The Highlights (& Low) of Our Trip to Mexico

It's already been 2 weeks since we got home from our mini-vacation, and I still haven't posted anything about it. I must say though, that I'm glad our trip to Mexico was before this swine flu outbreak.....scary.








The drive there was about 5 hours.

When we got there, our hotel was right near the beach.

Elizabeth spent every available moment either in the pool or in the water at the beach. Right when we got to the hotel, as we were unloading our bags from the car, Eliz was already in the hotel room, half-nude, digging through her bag for her swimsuit. She's quite the little fish.

Here's Mig and Eliz on the sand dunes.

I had to throw this picture in. I don't even know what this is...a 4-wheeling bus? lol

The last day we were there, Eliz found a crab at the beach in the morning and had her grandpa (Mig's dad) put it in her bucket, but before we left, my dad (who also went with us) took her back to the beach so she could let the crab go. In this picture, you can see the little crab next to her shovel.

Overall, we had a really nice time, but then Michael got sick, so we were worried about him. We also had a very interesting experience with the Mexican health care system while we were there...

We got there on a Thursday, and the next morning when we woke up, I noticed that Michael felt a little warm, and throughout the day he developed a slight fever. By Saturday, his fever was higher and he didn't really want to eat or drink anything, so we decided that we should take him to the doctor.

As we got ready to leave, I wondered about what it would cost to see a doctor and pay in cash. (I know you're cringing, just thinking about going to the doctor and paying cash right?)

Before we left, Mig told me to go back to the hotel room and get some extra money, just in case we needed it, since we had no idea how much our trip to the doctor would be, not to mention the possibility that Michael might need medicine that we'd have to pay cash for too.

We drove around with Mig's dad for a few minutes until we spotted a pharmacy. So we went in and asked them if they knew where the nearest clinic/hospital was. As it turned out, the pharm techs there said that they usually have a doctor on-site who gives free consultations to patients, but the doctor had just left, and they didn't expect her back for a few hours.

They did, however direct us to a nearby emergency clinic. We drove up to the clinic and walked in, but it was pretty empty, except for an older man with some sort of nose ailment sitting in the waiting room chair. (This guy had gauze taped under his nose, which appeared to be very swollen and the gauze was bloody, but hey, I didn't ask why he was there.) The man waiting there told us to knock on the door in the corner, so we did, and this doctor opened the door with what looked like a bloody pair of pliers in one hand. (Yikes!)

The doctor told us to have a seat and that we might have to wait a little while since the older man was ahead of us.

We all sat down, and Mig and I just kinda looked at each other, still a little uneasy about the pliers that the doctor had.

The older man started talking to Mig and his dad (Btw, all of these conversations were spoken in Spanish. I don't know Spanish very well, but Mig and his dad do, so I could only make out some of what they were saying.) The man said that there was a Cruz Roja (or Red Cross) just down the street and that they usually weren't very busy, so we could try going there.

And he didn't have to tell us twice....We got the heck out of there and drove up the street about a mile until we found the Cruz Roja. As I walked in, I was nervous about how this place would be. What if it was worse than the emergency clinic? But in any case, I had no choice. My poor baby was sick and we needed to have him looked at by a doctor to see what was wrong.

So we walked in the Cruz Roja, and it was actually really nice and clean in a totally nonscary way. The secretary at the front took us right in to an exam room and a very nice doctor came in and took a look at Michael and discovered that he had a throat infection. (And we realized why Michael hadn't wanted to eat or drink anything because his throat hurt, poor thing.)

The doctor gave Miguel instructions (in Spanish) about medicine for Michael and then she left the room momentarily and came back with a bottle of antibiotics. She filled out a little form, that said she had provided us with a consultation and the antibiotics and told us to give it to the secretary at the front so we could pay her. It was the moment of truth. Just how much would our unexpected trip to the doctor set us back?

We gave the secretary the form. I got my wallet out, and I waited for her to tell us that our visit would cost ----(drumroll please)---- 100 pesos, which comes out to: about $9.00! Wow, I almost couldn't believe it. $9.00 to visit the doctor and for the medication? That was nice.

Michael then started feeling much better that night, just in time for us to make the drive home the next day, and has since made a complete recovery. But I don't think we'll be visiting Mexico again anytime soon, no matter how inexpensive their medical care is...