My lingering fears about Mexico being, well, what Americans are meant to fear about Mexico have still come to naught. People in Chiapas are exceedingly nice. The highway along the border with Guatemala is completely paved and not even traveled by slow- or crazy-fast-moving trucks. Anyone looking for off-the-map adventure down here I guess should be looking to bunk down in an EZLN camp…and I’m not planning to put those details in the guidebook.

I really don’t have any brilliant adventures or insights to share. This trip is going so smoothly in part because B is with me. When your mother’s along for the ride, it makes you pick the safe option more often than not. When I’m by myself, I end up getting into disastrous adventures because I think, “I’ll just do this one last thing before dark…” or “I’ll just save another ten bucks…” or “I’ll just order one more dish, to really test out this restaurant…”

Still, today was not record levels of comfort. I subsisted on nothing but two pieces of toast and a handful of macadamia nuts roasted with chile (OMG–yum! Buy them at the little stand by the entrance to the Tonina ruins–they same little stand that has a propane-fueled espresso machine). And a Coke.

We’re in Frontera Corazal, just having taken a boat up the river to the ruins of Yaxchilan–an amazing ride on the water, then ruins that are straight out of a movie set. I even saw a little bit of a monkey in a tree on the way back. That was on the Guatemala side of the river. Clearly, Guatemala is much cooler.

Tomorrow, back up the road to Bonampak, where now you can rent bicycles to ride up to the site, rather than taking a special combi ride. If I were alone, of course I’d do the bike, and get all sweaty and sunburned and dehydrated. But I’m with B, and I suppose we’ll take the combi instead of riding several miles in the jungle heat. We’ll have another lovely day. Oh, alas.

OK, one observation: People pronounce Google here like it’s a Spanish word. That is, Goog-LAY. Hee hee.

Uh, gotta go. A toad is lurking about a foot from my desk, and won’t stop staring at me. Maybe he’s one of those poisonous ones I’ve heard so much about…

B and I were walking around checking out hotels in Palenque today. Actually, we’d just eaten lunch, and I was thinking about visiting hotels. I really, really hate doing hotel inspections–or I hate thinking about doing them. Like so many things, they actually end up being kind of fun and informative in the end, but I never can remember that at the start.

Anyway, first hotel we stopped in was shiny bright and clean–a nice change from last night’s cabana, which was a natural refuge for at least seven distinct specias of Chiapas spiders. Also, a translucent frog–translucent the way geckos are. B saw that and said, Aren’t those the poisonous ones? Always a nice thing to think about right before bed.

Anyway again, we see this nice clean hotel–really, sparkling. M$200 a night (aka US$20). Parking. Continental breakfast delivered to your room. We smile, we take a card, we walk to the door…and the sky opens up. Total deluge. We turn around and book a room. We nap to the sound of rain spattering on the metal roof. It worked out swimmingly.

Except, of course, for all the charming places we visited after the rain stopped, where the people were so nice we actually felt guilty for not giving them our business as well.

We were walking up the main town drag today when a giant parade float went by, covered in red heart-shaped balloons and teenage girls in white leotards and glittery angel wings.

Also, oh yeah, saw yet another clown yesterday.

Back on the subject of hotels: the reason B and I were in the Palenque Spider Reserve last night is that as soon as we pulled into the alleged best cabanas on the road to the ruins and saw one dude with dreadlocks, I just could not bear it. I could already hear the late-night drum circle and the annoying talk about shamans. I put the PT Cruiser in reverse and we hightailed it to the most random, only-reachable-by-car-and-therefore-not-accessible-to-backpackers cabanas we could find.

This reaction makes me think I am no longer qualified for this job. Though it’s not entirely my fault. The reason I cannot go the backpacker route, and instead drive around in a rental car, is because backpacking requires time–and I cannot afford to take the time, or I would never be able to make my book deadline. So I can’t actually live the lifestyle I’m allegedly researching. I like to think I’m not a fraud, but sometimes I wonder.

