Mexico

 

I'd never been to Mexico before, and never thought I'd set foot on Mexican soil without my traveling companion, but she'd been detained from the very start. As the plane made it's descent towards Cancun, all I could see were acres and acres of trees, jungle. Then all of a sudden, a housing development! It was a far cry from Cancun's expensive resort hotels and beach loving tourists. This view from the plane was the closest thing I got to the real Mexico. It fascinated me in it's simplicity. It was obviously inhabited by people that had very little, and I am sure that on one of these simple dirt courtyards I saw a bed frame with a mattress sitting outside. I was reminded of the palette bed in Orchha, India, that had been carried outside and placed near the source of the community's water pump. Each morning we'd drink our chai up on the roof of our hotel and look down as life's quiet drama unfolded before our very eyes. The first thing that the women did in the morning was to come to the watering hole and fill their pots with the days water. Here, looking down at Mexico, I saw no watering hole, just very straight roads and little hovels.



Once I'd gone through immigration and customs, I spent a long time with the travel agents at the airport. When they were finished with me, I walked outside. I had a five hour wait before the plane bearing my fellow artist would show up. I was a bit angry at her stupidity, but what could I do? There was no way to communicate with her, and we'd not booked a hotel in advance. All I felt I could do was to wait. I decided to sit at Starbucks of all places. I was hot and thirsty, so I ordered an iced green tea slushy thingy. The picture shows how much of this large drink I'd downed before it dawned on me, "STUPID GIRL!" I shouldn't be drinking anything with ice in it! I was kicking myself hard. I wrote it all down in my journal and figured if I was going to get sick, it would most likely happen way before the person I was waiting on would arrive. The good news, I never did get sick, so I suppose that either Cancun is safe to drink the water, or Starbucks used filtered water for their ice. Either way, I'd had more than a few minutes of worry. It just had not been a good day so far. Still, here I was in Mexico, with Spanish spoken all around me, and funny money in my pocket.