Happy New Year from Cancun Airport

I have two simple resolutions for 2024. I am going to read more books. And I plan to carve out time for my own pursuits in a way I haven't since going back to work in an office. 

Here's a good start--sitting by the hotel pool next to Cancun Airport, doing nothing after a swim.

Tulum: Day Five

I awoke to an overwhelming sewage stench in my “luxury” Tulum condo. I’d noticed a faint whiff a few times and chalked it up to poor sewers and drainage, but why did it get so bad in the last hours? I threw a towel over the shower drain and closed the bathroom door. I wish I’d done that before I went to bed last night, but I’d been halfway to sleeping when I’d first caught a whiff of it.

“Maybe it’ll go away.” It hadn’t. It never does. It waxes and wanes but the only way to get rid of it is for a building to be built properly, and for sewers to be built properly.

I shrugged and went out to breakfast. Tulum’s infrastructure was rough from the start, and was now utterly overwhelmed by rampant development, but wafting sewer gas isn’t something I’ve only smelled in Mexico. I’d stayed at a hotel in Milan with this problem too, and many other spots in the world. I’m glad for building standards in the USA. Government intervention at its finest, unless you also count food safety. Which I do.

I wanted to go to Vintage Café to try their breakfast, but they didn’t open until 8, and I needed to get out of my AirBnB early so I could stash my bag and get to my morning appointment ahead of the bus to Cancun. I went back to Rossini’s, where I’d gone the first day and had stern words with the server about the difference between drip coffee and americano. Their espresso machine was working today.

Tulum: Day Four

Today’s professional excursion was titled Mayan Inland Empire, and the gist of it was I got to go with other tourists in a van to the ruins at Coba, to visit a Mayan village, and to stop at a cenote. But it was oh-so-much more complicated than that. In a good way.

The trip didn’t start off so well. After I’d waited outside for a half-hour, the booking agent messaged me on WhatsApp that the driver was waiting. This turned into a kerfluffle and was resolved when the agent realized there had been a mix-up with coordinates. The other two passengers, a married couple originating from both Texas and Venezuela, had been waiting in the van outside the random apartment complex some six blocks from mine and were not delighted. And then we picked up an Annapolis family of six nearby, before driving ba
ck to the beach hotel zone (where they’d picked up the first couple) to get a solo French traveler.

Everyone was a bit grumpy at first, including the guide when we met him (late) at HQ. The only person not-grumpy was the van driver, a taxi driver who’d gotten lucky after the agency had made a series of logistical mistakes that morning. The taxi driver and his van taxi were our limo for the day. He chauffeured us to 7-11, where everyone but me and the French guy bought cheap coffee to improve their moods and awareness. (I am staying in an AirBnB with a kitchenette, so I’d made my own coffee and breakfast before the sun rose.)

We eventually drove on into the rural area outside Tulum, passing roadside stands selling dreamcatchers and Mexican Talavera pottery, and eventually we pulled into a parking lot between a lake and the entrance to the Coba ruins.

“Sometimes we see crocodiles in the lagoon,” said Tzamn, the guide (who said to call him Sam, so we will). We didn’t look for any today. We were hurrying to get through the Coba gates to get ahead of the crowds.

Coba’s main sites are at the entrance and also 2 kilometers on. We rented bicycles for the two kilometers. I chose a rusty pink one-speed beach cruiser.

Tulum: Day Three

What was more exciting, making breakfast in the AirBnB, doing some laundry in the sink, or ironing a shirt on a beach towel laid out on the bed? (Side note: Why provide an iron without anywhere to use it?)

Okay, not the most thrilling day here in Tulum, but what does one do here on a rainy day? I started the day with…yes…yoga class. Today’s class was tougher than yesterday’s, but I made it through without hurting myself or screwing up. Nearly everyone else in the class was a young woman somewhere between 25-35 years of age, weighing approximately 48 pounds, most of which was made up of hair clips and tattoo in
k. Two brought their man-friends. I was pleased to see a woman of about my age, but she turned out to be the owner and did not stay for class. The yoga experiment has largely succeeded, and I am optimistic I can continue this back in Burbank. While I don’t have the flexibility of some years back, I can mostly recall the various poses.