On the upside, I saw some great ruins today. I heard howler monkeys. I bought a beaded shrimp keychain. I got served more than half a chicken for lunch. And I got to nap on the spur of the moment at a very clean hotel.

Tomorrow: Ocosingo, and some waterfalls. (Or that’s the plan…actually failed to spend any time at the cacao plantations I mentioned in the last post, thanks to some monstrous highway construction, and also lingering over a giant breakfast shake of chocolate milk, oatmeal, granola and every kind of fruit you can think of. You can see how that would’ve slowed me down a little.)

Always exciting, the day after I arrive somewhere, to discover what I’ve forgotten.

1) My hat. Top of head melting. Face getting blotchy. I tried on hats today in a craft store, and they were all for people with 2-year-old-size heads. I guess that would mean 2-year-olds.

2) Forgot my iPod and my clever little voice recorder, which made my last research trip so much better. A breakthrough at the time…now squandered.

3) Oh, I forgot to learn Spanish. I mean, I forgot to relearn my Spanish, or even just study…or even bring my dictionary. My Spanish mastery of, say, three years ago, has already crumbled. On this trip, I suspect even my mother may surpass me in fluency, and that’s not saying much.

4) Forgot to tighten the lid on my mouthwash. I guess if something’s going to leak in your toiletry bag, mouthwash is the best one to do it. All my clothes smell minty fresh, and the evaporating alcohol made them cool to the touch when I unpacked that first night.

Anyway, now that the major mistakes are taken care of, it’s just on to the work. I tried once again to like Progreso, but it’s one of those places that makes me think, Gah, people will do anything to live near the sea. It is just not a town with any kind of soul that I can discern.

Then we went to Campeche. Now that city’s got soul, and it’s getting more all the time. First time I visited, in 2003, the historic center was very cutesy-museum-piece, with no useful businesses at all. I got grumpy and cursed the fake “trams,” which are just open-sided buses.

Now Campeche has tons of stuff going on–you can buy a fridge, eat a Whopper or get some espresso in the center. You can hang out on the plaza on a Saturday night and play the loteria with the old ladies, or sing karaoke to a crowd. Or, best of all, you can wander over to the musical fountain!

Believe me, if I were in, say, Vegas, and someone said “musical fountain,” I would roll my eyes and walk the other way. Somehow, in Campeche, where the pleasures are simpler, the three fountains choreographed to Mexican anthems and classical excerpts hit the spot. Especially because everyone else seemed so happy with them. Kids were jumping around. An older man with a cane was boogying, while his wife looked on and giggled. Three nuns sat on a park bench, and one took pictures of the fountains with her cellphone. Those fountains rocked.

Yesterday we got into New Territory. I’ve been coming to the Yucatan since 2003, and this is the first time I’ve set foot outside of the peninsula proper. When B and I crossed the border into Tabasco, on our way to Villahermosa, I couldn’t help but think of all the usual stereotypes of Mexico. Maybe this is where I would be robbed by bandits, get violently ill and be shaken down by a policeman.

So far, no. People drive a little more aggressively here, but that’s it. The food is totally different, and tasty–there’s some crazy kind of chile here, only as big as a caper, that’s in all the salsa. There’s some crazy river fish with nasty teeth, a pejelagartos, that everyone eats. It tastes like mud, like all river fish, but I like the way it made our waiter swoon and say “It’s awwwwesome!” last night. And instead of a basket of tortilla chips, we got a plate of deep-fried plantain crisps with lunch today. Brilliant.

I was also a little leery of coming to Tabasco because of the terrible flooding that happened last November. It wasn’t until we’d been walking around for a while today that we noticed the high-water marks on a lot of buildings. Everyone has “Yo [heart] Tab + Que Nunca” (I heart Tabasco more than ever) bumper stickers on their cars. And the malecon is lined not with shiny rectangular stones, as we thought last night in the glare of the headlights, but with stacks of sandbags taller than my head. I’ve got to say, overall, this place still looks a million times better than New Orleans. Hooray for Mexico’s response in a crisis.

