The plane´s landing at Mexico´s Cancun Airport this morning was bumpy, but nothing to Wellington on a breezy day.
Yet across in the departures terminal, there is muted - and sometimes not so muted - panic among the several thousand tourists trying to get out before Hurricane Wilma hits. Mostly from the US, they have cut short their holidays in the sun, the memories of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita still raw.
Some had been evacuated from their beachfront hotels at dawn, as waves broke higher on the beach and proprietors began boarding up windows.
Georgie and I have just flown in from Cuba, where ill-prepared authorities have begun evacuating thousands from the coast. A building near us in Havana had collapsed in a far milder storm two weeks ago.
But language difficulties in Cuba meant we too were unprepared for the level of fear inspired by Wilma in Cancun: all we knew was from some satellite pictures we had glimpsed the previous day on satellite TV.
Here in Cancun, Mexican airline staff are dealing courteously with upset tourists, though they would rather be evacuating their own families from homes far less secure against the hurricane than the big hotels.
But some risk-averse American airlines have cut and run already. We were booked in the afternoon with US Airways on a United-operated flight. One of the few remaining US Airways staff is terse: "All our flights are cancelled, go into Cancun and look for a storm shelter. Don't come back before Sunday."
Fortunately we persevere with United, who promise they will endeavour to drop a plane into Cancun, still relatively calm, to get out those passengers who are scheduled to fly that day.
Outside the airport, the coconut palms are beginning to bend with the gathering wind, and airline and security staff gather uncertainly in pastel-uniformed clusters. A lone police car stands empty on the concourse, its lights flashing.
Former Wellington fashion retailer Wendy Francis and her developer husband Bill have flown in from Havana on the same flight as us, and are hoping to catch the last plane out, to Los Angeles.
But when Bill realised he could not get his stash of Cuban cigars through customs, he could not resist boarding a shuttle bus to Cancun in an attempt to courier the excess cigars direct to New Zealand.
His shuttle bus battled its way through congested streets, as retailers boarded up their windows and residents fled on foot to hurricane shelters, blankets and pillows under their arms.
"It was sad, they didn't need to yet. They should have held their ground," he says when he makes it back to the airport. "Though the waves
were breaking right over the beaches - they'll do a lot of damage."
"The shuttle dropped tourists who couldn't get out at Raddisson Suites in the city. The other hotels wouldn't take anyone. Raddisson Suites is downtown and they were putting ply up on all the windows."
He and his wife share the frustrations of the other travellers: the lack of any information at all from airlines and authorities. Even some of Cancun's most fluent English-speakers seem to struggle to string together words as they worry for their own families' safety. Misinformation multiplies.
By mid-afternoon, "cancelado" appears besides most flights on the departures boards, but Bill and Wendy Francis remain confident.
"The hurricanes change direction so much you really don't know until a day or two beforehand what's happening," Wendy says.
"I actually feel quite detached from it. It would be different if you lived here - then you would be most concerned. If the worse comes to the worse, I guess they'll clear the airport and put everyone in a shelter.
"But I think of those little old ladies, with the mantillas and beautiful skirts, that dress up for the tourists in Havana - how would they cope? They sit out on the street - I wonder if they even have anywhere to go when there's a hurricane."
Georgie and I caught the last American flight out of Cancun last night, to Washington DC. Wendy and Bill were hoping to get
the very last plane out of Cancun, a Mexicana flight to Los Angeles 40 minutes later. Thousands of other tourists - not to mention the locals - were stranded in shelters as the hurricane ripped the resort town to shreds.
I finally read All The Presidents' Men on the beach of Isla Mujeres, but I still can't pretend to understand how US politics works. And the Washington Post and the New York Times don't help: they seem to break all the JOUR 101 rules about providing context and explanation. It's all acronym and metaphor and the assumption that you have read all the previous stories on an issue over the past three months.
But there were differences as well: After listening to three senators debating the merits of the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding program(me) in New Orleans, the final speaker finished and left the chamber. No one else rose to speak, and so the remaining senators and officials just wandered round the chamber and chatted for 15 minutes, till I gave up and left. It seemed senate democracy was taking a break.
