Our 1st Time Consulting in Mexico with stay at Camino Real Hotel Mexico City

 Already in October of 1993, during a seminar that husband Pieter did for Campbell Soup at the Holiday Inn in Santa Cruz, California, we met with people from the Monteblanco group in Mexico. One of the owners, Agustín also attended Pieter's seminar and he invited us to come to Mexico for some consulting and training.

Also during another seminar in December of 1993, that Pieter did in Texas, again for Full House customers of Campbell Soup, we met more staff members from Monteblanco, Mexico.

On February 18 of 1994, we both departed for the airport by 6:00 o'clock, driving the two hours to Atlanta and our flight via Houston, Texas into Mexico City.

What a gigantic stretched out city Mexico City is from the air! No wonder it ranks the world's 5th by population and at that time there lived more people than in our entire birth country The Netherlands...

At present some 22,000,000 are living there!

It also is a very unique airport at an altitude of 2,230 meters or 7,300 feet, one of the highest in the world.

And a very fertile plateau with a pleasant climate!

The population is very young, contrary to the aging population of the west.

Traffic is of course a hell! They had already set up one day a week for each car driver to leave the car at home, in order to slow down air pollution. 

It also was the most beautiful city that we EVER saw in our lives!

It is a pity that also the crime rate is high... affecting the safety of the population and its visitors.

So incredibly green and beautiful with large parks and beautiful tropical flowering trees along the streets.

Other countries have botanical gardens but in Mexico City it is inclusive...

 The USA could learn a lot from that. 

Spaniards and Italians in general, love plants and trees for adding color to their lives. 

Trees are also the lungs of such a city; thus a double function.

Camino Real Polanco Mexico Hotel

We were being dropped off at the Camino Réal Hotel, after our visit to the company's main office...

We always loved its special architecture, a kind of Aztec style, with thick bearing walls due to the earthquake region!

That's probably why we also love to stay at the Hyatt Regency Suites Atlanta Northwest as mentioned here in a previous post.

Parque Mexico just click to see more beautiful places within Mexico City.

WISH we would have had more time for walking and exploring... but we worked a tight schedule!

Arriving by car from the hustle of this vibrant city, you enter the very unique Camino Real Architecture, to break the noise from outside and offering a tranquil oasis to its guests.

The Pink Wall Outside Camino Real another of its architectural design.

Camino Real Hotel Bearing Wall and Pool This gives you a very good idea of how the five story hotel is being built with bearing walls.

This is me on a Sunday, March 22 of 1998 after arriving here on one of our next consulting periods.

Relaxing at the pool in my La Perla bathing suit with skirt (seen in photo below!

Those were the perks of doing International Consulting!

Staying at this beautiful hotel, one of the top hotels in the world, in the line of the Mandarin Oriental (where we stayed a few times in Jakarta, Indonesia), Ritz Carlton (where Pieter met our Indonesian boss once in Los Angeles) etc.

We both have been treated royally, all those years of doing international consulting and the fact that over a period of twelve years they had us come back to Mexico speaks for itself.

View of the pool at that time, from a post card we got.

On that lawn, we've seen beautifully decorated tables for wedding events...

Yes, they have a tennis court as well and several fine restaurants.

Also an arcade of shops inside their compounds.

On the walls in the reception area hung portraits from royalty that had stayed with them, such as Queen Elizabeth from England.

We found this on our pillow, next to some chocolates...

We had a very good night sleep at this hotel; so quiet!

You sure can tell that the influences from work have come home with us...

Our home is in the color of the Caribbean (Curaçao) or Mexico and we love this Golden Mist color, see post below.

Previous post:

Working Alongside a Retired Portuguese Style Bull Fighter... in Mexico | from my very 1st work period

{Our Home with Aluminum Interlock Roofing and Benjamin Moore Golden Mist Exterior} | previous post

{What Type of Feet do YOU have?} | photo of me taken at Camino Real

Working Alongside a Retired Portuguese Style Bull Fighter... in Mexico

Yep, this was one of my colleagues while working together with Pieter for the first time in Mexico.

Juan Carlos Fuentes, whom we mentioned in previous post (see below) writing a message to us after working two weeks alongside me...

To Pieter and Mariet

A right way to face Mushroom Growing

Mexico March 1st 1994

Juan Carlos was recognized as being the person who introduced Portuguese bullfighting in Mexico, where the bull is not finished - but fought fairly with bare hands. 