Tomorrow, more driving: some cocoa haciendas, some Maya ruins, and hopefully Palenque by nightfall. All new! All thrilling!

PS: I got an unwanted “upgrade” to a PT Cruiser when I picked up my rental car in Merida. Attempts to swap it for a more modest conveyance have failed. Tonight I cranked up “Ice Ice Baby” on the radio, at least, so I feel like I’m making good use of it. And people often stop to let us go by, even when they have the right-of-way. I am a little leery of driving it into Chiapas, though. Chiapas…PT Cruiser…Chiapas…PT Cruiser. Those words were never meant to go together.

PPS: Running clown count: 4. All in one day, in Campeche!

On Friday night I stayed at a just-opened B&B, and the other guest was a woman who had just arrived in Mexico. She was traveling alone, and it was her first time out of the US since the mid-80s, and she was laughing at herself a little for being so nervous about this trip. So a lot of dinner conversation was devoted to how, when she got up the next morning and got on the road, she would find the trip quite easy and so not intimidating.

In my experience, every stereotype I’ve heard about Mexico has failed to be true in the Yucatan. Crazy drivers? Nah–it only seems that way if you don’t know the rules. There’s actually an elaborate etiquette in which drivers are expected to pull over to the side a bit to let people pass if they want to. Slimy men? No–gallantry reigns. If you don’t like being told you’re beautiful, well, maybe the Yucatan is not for you, but I’ve never had to deal with anything more. Crooked cops? I drove the wrong way down one-way streets in Izamal for 20 minutes, and when the cops finally caught up with me to alert me to my error, they were almost embarrassed. People stealing your stuff? I accidentally left my hotel room door not just unlocked, but ajar, all day one day in Chetumal, and nothing was out of place. Traumatic intestinal woes? Not once. Well, a bit of an urgent situation while I was walking around Chichen Itza, but seeing how the same thing happened to me at the Pyramids in Giza, I think it’s an allergic reaction to ruins.

So I bet this woman is now thinking to herself, Sheesh–what a letdown. There aren’t even chickens on the buses!

Speaking of buses, there was one opportunity on my last day for Mexico to turn into a big freakin’ drag. When I’d arrived in Puerto Morelos on the bus two days earlier, I’d bought my airport-bus ticket, for a whopping four dollars, and an assigned seat–better than I could’ve imagined!

Day of departure, I rolled up early for the bus, and waited a bit. About fifteen minutes late, it finally rolled toward us–the nice security guy at the bus kiosk pointed it out to me, even.

Then the bus kept rolling past. I waved my arms desperately. The bus driver shrugged and gestured to show the bus was packed to the gills. I indignantly waved my ticket and stamped my foot. “Tengo boleto!” I shouted to no one.

The nice security guy came and escorted me back to the ticket booth, and listened patiently while sputtered in bad Spanish. The woman in the booth got on the phone and talked and talked and talked and talked. Meanwhile, I calculated all the annoying possibilities. Sure, I had the money for a taxi, but who would spend $30 when they could spend $4? But I knew my Spanish was not good enough to cajole anyone into anything–I could feel my brain already doing that “I quit” thing it does on the last day of any trip.

Then the woman got off the phone and said to me in Spanish, “You have two options–you can wait for the next bus, which comes in 45 minutes, or we can pay for your taxi.”

I was so amazed that I couldn’t believe I’d heard the last part right. I asked her to repeat it, and quickly agreed to the taxi option before she changed her mind.

Within minutes I was on my way to the airport in speedy a/c comfort, and I arrived in plenty of time. On the way, the driver was happy to answer my last-minute questions about taxi fares, even producing his rate sheet from his glove compartment. (Oh yeah–another busted stereotype: I’ve never been ripped off by a cab driver in the Yucatan. In fact, as I looked at the rate sheet, I saw that I’d actually been _under_charged two days before.) It was the single nicest travel-plans-gone-wrong experience I’ve had, except maybe for the time Peter and I got stuck in Paris overnight.

