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Being Freelance means occasionaly writing articles that are not required. These are a few, articles that no one wants! So if you own a magazine and want to use them, let me know. PENNYPINCHING IN MEXICO!
A true story "We're going to Chechen Itza the Mayan City in the jungles of Mexico." I told our new friends at the Blue Bay Village, an all-inclusive holiday complex in Cancun, the 'jewel' of Mexico. They had already been there and were able to offer advice.
"Don’t go on the official tour - that costs £45. It's only £5 return on the public bus."
'Well', we decided, there is a big difference between £90 and £10; it's worth a try. We settled back to enjoy the sultry evening in this idyllic place. The fairy lights glittered around the pool and the 'free' drinks flowed and flowed again.
"Dos returno to Chechen Itza." I said in my best Spanish. It must have been good because the clerk handed over two bus tickets and pointed to the correct bus. We climbed aboard and settled into the seat, it was comfortable and air-conditioned; we had obviously had good advice. The journey passed pleasantly with the lush jungle passing us on both sides as we sped along the well-maintained highway only stopping at the tollbooths on the way. The journey lasted two and half-hours and we arrived at this famous tourist destination.
Being on an all-inclusive holiday, we tended to carry little in the way of cash and after paying the entry fee and for refreshment, there was not much left.
"Stop buying things," my wife, Rose, commanded as the time to leave drew close, "we’ll have no money left."
"It's alright," I replied, “we have return tickets. I'll just get this painted native mask and glass pyramid, and then we'll go." The place was about to close, so we made our way to the exit, as did the other tourists. Outside they all climbed aboard their tour buses and we waited in the queue for the public one, 'What mugs' I thought looking at the tourists in their overpriced tour buses. "You need return ticket," said the ticket collector looking disdainfully at my proffered offering. "These are return ones." I said. "No they're not," he said looking at the queue stretching behind me. "Next!" "But we have to get the bus," I insisted. "Not this one, you try next one, it cheaper anyway, Next!" He wasn’t going to change his mind and it didn't matter how cheap it was, we had no money.
"You can have my watch and credit card until we get to the cash point," I said looking through the door imploringly at the driver whose knowledge of English was on a par with my knowledge of Spanish. There was a great hiss as the brakes were released and the bus drove off.
The bus station was becoming quiet, the old woman in rags with the piece of cardboard saying, 'my house has burned down and my children have nowhere to live, please give me money.' Had changed into nice clothes and driven off in the smart car that was hidden around the corner.
We joined the only remaining queue. It included people with boxes of live chickens and a goat! The bus was different, the windows were open and the occupants included animals of all description, now I knew why it was cheaper.
"Go Cancun, I pay at other end, you keep card." I said in my best pigeon Spanish and offering the driver my gold card. I got that same look that said, 'I don’t know what you're talking about, but I'm not interested anyway.'
Now we had problems, we were in the middle of Mexico in a place that closed for the night with no habitation nearby and was probably extremely haunted by the Mayan virgins that had been chucked into the nearby water hole. Rosemarie was sitting on the footpath in tears. But wait! One last chance, there were a few taxis left with the drivers talking together prior to going home, why didn't I think of that earlier?
"How much to Cancun?" I asked the nearest driver. He told me, and after a little mental arithmetic, I calculated that he was asking for nearly £300.
I went back to Rosemarie who was now in the sitting up foetal position rocking back and forwards and anticipating a night in the jungle with wild animals, big insects and ethereal Mayan virgins who would not be too happy about being sacrificed. I was about to tell her to find a comfortable bush as my pride did not allow me to pay £300 for a taxi when we were joined by an ancient Mexican. He offered to take us for £100 in his antiquated and battered Nissan Bluebird taxi.
I thought about it, looked at my wife and agreed and we climbed in. The journey was exciting, because on that money, he couldn't afford to use the nice toll road; we had to travel on the rough jungle roads, a journey of over four hours!
