BOU AVENUE
Huatulco Day 1
My good friends, Scott Warner and Marcella Pesiri, got engaged last year and decided to have their wedding at the Dreams resort in Huatulco, Mexico on 4 May 2009. A large contingent of family and friends made plans to attend the wedding and also enjoy a week of fun and relaxation at the luxurious resort. As the travel date approached though, an outbreak of the H1N1 virus in Mexico threatened to derail the entire wedding. Quite a number of people cancelled their trips, but over forty of us were willing to accept the risk of infection to attend what we all hoped would be a fabulous wedding. Besides, I paid a lot of money and went to a lot of trouble to get the time off to attend this wedding. I was not about to let some over hyped flu virus spoil my travel plans!

My wife, Kelly Bou, and I arrived at the Calgary International Airport early on the morning of 1 May 2009 to catch our flight to Huatulco via Mexico City. We were soon joined by eleven other wedding guests who were catching the same flight. Not surprisingly, the hottest topic of conversation was the virus outbreak, but I was more curious about what Mexicana Airlines was going to serve us for breakfast during the flight. Once we were in the air, I was delighted by the fact that the airplane was only half full and that I could stretch out comfortably during the 5-hour flight to Mexico City. Breakfast was not entirely bad, but it hardly lessened my antipathy toward airplane food. When we arrived at the Mexico City airport, most passengers donned surgical masks as they disembarked from the plane. There was a general sense of uneasiness made all the more palpable by the hot and stuffy air at the airport. To make things worse, gate information at the airport was thoroughly confusing, and we ended up taking a rather convoluted route to get to our connecting flight. Along the way, we hooked up with several more wedding guests coming from elsewhere, and that was followed by another round of virus-talk.

The flight to Huatulco from Mexico City was fairly short, and the H1N1 virus was largely forgotten by the time we landed.  Scott and Marcella, who had arrived earlier in the week, greeted all of us at the main lobby of the resort, and there was already much merriment and celebrating.  After checking in, we all had dinner at the outdoor patio where a Mexican buffet was laid out.  There was also some entertainment in the form of a mariachi band, some traditional Mexican dancing, and an amusing "macho man" contest which showcased Jeff Warner doing some pretty silly things (see Day 5 for more details).
Talk about urban sprawl! The plane arrives in Mexico City.
I didn't bother wearing a mask--much ado about nothing in my opinion. Most people have surgical masks on while walking through the airport at Mexico City.
I wasn't allowed to take photos on the tarmac for some odd reason. The wedding guests board the bus at the airport in Huatulco.
It's Mexican Night on the main patio below. Kelly has a glass of wine at the exclusive lounge on the sixth floor of the resort.
That's a rather odd way of serving drinks! Some traditional dancers balance bottles of tequila on their heads.
Click here to go to Day 2.