Our Mexican Adventure

We’ve been on the road again. Almost four weeks ago, we packed up our Honda Civic again (this time with significantly less cramming) and headed back to Chicago. This trip was not the joy ride we experienced driving from Chicago to Playa del Carmen. This time we were on a mission. We needed to traverse over 3,300 miles in a week or less. 6 days of 9-13 hour driving days, including almost 2 final hours in a ‘Welcome to Chicago’ melee of traffic congestion.

After a week of waking up early, driving, eating fast food meals in the car, driving, dealing with our cat peeing in the car, driving, and never getting quite enough sleep in motels along the way, we were ready for a break. But we were on a mission. Since we had made the decision to stay in Playa del Carmen for some indefinite (probably several years) period of time, we also decided to rent out our Chicago condo to ‘real’ renters. We had been renting to John’s younger brothers, two single twenty-somethings. They were getting a bargain basement rate on our 3 bedroom fully-furnished, oak wood floored, maple cabineted, granite countered, Wicker Park condo, which they used as headquarters for countless pizza deliveries and a respectable number of kegger parties.

A former co-worker of John’s had expressed interest in our place, and a deal was struck. We had a real contract, a security deposit and even an early first month’s rental payment (no more goading the brothers into paying their rent). Woohoo! We were in business. Except our new renters had their own furniture, kitchenware and bed linens. So, everything had to go. And we mean everything! We had three weeks to sell, store or give away everything we had accumulated over the course of our lives. Sounds like a long time. Believe us … it isn’t.

People told us that letting go of everything would be liberating. Well, let us tell you, selling off furniture we thought we’d enjoy for the rest of our lives at 10-20% on the dollar didn’t feel all that liberating. We felt sad in the beginning … a sense of loss. After about 2 weeks, we started feeling despair. We still had a LOT of stuff left. What would we do with it all?! Libby was determined to find good homes for everything … researching the wish lists of all the charities she could think of. We made some quick cash by selling CDs at music resale shops and miscellaneous items on eBay. (Who thought a never used can opener would go for $56?) After almost 3 weeks, any sense of sadness was gone. We still had a bunch of stuff left. Where was the nearest fricking dumpster so that we could just dump all this fricking stuff out! #$@!*?^)@!!

But we managed to get rid of almost everything, stuffed our car with goodies to take back to Playa, and stored ski boots, high school yearbooks, and winter clothes with our parents. (Thanks Mom and Dad and Mom!) Along the way, we managed to have some good times too. We arrived in Chicago just in time for Lukapalooza (Luke family extravaganza) where we caught up with many of John’s relatives whom we would not get a chance to see again in the coming weeks. We took in both a Cubs game and a Sox game. We are equal opportunity Chicago baseball fans, although being Northsiders, we lean towards the Cubs. HOWEVER, the Cubs game we went to had to be one of the worst baseball games we have ever seen, while the Sox game was a terrific game — fun and engaging. And during our final Chicago weekend, we reunited with some old friends at the beautiful Lake Geneva wedding of our friends, Nick and Molly.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to spend as much time with our family and friends as we had hoped, and we completely missed seeing some people. Despite this, so many people were a great help to us, and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank them.

• John’s dad for driving out to our place to pick up a carload of stuff for storage at John’s parents’ house. Also for making and helping Tim move his bed and Bowflex out of our place in the nick of time, the day before our estate sale. AND also for driving out ot meet us at a halfway point when John’s mini-PC (a Shuttle) was finally delivered an hour after we left Chicago for Playa.
• Libby’s mom and brother, Laddie, (and his understanding girlfriend, Jenny) for buying and removing much of our furniture and allowing us to visit it in the future. Also to Laddie and Jenny for the Sox tickets.
• Barb (John’s sister) and husband Ray and their kids (and 3 out of 4 of our favorite nephews) R.J., David and Nathan for inviting us into their home after our condo had been rented out.
• Our college friends, Pat and Loni and their great kids, Max and Ian, for allowing us to stay with them in their beautiful home near Dallas, TX Tuesday night.
• David and Melanie, for party planning help, endless offers to use their truck, and a few days extra to get out of the condo and clean the place.

