Category: Mexico

Travel in the Time of COVID – Part 2

Previously: Our first vacation after coming home from South America was supposed to have been a resort stay in Cancun. Then the never-ending pandemic for which some of us are still wearing masks two-and-a-half years later (ahem) kicked in, and we put off our plans for as long as we safely could. We started going stir crazy. We dipped our toes back into travel with short trips to New York and Tampa. (Read it here.) Then the day finally came when we had to go abroad or go nuts, so Lea, our friend Melissa, and I were off to Mexico.

(But first… mea culpa. The events in this article took place a full year ago, I wrote it all down a month later, then I’ve sat on it for nearly a year. In that time, I’ve been distracted by finishing another novel and starting a job as a writer for Shortform, but that hardly excuses my new heights of procrastination. Anyway, back to the story in progress…)

Cancun, October 2021

Here’s the thing about resorts. You can book a stay for a very low price that comes with food, drinks, and airfare included. The catch is that they’ll want to sell you more. This is the dreaded “time-share sales pitch.” Sometimes it’s brutal; sometimes it’s benign. You just need to be prepared to spend part of your vacation having people try to sell you even more vacations. When you’ve been cooped up in a house for two years, even more vacations can sound very tempting.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

After landing in Cancun, dashing through customs, and extracting some pesos from the ATM, we faced our first gauntlet. Between baggage claim and the exit is a hall of rental car, taxi, and tour excursion companies, with some degree of overlap between them. But oh no, the staff don’t meekly wait behind their counters; they’ll step directly in your face and grab you if they can.

In years past, I remember running through this scrum to escape from the vendors as fast as I could, but this time I didn’t feel the salesmen-induced panic that’s overcome me before. Maybe it’s because we had a specific group we were looking for—people in blue flowery shirts—that helped me avoid making eye contact and triggering my primal “run from the lions” instinct.

The Blue Flowery Shirt People were stationed at waypoints every fifty feet to help direct us to the shuttles conveniently located at the absolute far end of the ground transport lot. Once there, we were welcomed (and sales-pitched excursions to) while waiting on our actual van. We said “no thanks” several dozen times and were finally hurried along. Our room at the resort wasn’t ready yet, but not to worry—we’d planned for that and packed shorts in our carry-ons so we could sit by the pool and start drinking right away.

However, before that, we had another “welcome” to sit through. This wasn’t a normal sales pitch, exactly—it was a sales pitch for a sales pitch. The rep gave us drinks, told us about the resort, and offered to schedule a tour the next day. (“Not a time share, I promise!” he said.) In return for a 90-minute presentation about this particular chain of hotels, we’d get a bottle of tequila and 2-for-1 massages.

We said, “Sure, why the hell not?”

For the rest of the day, we sat by the lovely adults-only pool and drank ourselves silly. Masks were required indoors but not outside, so we crossed fingers that we wouldn’t regret going face-naked in public. (This was between waves of Delta and Omicron.) Lea did the math on our beverage intake and calculated that if each of us drank at least eleven free cocktails per day, we’d have paid for the trip in alcohol consumption alone.

I swear we’re not drunkards. This only happens in all-inclusive resorts. The first time we’d gone all-inclusive like this was in Negril, Jamaica, 2007. Before that, I’d never been a drinker at all, but Negril began my love affair with rum, from which I’ve now branched out to tequila, whiskey, and vodka. Thank you, Caribbean! I never knew what I was missing.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah: the sales pitch.

The “90-minute presentation” took two and a half hours. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly a time share. The pitch was for a membership to the resort, with access to others all around the world. Instead of hotel rooms, members are given beachside suites anywhere in their network, with a small added fee if the resort is all-inclusive. The math was tempting when looked at as a cost-per-year basis. My eyebrows were definitely tingling at the view from the guest suite’s seaside balcony. Had the membership been an annual subscription, I think we would have considered it. The words “yes, please” tasted very good, and I hadn’t even had my first cocktail yet.

However, a subscription wasn’t what they were selling. Instead, they offered a 25-year membership, paid for up front as if buying a car (financed for two years). Once we said “No, that’s not going to work,” they kept coming back with more spins on the offer—try this portion, try our travel agency, use the membership every other year. But resort travel isn’t our style. We may do it once every five or ten years, but it doesn’t leave room to explore the way we like.

