Traveling can be a lot of things. It can be new, fun, exciting, adventurous, and enlightening, and it can also be scary and nerve-wracking {but it’s rarely ever boring}.
My week in Mexico was a bit of all of those things, and in the end, it was also deeply personal. Have you ever been to a place that just recharged you? By the time I landed in Playa, I had just finished two years of grad school, and spent the weeks leading up to my trip taking exams, writing papers, giving presentations, and packing and cleaning my apartment. I was exhausted, and Mexico gave me time to think and breathe.
Let’s take it back to the beginning…
I woke up early to catch my flight from Boston to Playa del Carmen. It was early, and still dark outside, but it was quiet. My friend was supposed to join me, but a few weeks prior she had to cancel due to a family emergency. I decided to go alone.
I landed just after 3pm. The heat and the humidity were the first things I noticed when I got off the plane; it had been a while since I had been in such a climate. I found it comforting.
I cruised through immigration, baggage claim and customs. And then it got chaotic. I should have known better and taken some time to pause before I left the airport, but I wanted to get to the bus stop because I knew the timing was tight {I found this article, which was super detailed, but in the moment it didn’t help me with much more than the name of the bus}. After a failed ATM stop {it dispensed dollars, not pesos}, I walked out of the customs area and entered a sea of bus, shuttle and taxi drivers, ready to pounce.
And pounce they did. But I had a plan {or at least I thought I did}. I navigated my way through the ticket sellers and found the ADO bus stop. Forty-five minute wait. I hunkered down and studied the tourist map, avoiding those around me trying to sell me on alternative transport. One guy was particularly insistent. He started his sales pitch, saying his shuttle would be there sooner. I thanked him but said no. He started dropping the price, and couldn’t understand why I would wait 20 more minutes for a $5 cheaper fare. I ain’t got nothing but time, I thought, and money is tight. Anyway he kept trying and knocked it down to $20 and said it would drop me off at my hostel. He sold me with that personal drop off part, so I said yes, though until my ride came, I was worried I was being scammed, or that the ADO bus would arrive before that.
But it didn’t. My ride came, but it wasn’t a shuttle or a bus. I rode in a regular car {or was it technically a taxi?} with one other girl who spoke a bit of Spanish. We stopped at a gas station after abut fifteen minutes; the girl got out to get water, and while I waited, our driver looked at me and said Amiga…taxi. I saw a taxi a few feet in front of ours and understood: we had to get out. The driver paid the taxi driver to take us to Playa, but only to one location. The girl asked if we could pay more to go to two locations. Thirty-five pesos extra. I told her I didn’t have pesos yet {damn ATM!}. She said she’d pay. It’s only $5, she said {she must have meant in Israeli dollars, as it would have been less in US dollars}. I was grateful, but I knew that that was just what travelers did for each other – they helped each other out.
{“That girl” was 22 and her name was Amit. She was Israeli, doing her post-military service travel. I told her I met a pair of Israeli girls when I was traveling in Southern Africa {in Lesotho} and mentioned they were doing their ‘right of passage travel,’ as I remembered it. She was doing six months in Central and South America, and by the time I had met her she had been traveling for 5 months.}
The taxi driver dropped me off near my hostel, and I walked about a block down the main street to get to its entrance. By the time I settled in and showered, I realized I couldn’t stop sweating. I forgot what it felt like to sweat constantly, to feel it drip down my back and collect on my upper lip, and to watch my hair slowly grow in size until it more closely resembles a lion’s mane; to be in a room with a fan and have it still not be good enough, and to have all of my clothes stick to me, and my hands fail to dry after washing them. I was in a perpetual state of sticky…¡Bienvenidos a México!
Temporarily Local 