We are now on the road yet again, returning to Playa del Carmen. This trip, we hope, will be another joy ride. We have chosen to take a new route, as there are still many, many parts of Mexico we have not explored yet. So, you can look forward to reports on the new places we’ll be enjoying over the next nine days.

As many of you know, last autumn, we packed up our car with our two cats (among other essentials) and drove to Playa del Carmen, Mexico for a six month sabbatical from our corporate jobs, hectic urban lifestyle, and blustery Chicago winters. That was over eight months ago. In case we have to hit you over the head with it, we came here for a period of 6 months over 8 months ago! So, what the heck are we still doing here? Surprisingly few of our friends and family have asked that question. Perhaps it’s because, before we even left, many of them predicted we would not return. They were right, at least for now.

Playa captured our hearts the very first time we set foot on her eighteen months ago. We grew wistful that evening on the return ferry to Cozumel after a perfect Playa day trip. Months later, we went misty-eyed in the airport return shuttle after a week of Playa vacation heaven. And we can’t imagine leaving here now. Why does Playa have such a hold on us?

For sure, Playa del Carmen is beautiful. The sand is white and never gets too hot, the Caribbean waters are blue (or clear depending on your vantage point), the coral and fish are abundant and colorful.

Playa is fun. Water sports are plentiful, outdoor activities are enjoyed all year round, the bars are filled with friendly faces, the margaritas are just the right mix of sweet, sour and salt, and the cervezas are cheap.

Playa is tasty. Fresh seafood, homemade Italian pastas, Argentinean steak, French cuisine, Thai-inspired menus, Middle Eastern fare, all manner of Mexican foods, and exotic fruits, vegetables and spices all tempt the taste buds here.

Playa is friendly. We’ve befriended Mexicans, ex-pats, and tourists alike. Mexicans are easy-going, never criticizing us for our country’s politics, never laughing or sneering at our meager attempts at Spanish, and always appreciative of our attempts to speak their language, enjoy their food and not get in their way when they’re driving. The ex-pats have embraced us. And the tourists are jealous as hell of us.

But there’s more to Playa than all that. Playa is also gritty. Sidewalk hazards, scrawny dogs, maniac drivers, exposed wires, peeling paint, catcalling hombres, and construction noise abound. It’s all part of what we’ve come to love about Playa.

This is all well and good. Except that we have been enjoying all this for eight months with nary an income. Our parents taught us to save for a rainy day. We squandered our savings on sunny days. (Sorry, Mom & Dad!) Now rainy season is upon us in Playa, so we’d better start saving again.

In our old lives, we often dreamed of moving to a tropical region to run an open-air bar, start a scuba shop or open an adventure tour company. But plenty of others have already been here, done that. ‘What Playa really needs’, we’d often hear from business owners, ‘is knowledgeable and reliable computer people’. (Libby would like to note that Playa also really needs an Indian restaurant and a Container Store.) Seeing as we are both computer programmers (and quite possibly knowledgeable and reliable), this seemed like an obvious (although not very exotic) choice for us. We were in.

We inaugurated our company on the lucky day of 6/6/06. Since there are so many different needs here and so few technical persons to fill them, we will do a wider variety of work than in the states. Web site development, networking and computer troubleshooting (here that usually means ‘Help, my 8 year old laptop doesn’t work anymore!’) will all be within our realm.

Will be is the key here. In Mexico, it is a very simple matter for a foreigner to start a business. Hiring Mexicans to work for that business, while not necessarily simple, is very achievable. But legally working for your own business … that can be challenging to accomplish. Understandably, Mexico does not want us to take jobs away from Mexicans. This is an especially sensitive matter in Playa del Carmen where there are already so many working foreigners. And it could be argued that the Mexican immigration conflict in the U.S. doesn’t help our cause either.

