Run for the Border

I have taken many very memorable trips with Z.  We have drank in 5 different states, and 3 countries together.  I can’t say that about any other of my friends.  Of all the trips we took, I would say Cancun was the most fun.  Putsutaswney was the trip of a lifetime, but that was only one day.  Cancun was a whole week of sinning.

I got into Buffalo on a Thursday in May.  We were flying out the next day.  Z, Jean-Luc and I went out to Chippewa.  We ended up meeting up with Jean-Luc’s sister and this dude she was seeing.  The dude happened to be Coy Wire, who was the starting Safety on the Bills at the time.  It was cool, as I have never actually hung out with a pro athlete before.  We bonded, Coy and I.  He loved me!  I made him laugh at least a dozen times.  I even showed him the hairy bagel at the end of the night.  This night was a fitting start to the craziest week-long vacation of my life.  Let the games begin.

We flew out of Toronto the next day.  This was during the time when their was a huge SARS scare in Canada, especially Toronto.  The whole airport was on lockdown.  There were people wearing masks, just like you saw on the news.  Luckily, we got on the plane with no issues.  We had layover somewhere in the Midwest, I think in Minnesota. We loaded up on duty free shit, and drank at the airport bar for an hour or so till we boarded. 

We had an extremely large group, in both ways.  There were 12 of us.  Our combined weight had to be a ton and a half.  Their were 8 guys, and the majority of us were over 250 lbs.  Three of the four girls had some meat on them as well.  Needless to say, we were intimidating.  Whenever we went to the pool, our group just completely took it over.  We had such a great group, too.  We were a ton of fun, literally.

Beetlejuice joins us

Not having any idea where this place is, we hail a cab and just tell the guy to take us there.  After about 20 minutes, we ask to see how much further it is.  None of us speak Spanish so the best we can do is “es proxima?”  Cabbie assures us it’s coming up.  A few minutes later cab goes through really rough-looking area.  There are potholes all over the road; rough-looking young Mexicans stare us down from the side of the road.  We all rack our brains to figure out how to ask the cabbie if we are in a bad area.  “Es peacefulo?”, “Muy violencia?” and “mucho blood-o?” are just three of the embarrassing garbage that came out of our ignorant mouths.  The cab driver had no idea what we were talking about.  He just looked at us and shrugged his shoulders and kept on driving.  Finally, one of us asks “Es tranquillo aqui?”.  The cabbie finally understands “Is it tranquil here?”  He nods his head and says it is, and we all breathe a sigh of relief.  

Finally, after 45 minutes, we get to the place.  The four of us pile out and the cabbie actually offers to wait for us.  I found this amazing, as we were gonna be in there for hours.  Over the week I found that every time a cabbie brought you anywhere, he always waited for you.  He didn’t want to lose the tab.  American Tourists were a goldmine for a poor Mexican Cabbie.  One fare from us would probably pay his rent.


The rest of the guys went back a second time later that week, but I was too beat.  I had partied like a Mexican Rock Star for 5 days, but the thing that knocked me off my horse was the water.  I ended up getting sick for 3 weeks as soon as we got back.  At least I got to enjoy my vacation, though.


Plaza 21 is one of the most memorable nights of my life.  It easily made my list of Top 10 Bars I've ever been to.  Hopefully, I will return there someday now that I've had a few years to recuperate!