was hanging out in a pub and someone asked him if he would be interested in washing windows. He ended up starting a business washing windows on some of Vancouver’s largest buildings and had become so successful that he spent most of his time playing golf.

Another time I was playing golf with another British guy and his son. The other person in our foursome was a young guy in his early twenties with a bad temper. He would curse and yell when he screwed up a shot and there were quite a few screw ups. Finally around the 6^th hole the British guy took him aside and told him that he would have to ask him to leave if he persisted with his behavior. The little chat seemed to straighten him out.

Golf, almost more than any other game is about etiquette. Most that play the game are aware of the dos and don’ts. Unfortunately, there are some that are oblivious to anyone other than themselves.

One day, my son and I were playing golf with a padre. I can’t recall his denomination. He was only going to play the first nine holes. Around the 2^nd hole he got into some religious stuff and I pointed out to him that I am an atheist. I told him that he was welcome to have a crack at my son for the next 7 holes if he wished but that we were cut from the same cloth and his chances would be slim. Nobody was converted that day.

I have a friend who watches a lot of golf and I used to tell him that I didn’t get watching golf on TV. Now I find myself watching the same stuff. There is something kind of soothing listening to that Irish lilt from David Feherty. Oddly enough, for such a cheerful guy, apparently he has had a long battle with depression and alcoholism.

About 10 years ago you could see old Bobby Jones short golf instruction movies on TV every now and then. They were made in the early 1930s and are truly amazing in that a lot of the tips Mr. Jones offered way back when are still relevant today.

Bobby Jones

I remember the good old days when Palmer, Nicklaus, Player, and Trevino were ripping it up. When Tony Lema died in a plane crash When you would see names on the leaderboard like Dr. Cary Middlecoff and Julius Boros. Chi Chi Rodriquez pretending his putter was a sword.

Tiger had his run and now there are guys like Adam Scott, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Steve Stricker and a lot of others are giving him a run for his money. What is in your head has a lot to do with being the best and my guess is that Tiger is still working on that.

Today, women’s golf is clearly dominated by women with Asian backgrounds for some reason.

Let me add a little comment about the US Masters. First of all the word “Masters” isn’t a particularly good choice for a tournament in the deep south. Secondly, why do the caddies at the Masters have to wear overalls? Aren’t we a bit past that kind of stuff? And thirdly, last year the Augusta Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia where the Masters is held, invited 2 women to join the club. Is this really what one would call opening things up for women?

In closing, let me add on a list of some of the great golfers who have come from Canada. As Canadians, we sometimes like to point out that we have accomplished a few things.

Mike Weir…won the green jacket.

Stephen Ames…making a come-back this year?

George Knudson…once served him dinner at the Banff Springs Hotel.

Gary Cowan…forever the amateur.

Dave Barr

Jim Nelford

Moe Norman

Stan Leonard

Richard Zokol…Disco Dick.

Al Balding

Sandra Post…I think I once ran into her in a bar in Vancouver.

And not to forget a guy named Gord Lariche who once told me in the 1960s in Montreal about hustling golfers in Texas and ending up with a new Avanti sports car. Then again that might have just been a BS story like many others told out on the links.

Fore!