Cinco de Mayhem (May 5, 2026)
From Mexico City to Cancun. It’s all about the good, the bad, and the UGLY. Will and I have one hell of a last day in Mexico City and then a series of unfortunate events that you won’t believe. I can’t even make this stuff up. It had to happen to be able to share it.
The GOOD
The day started off SO great. Really. I got up at 6am and joined Jen Nash for an incredibly unique farewell work out session. Can you imagine going to a night club at 7am and lifting free weight to house music? I couldn’t. But then I did it together with Jen and can’t even believe how much we worked out in just 45 minutes.
Notice how much sweat my shirt is drenched from a 45-min workout
Then, Will joined us for a final breakfast at Café Nin. If we lived here in Mexico City, my whole family would be regulars here. Every breakfast has been different and equally good. The food, however, is enhanced with the company of family and friends.
Lovely final breakfast together at our favorite spot: Cafe Nin.
I also had a chance to try out Jen’s favorite taco stand. It truly was the best flavored tacos I’ve had (and that’s saying a lot)! The chef cooks the pork in lard which, of course, gives it amazing flavor. I know “fat is flavor” and yet these were incredibly tasty tacos.
Yes, “Bang Bang” for those who know what that means. Two breakfasts and didn’t need much for the rest of the day food wise. After a big hug goodbye, Will and I checked out of our Airbnb, but stayed on the 21st floor to shoot pool and play air hockey.
5 games total. 3 games lost by sinking the 8-ball. Ouch! Still fun.
What a GREAT start to a FABULOUS day. So the “good” was actually superb, fabulous, amazing, etc. Why is this post called “Cinco de Mayhem?” What went wrong?
The BAD
So Will and I go to the airport, check in and board our flight. He’s watching streaming content and I’m listening to a book. When suddenly, everyone on the plane stands up and I hear the announcer say, “Please gather all of your belonging and exit the aircraft.”
THAT’s never a good sign, is it? It’s not like, “… and upon exiting, please collect $5,000 USD for being such amazing passengers.” It’s more like, what happened? How delayed are we? Do we need to change terminals? All the announcements were in Spanish only. Before boarding, it was both English and Spanish.
The good news was that everyone was staying in terminal 65, but the bad news was we didn’t know anything. So I do what I always do. I asked. “It’s a security issue” was all I could get. Then the bomb detector went into the airplane. It was, in fact, a bomb scare. We never got the whole story, but piecing it together, it appears someone called in a bomb threat and they had to check. No bomb found, so we reboarded our flight (now an hour delayed).
Okay, that’s “bad” but what’s “ugly?”
The UGLY
If you haven’t watched this video, it’s hilarious and foreshadows where I’m going with this blog post:
And, if you’ve ever tried renting a car in Cancun, you know where I’m going. I thought I got the deal of the century. $89 USD for a 10 day rental. That works out to $9 a day. FOR AN SUV!!!! Normally, that would be at least 5 times the amount ($50 to $85 per day).
I got into the shuttle at 9pm excited to wrap up the paperwork and get to our hotel. At 9:25 we arrived at Economy / American Rental Car. They had my rental car ready. Just ONE tiny detail … they don’t accept US-based insurance, so I would need to pay $550 PLUS a $5,000 pre-authorization on my credit card in case of any damages, I’d pay directly and they would work with the insurance on my behalf. WTF?
I lost it. If the cost is going to be the same, fine. But back in the airport, Hertz quoted me $159 “including all fees and insurance costs.” So $639 was significantly higher and we were now 25 minutes from the airport. I don’t even know if what Hertz told me was true. According to these reviews, even highly reputable brands aggressively sell insurance and often appear to lie, cheat and ding customers. Seriously, WTF?
So after about 30 minutes of politely sharing my sage reflection of how I felt mistreated … I’m kidding, I lost my temper and acted like a child. The ugly was ME after the bomb scare, a 1-hour flight delay, and being whisked 25 minutes away from the airport only to discover I’d been had. Will was the adult and helped calm me down. I think I scared him as I was not editing my verbal displeasure at the manager.
Finally, I realized there was really nothing I could do here, so I ordered an Uber to get us to our hotel (which was much closer to the airport). But just to cap off the evening, I had two more challenges to complete my mayhem:
Uber Didn’t Recognize My Address. So it turns out we flew past our hotel and I had to have the Uber driver help sort out where Uber thinks we were going from the address I actually had. So that 30 minute ride turned out to be almost an hour. We finally arrive at 11pm fully exhausted from a long day.
I get a text at Midnight from CapitalOne. “Did you just attempt to purchase $350 in Facebook Ads?” No, I reply. To which I get a second text, “Don’t worry, the charge was declined and for your protection, we’ve now cancelled your credit card. Please call us so we can review any other suspicious transactions.”
Yep. For 10 months, I’ve relied soley on my CapitalOne Spark card. And in one fateful data breach, I’m terminated. So, of course, I call and that’s the only suspicious transaction, but to get my replacement card, it will be about 21 days. What? No expedited shipping? Sorry, no. Okay, well is it exactly 21 days? Because I know where I’ll be then. Sorry, no it could be fewer or longer. Fine. Send the cards to my house, but let me speak to your manager.
The manager says, no, that’s not correct. We can do expedited shipping, but you need to call us back tomorrow. You mean in an hour? No the next business day. Why? Because we just sent the new cards to your house. Yeah, but that was 30 seconds ago. Can’t you cancel that? Nope. It’s a security “feature.” Great. One click of keystroke and I’ve lost a day and unsure how long it will actually take to send me a new card or where in the world I’ll be. Now I understand those American Express ads. Never thought the annual fee was worth it, but in times like these, I really wish I was an AMEX customer, not a CapitalOne Spark user.
Oh, and one final “ugly.” The package I had sent from Thailand to my home address via DHL required an extra $38 US tariff. They called the recipient, my sweet mother-in-law, Connie Knies, but thanks to a problem with Comcast, her phone was down. So they called me after the package was held for 30 days and now is marked for destruction. Elena drove to Long Island City to rescue said package and pay the tariff, but it was already sent to Kentucky to be destroyed. Yay!
What’s The Lesson / Takeaway?
Any “deal” that looks too good to be true, is. Full stop. Many have been duped by Cancun Rental Car Insurance scams. If I’d just read the reviews, I would have flagged this and been the wiser.
Pay more attention to the tracking information when shipping packages internationally. You may not be notified when there’s a problem and if it’s not resolved quickly, they destroy your stuff.
Bring two to three back-up credit cards.
I’m lucky. I did bring 3 credit cards with me for just such an occasion. The only problem is, one of those credit cards is my AAdvantage (formerly with Barclays and recently sold to Citi). I just saw an email that this card will terminate in 6 weeks, but don’t worry, they are sending me a new card from Citi … in 6 weeks … to my house … while I’m in Peru.
And no, Citi doesn’t ship domestic US credit cards internationally. To anyone. Ever. So now I’m down to ONE card. If that one has problems, be on the look out for a “Go Fund Me” page so that I can get home ;-)
