We arrived at our beautiful Los Cabos hotel (Club Regina) in the late
afternoon on Saturday, excited for our week of relaxation and poolside adult beverages. We had a nice dinner at the beautiful ocean
view resort restaurant, Inizio. The next
morning we went to the local grocery store to get provisions…well…snacks and
cocktail fixings mostly…and arrived to find the place in a flurry of activity
and no shopping carts to be found! After
standing around looking confused for a few minutes, another tourist said we
should be fine buying bottled water and candles. What? WHAT??
He then explained that a category 4 hurricane was bearing down on the
tip of Baja, and was due to hit that night.
Yikes! Well we figured we’d get
some rain and thunder later that night, so we didn’t freak out. Yet.
Back at the hotel, around 3pm, we received a call from the front desk
advising us to pack up our bags and be prepared to evacuate if necessary. Lalala…still not freaking, just a little
annoyed. At 6pm the mandatory evacuation
order was given to bring essentials only and come to the large meeting room (the
one with the huge windows overlooking the ocean – do you see anything wrong
with this picture?) When we arrived,
there were about 100 mattresses laid out with pillows and folded sheets for our
“sleeping” comfort. The hotel provided
dinner for us around 8pm. The next few
hours, people played card games, children watched movies on laptops, and we
were expecting it to be a very long night.
The rain and wind started picking up in earnest around 10pm, shaking and
vibrating the concrete building! Rain
started leaking in around the windows and some people started being moved down
to the basement while others made “forts” with the abandoned mattresses in case
the windows shattered. Then sometime
around 12am, they did! Evacuate the
evacuation room! Commence freaking
out!
We ended up in a stairwell, where we spent the next eight hours while
the hurricane ravaged the resort.
Between the two of us, we had one semi-horizontal position on a landing
and one space to sit on the concrete steps.
Needless to say, we were pretty ravaged ourselves by the time the winds
had stopped howling in the stairwell, sometime around 3am. That was the least comfortable stairwell we
have ever not slept in. Around 8am, we were
allowed to go, sloshing through the basement employee area, where we saw people
that had been crammed into offices, closets, and wherever they could fit. We were directed to the employee cafeteria
for a breakfast of fruit, scrambled eggs, sausage, and beans. Afterwards we went out to survey the
damage.
It was un-freaking-believable.
Our “evacuation room” was in complete shambles with broken windows all
around (even one that had been boarded up!), the mattresses covered in water,
debris, and bits of ceiling, not to mention ductwork. Outside was worse. Car windows shattered; big hunks of plaster
and stucco missing off the buildings; the grounds were covered with dirt, and everything
from fine pebbles to huge boulders that had come from the hills surrounding the
resort; plants and cacti that had been scattered in the wind, and on the lobby
steps, a poor little iguana that hadn’t made it through the storm.
We all stood/sat around in shock.
Several hours later, after the hotel staff had inspected the premises,
we were allowed to go to our room. The
sliding glass door to the balcony off the living room/kitchen area had held,
but there was about an inch of water on the floor. Also, even though the glass hadn’t broken, we
were amazed to see that the drapes had been sucked outside between the fixed
glass panel and the sliding panel, and had tied themselves in a knot! Amazing!
The bedroom was another story.
The big window was gone, broken glass all over the floor (along with
debris and water). At least the bed was
still dry! That was the best news
possible for us, and soon we were taking a much-needed nap. That evening, cell service was up for a very
short time, so we were able to let our families know we were unharmed.
Being built into the side of a mountain, the condos are set on many levels of very steep, spiral-curved roads, and normally offered “carritos” or little cars (golf cart-type vehicles) to take us around the resort. However most of them had been damaged, and the little roads were
covered in rocks and debris, and this meant getting lots of exercise! The next four days mostly consisted of
sitting in the open-air lobby area (three steep hills UP), which offered shade
and somewhat of an ocean breeze. The
main building was operating on generator power so the employee cafeteria put out three hot meals a
day, which were pretty good, but at the end got a bit creative out of
necessity. Lots of beans. There were also a couple of cell
phone/tablet/laptop charging stations set up, though still no cell service or
WiFi. Running water was sometimes
available, sometimes not (no electricity for the pump, so running water relied
on gravity to fill the supply and sometimes ran out) so showers were few and
far between, but it didn’t matter much since within a few minutes, we were
drenched with sweat again anyway. The
nights were miserable. With looting
going in the towns, we did not want to leave our front door open, so without
electricity/air conditioning, there was no breeze. Whatsoever.
It was like sleeping in a sauna.
Yet, the worst part had to be the lack of reliable information, or the
12 versions of the same story. Without cell
service/internet, we were at the mercy of those people who had heard something
from someone who had heard something from someone else, etc. So on Wednesday afternoon, after having seen
a few flights in the air (“Da plane! Da
plane!”), we packed up what luggage we would be able to carry on the airplane with us
(leaving easily replaceable items and one suitcase behind) and drove our rental
car to the airport to get our own information and hop on a flight if possible. When we got there, the line was so long that
it would have taken several hours (well after dark) and we were told that there
were no more flights going out that night anyway. So back to the hotel we went, where we found
a notice in the lobby from the hotel management that we (and our luggage) were
required to be at the lobby at 4:45am the next morning to be taken by bus to
the airport. Mandatory evacuation, under
orders of the Mexican Government.
At 4:30 the next morning (Thursday), still in the dark, we trudged up
the hills, lighted only by our cell phone flashlights, to board the bus to the
airport. We arrived at the airport at
about 5:30, astonished to find the line even longer than the previous
afternoon! It was easily one mile
long. The moment the sun came up around
7am, it was oppressively hot. There was
no shelter, no water (other than the bottles we brought with us), and no
toilets. We were eventually divided into
two lines: Mexican citizens, and others
(mostly Americans). We were told by
American Airlines representatives that there would be 7-12 planes coming that
would take us to either Dallas or Phoenix.
Yay! Then officials starting
coming down the line saying that if we wanted to go to Mexico City, to get into
another line. We passed on the
invitation, hoping to get to Phoenix.
However, about an hour later with no line movement, we were then
informed that there was actually no ETA on the American planes, and it could be
3-6 hours. Mexico City, here we
come! But…then we started hearing “for
Guadalajara, get in this line” and “for Monterrey, get in this line.” So we hopped out of Mexico City and went to
Monterrey instead (one of the first flights to leave that morning). We finally got off the ground at
10:30am. You would not believe the cheer
that erupted (ours included)!
Finally, in Monterrey, after rerouting our original return flight, we
ended up flying through Dallas into Los Angeles, and finally made it home
around 1:00am (Friday). Definitely not
our best vacation, but one that we will never forget!
We want to express our sincere thanks to the wonderful staff of Club
Regina, who gave up sleep, left their families, and in some cases even after
the loss of their own or their relatives’ homes, continued to take care of
us. They were truly amazing! We are looking forward to seeing the “new”
Club Regina, as most certainly, there is a lot of work ahead.
Our pictures are here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsk436JQh