I followed my phone map along some new roads that went to dozens of construction sites. The walk was lovely, the sky was gray, and I barely saw any other humans or cars. Though I did see a fair number of birds. I tried figuring out which was which now that I’ve watched an entire six-episode documentary series on birding as well as read a book about a birder, but I still couldn’t tell you the name of the black bird with the bright blue wings.

Oh, will you look at that. Searching with those terms turned up the Yucatan Jay. Like a crow in a handsome blue outfit. 

I got in 10,000 steps ahead of the rain, stopped by one of the neighborhood restaurants for lunch—really, second breakfast, since my first had been fruit and coffee. I could have gone back to the apartment then, but I tried a local bakery next, and finally headed back to wait out the dampness of the day. That is, until dinner, when I had to go back downstairs to the strip of cafes. But I brought an umbrella, so all is well.

Tulum: Day Two

I did it! I went to yoga class! I found a place near my lodging and signed up for an 8:30 a.m. class today and one tomorrow. My biggest yoga class fear is I haven’t been in so long and there are a lot of instructions to follow, and I’m nowhere near as young and flexible as I was last time I went to a yoga class.

That said, this was an easy one. I do actually go to a low-key pilates class on Saturdays in Burbank, and this wasn’t even as difficult. But the point isn’t easy or hard. The point is to go and to try to establish a routine. I don’t need to go to a class to be in a class—YouTube and pandemic sorted that out. But I have to actually do it and not just think about doing it, so today was step one.

The teacher was strumming a ukulele followed by playing a tuning fork near each attendee’s ears, as well as singing a little song I didn’t know at the end. Some of the others knew it well. I didn’t laugh. I had a tough time keeping my giggles to myself the first few times I went to yoga many years ago, but now I stifle them easily. I won’t have to do that if I turn on 30 Days with Adrienne or Kassandra or one of their contemporaries.

Some Other Time, Perhaps

I think Tulum ruins might be hell. The first long line was for paying the national park fee. The second long line was for the admission ticket. The third was to actually get into the site.

I rented a bike for this! 

I'm told these queues are because I came over Christmas vacation, that I picked the worst time. 

Tulum: Day One

I spent a lot of time on Reddit and TripAdvisor. I read Lonely Planet Caribbean cover to cover. Where would I go, I wondered, for the week between Christmas and New Year’s?

Not that I’m *required* to go somewhere, mind you, but it seemed a shame to waste a week of not working. I had an idea that I would do some basic, simple yoga, possibly overcome my lethargic aversion to it and start a routine, and catch up on some writing, but I didn’t want to do it somewhere cold. I wanted to do it where I would feel encouraged to go outside—so somewhere warm. Yes, Burbank is warm. But I already know I won’t do yoga or catch up on writing in Burbank, because I don’t know why, I just don’t. And I didn’t want to get involved in dramatically different time zones this trip. It’s a long way to the Pacific from the East Coast, and a long way back to LAX from Europe.

But as I dug around online and through my guidebook, it dawned on me that Barbados and Jamaica and Trinidad all had the same problem. I would be so engaged in seeing the country that I would just do my usual—race around and learn about the destination. That’s not yoga. That’s not catching up on writing. That’s something I’m very, very good at, but I do it all the time. And the idea was to do something new—focus on myself and minimize distractions.

Editors Can Be Tiresome

I don’t have the same traditional vices as most folks. I’m too lazy sometimes, but I don’t drink, smoke, indulge in much beyond coffee. And I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Tulum where I ordered latte and breakfast, and after the breakfast order went in, they told me they only had americano. 

I promptly ordered espresso instead, but they don’t have espresso, only drip. I hate me too, but I told the guy americano isn’t drip.

Anyway, the avocado toast looks good.

A Weekend in Los Cabos

I was barreling through the desert in a rented Nissan March, the Sea of Cortez to my left, the sun glaring aggressively from a row of mountains to my right. My phone played an anthem, something bold and full of promise—what was that and how did it get into my iTunes?

I was weaving in and out of the wake of purple buses that ply the corridor between the airport and the two cabos. Is Route 1 a highway or a local road? Both, like a rural road back home where you can drive 60 mph or you can take a slow left into a driveway.

If only my Marchito were a stick shift, I thought with a sigh of regret. But still, muscle memory had taken over with driving on a poorly marked hilly route fully of trucks and unpredictable tourists. Memories flooded in as I wondered if anti-lock brakes means today’s young adults would never have the experience of rainy-day skidding into the back of a Cadillac at a farmland crossroads in America’s heartland.