Still, after two and a half hours of being marketed to, I damn sure made off with that free bottle of tequila.

The next day we went snorkeling, something I hadn’t done since staying on Isla Fuerte in 2019. (In South America, Lea snorkeled more than I did—see also: Morro de São Paolo). On this trip, the swim was invigorating (a polite way of saying “holy crap, what a current”), but the views were certainly worth it.

The first site was a shipwreck, and unlike others we’ve seen, this one still looked like a boat. The second dive was over an undersea art installation (see above), and it was here that I suffered a wardrobe malfunction (one of my flippers broke loose, so with only one remaining I had a really fun time not swimming in circles). At the third spot, we snorkeled over a wide bed of grass that was a haven for turtles. We found one, whom the whole tour group stalked as it went about its little turtle business. Though our snorkel excursion took us off the resort, we never left the clutches of the Cancun tourist industry.

So on the day after that, we got on the bus.

This was more in line with how we travel, and to be honest, I was nervous as hell. Google Maps doesn’t track Cancun’s bus routes, and though Moovit does, it’s pretty inaccurate (as we’d find out). We’d ridden Cancun’s buses before, so we weren’t in completely unexplored territory, but it still felt like stepping back into the unknown.

The market they normally direct tourists to is Mercado 28, so of course our destination was Mercado 23, where Cancun’s actual residents shop and eat. Nevertheless, many of the stalls sell tourist merchandise and, because ‘tis the season, Día de los Muertos paraphernalia. The “Ruta 1” bus from the hotel strip doesn’t go all the way there, but if you hop off at the McDonald’s on Avenida Tulum, it’s only a five-block walk.

And walking is the way to go. There are several streets that lead to Mercado 23, but why anyone would drive is beyond me. Traffic was deadlocked all around the market, and I couldn’t begin to guess where anyone thought they were going to park. The market itself was crowded and hopping, so we wandered all through it, bought souvenirs, and inhaled the smell of fresh tacos (we’d be back). Mercado 23 doesn’t take very long to explore, but woe betide any tourist who thinks they’re going to make it out without buying something. Can’t be done.

Where to go next? A graveyard, obviously! (Note for new readers: Lea and I go see dead people.) On our last time to Cancun, we visited a tiny cemetery on Isla Mujeres, but this time we searched for one in the city. The closest we found was the Municipal Panteón, but I grew leery when I realized that we’d have to take a mini-bus, which I’ve always found to be cramped, bumpy, and untrustworthy. (Looking at you, Lima.) Moovit showed the routes but not the cemetery itself, so I looked up the address in Google and off we went.

Of course, we ended up in the wrong place. After riding to where we thought the address should be and finding nothing but a string of auto repair shops, Google confirmed we’d overshot by a mile. Thankfully, the second ride didn’t take too long, but the cemetery was a little disappointing. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s the most poorly-kept cemetery we’ve seen in our travels. It appeared to have reached maximum capacity in the 90s, and no one had tended to the graves in a while. Some had even cracked open, and human remains were clearly visible. Apologies for the lack of photographic evidence, but taking pictures of someone’s skull in the dirt felt grisly and inappropriate.

After leaving, we waited and waited and waited for a minibus heading our direction. The first one we spotted with the right route number passed us by without stopping. The next one did stop, but the driver kicked us out well short of where Moovit said it would go, requiring us to hoof it back to Mercado 23. (Because tacos.)

The taco stall we found was the emptiest in the market; at that moment, Lea and I were its only customers. But dios mio, the tacos were good. Our server also brought us a mystery drink that looked like old milk. Being us, we said “Why not?” It turned out to be horchata —sweetened rice milk with a hint of cinnamon. We liked it enough that we bought a second bottle to have the barkeep at our resort mix with rum.

While we waited in the heat for the bus back to the hotel, my legs sore and shirt sweaty, Lea said to me, “See? You know you missed this.” Well… maybe? I think it helped that an ice-cold swimming pool was waiting for us, a luxury we’ve rarely had in other parts of the world.