We feel confident that we will overcome this, as we will not be taking jobs away from Mexicans. Although there certainly are Mexicans capable of doing this work, there simply aren’t enough in the Playa area to meet the growing demand. Local computer consultants have told us that they regularly turn away work. We already have several clients lined up and anxious for us to start working. To top it off, Playa del Carmen has been named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest growing city in the world. We seem to be in the right place at the right time for starting a computer consulting business.

Wish us luck, and keep us in mind for all your outsourcing development needs!

We’re bad … so bad we should be in detention. Oh wait, that’s an Anthrax song. Like Anthrax, “we don’t care for writing hits”. Or perhaps it’s more like we don’t care for writing at all. Yes, it seems that we have not updated our blog in over a month. And our lame excuse is that we’ve been otherwise engaged.

In order to impress upon you just how occupied our time has been, we will now proceed to chronicle the highlights (and lowlights) of our past month. Enjoy.

We bid farewell to our good friend, Antonio, with a muy borracho (very drunken) night at a fun salsa bar, the Mambo Café. Antonio was headed to his home state of Veracruz, and hoped to then move on to Montreal to practice his French. He speaks Spanish, English and is learning French. We speak … English. Our Spanish is probably as good as his French. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for us, Montreal didn’t work out and Antonio will be returning to Playa del Carmen soon. Yippee! We’ve been missing him.

We’ve been watching World Cup football. That’s soccer to you Americans. Why Americans use the term football to denote a game which infrequently involves the foot, and soccer for a game that constantly involves the foot, we will never understand. Libby grew up in a football household, but this was pretty new to John, who grew up with baseball. Although we still don’t always recognize an offside when we see one (but then neither do the refs) and we were disappointed to see our teams (U.S., Czech Republic & Mexico) lose early on, we enjoyed rooting for Ghana (the upset team) and rooting against France in the final game with Italy. Way to go, Zidane! To be fair, Materazzi, the recipient of the assault, is no angel and obviously provoked Zidane. Italy won the World Cup in an overtime shootout. Had us biting our nails ‘til the very end. Our friend Paul took a video of the Italians in Playa celebrating the victory. Check it out – available in Windows Media or Quicktime formats.
We celebrated John’s 34^th birthday with three of his favorite things — beach, beef and borracho-ness. The evening was spent partying at DJs, Kitxen and the Posada Freud bar with friends from the U.S., Mexico, Canada, England and Holland.

We attended a Summer Solstice Festival at Pueblo Sacbe, a cool eco-community in the jungle, with our friends, Barb, Paul and Sarah. Entertainment included a cute children’s production of ‘Jungle Book’, some sort of Eastern music (possibly involving a sitar) that we’re too ignorant to recognize, flamenco dancing, a salsa band, and a rock band consisting of two of our favorite Playa musicians, American Brad and French Ivan (at least we think that’s his name; we can’t spell in French!).

We made a quick hop over the border to Belize to buy some cheap booze and expensive gas, contemplate muy expensive electronics, eat decent Chinese, and check out the casinos in the ‘Free Zone’. Libby had an interesting encounter with Belizean border officials. People think Mexico border police are corrupt! Sheesh!

We helped our friend Steve from Seattle celebrate his 40^th B-day. Shameless plug for Steve (and Sara’s) website: PlayaMayaNews.

We rang in U.S. Independence Day with a small group of American friends at our friend Michele’s (and Rob’s) awesome pad with swimming pool in Playacar (fancy-schmancy suburb of Playa). Shameless plug for Michele and Rob’s project: Marina Turquesa. To the Americans wondering how U.S. Independence Day is celebrated in Mexico (yes, the question has been asked), it’s celebrated just as Mexican Independence Day (September 16^th) is celebrated in the U.S. Not at all.

We switched our blogging software (from Movable Type to WordPress) giving us a new format and allowing us to have multiple authors. This means that instead of reading blog entries written from the perspective of John and Libby together, in the future you’ll be able to read about what John is thinking and more importantly what Libby is thinking. Double the fun! We’ve found that now that we are no longer spending every living moment together, we are actually having independent thoughts again. In theory, this change could mean that you can look forward to more numerous posts. On the other hand, well, maybe not.

