aroraborealis

I've tried twice to write up a succinct description of my Mexico trip, and there is no way to sum it up without turning it into a wall of text that I just don't think is that interesting to read, but I don't have enough perspective on it to be able to pull out the important or salient points. Suffice it to say that we couldn't find the rental house the first night, and after looking for it for over an hour in the dark, we gave up and got an emergency hotel room, and that was only one of at least three things going wrong at the time. It was pretty stressful and non-vacationy feeling.

We did eventually find the house the next day, and we got a discount on two nights' stay, because the owner hadn't given us instructions on how to find it. And the day after that, my suitcase arrived and I finally had swimsuits and tropical-friendly clothing, which really improved my mood a lot.

The middle of the trip was killer. We visited several cenotes, which were as magical as I've imagined (cave snorkeling!!!) and some ruins, and a super chill beach restaurant serving (among other things) whole fried fish and micheladas.

The house was just gorgeous, and private and magical, with a deck just above treetop height, so we had a long view across the top of the mangrove swamp to the sunset each night.

I hated the Tulum beach stretch. On the scale of 0="this place is for locals" and 10="this place is for tourists", my vacation sweet spot is probably about a 4-5. I occasionally like a 1-2, but not for a chilling vacation, which is what this was. I'm happy to be able to venture out and find a cocktail or some good coffee, but I don't want all the local flavor to have been steamrolled by the capitalistic race to the most tourist-oriented comforts of "home". This is the first and only time I've been to a tropical beach and found not a single store selling colorful sundresses. Almost all the clothes for sale were earth toned upscale hippy clothing in linen for $300-600 an item for people half my size. I know so many people who love Tulum, and now that I've been there, I can comfortably say: huh???

But we were toured around by a super earnest and friendly young taxi driver, who put together a great introduction to the area for us, and was a great tour guide and general company, and so we really did have a great time during the week.

Also, I spoke more Spanish than I have in YEARS, and I got a bunch of really surprised reactions to my accent, which is evidently better than I realized: more than once, someone handed me the Spanish version of the menu thinking that Spanish was my first language on the basis of my accent. Gratifying!

Which is good, because getting home was another shitshow, with my flight getting delayed by 6 hours after a flight attendant had to be evacuated by ambulance to the hospital and we waiting for a new flight attendant to arrive from NY. Then we took off only to turn around 5 minutes later when the captain said there was "a problem with the ventilation system" and we landed back in Cancun ... where we then had to go BACK through customs, because there was no other plane for us, so we spent another night in Cancun, only it was actually an hour away from Cancun, because where else will you find enough rooms for a plane full of people on short notice on a Saturday night in Spring Break Season in Cancun?

It does make a pretty good story over drinks, and I actually do feel like I had a vacation, but as one of my travel companions said once we were all home: "I am glad [that trip] happened but goddamn if it didn't feel like a test I didn't know I was taking in a subject I haven't studied."

I'm really glad to be home.

Lluvia

Mientras cae la lluvia
trastabillando entre las piedras
voy soltando recuerdos.
Es como si la lluvia
me punzara las sienes.
Chorrean
chorrean en desorden
los recuerdos:
la desgastada voz
de la sirvienta
contándome cuentos
de fantasmas
se sentaban a mi orilla
los fantasmas
y crujía la cama.
Aquella tarde lívida
en que se supe que te irías para siempre.
El guijaro brillante
que de tanto palparlo
se convirtió en cometa
Cae
cae la lluvia
y siguen fluyendo mis recuerdos
y me muestran un mundo
insensato
voraz
mundo-abismo
emboscada
torbellino
aguijón
y yo lo sigo amando
porque sí
por mis cinco sentidos
por mi asombro
porque cada mañana
porque siempre lo he amado
sin entender por qué.

Even 14 hours later, I'm still feeling unreasonably smug to have had our waiter last night ask me where I'm from on the basis of my excellent pronunciation of reposado when ordering a tequila flight last night.

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon with my Guatemalan friend Claudia, which was great. I was happy to learn that my Spanish is at roughly the same level as the last time I had a long conversation in Spanish, which was the last time I was out here. Interestingly, my conversational fluency is higher: I'm speaking more easily and thinking about it less, but my grammar is worse. I caught myself making some really basic mistakes. Still, overall, I'm feeling pretty good about it!