With only two days left, it was time to find out if fate would let us come home or if we’d be stuck for an extended stay abroad. To return to the US, we’d need a negative COVID test within 72 hours of our flight. The State Department didn’t specify which type of test was required, so we chose the rapid test—not the most accurate, but in case of a false positive, we’d have time to test again before departure. In case of a positive positive, Lea and I had lugged our work computers all the way to Mexico while dreading what a two-week quarantine room service bill would look like.

Thankfully, our tests were negative. While we’d been as careful re: COVID as we could, I attribute our continued good health to the Inverse Corollary of Murphy’s Law—any negative occurrence that you actually prepare for will not be the thing that goes wrong.

(Please note: I’m not a doctor, but I only play one on TV.)

(Second note: If you understood that reference, you’re old.)

We spent the rest of our days sitting by the pool, grazing on buffets, and getting up early to take pictures of the sunrise. And thus our time in Cancun came to a close.

The transit home was a full three-ring circus. But that, my friends, is another story…

Friends, I am here today to sell you something. Namely, I am here to sell you the idea of taking a vacation to Oaxaca. They’re not paying me a dime for this. I’m proselytizing just because I love the place so much.

Readers will remember from my last article that Lea and I visited Oaxaca in 2016 to celebrate Día de los Muertos. Oaxaca is definitely the hot spot to be on the Day of the Dead, but there are plenty of reasons to visit this lovely part of the world at any time of the year.

Because we went there specifically for Day of the Dead, we had a lot of fun in transit – and by “fun” I sarcastically mean the other thing. We booked an evening flight to Mexico City, a brief stay at a hotel near the airport, and a quick morning hop south to Oaxaca . The travel gods were not pleased by this, so our hotel in Mexico City cancelled our reservation and every other place within a reasonable cab ride was booked as well. We could have got a room at the hotel inside the airport for the paltry sum of $400 USD. Instead we chose to sleep in the terminal.

Which was freezing.

Early and bleary, we landed in Oaxaca and were immediately welcomed by the warmth and easy laid-back atmosphere of this small, secluded city. We were also met, right at the departure gate, by people selling tours. Normally we would have set our shields on maximum and our phasers to stun, but we were tired, had a lot of travel to arrange, and when we saw that the agents were selling trips that went nearly everywhere we wanted to go for dirt-cheap prices (around $30 USD per person) we said “Sure! Why not!” and signed up.

But first things first: We needed food! After checking into our hotel, we grabbed a cab and went forth in search of sustenance. Oaxaca has a lot of good restaurants, many of which can be found around the Zócalo (the big square at the center of town) and along the Calle Porfirio Díaz, which parallels the pedestrian Calle Macedonio Alcalá. However, thanks to our handy Fodor’s guidebook, our first port of call was the Mercado 20 de Noviembre, a market and collection of eateries that is ground zero for traditional, authentic Oaxacan cuisine.

Basically, this is where the locals go to eat. The center of the market is an enormous maze of kitchens and food stalls where you order your food directly from the cook and sit at a bar (or at tiny tables for two). On the way into the building, if you’re coming from the street named Miguel Cabrera, you pass through a meat market where you can pick out a cut of meat from one stand, your vegetables from another, and wait while all of it is grilled for you and served on tortillas.

The Mercado 20 de Noviembre isn’t designed with tourists in mind, so they’ll spot you coming from a mile away. This won’t do anything to change the friendliness of the people, or how fantastic the food is. Sure, try some of the upscale restaurants in town, but go to 20 de Noviembre first.

So about that tour:

We signed up for a longer excursion that hit many of the top spots to visit outside of town. We scheduled it for the day before Día de los Muertos began in earnest, so as not to miss any of those goings-on while tooling around the countryside. The tour was conducted in a convoy of vans which, during the peak of festival season, were packed as full as they could go. Some had Spanish speaking guides and some English. However, because of an internal snafu at the tour company, we weren’t picked up at our hotel when we were supposed to be. The company sent an employee to fetch us in their personal car, and we caught up with everyone else at the first stop – after which we got to ride in the front seat with the driver of one of the Spanish-language vans, squished in between the passenger door and the gear shift. And yet, it was all good fun.