Every few miles we were stopped by a contingent of the Mexican army who searched the car from top to bottom. As they did, we stood on the roadside listening to the myriad sounds of the jungle and looking at the rough open fronted Mexican houses, each one with the friendly glow of a colour television coming from within.
Eventually we reached our destination and Rose was held hostage whilst I went to the cash point to get the money for the driver.
"Well, was it cheaper?" asked our new friends as we joined them in the bar.
"Well, yes and no," I replied, "we spent about ten pounds more but had an unforgettable experience, it was quite exciting really."
"You speak for yourself," said Rose darkly, still thinking of the big animals, insects and ghostly Inca virgins at Chechen Itsa in the Mexican jungle. "Next time I will look after the money and sort out the transport and you can just leave the wooden native masks and glass pyramids were they are."
We were back in civilization, bar staff noisily made tequila slammers, a Mexican quartet played and the late night buffet was set out. 'It was good fun I thought', but this time I kept the thought to myself! Copyright Paul Hurley
January 2007
Words 1,000 Cuba. Sunny Climate and Sunny People Spain, Portugal and the Canaries. The usual foreign holiday destinations for the settee bound Corrie watching and kebab eating Britons. Why not flaunt the flab at a more exotic destination? Why not go to Cuba?
Cuba has reinvented itself, but still remains one of the only representatives of pure communism worldwide. After the USSR folded, their main support was pulled away and they had, for the first time since 1959, to stand on their own feet. With a superb climate and blue waters, the obvious choice to make a few bob was tourism. They picked a far away coastal bit of the island to set up a holiday resort from scratch; they called it 'Varadero' after a Honda motorbike, or was it the other way round?
It must be admitted however that they had some hurdles to cross to get there. Money was not one of them. Eventually they will be allowed back into western society, and so investing good western money is not a bad risk. Unless you live in the USA, they are still banned from investing. The investors had to work around an infrastructure so run down and neglected as to resemble England in 1945. So far, it has gone well but there is further to go yet.
Let us look at a Cuban holiday through the eyes of a typical British couple, us.
Wishing for something different, we booked a week in Cuba at the Gran Hotel in Varadero. The tickets arrived, we were to fly with 'Cubana' the national airline of Cuba, and it was a scheduled flight into Havana after which we would board a bus for the remainder of the journey to our hotel. From Manchester we would fly to Gatwick to collect the rest of the passengers, and then on to Havana, it sounded all right.
The plane was a Russian Antonov or some such name, either way; the interior was lined in pink melamine. Barry Bucknell would have been proud to have it on his DIY programme in the 1950s. It was packed, every seat was taken. The plane may have been old with second hand interior fittings taken from a 1954 English kitchen, but the staff was excellent. A theme that we were to experience intermittently throughout the holiday, the cabin staff was easily as good as those on the best Eastern Airlines.
Twelve and half-hours out of Manchester we were told that due to the weather in Havana, we were to land at Varadero Airport. Great, we thought, that cuts out the two and a half hour bus ride.
Wrong, we were to wait in Varadero airport for at least an hour, then get back on and fly the last forty five minutes to Havana. We were driven back up the steps to the aircraft; the only things missing were the cattle prods!
Late at night we arrive at Havana, a load of tired people who had been traveling for between twelve and fourteen hours. The immigration control boxes looked like welcoming beacons in a bleak night, once through those, we will be on the way.
We all got in the queues to each of the empty desks. It can’t take long, we thought, ours is the only plane in! The staff in their olive green Fidel Castro look-alike uniforms chatted and smoked cigarettes and cigars in the foyer beyond and we waited. One hour, Two hours, this cannot be happening; they must have run out of cigarettes and cigars by now. Every time someone went to a booth, there was a sigh from the crowd until they saw that they were only after a clean ashtray.