What crazy people actually to be taken on the horns... 

Juan Carlos started doing this already at age 14 and all five of his brothers did so, as did his Father and his Grandfather!

To Pieter and Mariet

After facing it you have to hang in there for success.

Juan Carlos Fuentes

Mexico March 1994

~

Juan Carlos had broken his ribs, his arm and his nose many times in the 12 years that he fought, plus ruptured lips and such. 

And someone like that ends up in mushroom cultivation...

I don't think he's going to give up so soon; one like him can take a beating!

But a very nice guy to work with. 

We also had him at Pieter's seminar in Pennsylvania on January 19th and 20th, so we already knew each other.

Related post:

Yep, both of us have been TRUE DARE DEVILS! | previous post where we met with Juan Carlos Fuentes

Yep, both of us have been TRUE DARE DEVILS!

 On January 18, 1994 we just had come home from India, the previous day at 16:00 o'clock after two weeks of consulting work there, see link below: My 4th Consulting Trip to India after HUGE Landslide.

Guess we were getting some serious DANGER TRAINING...

We drove to the Atlanta airport on the 18th by 13:15 but there was no flight to Philadelphia because the airport was covered in ice and snow. We had to do another training seminar for mushroom growers as a courtesy of Full House from Campbell Soup.

So we slept at the airport Sheraton in Atlanta...

On January 19, at 7:00 we flew to Philadelphia but our flight to Reading got cancelled; the weather was too bad!

Piper Cub we flew Jan. 19, 1994 from Philadelphia to Reading due to cancelled flights

We called back and forth with Jack McDaniel from Full House and he directed us to a special phone within the airport, that connected us to a private pilot with whom he'd already arranged to fly us in a small Piper Cub to Reading...

Remember, there was NO INTERNET YET!

The pilot handed us his card (see above) and he assured us that this small plane was safer to fly, due to absolute no ice on its wings as it stood inside Hangar # 1.

There we went with a small Piper Cub, the three of us, including the pilot, who must be some kind of a stuntman for daring to fly.

The sight of a totally white Pennsylvania beneath us, gave us a sense of hyperbolically not being right in the head...!

We made it down, rough and bumpy on the ice and in the snow. 

Tom Richard, Jack's colleague was there to meet us and he helped us with our carry on; that's all we had, over a mount of frozen snow that got pushed to the side. That's how we made it into his car.

Bitter cold and mirror smooth roads with ice and snow!

We made it JIT = Just In Time for our Full House Seminar for Campbell Soup.

A number of participants could not make it, coming from Canada or else.

January 20, we continued with our seminar at Kenneth Square, riding with Tom Richard over still icy roads!

We also met with Juan Carlos Fuentes, one of the Monteblanco staff in México, he'd flown in earlier, and didn't face these severe weather problems.

My Quality Picking demonstration at the South Mill mushroom farm for 11:00 got cancelled due to being unreachable because of too slippery roads.

Red Rose Inn - Baltimore Pike Jennersville, PA 19390 Painting done by T.L. DeMott

Pieter gave his Grower Workshop from 13:00 - 17:00 at the Red Rose Inn, Jennersville, PA.

Followed by a buffet and Tom Richard did drop us both off at the Piladelphia airport where we spent the night at the Holiday Inn.

January 21, Indeed a very short night as we had a 7:00 flight back to Atlanta. How convenient for traveling only with carry on! Then our 2.5 hour drive home...

On January 22, we again went to Atlanta with our carry on (changed of course!) for our next flight to Amsterdam, Manchester UK and then Dublin, Ireland.

 Often certain connections were cheaper.

Our landing in Manchester got disrupted due to an aircraft being on the runway!

Almost touch down and then steeply up again; there was a moment of absolute silence...

Such an alert pilot!

With this manoeuvre however, we had missed our Air Lingus flight to Dublin, Ireland.

Just waiting FOUR hours till the next available flight.

BUT, recalling the Tenerife runway collision where 583 lives were lost; we felt grateful!

Related posts:

My 4th Consulting Trip to India after HUGE Landslide | We just were home 1 day from this trip...!

Red Rose Inn | The Historic Red Rose Inn being restored thanks to Jim from The Road to Parnassus for this happy update!