"A vacation is like love - anticipated with pleasure, experienced with discomfort and remembered with nostalgia." Anonymous (One out of three for me).

Last December we went to a ritzy all-included resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. My husband's business had won the all-expenses paid trip, airfare included. They'd won another trip the year before. My brother-in-law and his wife took that one. A sailing cruise in the Caribbean. Heaven. We got Mexico. Hell.

Never. Again.

No, this isn't about Montezuma's revenge. I just don't like Mexico. Never have. I don't like the food, the music, the ambience, the whole tacky gestalt. Plus, no matter how plush the resort, it's basically the jungle. And I really don't like the jungle.

But it was our turn to spread business-related good will. Even though I was two weeks after minor (as if) back surgery and still hammered by a respiratory trifecta of sinus infection, bronchitis and laryngitis, I caved. Awash in painkillers and antihistamines, I gamely headed for the airport, craving the reward of rest and warmth at the end of a very long, twisted Travel Tunnel.

Think I'm kidding?

Depart Phila airport 6 AM ET. Arrive Phoenix, back in time three hours. Change planes. Arrive Puerto Vallarta 6 PM local time, which, FYI, is Central Time, so forward two hours. Very odd since Puerto Vallarta's on the Pacific Ocean. Whatever. Philly to PVR, thirteen hours and three time zones in one day. Phew. Circadian whiplash. 

Let's not even talk about the tiny commuter plain jolting my tender back and skewering my swollen sinuses all the way from Phoenix to PVR.

Never. Again.

To be fair, the resort is beautiful. Tile floors, open terraces, sparkling fountains, lush greenery, 3 pools, wide white beach, crystal blue ocean.

The rooms are spotless and comfortably furnished. The housekeeping staff places artful towel animals on your bed every day.

 

Another nice touch: a fridge in every room stocked and restocked on demand with Corona, Pepsi, 7-Up and bottled water ... no extra charge. Also included at no charge, hanging above the fridge are bottles dispensing scotch, rum and tequila at a touch.

 

The crowning touch, for me: a perfect ocean view from our broad balcony of glorious nightly sunsets ... also included. We saw little of that the first night, just collapsed into bed. I slept uneasily, worried about the jungle pulsing all around the hotel.

 

My husband got up bright and early, brought me a breakfast tray (no room service, one of my prime hotel requirements, but as long as he's willing to pick up the slack, I don't complain). Then he went to scope things out. Two hours later he was back, raving about the beauty, the views, the bars and cafes, the beach, the ocean, the pools. 

  

I told myself we'd traveled a whole day and then some, for cryin out loud. The sun was shining, it was warm and breezy, the air clean and clear. Back home it was maybe 20 degrees, streets covered with slush. I couldn't spend the entire week in our hotel room. It was time to be a brave little soldier and face the big bad Mexican hotel grounds.

Never. Again.

No bathing suit or flip flops though. Instead, battle gear: shorts, tank top, boat shoes. My eyes darting anxiously, on the lookout for unwelcome fauna, I reluctantly followed my solicitous husband down the wide promenade to the beach.

He'd picked a perfect spot.  Under a luxorious palm on a private path at the edge of the sand, he'd set up a lounge chair with 3 pads (for my sore back). On a side table a cold Pepsi was already waiting. My book and sunglasses too.

What a guy! My wonderful, thoughtful husband. Who also said the pool bartenders assured him that with so many people around, the only fauna ever seen near the hotel were birds and the occasional small salamander. Well. Okay, good news.

 

I realized I'd been holding my breath since we left the confines of the main building. I started to relax on my comfortable well-padded throne, picked up my Pepsi and looked, really looked at the natural and manmade beauty all around us. It really was spectacular. 

I smiled at an adorable little kid by the pool whose mom had just slathered him with sunscreen.

A few teenage boys were trying to act cool as they played in the pool. Honeymooners holding hands, bright bikinis and manly muscles much in evidence.

  

The warm breeze, happy voices, even the cheesy music added to my growing feeling of relaxation. Okay, I could handle a week of this. Maybe I'd even come back today after lunch in my bathing suit, we'd go in the ocean. And there'd be dancing under the stars tonight. If I was careful with my back, we could manage a little light romance too.

I picked up my book, settled in for my favorite vacation R & R, beach reading. As I tilted my visor, something caught my eye in the palm tree over my head, moving just barely into my peripheral vision. A bird, I thought.

Then the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Not good. I have seriously well-honed jungle radar. 

You know what's coming. Or maybe you don't. Sliding slowly down the palm trunk, head turning, eyes seeming to lock onto me, was a horned green iguana. Almost 2 feet long. The ugliest thing I'd ever seen. I thought. Until the second one appeared. Even bigger. Uglier.

  

My husband says I whispered his name so sibilantly it made his eardrums buzz. He believes I might actually have levitated off the chair. Face frozen in shock. Body rigid.

Must. Find. Safety.

At first frozen, caught in the psychic vortex between fight and flight. Then, finally, I ran. Arrived in the hotel lobby sweating, ghostly white, whimpering, hyperventilating, trying to get air, heart pounding. Full panic mode.

One of the staff approached me, alarmed, clearly concerned. "Senora, what's wrong? Are you ill?"

'I-i-iguana," I managed to stammer. "TWO of them!"

"Iguana? Here? That's impossible."

"Down there," I pointed a shaking hand. "In a tree. Over my chair!" my voice rising in hysteria.

He peered down the path, saw a crowd gathered (I learned that part later). "Oh I see. Very unusual. But don't worry, Senora, they won't bother you," he said soothingly. "They're good for us," he added casually, "They eat the snakes."

That did it. I was in Phobia Hell.

Never. EVER. Again.

It's entirely possible I made it to our room while totally unconscious. By the time my husband got there with the hotel doctor, I was curled in a ball on the bed, shivering. Sobbing. And rhythmically, like a car alarm, screaming. A full blown panic attack. Fortunately the hotel doctor had brought along a syringe of Valium. Big help. Small comfort. Apparently he doctor was all too familiar with women guests responding hysterically to slithering fauna.

But, he assured my husband, he'd never seen iguanas. Or this level of panic. Did we want to go to the hospital? "NOOOOO," I screamed, terrified to leave the safety of the room. The doctor stayed with me til the Valium took over.

Outside, as word spread guests gathered around my abandoned lounge to photograph the rare siting of Mr. and Mrs. Iguana. Chatting in awe about the 'lucky' woman who'd 'found' them.

Never. Again.

I spent the next 4 days in the room. Moving outside to the balcony only when sufficiently medicated.

Otherwise I read and watched the tiny TV. You haven't lived til you've seen Oprah, Heroes and Wheel of Fortune in Spanish.

I'm proud to say by the evening of day four I accompanied my husband to the main restaurant for dinner.

Came down the next day, and the next, and the last to sit by myself in late afternoon on the hotel's wide 3rd floor terrace facing the beach.

And here's the bottom line about free trips: they're never really free. Tips, gifts, phone calls and incidentals add up to a pretty penny. (Not to mention foreign health care).

And in Mexico, I paid bigtime.

My idea of a perfect vacation is Paris, Prague, Alaska, Israel. Or if a sunny locale, Jamaica, Bali, Martinique. No spicy food. No need for bottled water. No tiny commuter planes.

And, worth repeating ... no iguanas. No fauna at all. Ever.

But if for any reason I'm forced to return to Mexico, I'll be  spending my time right here:

Seriously, though. Never. Again.

(Note: some photos contributed by fellow guests, used with their permission. You didn't really think *I* took the creature shots, did you?)