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Private Parking By Gil Givens fall-winter/2000 There is an obscure but vital piece of Mexican touristic trivia which you will never find in any travel guide. It has to do with the difference between a "hotel" and a "motel". My wife and I had the misfortune of personally stumbling into this factual distinction recently and under the most miserably embarrassing circumstances imaginable. At the time, we were travelling with my seventy-year-old mother-in-law, a deeply religious woman who finds even movies rated PG alarmingly indecent. Her father had recently passed away and bequeathed to her a small but priceless collection of antiques. The job of transporting these precious artifacts from Guanajuato to Mom's home in California fell to me, and I came up with the following plan. My wife and I would drive from our home in Puerto Vallarta to Guanajuato, collect Mom and the antiques, drive them back to Vallarta, have them professionally packed and then shipped (fully insured) up to Los Angeles. Matters moved along with marvelous celerity until we reached Tlaquepaque, a suburb of Guadalajara, a little after ten. Exhausted from the long nerve-wracking drive, we could go no further. But more urgent even than sleep was the question of where to park our small treasure laden pickup. As luck would have it there were few options in the immediate vicinity. But then a helpful taxi driver (whom one day I hope to find and slowly eviscerate) informed us that if it was secure parking we were after, we could do no better than the nearby Motel Mónica. I liked the Mónica right away. It was surrounded by a high wall and had a single gated entrance. Once inside the compound we were approached by Andrea, a pleasant looking woman wearing a type of maid's uniform, who leaned into the driver's window and asked uncertainly, "Can I help you?" I explained that we were looking for a hotel with very secure parking. The woman regarded us first with confusion, then alarm. "You realize," she said anxiously, "that this is not a hotel familiar; this is a hotel de paso." Drivers are just passing through, but they're not going to bed because they're tired "So?" I said. Casting a nervous glance at Mom, Andrea said vaguely, "In a hotel de paso, you only rent the room for twelve hours at a time." "So, basically," I said, "it's for tired drivers just passing through." "Well, yes, they're usually passing through," Andrea said, "but they're not always tired." "And the parking's secure?" "Oh, you won't find more secure parking anywhere. But..." "Good. Let's have a look." The Mónica consisted of a labyrinth of driveways, each terminating in a small two-story structure. "The room is upstairs," Andrea explained. "You enter through your own garage." "Qué privacidad!" I said. "Privacy is very important to our guests," Andrea said pointedly. The garage door was made of corrugated sheet metal and looked like a giant orange accordion. Inside, a flight of stairs lined with small white lights led up to the room. "There's something strange about this place," my wife whispered in my ear. "Who cares?" I whispered back, "the parking's perfect." The room was large and dark. Andrea turned on all the lights and it was still dark. But not so dark that we couldn't see the heart shaped bed covered in bright red velvet, the mirrors on the ceiling and the "primitive" drawings on the walls. "Uh-oh." "How nice!" Mom exclaimed. "Red's my favorite color. But it's so dark in here. What if I want to read before I go to bed?" We've got to get your mother out of here immediately!" I grabbed my wife and drew her off into the bathroom, where I bumped my head against an iron bar hanging surreally from the ceiling. "We've got to get your mother out of here immediately," I told her. "What about the truck?" "I'll stay here with the truck," I said. "You take your mother and go find a real hotel." "And leave you here alone?" Back in the room Andrea was attempting to explain to Mom as obliquely as possible that her guests were not enormously avid readers. Mom sighed and said in that case she'd watch TV. "There's not much to watch," Andrea cautioned. "How many channels do you get?" Mom asked suspiciously. "Well, three," Andrea said, staring down at the floor. "One has a panel discussion; one has sports; and one has a...documentary." "I like sports," Mom said. "It's not exactly your typical sports channel," Andrea muttered. As my wife and I slowly withered with embarrassment, Andrea followed Mom into the bathroom. "What's that bar for?" Mom demanded. "It's um, um..." "Purely decorative?" I offered. "Exactly," Andrea said. "By the way, are all three of you going to be sharing the room?" "He'll sleep on the couch," Mom said. "My daughter and I will share the bed." I wasn't hugely excited at the prospect of sleeping on the couch. The heart-shaped bed at least had fresh red sheets. The couch, skulking deep in a gloomy corner, seemed somehow sinister. We tried our best to dissuade her, but Mom was both tired and adamant. So I paid in advance for two twelve-hour shifts desperately hoping we would not be awakened in the morning with shouts of "Time's up!" Mom's experience with the three TV stations proved to be brief and unsatisfactory. After flipping with mounting horror through the nude volleyball game, the topless panel discussion, and a "documentary" right off the Discovery Channel (but without the feathers), Mom decided to take a pill and go directly to bed. Several months later when I decided to research the subject of motels in depth, I discovered that they could be divided into three categories. The most modest (strictly no-frills) type of motel consists of just the garage, often sans roof. The next step up is a one-star accommodation (with room attached, but without the TV or the chin-up bar). Finally, there's my personal favorite, the total-luxury Gran Turismo Motel. Naturally, it costs a bit more, but for anyone wishing to comfortably accommodate his or her mother-in-law, money should be no objection.

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