Markings come and go on this Baja Sur route, which is eternally in need of maintenance and better signage, but this is second nature to those of a certain age, when the practical and metaphorical roads of life were improvised based on circumstance. Driving somewhere new and fast feels like freedom—harkening back to long-distance trips in the boyfriend’s band’s van, the epic journey from Ohio to Texas, crossing the US or Australia with Turbo in my sun-bleached charcoal Ford Taurus, the three hours from home to the internet café down a muddy red road in Uganda in a Toyota Hilux—I associate driving the unknown with adventure and the unpredictable, and I was nostalgic for times when I had my whole life in front of me.

I spotted a dump truck ahead, glanced at the left lane and saw an opening between a sedan and a Suburban, then navigated around the truck with ease, just as the marina of Cabo arose from the crest of a hill. If driving is freedom, then I must be 30 years younger, my life a series of possibilities, all of them rich, promising, and unique.

The song receded and Siri abruptly reminded me my turn was imminent. The world transformed in an instant, and suddenly I was just another middle-aged white gringa on a clichéd Cabo holiday.

Sunday Market

Sunday morning in Guadalajara. This photo is the Jalisco state government office on the main square by the cathedral. Some of the paintings I saw yesterday are in this building. I was just passing by on my way to the Covid test center at 8 a.m.

I had my test results in my email about 20 minutes later. It's truly the same test I'd buy at the pharmacy and give to myself, but they make a letter for the airline that addresses the points requested by the CDC.

Interesting change since the last time I did this--my results were supposedly verified "by the blockchain." Okay, seems like a lot of effort to swab my nostrils, but it does discourage me from lazily forging my own results. Not that I have, but I've been tempted a few times because how the hell would they even know? Maybe now they would.

I headed to Tonala for the Sunday market. I'd read it was full of crafts! Then I'd read that wasn't actually true, it was full of the same plastic crap you'd get at a Sunday market in LA. That sounded more likely. Oh well, there's another pottery museum in Tonala and what else was there to do anyway? When in Guadalajara...go to pottery museums. Isn't that what they say?

No Más

No wonder my feet hurt.

Pottery Tourism

One thing I like about living so close to Mexico is, well, going to Mexico. A couple of years ago in Loreto, I saw some pottery labeled “Tonalá.” I looked it up and learned Tonalá is near Guadalajara, and there are at least four pottery museums in Tonalá and nearby Tlaquepaque.

I made a mental note to go check out this pottery, and this holiday weekend is when I finally got around to it.

Guadalajara is currently ninety degrees, and I still have the remnants of plantar fasciitis in one foot, so the trip has been kind of challenging. Also, two years of covid, age, and 7-8 years of a desk job haven’t done me any favors, even with the odd trip thrown in here and there. I have fancy sneakers with custom insoles that are supposed to offset the heel muscle and spur thing, but I’m skeptical it’s doing much. I’m getting another opinion from Denise’s foot doctor next time I am in New York and I’m paranoid about getting too many cortisone shots since a friend got permanent damage that way, but for now, I’m just dealing with the discomfort.

Great idea to spend the days walking around in the sun, right?

Friday was pretty rough. I didn’t drink enough water and didn’t wear a hat, and was discombobulated even though it’s only a two hour time difference. Today (Saturday) was easier—I drank endless water, ate salty food, wore my hat and sunglasses, stopped for café breaks, and well, the foot thing was no different from yesterday.

This weakness and discomfort have impacted my travel confidence. Not that much, admittedly, but enough I’m surprised. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s solo travel, so I’m startled to have spiraled back to “Is this the best idea?” which is something I went through endlessly the first half of the original Marie’s trip around-the-world, but it’s been a while. All that’s really happening, I suspect, is that thing that happens whenever one has a physical ailment—wondering what if this is permanent? What if my heel hurts forever and there will be no third MariesWorldTour?

But that is silly, I know. And having the foot thing plus a job means I’m more likely to get a taxi or Uber instead of being stubborn about public transit, which is fine, and traveling during covid means the one unpleasant thing about traveling alone is solved—that is, eating dinner in restaurants. Finding takeaway is easy now. I just eat in my hotel room if the restaurant is too couple or family-cozy.

