Waiting for Mexico

Right now that is how many days we have left in the United States this year.

The leaves are starting to turn and fall.

The water lines are blown out and the pink antifreeze is ready to be injected into the camper pipes.  

Our Migration instinct  is full on now!   We are restless and fidgety, it is too late in the year to actually start anything new except Christmas Shopping.    








The Hawaiian shirt with Santa Claus has suddenly reappeared after a 2 year hiatus in the moving crate.   The cat travel containers are on display so the livestock doesn't freak.   That was the big deal last year, flying into Cancun with two cats was a learning experience to say the least.  But we did figure it out on the way home.   Just assume the attitude of the guy on the commercials.   You know, that guy.  He is the most interesting man in the world.  Just start giving orders and they all think you know what you are doing and give you more service than you request.   Also a 50 peso note can't hurt.

  We are getting way better with this trip.  Forget trying to haul anything around by yourself.   That will be especially true this year because we are taking a George Foreman Grill with us.   Brand new, in the box, patio style, stand up, grease reducing, electric grill for the condo.   We found it on sale and they are totally missing in our section of Mexico.   So we had to buy it.    Aduana has a policy of allowing 10 times the amount of stuff into the country at Christmas.   We are bringing it.  And the cats.   And the netbook.   And my Medicine.    Good thing we are sitting in the front.   

I love first class.   The service starts at the curb.   The baggage handlers treat you different as soon as they see your first class designation.   We will have a completely (short) line to check in.   No extra fee for our foreman grill.   Our luggage and our grill will get festooned with a sticker designating it as Special.

We don't even have to sit and wait out there in the main concourse with the other people.   We will hide in the first class lounge.   They actually come and get you and surreptitiously escort you to the airplane.  We will be chugging our first cocktail behind the privacy curtain while other passengers are jockeying for position and trying to cram their crap into the overheads  in the back.  Up front we will have plenty of warm towels and snacks served in little baskets about once an hour.  Our private potty is still fresh after 3 hours and there is never a line to use it.  The best part about first is the seats.   They are 30% larger and recline flat.   NICE!  

The service doesn't stop once you arrive.   We will walk off the plane as three or five cabin monkeys block the rest of the 287 passengers jostling for their stuff in the overhead.   Our luggage comes off before everybody else.    Stay thirsty my friend.   Travel heavy.

  




Next, How to go to Playa the easy way.

Zopilote

Traveling west across the Yucatan Peninsula in a rented Jeep with the top off.  This car had TOURIST written on it in big red letters.    It might have said AVIS but it is essentially the same thing.   We chose to take the Cuota or toll road because of the lack of decisions and fewer obstacles.   We were frequently amazed at the appearance of a person pedaling a three wheeled vehicle (two wheels in front) along the shoulder seemingly in the total middle of nowhere.  I have since looked at maps and Google Earth and there is nothing there. 

 So here we were heading across the scrubby 20 foot tall forest at about 120.   In American that's about 72.   We had the road pretty much to ourselves.  In the distance ahead we could see moving objects in the curb lane.   Whatever it was seemed to be hopping back and forth across that half of the highway.  As we approached the scene it became evident that the animals directly in our path were birds.   Big birds.   They were having a feast on some kind of road kill.   

P was looking off into the distance at this vulture buffet as I moved over to the passing lane to avoid the mess.  We were still about a half mile away when one of these primitive bastards decided to take flight.   The biggest one hopped a few times toward us, flapped his 6 foot wingspan once, twice and began veering into our lane.   The other creatures had stopped eating to watch their giant friend take off. WHAM.   We clobbered him.  He rolled across the windshield and blew up and over the jeep.  She ducked, I already had my head down by the steering wheel.  We were both trying to avoid the red shower of blood and guts.  The whooshing sound of feathers blowing the wrong way and screeching claws like chalk on a slate assaulted our ears as the bird tumbled by only inches over our heads.  She turned to watch the carnage on the road behind us while I looked in the mirrors.   The other birds wasted no time splitting into two groups.   They were feeding on our boy before he even stopped rolling.   

One wiper was a little bent.  That's it, one bent wiper arm.  One recycled vulture.  We were not covered by the half digested offal upon which they had been feeding or the resulting excrement which should have been exponentially worse than any seagull guano.   No mist of ultra fine blood particles resultant from our high speed collision on our clothes, up our noses, on our teeth and RayBan sunglasses.  Easy Peasy. All done.  A clean get away.  Just keep going, pressing on across the flat limestone based gnarled jungle towards the site of the meteor impact that instantly assassinated all the dominant species on the planet millions of years ago and toward a big, frozen drink with fresh fruit and a cherry enjoyed under the thatched roof of a Mexican beach bar.