So here is the first photo from Valladolid, the first stop on a short and unexpected trip to Yucatan. The content tells you a lot about what I find magical about Mexico. Pasta tile floors, paint flaking off two-foot thick stone walls constructed a couple of hundred years earlier, as moisture is wicked up from the limestone beneath. Vintage Coke and sewing machines under a twenty foot ceiling constructed with ancient vigas of local timber. A small framed drawing of the Virgin of Guadalupe (or is it the Virgin of Candelaria?) graces the center of the back wall, draped with a random wire that seems a part of many Mexican rooms. A beautiful carved door, and a cheap set of plastic drawers.

Why is this magical to me? Who knows, perhaps because it is so far removed from the sterility and gloss that is the U.S. standard. In Mexico you find graceful decay that exudes a kind of elegance. Up North dacay permeates the soul while the surroundings shine with synthetic prosperity.

I almost didn't go on this trip. I had become discouraged about the prospects fro relocating there, and the memories of challenges were crowding out the magic. It had been several years, and when Pat decided he was going on his own, I decided I had better try again, or perhaps lose forever the possibility of adopting a Mexican reality to replace the increasingly depressing U.S. dystopia. I booked the flight he was on, then cancelled it. I booked another flight the next day, and canceled that. Finally, fearing I might never go again, I booked a flight two days into his trip for the following morning. After three hours of sleep, I was up at 2:00am to finish preparing and head for an early departure.



Twelve hours later, I arrived in Cancun to catch the bus from the airport to town, and then to Valladolid, half way to Merida and where Pat had arrived the night before. I didn't have any Mexican cash, and didn't want to accept the rotten exchange rate in the airport kiosk, so I paid with USD for the airport bus, then again for the ticket on the Valladolid bus at the main terminal. The lack of pesos only became a problem when I tried to use the bus station restroom, and found a 5-peso turnstile.

I went across the street to a money exchange place, where it took the two girls (one training the other on a balky old PC system) about fifteen minutes to change forty dollars for me. With minutes to spare, but pesos in hand, I operated the turstile then boarded the bus for Valladolid. The fact that all this stuff worked out with no plan or advance knowledge of how things worked made me feel like the magic did still exist, and that finally, I was tapping into it again.

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