There was a group of 12 of us, 6 couples, who all went to a hotel just outside the string of resorts in Cancun. It wasn't an all inclusive resort thing it was a nice hotel. The nearest resort was perhaps a km down the beach, which stretched forever in both directions. Anyway, we booked our trip through a travel agency and went and had a lovely vacation. Everything was perfect until the night before our check-out when we all received a note stuffed under our hotel doors to report to the front desk at 5 am. This was odd because we weren't checking out until 11 and the flight was at 1:00pm. As we gathered in the empty and quiet main entrance by the desk the manager showed up from her office. She told us we each owed $600 or they weren't letting us check out. We told her to stuff it and then soldiers with AK's walked in pointing the business ends of their rifles at us. They rounded us up, took our passports, ordered us to sit in a corner and started to sweat us.We could go to jail. No calls to home. It was scary. We were refused access to our rooms again. Refused access to a phone. This was long before cellphones existed. So we sat. And sweated. 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours......the soldiers were clearly getting tired and restless. 4 hours, 5 hours and we were starting to get worried we'd miss our flight. The guards were all off chatting to one another and not paying close attention to the gringos anymore. They knew where we were, tucked into a corner with all our luggage and no passports.I had to pee. I stood up and started for the bathroom and a guard came over pointing his gun demanding where I was going. I told him I had to pee and poo, diarrhea, grabbed my belly and pretended to be in pain etc and invited him along. Showing a shitload more bravado than I felt. He sent me on my way. The bathroom had a window in it and I climbed through and buggered off. I knew where the nearest resort was and I Usain Bolted man. I got there and told the main desk clerk I was a Canadian and there were 11 more back at the hotel and we were in trouble. He got the phone and the operator and I got hooked up with the consulate. I spoke to the guy running the show and he said to head back to the hotel and he'd be right there.I jogged back to the hotel (I was much younger and in better shape then) and as I walked in the front door the guards and the manager were in a panic. I was surrounded and threatened with pointing guns. They demanded to know where I was and at that moment a gringo came roaring in on his BMW motorbike. I knew it was dude. I told them they were in the shit now and they all looked at the guy storming in holding a Ferrari red Canadian passport. Diplomatic. That starts with D and rhymes with T which stands for trouble. Guns went down and the boys started to scatter. The guy walked up to the desk and demanded to know who was in charge. (Please pardon the language here admins)The tall skinny Ichabod Crane bitch said "I'm in charge."The Charge d'Affaires slammed his passport on the desk in front of her with such force she jumped and said, "Not anymore! I'm in charge now. I'll see you in your office and he walked around the desk into the back.We could all hear him screaming at her as clear as a bell."Who the **** are you to **** with Canadians? When you **** with 1 Canadian you **** with the entire country of Canada." This went on at volume 11 for about 10 minutes getting ruder and more vulgar by the minute. Most was in Spanish which I got a fair bit of being fluent in French with a smattering of Spanish. Then they came out. She apologized profusely and begged us to please come back, it was all a mistake, the travel agency hadn't paid them and they thought, mistakenly that we were supposed to pay when we left.........Our bus showed up, the Charge d'Affaires led us to the airport, hustled us through immigration spewing all sorts of venom and stood on the tarmac until we were air born. I've never been back :-)
if i had to describe van in a word, it would be "corny"
