Mexico August 2007

I started the following - what I had hoped would become an extensive travelogue about the Mexico trip - last August, 2007. As you'll see, the entries are very incomplete. I apologize profusely in advance for that. I've simply cut and pasted what I had written up to the point of sitting in the airport and waiting to fly out of Mexico. Back then, I had intended to edit this more closely. But I feel moved now to post it in its rugged, incomplete, (in some places) grammatically incorrect, and abrupt-ending form as a kind of cathartic self-expression and reflection of my being at this point in time. For reasons that you may be familiar with, the entire experience spelled the beginning of the end of my relationship with the travel companions referenced below. In retrospect, however, I see it as a sweet ending to what turns out to have been a bitter chapter.

If anyone wants me to elaborate on any particular part of the trip, specify it in the comments section and, if I can, I'll provide more thoughts.

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Mexico (August 2007)

I’ve divided this narrative into subheadings, because legal writing has scarred me forever. But it turns out that it also makes for ease of reading for those of you too impatient, or with too much of an attention deficiency to read this from beginning to end.

And so it began like this…

A confluence of factors inspired our spontaneous travel to a beach resort town in Mexico: Stephanie’s craving for psychological and physical distance from Brooklyn so that she could seriously delve into dissertation writing; Will’s long time interest in traveling to Mexico, combined with Stephanie’s encouragement that it would be a great place for dissertation writing; and my hasty desire for a bar tip…. anywhere.

I won’t bore you with the administrative details of how we arranged our trip and ended up deciding on Akumal - a quiet, Americanized resort town (x Miles) South of Cancun on the “Maya Riviera” in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula along the Caribbean coast. For that, I suggest http://www.locogringo.com. But it is worth noting that it was only a matter of days between the time that we conceived of the idea to take this trip, and when we booked our rental car, thereby wrapping up the final details of our trip. (As a footnote, Will had previously suggested Puerto Rico as a possible destination, but I vetoed that suggestion after a law school friend informed me that it was hurricane season in Puerto Rico, which hits during the months of June and October. It didn’t fully register, though, that the “hurricane season” bit actually applies to the entire Caribbean region, including Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula where we were headed.).

We flew out of Philadelphia on August 7.

Driving Out of Cancun Towards Akumal

I was prepared to entirely disregard The People’s Guide to Mexico (Publication Information) as an immensely problematic travel guide, but after an incident with the Mexican Travel police on route from Playa Del Carmen to Akumal on Route 307, we all swore by The People’s Guide as our primary user manual to Mexico.

Specifically, the People’s Guide informed us that while traveling by car afforded certain obvious advantages, it came with certain risks. This included the Mexican traffic police's regular practice of stopping tourists, and hassling them for a mordida ("bite"), which is the equivalent of an inflated speeding ticket. We were traveling down the highway from Cancun to Akumal, and we were flowing with traffic, which is to say that we were well OVER the speed limit (like the locals). Before we knew it, a crew of two mexican police officers flagged us to slow down, and so we did, off to the side of the highway, and so began the hassle...

When we stopped the car, and initially, they demanded that I speak to them in Spanish. With a tan, I bear a striking resemblance to a local Yucateco. When I insisted in English that I couldn't understand or speak Spanish (as the guide suggested), they say in English: "You were 15 Kms over the speed limit. Can I see your driver's license?" Will handed them his PA drivers license. This of course was an excellent move on his part, because they then demanded that, before returning Will's drivers license, we pay them 100 pesos (appx. 10 dollars) for each mile over the speed limit, or "Just one hundred." I chimed in, "Pesos you mean?" He smirked, "No, 100 Dollars."

I became desperate at this point, and started having flashes of spending my post-bar trip in a cold, dark, and dingy mexican jail cell; I had images of making attempts to call the US embassy only to speak to some apathetic administrator, uninterested in hearing about another stupid american tourist landing himself in a mexican jail. I started getting angry at the whole system of global capital, which I held responsible in that moment for creating a large-scale system of gross social, political, and economic inequity among the nations, and breeding this kind of small scale, day-to-day extortionary/retaliatory behavior by police officers in the "global south" towards tourists from the "global north." It got worse when it occurred to me that threatening to call the police would be futile, as we were already speaking to them...

As reality came back to me, wisdom from the People's Guide surfaced. Rule No. 1: Pretend that you cannot speak Spanish. This frustrates the Mexican Police who have trouble speaking English. Rule No. 2: Don't give them your drivers license. Rule No. 3: If they demand the "bite," demand to be taken to the police station to speak to their Chief. The traffic cops will not want to do this as it often means they will have to share their extortioned money with others at the station.

After 10 minutes of arguing back and forth in English, demanding to be taken to the station "all the way back in Cancun," it obviously occurred to them that we weren't going to give in, and they weren't going to extort the bite from us. They handed Will's drivers license back to him, smiled, and slapped us on the wrist "Slow down next time!" A wave of relief came over me, as told us to enjoy the rest of our trip, and told us to get on our way.

We all sat in silent disbelief and relief as we continued on towards Akumal.

