Hola, Mexico

I should be starting up at giant stone presidents right now. I don’t remember when I first decided I wanted to see Mount Rushmore, but i suspect it was when I realized how close it was to the Corn Palace. I remember exactly when I knew I had to see that architectural miracle. In the early 90s I was working as a researcher for the children’s television quiz show Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, when I first encountered the building constructed entirely of ears of corn in a guide book we used for fact checking. Before I’d ever heard he term “bucket list” this became the first item on mine.

And with two weeks off and a car at my disposal, this was the time to do it. But my family curse, sciatica, visited me for the first, but I fear not the last, time and 10 long days in a car was out of the question. I thought about flying there, but if I flew there, I figured, I could fly anywhere. And  with that, the world became my oyster.

For a while I was thinking about Zurich and the Matterhorn, but I figured I might get bored after a couple days and try to climb the thing, and that would probably be a bad idea (I would like to see it though); Santorini was in the running, but holy cow it’s expensive; there’s this place in northern Norway, above the arctic circle,  that my friend Jami told me about, but if I ever do go there, I want to go with her; and then Tulum moved into the lead. It’s a hippie town, always a plus for me, with lots of yoga and some ruins. With a little good googling I got a great deal on hotel and flight and with six days to spare, I was booked.

I landed in Cancun to the news that they’d found 8 bodies in town that morning, two cut in pieces and shoved in a trunk, and no reservation for my transfer to Tulum, 2 hours away. Forty-five minutes of Spanglish negotiation and I was on my way in an unmarked car. I haven’t been so certain a driver would kill me since Patagonia, but in this case, like that one, I arrived safe and sound and sorry for misjudging them. A welcome cocktail later and I was all settled in.

Yesterday morning, day one for me, I scouted the grounds, took two yoga classes, water aerobics, drank several passion fruit magaritas, and took a salsa class. I’m very bad at salsa. I also did the 90 minute time share presentation and hard sell in exchange for $500 worth of resort case, which I immediately turned into to some ground excursions and a massage.

All in all, we’re off to a good start.