The first stop was east of town, in the village of Santa María del Tule, to see the Árbol del Tule, a Montezuma cypress that has the largest trunk of any tree in the world. The trunk has a circumference of nearly 140 feet, and is 46 feet in diameter. The second place contender is either a baobab in South Africa or a giant sequoia in California, depending where you look online.

From there, the tour took us to visit (and shop at) an artists’ collective in Teotitlán del Valle where you can watch local artisans produce rugs and other textiles using hand-operated looms and natural dyes. The people of Teotitlán are of Zapotec descent and wear their heritage proudly. Lea and I found a rug there that we liked very much, and I failed utterly to negotiate the price down before buying it.

And that was before they gave us alcohol. The third stop on the tour was El Rey de Matatlán, a watering hole for travel groups where you can see how mezcal is produced and taste multiple varieties before battling your urge to buy multiple bottles. (I’d already blown our spending money on that rug, so we were safe.) Mezcal, distilled from fermented agave, is the beverage of choice in Oaxaca. Tequila is a sub-category of mezcal made from blue agave, but in fact there are many more varieties than I’d imagined.

The landscape around Oaxaca abounds with Zapotec ruins, which are very well preserved because of the region’s dry climate. Our tour took us to the second most important archaeological site in the area, Mitla (derived from the ancient name Mictlán). Mitla was the religious center for the Zapotec people, and the site is an amazing complex of well-preserved temples, tombs, and palaces.

Our last stop for the day was at Hierve el Agua, a natural infinity pool in the sky. The rocky pools are at the top of sweeping cliffs over a deep valley, above what appear to be enormous waterfalls – until you notice that the “water” isn’t moving. These white formations are caused by calcium carbonate from the springs that form the pools, carried by water trickling down and depositing minerals in the same way that stalactites are formed within caves.

For those adventurous enough, or who thought ahead and packed bathing suits, you can dip in the pools and enjoy the view of the valley. Lea and I did not, though we did enjoy taking pictures and sampling the snacks for sale at the village on top of the cliff. 

Back in Oaxaca itself, there are plenty of ways to spend your time. There are so many art museums and galleries that now, three years later, it’s hard to remember which ones we went to, though I’m pretty sure we visited the Museum of Prehispanic Art, the Manuel Álvarez Bravo Photographic Center, as well as La Casa de las Artesanías. Of the churches in town, the Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán is not to be missed. During the Day of the Dead festivities, the entire façade of the cathedral was lit up at night with an impressionistic video history of the region.

Directly connected to the Templo de Santo Domingo are the city’s botanical gardens, the Museum of the Cultures of Oaxaca, and the Francisco de Burgoa Library. The museum has extensive displays on the history of the area, and needs several hours to fully enjoy. The library is no less jaw-dropping – the thirty thousand volumes inside, cultivated from monasteries and convents across southern Mexico, are positively ancient. I giggled to see a locked shelf of titles that had been banned by the Inquisition as heretical.

In Oaxaca, we also discovered the funniest street-crossing signs in the world.

There are plenty of places to shop in Oaxaca, but if pottery is your thing you should take a cab or bus out to the village of Santa María Atzompa. It is here that much of the traditional “black clay” pottery of the region is crafted and sold, as well as the green-glazed pottery that is unique to this village. We don’t often go in for souvenirs, but we did buy a beautiful green bowl, and I kept a black clay skull from Atzompa in my office at work until I “retired.”

Last, but certainly not least, if you visit Oaxaca you absolutely cannot miss the ruins at Monte Albán. Give yourself a day or two to get used to the altitude first, because Monte Albán was the capital of the Zapotec civilization, and like all Mesoamerican and South American cultures, they loved to build their cities on top of the highest mountain they could find.

There are several great things about the site. First, it’s amazingly well preserved, given that it’s one of the oldest cities in Mesoamerica (dating back to 500 BCE). Second, all the tourists are over in Cancun visiting Chichén Itzá and Tulum, so you can actually see the monuments at Monte Albán without a thousand people taking selfies and blocking your view. Guides for hire are available, as always, but Lea and I wandered the city on our own, at our own pace. Just make sure that when you arrange transport up the mountain, you also have a ticket and a time to get back down.