Los Yucatecos

Paraphrasing one of our travel guides, Yucatecos are mindful that the tourism industry is their key at getting ahead in Mexico. This is why they have learned English and are eager to practice their English with tourists. A drive through Cancun’s Zona Hoteleria (describe the Zona as a long strip of land, in the shape of a seven), however, displays a smattering of luxurious hotels owned and run by prominent foreign hoteliers. This leads one to wonder how much capital remains for the Yucatecos, and how much foreign capital drains out to fill the coffers abroad of the likes of gingras tonterias such as Paris Hilton.

Does mass tourism help the Yucatecos to get ahead, or does it sustain their economic subservience to tourism?

Hablar Español en México

In tortured spanish, I often said “Si hablo un poquito español, y Ud. habla un poco inglés, podemos communicar.”

As I’ve mentioned several times, I’ve loved Mexico because of the plentiful opportunities to speak and be spoken to in Spanish. I haven’t been to a Spanish speaking country since taking a weekend trip to Spain during my junior year abroad at the LSE, so my Spanish-language reading, comprehension, and speaking skills have been somewhat shaky throughout the trip.

Akumal

I can't say that much happened for me during the time spent in the beach resort town. Lots of solo sitting in the sun, aimless wandering around, and cooking for what it turned out to be very productive PhD students. The length of this entry reflects to extent of my excitement during this portion (read: 4/5ths) of the Mexico trip. Fortunately, Stephanie and Will found this portion of the trip to be particularly rewarding, as they both broke major headway into their dissertations.

24 Hours to (El Ciudad De) Mexico TAPO

As I mentioned earlier, we were travelling to Carribean Mexico during hurricane season. And lo and behold, hurrican Dean was heading right for the Yucatan penninsula. This led to a dramatic change in plans, as we scurried to pack our things in Akumal, and head inland. We were fortunate enough to be able to change our departure city from Cancun to Mexico City, and after making those plans, this portion of the trip came to a quick end.

A little bit of Spanish does go a long way, however, and it facilitated the purchasing of the last few seats for Stephanie, Will and I, on a packed bus headed out of Cancun for Mexico City’s Tapo bus station. And the proficiency helps in understanding an angered open air taquería owner’s advisory that we “Pásale amigos, Pásale!,” as we lingered along in the way that nosy tourists do, salivating at a frying pan sizzling with cebollas, chorizo, and pollo, while locals huddled around stuffing their faces with tortilla filled with meat and salsas of various kinds.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take too many pictures of our bus trip, because my camera was in my suitcase underneath the coach bus. Your comfort level on a coach bus in Mexico depends, as you might guess, on the class of the ticket that you’ve purchased. [Insert description from the People’s guide].

Mexico City

A few things to note about Mexico City: 1) It's old and the architecture is beautiful; 2) It's bustling with energy; 3) apparently's it's very dangerous; 4) air pollution, air pollution, and did I mention, air pollution?

Mexico City is what makes me love Mexico. As one of the largest cities in the world, it resonates with me and my love for urbanness and cosmopolitanism. I also love its incredibly rich history. And Mexico City, well the District, gets extra points for being home to Frida Kahlo.

Dawn en la Calle Isabel la Católica, Mexico City.

Mexico City around el Centro Histórico dies un petit mort at night, when merchants close down with the loud shutting and locking of metal grates. Left on the streets are city workers cleaning up the street trash of the day, and the crowd of construction workers on the random street corner digging up the city’s guts out of a manhole on the street.

Mexico City awakens with a gasp and the city explodes into a bustle.

Mexico City Is Gay

Our gay experiences in Mexico included a trip to explore gay life.

The first evening, Will and I obliged and met up with Stephanie's white mexican friends in a very swanky part of Mexico City. Will and I been tired and were locked out of our hotel room, because the key hadn't been left with reception, and apparently ground-rules don't apply to everyone. After an insular conversation at the restaurant in which it occurred to me that we were surrounded by expats, I felt that the best way to enjoy the evening was to encourage everyone to go out for drinks. Fortunately after some pushing, (I'm a pusher) Stephanie’s friend Roy, and his friend Adrian (sp?) agreed to show us some of gay Mexico. Roy was also visiting Mexico City, and Adrian had been living in Mexico City for the past few months, and so he’d become acquainted with some Mexico City's gay hot spots, which appear to cluster around a neighborhood called “La Zona Rosa.”

We went to a club called “Neon,” which Adrian hesitatingly proposed, because, apparently, Neon is a scene for “Twinks.”

The next day, Will and I met up with Gabriella Grimm, who grew up in Mexico City and had been dating Tanya, someone who I graduated with from college.


North American Pride

This is a person opinion I hold, but I wholeheartedly support excising Canada from common references to “North America” and replacing it with Mexico.

When Hurricane Dean hit the Yucatan . . .

On the evening of August 20/Early morning of August 21, we were safe from the hurricane Mexico City in our hotel (but interestingly, not safe from the dangers of Mexico City as all the guidebooks, our hotel, and the DF police informed us). We watched TV news coverage of the hurricane, and our hearts sunk as we saw images of those left on the Yucatan seeking shelter from the hurricane.