Here are some photos of my first day in Guadalajara, in the historic centro, and the second day wandering around Tlaquepaque until I was about to drop. Tomorrow, on to Tonalá (after getting a mandatory covid test for flying), then on Monday, back to LAX.

Desayuno

Guadalajara, Day Two, morning: I struggled to say I wanted my huevos y queso on an English muffin, so I pointed at one.

"Ah, English breakfast," said the server.

Okay, then, one English breakfast it is.

Quick Trip to Guadalajara

I am in Guadalajara for the long weekend. Proximity to Mexico is one nice thing about living in SoCal. 

I’m pretty fried after walking around in the sun—don’t have the stamina I used to! Here are some photos to show you some things in Guadalajara.

Secret Agenda

Whales schmales. The real reason I went to La Paz was to buy pottery from Olivia, a potter whose work I admired and purchased from a coffee shop in San Jose del Cabo last year.

I tried making this kind of pottery myself but I couldn't--she glazes it at low temperatures (less durable but lovely). I don't have control over the kiln at the studio.

Near La Paz

We saw many whale sharks today. The guide had a GoPro so maybe the underwater shots will be good, but I don’t think they’ll be better than from the boat.

Sea Pals

Here’s a few gray whale-sies from today’s excursion.

My Comfort Zone

It’s 6 a.m. and I’m on a bus in Mexico. It’s kinda my thing.

Long Weekend

I’m in Baja Sur, in San Jose del Cabo at the moment, catching an early bus to La Paz tomorrow.

Gonna go see some whales this weekend.

Vamanos

My trip home yesterday started out kind of typical, but ended on an unexpected high note. I dragged my luggage down to the rental car I'd picked up the night before, secured it in the trunk, took out the trash from the San Jose del Cabo AirBnB, took one last look around, then departed. I put the key back in the key locker and scrambled the code, messaged the owner that I was out, and then I…drove my car two blocks to a different parking space. Because I was worried someone might have seen me put my luggage in the trunk. 

Ha. Absurd, I know.

I was driving a VW Jetta from Alamo, but I had desperately wanted a Nissan March. They don’t exist in the US, so I had my eye on them since I’d spotted on my first day in Mexico. Alas, Alamo had no Nissan March for me. The March looks kind of like a Nissan Juke. 

I stopped for brunch at my second-favorite bakery, then headed out to the hotel zone, an area I hadn’t explored. It’s what it sounds like—a bunch of hotels along the coast. I stopped in some stores, but my favorite part was when I parked in a parking structure, then tried to pay for my parking on the way out. The parking machine got really angry with me and beeped loudly. A nice Mexican lady came to help me, and she couldn’t make it work either. Finally she looked at my parking receipt and noticed I hadn’t been there more than an hour. “Gratis,” she said, shoving the receipt back at me.

Oh.

I drove to a park at the end of the road, stopped at the ATM for some pesos (I like to have some spares in my Burbank stash so I don’t have to worry about getting money right when I cross into Mexico), and finally, headed north to the airport to drop off my Jetta and check in.

The airport did all kinds of annoying airport things, fairly typical of an airport. I emptied my water bottle, went through security, looked for a snack but the options were Sbarro, Subway, and Carl’s Jr, so that was icky.

The flight back was two hours, and I used my Global Entry for the first time, and now I’m never going back to the queue. I waltzed right through.

I picked up my luggage and walked outside to an overcast day. I’ve been catching Lyfts to and from the airport during the pandemic instead of my usual Flyaway bus, and while it was a stretch to imagine the Flyaway is dangerous given I’d just assumed my vaccination status would protect me on two planes, four buses, and on the streets of Mexico for a week, I reasoned that my bag was kinda heavy and I didn’t really want to navigate public transit. So I wheeled my bag over to the ride-share lot next to Terminal 1.

I signed up for a Lyft via my mobile, and then I noticed I had a text alert.

“I think I just saw you walk past Terminal 1,” texted Fletcher, a friend of mine who used to work at DC. “I’m waiting on Eddy to pick me up.” Eddy is another friend of ours who used to work at DC.

I checked my Lyft status. No driver had accepted yet. I canceled the ride, walked back to Terminal 1, and that is how I ended up eating noodles on Sawtelle last night with Fletch and Eddy.

A good time was had by all.

My plates made it home