Happy to be back, but missing the gallant ways of the Yucatan already…

Well, actually, first things first: I survived Cancun clubbing. I did not show my tits to anyone, nor drink any drinks with sexy names. I’m no fun at all.

Silly me–I thought people went to clubs to dance. No–in Cancun, they go to clubs to watch people lip-sync to Beyonce while covered in glittery body paint and sproinging from the ceiling on bungees. I’m actually conflating a few different acts, but whatever. Outside the clubs was equally cacophonous, with a strip of open-air bars all playing “YMCA”, but none at the same time…like “Row Row Row Your Boat,” but disco style, and very drunk.

It was in one of these bars that I saw a very strange performance. Alongside the extremely bored-looking go-go dancers was a tall, close to middle-aged woman with dyed auburn hair, fully clothed in black flare-leg pants and a loose black shirt with long sleeves. She was doing a full-on, super-aggressive stripper act, complete with ‘ooh-I’m-so-sexy’ facial expressions and running her hands through her hair…but not taking off her clothes. She danced and danced and danced, and then the song ended and she climbed down from the bar. And as she did, she reached back to get her purse.

This is the magic of Cancun, I guess. Nearly middle-aged women can get up on a bar and do a crazy sexy dance, and no one bats an eye.

I came back later, and she was back up there again, this time dancing with a young dude in camo pants, the male equivalent of the go-go girls. And he didn’t look too horrified that this strange lady was miming fellatio on him, so maybe she was a professional, legitimately employed by the bar–but that doesn’t explain her handbag. Unless she was a drag queen? Huh. Just one of Cancun’s little mysteries. (Along with WHY does anyone still sing along with “Who Let the Dogs Out?”)

So that was Friday night. Saturday I tramped all over downtown Cancun, then dropped off my car (always breathing a sigh of relief that I’m in the clear, insurance-wise and general-risk-wise) and took a bus down to Playa, to take the ferry to Cozumel. That whole travel interlude took longer than I thought, and I wound up on an after-dark ferry, on very choppy seas. By the time we arrived, I was feeling none too spry, but at least I wasn’t quietly moaning and curled up in a fetal ball like the woman in the seat in front of me.

Maybe this interlude of disorientation would explain why this morning, within less than an hour of acquiring my new, just-for-today-to-drive-around-the-island rental car, I managed to lock my keys inside. I had been positively OCD about my keys with my first car, carefully gripping them in my right hand each time I shut the door. I did this because on my first trip here, my keys got locked in my car (note the passive voice–it was not my fault; it was my passenger’s), and although I had a great time hanging around the bar at El Crucero in Tulum, I wasted a good three hours waiting for someone to come pop open the lock.

So there I was this morning, in front of Mezcalito’s beach bar on the east coast of Cozumel, basically my first stop in what’s supposed to be a whirlwind tour. I only got out of the car because it was so damn pretty, and I thought I should take a picture, and then I jumped out with my camera…and no keys.

I skipped the photos and walked right over to the bar to ask some of the waiters to call someone for me, or help somehow or other. I was already eying the bar menu, and wondering if I should start drinking margaritas at 10:30 in the morning.

Well, the one waiter just walks out to the road and starts waving and whistling at a truck down the way. Turns out it’s an Angeles Verdes (Green Angels) truck. Theoretically, I know about this roadside assistance service in Mexico. There’s an emergency number, like 911, for calling them directly. But I don’t think I’ve ever really seen them, and certainly not in action. But there they were, sitting about 250 feet from my locked-up car. I walk down, explain to the guy the situation; he laughs, drives up 250 feet to my car, jumps out with his set of keys made just for this purpose, and pops open my passenger’s side door, all in about five minutes.

Most. Anticlimactic. Rescue. Ever. Even the Green Angel guy–and the policeman who materialized from nowhere, and all the bar employees who came out to watch–seemed disappointed.

But praise the freakin’ lord. I got everything I needed to do done today, and I even went swimming later, very briefly. I didn’t, however, wind up with any pictures of the beach at Mezcalito’s.