2/25/17,
“Mexico Complete”
Los Cabos
International Airport, Baja California Sur (SJD)
We choose to
go where we travel, and I chose to say “Mexico Complete” before I turned 30 and
do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,
because that challenge is one that I was willing to accept, and one that I
intend to complete. I think my homage
here should be clear to many of my readers, even if my Seventeen Goals is not
quite as ambitious as President Kennedy’s goal of going to the moon, but the
concept is relevant. I chose to go to
each and every of Mexico’s 34 World Heritage Sites, when I could have used
those resources to relax on the beaches of Cancun or Acapulco or even wander
the streets of Paris.
I chose to do all
of this, and the other things, because I enjoy the challenge of it, and today,
by saying “Mexico Complete”, I have become one step closer to fulfilling one of
the loftier of the Seventeen of visiting every WHS in North America. In fact, I was even able to say, “North
American Tropics Complete”, and that’s saying a lot. Two short trips to Canada and one to
Iceland/Greenland are now all that stand between me and saying “North America
Complete”, the two WHS in Hawaii are actually in Oceania, not North America, so
it will be in Newfoundland and Labrador that I say, “North America Complete” in
July.
This was a major milestone towards
that accomplishment, though, and, by any measure, it is a cause for
celebration, precisely because it was hard, possibly the hardest thing I’ve
ever done. I will reflect more tonight
on how I arrived at being able to say the famed words this morning, both on my
previous trips to Mexico and on the trips to Central America and the Caribbean,
but this entry is about the events of today, up until I began The Return
Journey.
After I closed last night, I
published and had some odd dreams, Eomer and Gandalf featuring heavily in the
dreams, my reading still fresh in my mind.
We woke up around 8 AM and tarried perhaps too much, not leaving the
hotel until a little after 9 AM and unfed.
I calculated that we would need to leave the hotel at 11 AM for me to be
comfortable on an early arrival here at the airport. I put on my casual clothes for the ceremonial
picture, and we drove down to the coast, near where the Plaque was. Roberto had showed me his picture from a
previous visit, and it was the perfect spot for a ceremonial picture. Since Carnival was going on, La Paz had made
a spectacle of it, and there were booths and rides and stands, all unattended
on a Saturday morning, as we walked.
There were also lots and lots of portable toilets.
We got to the Plaque, and next to the Plaque
was a huge circle of portable toilets, obstructing the view of the coast. I broke down laughing. The irony of it. After spending four years visiting the other
33 WHS, here I was at the last one, and the perfect vista was blocked by
portable toilets. Once they realized
that I was more amused than disappointed, Roberto and Elias joined in the
laughter. We agreed we’d take one photo
with the Plaque, with the portable toilets in the background, and we’d take our
ceremonial picture behind it on the beach, with the perfect vista. I lit up an Hoyo de Monterrey and gave
Roberto a Graycliff. We took our picture
with the Plaque and then stepped down onto the beach.
Roberto looked at me expectantly as I looked
around the beach and the coast. He knew
the words that were coming, along with the significance of them. I would delay no further. It was time to claim it. “Mexico Complete,” I announced. We shook hands and congratulated and thanked
each other. It was very much a team
effort. We took our ceremonial picture,
and it was perfect. I knew that the wind
of the beach would spend the thin cigar quickly, so we stayed on the beach
until the cigar was nearly done. That
was it.
We went in search of souvenirs,
and I found what I wanted. Meanwhile,
Roberto and Elias sat down for breakfast.
I joined them for coffee, but I had no appetite. I would not have breakfast or second
breakfast or elevenses. In fact, other
than some chips, I would not eat until I sat down for lunch at 2 PM. The service was brutally slow, and it set us
back by half an hour, but I had built in over an hour of Dutch time, so we were
good. After breakfast, I relit my cigar,
and we headed to the car.
Before long, we
were at the hotel, and I finished packing and changed into my travelling
suit. We went back to the car, so began
The Return Journey, which, as is my tradition, I will recount in its entirety
once I get back to New York. There would
be Many Partings, indeed, but that will be recounted in time, as well. There and Back Again, that was what needed to
be done. We had finished the there, and
now it was time to go back again. On
that note, I will close.
Benito
Juarez International Airport, Federal District, Mexico (MEX)
Once again,
my 2015 Christmas Pipe finds itself being smoked at an airport in a foreign
country’s capital airport, the only places it has been smoked outside of the
state of New York, as a trip comes to an end.
First it was LIM (Peru), then it was DOH (Qatar), and now it is MEX
(Mexico), but those smokings pale in comparison to this one. When I do the reckoning, I expect that this
trip will pose a strong challenge to even the trip that ended at DOH, but, more
importantly, this spot hold a special significance, the spot where I have previously
reflected on six trips to Mexico, and the spot where I am now doing so for the
seventh and, what may be the final, time.
Of all my trips to Mexico, this was clearly the most epic, and it is
good that it would end on this note, after I have said, “Mexico Complete.” Sitting in this spot reminds me of each of my
other trips to Mexico, all of seven of them, which all ended, more or less, the
same way.
