Fire!

I'm falling in love with Mexico, one three-day weekend at a time. Just two weeks after our last one, we had another long weekend. We opted for a prettier beach this time: Acapulco.

Five of us squeezed into Ivan's sport's car for the five-hour drive. We emerged in the beach-town heat sweaty and anxious to change out of our winter Puebla clothes. Nothing is as simple as it sounds down here, though.

Our hotel was right on the water, a beautiful view. It had two elevators when both of them happened to be running at the same time. Our room number was 2004. We took one look at the crowds of sandy beach-goers waiting in front of the elevator doors and headed straight for the stairs. The stairs only led us up one floor, though, and we couldn't find any more flights. Maybe, we thought, our room was on the second floor. We asked. No, the 20th.

Despite our five hours in the car, 20 flights on stairs didn't sound appealing. We waited at the elevator for a while, but it never came. Fine, we'd take the stairs. Unfortunately, we still couldn't find the stairs. We searched for a while until we found one narrow flight at the back of the building. We took it and were now stuck on the third floor. This was going to be a long trip.

Eventually, we figured out that after each flight, we had to circle the inside of the building once to find the next flight. We sped up after that. As fast as one can speed up when ascending 20 flights of stairs. We found our room and collapsed on the beds.

We took the elevator later that evening, but it proved nearly as painful as the stairs. Unbearably hot, it inched its way upward and stopped at nearly every floor. It seems we weren't the only ones who had pressed the button and then abandoned it in impatience.

The next morning, I chose to take the 20 flights of stairs instead of waiting with all of the other swimsuit-bedecked vacationers. As I was circling, I wondered what the hotel would do in case of a fire. I couldn't imagine all of the occupants squeezing down those narrow staircases in panic.

That evening, we were in our hotel room getting ready to go out when we heard a loud buzzing that I remembered all too well from my college days. We stood staring at a few minutes, willing the alarm into silence. It continued. "Should we go down," we wondered. "It's not really a fire, is it? The facilities couldn't handle that." We opened our door and poked our heads out. Nearly every other occupant of the floor was doing the same thing. We all shrugged at each other and went back into our rooms. Still, the alarm refused to quiet. We stepped into the hall again. And back into the room. Eventually the alarm ended.

By the way, we had a great time on the beach.