In our travels, Lea and I are sometimes doing more than enjoying the local scenery and cuisine. We’re also on the lookout for a place to retire. Oaxaca is on that list of possible destinations. In fact, it’s pretty close to the top.

Here’s one last story to give you the flavor of the community: While scouring the Internet for Día de los Muertos activities, we came across a well-buried poster for a daytime comparsa in Tule, city of the giant tree. We took a cab there well ahead of the appointed time in hopes of finding a spot from which to view the procession. We consulted our map, found the intersection where the comparsa would begin, and staked out a doorstep where we could sit in the shade.

And we waited.

As we sat there, an event of some sort began to take shape. Young people of high school age walked by with band instruments. Old men set up chairs, tables, and a canopy in the middle of the crossroad. We waited for some activity to erupt, for the people of the town to pour out in droves, but nothing happened. That is, until the guys under the tent noticed us and invited us over. They pulled out chairs for us, right in front of everyone, so we could watch the band that had set up around the corner. Somehow, just by being there, we became guests of honor at the comparsa of Santa María del Tule, even though our Spanish was nearly as nonexistent as everyone else’s English.

The band played, old men danced with a Catrina, and bottles of home-brew mezcal were passed around. (Drinking was not optional.) While we were enjoying the event (and asking ourselves what we’d got into), a Chinese woman who’d been exploring on her own was roped in to be the center of attention with Lea and I. It was an odd, unexpected situation to say the least, but we felt very, very welcomed by these people with whom we shared nothing but a common humanity and a love of life.

Yeah. I could definitely go back there to stay.

P.S. Here’s a thing even long-time readers have surely forgotten. Waaaay back in Chile, this very time last year, I decided that when we returned from our South American odyssey, I was going to publish a collection of all my short fiction that had seen print so far. Ladies and gents, that collection is now available just in time for your holiday shopping pleasure! Check it out.

The Escape Hatch will return in early 2020. Where will the trapdoor open? Israel and Jordan! Stay tuned.

So we have this quaint little holiday called “Halloween.” Adults binge-watch slasher flicks and Tim Burton movies while kids dress up and go door to door begging for candy. Grown-ups being grown-ups, we buy our own candy and gorge ourselves silly. All of this somehow goes back to the Catholic observance of All Saints and All Hallows Eve, transmogrified into the autumn equivalent of Carnival as hosted by Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Aside from the holiday being awesome, I’ve also heard it pointed out recently that Halloween is the line in the sand that keeps Christmas from advancing any further up the calendar year.

In Mexico and other Latin countries, the Festival of the Dead is taken much more seriously and is, ironically, even more fun. Down there, they haven’t forgotten the “reason for the season.” They’ve kept the muerte in Día de los Muertos.

Readers of this blog will recall that Lea and I have a thing for touring cemeteries around the world. In October 2016, she and I went for a mainline fix of this habit by taking a trip to see Day of the Dead celebrated properly. We didn’t aim for any crummy coastal tourist town, either. We went hardcore: We went to Oaxaca.

(Pronunciation: Wah-Hah-Kah. Now you know.)

Oaxaca is the southernmost state capital in los Estados Unidos Mexicanos. It sits on a mountain plateau in that southernmost bend where the country swerves north into the Yucatan before crashing into Guatemala and Belize. It was home to both the Zapotec and Mixtec cultures, and relics of that era still pepper the whole region. The Oaxacan people and their culture still wear their ancient heritage proudly, of which the Day of the Dead celebration is only the most visible and well-known example.

Now, we did a lot in our week in Oaxaca, and not all of that had anything to do with Día de los Muertos. I’ll save the other stuff for my next post; today I want to focus solely on the Day of the Dead. During our time there we watched comparsas, took photos of catrinas, and visited celebrations at big city and small town cemeteries during the height of the festival. Each place had its own special character, and every one was worth the trip.

Definition time: A comparsa is a group of singers, musicians, and dancers, of which we got to see many during the festival. A comparsa isn’t a parade, but at night they do parade down the boulevards of Oaxaca City, usually dragging a festive mob along with them. During Día de los Muertos, the comparsas are more often than not accompanied by people in costume, on stilts, and/or carrying giant effigies of the dead.