The first one, though was more
less than more. It was in this spot that
I sat, unknowingly, as the check-in cutoff time for my flight home passed, and
I was forced to spend the night (and part of the next day) at the airport,
missing a day of work with no reward. It
was a lesson hard-learned, but I never repeated that mistake again, even as I
reflected here five more times before this trip. I remember the second time, when Enrique
dropped me off here, after I contracted him privately for my second trip like
this. I remember the third time, when I
connected on the way back from Guadalajara and learned another lesson: exit the
airport immediately after getting off your connecting flight, rather than
trying to exit back through security.
That was the third trip I took with Enrique, where we met in
Guadalajara, and it is the trip where Roberto and I met on Instagram.
All future trips would be with Roberto, and I
would never see Enrique again. I
remember my first trip with Roberto, my fourth one of these trips, to the
Yucatan, to see Chichen-Itza and other sites, and I came here after saying
connecting from Villahermosa. I remember
my fifth trip, where Roberto and I toured central Mexico and said goodbye at
the airport, before I came to this spot.
I remember my sixth trip, where Roberto and I toured the borderlands,
and I came here after connecting from Hermosillo. And, now, here I am, for the seventh time,
reflecting on a trip to Mexico. None of
these trips were easy, and it would have been nigh on impossible for me to have
to have done them without the help of Enrique and Roberto and Elias and the
people working behind the scenes, such as my mother and Scott. As I said earlier, I didn’t choose to do it
because it was easy, but because it was hard.
That said, it was very hard, and it was even harder to say “North
American Tropics Complete.” That
required many, many trips. It required
four trips to Central America, all of which were hard. The solo trips to Panama and Costa Rica,
which I did without the help of any guide, proved a particular challenge, but
the CA-4 trip I undertook with Fernando to see eight WHS in 4 countries in six
Days was very hard, and I couldn’t have done it without him. Belize was challenging, but it proved easy in
comparison to the others I have referenced.
Then, there were the trips in the Caribbean, to islands Americans rarely
visit by plane or venture inland during their visits by sea. The first one was to Dominica and Saint
Lucia, the first such trip that I planned, and my inexperience in such trip
planning made it difficult, but I pulled it off. Next came the short trip to Antigua and
Barbuda and Saint Kitts and Nevis (two countries). Figuring out the flights was a bit of
challenge, but executing it was not that bad, and it was actually one of my
more enjoyable trips to the Caribbean.
Then came my first trip to Jamaica, of which I will not write. After that was perhaps the oddest of my
trips, to the three countries of the Windward Islands, only staying in their
capitals. The countries were, in order,
Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados. The only WHS in that region was Bridgetown,
the capital of Barbados. That was also
one of my more enjoyable trips to the Caribbean.
Then came Cuba, by far the most difficult of
all, both in planning and executing, for obvious reasons, but I was able to
plan a religious studies trip with an old friend, and we pulled it off with the
help of a guide who was not happy with the full extent of the ambitious nature
of our trip. He did not realize how
crazy we were, but we did it and we saw all nine WHS in Cuba in five Days. Next was my return to Jamaica to properly
visit their newest WHS, and easy task in the two Days I allowed for the trip,
despite the difficult roads I drove. My
last trip to the Caribbean was the one to Hispaniola a month ago, which was
extremely challenging, both in planning and execution, but I pulled it off.
I have not mentioned the two trips I took to
the islands in the North American Tropics that are not in the Caribbean:
Bermuda and The Bahamas. Bermuda was
easy enough, and it was a fun birthday trip with my parents, while Barbados was
a 24-hour jaunt that was easy enough to plan and execute. Reader, every trip that I recalled, every WHS
that I visited, every national legislature that I saw, all of that was
necessary for me to be able to say “North American Tropics Complete” today. It is a region that I love dearly, and, other
than my trip to the American portion of the region next month (The Virgin
Islands and Puerto Rico), it may be quite some time before I return to this
region.
As for this trip, where does it
rank? The delay at sea and failure to
land at Isla Socorro, likely cost it a spot in the top ten, but we shall see. Currently, the tenth spot belongs to Israel,
after The Last Great Summer Road Trip Adventure was dislodged when I got back
from Australia. I think, that if we had
landed at Isla Socorro, seen the Plaque there, and had gotten back Wednesday
morning, instead of late Wednesday night, it could make a play for challenging
Israel and TLGSRTA, but, as it is, it fails against Israel, both in natural
beauty and the joy of the experience itself, and it also fails against TLGSRTA
for the reasons I mentioned. It would
probably have beaten TLGSRTA if Phase 2 hadn’t been so rushed, but it wasn’t so
it didn’t.
That said, it was a great
trip, and we had a great time, the three of us, in Phase 2, even if it was
rushed, but the time on the boat seemed a blur, and I would have much rather
been able to have traded one day on the boat for an extra day in Phase 2, but,
then, if that happened, we never would have met Elias, so it’s funny how those
things worked out. Saying “Mexico
Complete” (and “North American Tropics Complete”) was a momentous occasion, but
it paled in comparison to even erroneously saying “Mainland US Complete.”
Phase 2 also paled in comparison to the drive
across the Canadian Prairie, which I so loved.
Again, that it not to diminish this trip in any way, but it fails to
crack into the Top Ten, if only barely.
I have enjoyed my trips to Mexico (and the North American Tropics), but
I am glad to have said, “Mexico Complete” (and “North American Tropics Complete”),
even if it means I will not return for quite some time. On that note, I will close so that I can
publish and get some dinner. I will
treat The Return Journey in its entirety from New York tomorrow morning.
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