On Being a Shaky Traveler

I’m being followed….

I’m not paranoid. I know I’m being followed. There are gremlins under the ground trying to track me down. (And I haven't been watching too many horror flicks while on the road.) I know this because when I was in Mexico City I was awakened by an earthquake shortly after midnight on Friday, April 13^th. I was at the Nikko Hotel in Polanco when I awoke because the hotel was moaning and groaning and the coat hangers were clattering against each other. I was staying on the 25^th floor and was glad I wasn’t higher. After managing to go back to sleep, I was jolted awake again from a minor but very noticeable aftershock. I was back in the Nikko Hotel last week and was staying on the 37^th floor. My “security” in being that high was that it had been explained to me that the Nikko had been built to survive a major earthquake.

Last week, from Mexico I flew into Santiago Chile. Nice city with a 50s, 60s, 70s look. This morning, being Sunday morning, I was sleeping in when the jolt of a new earthquake made my eyes pop open. There was no mistaking the feeling. The gremlins had tracked me down again. Check out http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2007blav.php

The expected aftershock occurred a couple of hours later.

My only previous experience with an earthquake was in a two story hotel, on the beach of California when my only indication was that the table I was using for a workspace began to move slightly. I looked over at the TV, which I had on a local all news channel, just in time to see the bulletin that an earthquake was in progress. I just sat there and rode it out while watching the squiggly lines being painted on the earthquake monitor on the TV.

I’m not sure what to seriously say about traveling and earthquakes. Logic tells me that if I’m in an earthquake zone that I first guarantee that the hotel in which I book a room has been built to withstand an earthquake. I should ask for a hotel room on a lower floor so that in the event of a quake I can either get down the stairs in a hurry or can be reached by a ladder system of a fire department. That means that I ought to ask for a room at or below the 5^th floor. (Of course, I then give up the luxury of less city/street noise that goes with the upper floors.) And on a lighter note, I need to get used to sleeping in pajamas while in an earthquake zone.