And now for the teasers:

We moved to a new apartment. Five moves in eight months. And one more on the way.

We met with many lawyers, each of which told us something completely different about the law. We’re thinking they should all get together for a long lunch and get their stories straight or something.

A new apartment and lawyers? What does this all mean? We told you they were teasers. Stayed tuned.

John, Remon, and Andy

Our friends Heather and Andy from Downers Grove were in town this past week. Although the weather was rainy and uncomfortably humid, we hopefully managed to keep them entertained.

Early on in their visit, Andy mentioned a recent fishing trip he had been on. John wanted to try out sport fishing, and Andy was game, so they planned a trip for early the next day. With the help of their guides Remon and Francisco, they managed to bring in 3 Mahi Mahi (dorado) – two weighing about 15 pounds and the other about 25 pounds. John spent an hour and 20 minutes pulling the big guy in — his hands we so tired and shaky that he had to ask Andy to open his celebratory beer for him.

John and Andy gave two of the fish to Remon and Francisco and kept the other for dinner. They took their catch to a restaurant on the beach called La Tarraya and asked them to prepare a nice feast for the 4 of us and our local friends, Heather, Michael, Steve and Sara. The restaurant did an amazing job grilling the fish and serving it in a garlic butter sauce. Everyone ate more than they needed and we still had some leftovers.

Later in the week, the four of us were down in Tulum so Heather and Andy could see the ruins. While we were there, we thought we’d check out the Gran Cenote (Admission was 80 pesos/person). The cenote was smaller than those at Hidden Worlds, but amazing nonetheless. We definitely recommend a visit.

Our latest visitors have now departed, and although we’d like some time to unwind from 3 sets of guests in 2 weeks, we need to start searching for a new apartment. Yes, our plan was only for a 6 month stay here in Mexico, but we like it so much that we’re going to try and stay just a little bit longer. More on that in the coming weeks.

We are playing tourist guide this month. Two days after John’s parents left, our friends Mahesh and Nikki, arrived for their third trip down here. Apparently, we guided these tourists a little too well on their first trip. We can’t keep them away now. It’s an affliction that affects many visitors to Playa del Carmen. Can’t Stay Away from Playaitis.

Before they even saw the beach on their first trip, they were enamored with our neighborhood (which reminded them of Mahesh’s birth country of India), tacos al pastor and our bath towels. Yes, I said bath towels.

“Where did you get these bath towels?”

“Um, Sam’s Club.”

“These are awesome. We can’t find towels like this in Chicago.”

“Really?!”

So, on this latest trip, we made a little exchange. Six brand-new super white bath towels from Playa del Carmen’s Sam’s Club for 4 shakers of popcorn salt. Well, there was some cash involved too. Towels aren’t THAT cheap in Mexico!

After we made the exchange, we did some more normal tourist things. Nikki, Mahesh and John went scuba diving in Akumal. Libby went snorkeling. Nikki, Mahesh and John saw about 5 turtles and a lobster along with the usual coral and myriad of fish. Libby saw 5 turtles, 2 stingrays, and 1 spotted eagle ray. Hmmm … considering Libby didn’t pay a cent for snorkeling, she made out.

The next day was to be a beach day. However, mother nature decided to finally provide us with a much needed downpour. It had been over a month since the last rain. The drought combined with dead vegetation downed by last year’s hurricanes resulted in wildfires all over the Yucatan peninsula. Although we were unaffected in Playa del Carmen, areas of Cancun and Mérida, were polluted with smoke and ashes.

Tourists were understandably dismayed by the cloudy and rainy weather, but locals welcomed it. Our group made the best of it. We parked ourselves on beach loungers under palapas (for a fee) and drank the day away. It would rain off and on. Libby discovered that if you are in the ocean when it starts raining, you don’t get any wetter. Funny how that works.

Libby’s Snorkeling Pictures