Many Yucatecans travel to Houston (known locally as Jiústom as in 'nos vamos a Jiústom para hacer un poco de chopim') for shopping, concerts or medical reasons, as opposed to the also popular Miami, Florida. Houston is a clean, safe city full of Anglos and Mexicans and lots of blacks, the latter being a detriment to a lot of Merida's finer citizens, who would prefer it to be otherwise, since, as one local doctor commented to me, being next to a black person made him feel uncomfortable. What you won't find in any significant amount are all those sallow-faced, miserable and downright rude Cubans that you find in Miami, who, besides their great cafe con leche, contribute nothing positive to your stay in that Florida city. And the Mexicans in Houston are actually friendly, happy to speak Spanish and efficient at their jobs. There are so many of them that it's kind of like being in Mexico in a pleasant dream, where everyone is courteous and professional and everything works as it should.

The Package Vacation

Warning! Do not, if you can remotely avoid it, book your trip to Houston with travel agencies promoting a special weekend 'all-inclusive' hotel/airline/car package, since their choice of rental car agency leaves a lot to be desired. The package basically goes like this:

• Fly to Houston early in the morning with a real airline - Continental Airlines, who actually make an effort to be pleasant, as opposed to Aeromexico or Mexicana where you are just another piece of cargo to be transported as quickly and ungraciously as possible. You can take advantage of Continental's easy to use frequent flyer program to get some extra credit for this flight.

 
• Arrive in Houston around 10:00 AM and proceed to the pre-paid car rental agency - in this package it's Thrifty. Have you ever noticed that Thrifty and that other rental agency Budget, have names that in no way reflect their prices? Who are these people trying to fool? They're the biggest car rental agencies in the world and the most expensive! Back to Thrifty just outside the Houston airport. Enjoy the shuttle ride there from the airport itself 'cuz that's the nicest person you're going to deal with today. Observe the tacky building, the lineup of irate, foot-tapping, scowling, arms-crossed customers and the surly, gum-chewing (reminds me of home!) black and white trash employees dispensing cars with an obvious lack of enthusiasm that immediately makes the rip-off warning bells in your head go off. When you finally get to the counter and present your pre-paid voucher, your 'agent' disdainfully informs you, looking over your shoulder, that your 29.00 dollar a day rental is in fact practically a motorcycle: a Suzuki three cylinder sub-sub-sub compact, and would you like to upgrade to a Neon. Of course you do, since you'd have to remove your shoes to get yourself in one of those little toy cars. Now you're paying another $7.00 per day, you've thrown in some insurance, the prepaid gas tank and the 25% taxes and you're asked to sign a credit card voucher for another $125.00 on top of the $87.00 you prepaid in Merida for your three day rental. Feeling a little stiffed, you finally get the hell out of there in another car altogether, since no Neons were available and they found a Ford in the next category. The car is still dirty from the last user but you're so impatient to get on with your vacation that you just swallow your pride and leave.

 
• Next you check in at the package hotel, the Westin Galleria, a good enough hotel, although it could really use a little facelift and a general 'manito de gato', since the cigarette burns in the carpeting and other little nitpicking details really shouldn't exist in a hotel of this category. Your Continental frequent flyer brochure indicates that Westin Hotels are 'participating affiliates' in their program and you could theoretically get 'bonus miles' for staying there, but if you are an unlucky victim coming from Merida with a prepaid reservation, you're S.O.L..

 
• The next days are spent doing whatever it is you do, whether its the medical thing, visiting doctors and hospitals and so on; the Yucatecan shopping (chopim) thing, where you visit all the cheapest stores in the city including K-Mart, Target (pronounced French-style Targé to make it sound classy) and eat at Dennys, Pizza Hut and IHOP; or the relaxed paseo thing, where you look for new and interesting places to eat, shop, maybe take in a show and generally have a good time.

 
• When it comes time to leave, you head back to that disgusting Thrifty rental car place to leave your car, and lo and behold the rate has increased or something and you must now fork over an additional 147 dollars for the additional day you were charged because you brought the car back late. Remember you arrived in the morning and your flight leaves at night, so now you are charged the additional day. There is no use complaining because on the agreement you signed earlier, you authorized these swine to charge any extra fees to your credit card without consulting you, the stupid customer. Your FOUR day car rental now cost you 350 dollars, which works out to more than 80 dollars a day, which is considerably more than the 29 per day quoted by your eager travel agent back in Merida. Did I mention that there was an additional charge since the car that had the prepaid gas was not the car you actually got (remember they didn't have the Neon) so they had to compensate by charging some more for gas.

 
• Finally you're at the airport, waiting for your flight, enjoying some wonderful airport food, perhaps furtively enjoying a cigarrette in the dark overheated parking lot outside with the other second class citizen smokers since the airport is a non-smoking area. Now I don't think that the Houston Airport should open a smokers lounge but what about those filthy-rich tobacco companies? Couldn't they divert just a tiny portion of their profits to the rental of airport real estate and provide those of us who need a puff before getting on a plane with a decent little lounge where smoking is allowed? Would that be too much to ask? Finally you get on the plane and Continental whisks you back to your beloved Merida, along with your now overstuffed suitcases, carry-on bags, boxes and additional packages that really don't count as luggage and are (in your mind) exempt from the 300 dollar limit per person that Mexican customs tries to limit you to bringing back.

That, in a nutshell, is the Houston package vacation, and it should be avoided, as I mentioned earlier, at all costs. You can probably do much better by yourself, booking the flight through the airline directly and reserving the hotel over the phone. If you need a car, you'd be much better off renting with Alamo, who are much more professional in my humble opinion and didn't feel the need to choose a company name like Frugal or something equally economical-sounding, and by all means avoid the fraudulent and totally unscrupulous Thrifty.