Two and a half hours and there was a casual opening of the desks and we started to move. It was slower than ordinary airports, but then ordinary airports didn’t have so many international spies and subversives passing through with suspicious names such as 'Airtours and Co-op Travel' on their bags. Once through though and we would find all of the baggage waiting for us with dust covering it. Wouldn’t we?
Wrong. It took another one and a half hours to come along the conveyor belt. By now the most meek and mild amongst us was definitely getting slightly annoyed. The rest were livid. Then we had to face a bus journey of two hours to go back to where we were some four hours earlier. When we finally arrived some sixteen hours after leaving Manchester, we booked in and went to bed.
The following morning a quick exploration revealed that it had all been worthwhile. The hotel was beautiful, right on the beach with pools, bars and palm trees. It had the making of a peaceful and relaxing holiday; there was even a piano bar. It was also all inclusive, we had been on an all inclusive holiday in Mexico and it would be difficult to compare it to that. To be fair, Mexico was far more slick and professional, we later went all-inclusive in Sri Lanka and that came between the two.
The rooms were perfect and the restaurant was self-service, the food was plain and good. It was like a mother would have prepared in the 1940s, everything resembled home made food with lots of rich and stodgy cake. There was however a total inability to control the flies, they were everywhere. If someone went and sold those neon insect killers they would make a fortune! Even the beer tasted as if it had been made with a Boot's home brew kit and that’s not a complaint! But once again, the staff did their best and nothing was too much trouble. You could even buy unopened bottles from the all-inclusive bar, for some reason though; you had to pay a small fee for these and the barman sort of passed them to you in a brown bag!
At the start of our bus trip from the airport, we had noticed how nice the roads were, and then we had fallen asleep. On a day trip back to Havana, we saw them in the daylight. The roads around the airport were nicely laid out with a tarmac surface. After a few miles, you fell off the end and the rest of them were crumbling. In fact that would be a good word to describe the rest of Cuba, 'crumbling'. The roads were doing it, the buildings were doing it and the cars were doing it. The whole country is just one large crumble! The vehicles on the roads were large vulgar and very old pre 1959 American ones. There were also Russian and Czechoslovakian cars, (Including Lada stretched limousines!) and a few newish Japanese cars.
What the country lacked in amenities and infrastructure it made up for in atmosphere and friendly people. It was easy to see why Ernest Hemmingway had made it his own. Eventually, Fidel Castro will go to the great proletariat in the sky, the Americans will move back and the country will become a big holiday camp. Until then, it is there to be enjoyed.
The flight back was on the same Russian Jet, this time, there were only 27 of us and we flew straight back to Manchester. Why go to the European resorts every year when for a similar price you can be exotic and go to Cuba. Get through the officialdom and an excellent holiday awaits you. Copyright Paul Hurley
January 2007
Words 1,228 Delamere Camp. Mid Cheshire does its bit for the war effort.
 At the start of the war throughout Cheshire military establishments were being re-activated or set up to join the war effort. Air bases at Byley and Tatton Park were in action and airfields at Little Sutton and Calveley were under construction. Montgomery was not yet a Field Marshall but a few years later he would join US General's Patton and Eisenhower at Peover Hall near Knutsford to work on plans for the invasion of Europe. Whilst there he would dine and take refreshment in the Bells of Peover pictured here. |
On this site you will see details of my contributions to Cheshire Life. Somerset Life. Steam World. Backtrack. Used Bike Guide UBG. New Woodworker. Cheshire Police Catalyst. Winsford Chronicle. Middlewich Chronicle. Northwich Chronicle and Chester Chronicle. Together with examples of my published books and some of my current projects. I have also included some musings on life today.
Liverpool Soldier, Can be purchased anywhere by typing the title and my name into Google and AbeBooks will find the cheapest seller. 
Liverpool Soldier was very favourably reviewed over 2 pages in the LIVERPOOL DAILY POST on Saturday the 11th of March by David Charters. If you wish to read the full transcript see the bottom of the Liverpool Soldier details.