Catrinas, along with the ubiquitous sugar skulls, are perhaps the most recognizable Day of the Dead iconography. La Catrina is an elegantly dressed female skeleton, and she can be found literally everywhere. Though she’s dressed in the finest European fashions, La Catrina can be traced back to the death-goddess Mictecacihuatl, who oversaw the remembrances of the dead in Mesoamerica long before the Spanish conquest.

Ofrendas are altars to the departed. They usually contain pictures of the deceased as well as enough food for a banquet and items representing what the honored person loved most in life. There are many different regional styles of ofrendas, all of which we saw displayed at an exhibit at the San Pablo Cultural Center. Pay attention to the schedule of activities, and you’ll probably be able to find a traditional ofrenda in the act of being assembled.

The celebration in Oaxaca begins as early as October 28. The north-south pedestrian street through the city’s central district, the Calle Macedonio Alcalá, becomes a thriving market full of stalls selling all manner of holiday paraphernalia: sugar skulls, skeletal dolls, bouquets of flowers, religious icons, and knickknacks that you can either take home or leave on the graves of your loved ones, who’ll be coming to visit and trade gossip from the Great Beyond.

If you’re worried about Oaxaca being infested with American tourists during this season, don’t be. We were told – by locals even – that the city is overrun with tourists at this time of year, but one look at the busy (but not overly crowded) thoroughfare and we said, “Pfft! Have you seen Mardi Gras?” In the year we went, Oaxaca was crowded enough to be festive, but not so much that it was in any way suffocating.

October 31: All Hallows Eve

On Halloween night, we took a cab to the cemetery in the Oaxacan suburb of Xoxocotlán, referred to locally as “Xoxo,” where one of the most traditional Day of the Dead observances is held. Outside of the cemetery, there was a full-on carnival atmosphere. Vendors sold food, flowers, and glow-sticks for the kids. A full band played at the city gates, and the smells were that of any State Fair I’d attended in my life.

Inside the cemetery, the noise went down by half. The mood was still festive, but mixed with courtesy and respect. On October 31 and November 1, families in Xoxo sit vigil with their loved ones, bringing picnics to their family graves and sharing news with the spirits of the dead, who are believed to be present on these nights. The graves are decorated with flowers and lit with colored candles. In Xoxo you can also find many examples of graves decorated with tapetes de arena – meticulous sand paintings of the departed or religious figures. For a traveler, this first night of Día de los Muertos brought mixed feelings of reverence and the excitement of discovery.

November 1: All Saints Day

On All Saints, we stayed in town to walk through the Panteon General, the large municipal cemetery in Oaxaca City itself. The cemetery has clearly grown over time, the older sections separated from the new by the complex’s original walls. Class divides are evident as well, based on the grandeur and upkeep of various mausoleums. The cemetery walls themselves are full of crypts, stacked five high and running along the entire circumference of the necropolis. During Día de los Muertos, those crypts are lit by candles, bathing the stone in tones of sepia.

The Panteon General is less colorful than the cemetery in Xoxo, but the monuments are beautifully sculpted. I know that despite all the time we spent, we didn’t come close to exploring all the grounds. We saw them first during daylight hours. When we returned at night, we bought flowers from a vendor outside and laid them on several graves that had gone unattended.

November 2: All Souls Day

On our last full day in Oaxaca, we visited cemeteries in the small town of Santa María del Tule and in the neighborhood of Xochimilco not far from our hotel. Both were very vibrant, with the tombs painted like the houses of Valpariaso and many of which were used as garden beds for a variety of flowers and succulents native to the arid Oaxaca region. The burials in Xochimilco were nestled so close to one another that it was impossible to walk through the cemetery without stepping on grave after grave. The plots in Tule were spaced farther apart, with many shaded paths leading in between and – unless my memory fails – a hot dog stand and balloon vendor near the entrance.

What makes Día de los Muertos special is that it’s not about mourning the dead, but instead is about celebrating their lives. Despite the trappings of skeletons, devils, and other grisly images, the holiday has as little to do with “horror” as riding a roller coaster is about plunging off a cliff. Día de los Muertos is a celebration of remembrance, with a little sadness, but also joy – joy in the reminder that death is a sign that life nevertheless goes on.

Next Time: What else we did in Oaxaca!