This I heard chanted with gusto by a kindly old man tending the Museo Mexicano in Playa del Carmen. Said old man for some reason also had gold glitter bits stuck to his face, as if he’d been to a rave the night before and hadn’t quite scrubbed up perfectly. The Zapata cheer rang out when we got to the wall of posters of great Mexican leaders, all clearly purchased at the school supplies store (the posters, not the leaders). It was a strange museum, to say the least.

Anyhoo, the only trouble with traveling alone in a sunny climate is there’s no one to put sunscreen on your back. I seem to have accidentally rendered the Pacific Ocean between my shoulder blades, with Japan and the California coastline marked in red.

Another pain, and this applies in non-sunny places too, is that I only get to eat one thing at dinner.

Otherwise, life is good, and now I’m in Cozumel, bracing myself for a stay on Monday with the most talkative Israeli in the world…somebody I stayed with on the last trip, whose business partner, a taciturn, stately Mexican described him as having “verbal diarrhea.” This is the real hazard of this work: getting cornered by these people, who for some reason find their way into the hospitality business.

But now, off to dinner, where I’ll just have to look longingly at other people’s plates.