We are in Oaxaca now. We’ll be in Mexico for three weeks altogether, our first trip
since 2020 when the pandemic began. And although it isn’t over, and may never
be entirely gone, we decided just to go. Though friends who travel have mostly
gotten COVID in transit – maybe at the airport, maybe in the places they’ve gone.
Even so, we were restless, and anxious to Be Somewhere Else.
We haven’t been ANYWHERE since the pandemic, and in the three years since it
began,we’re now three years older. What that means is that traveling, something I
have always loved, always easy to Just Go Anywhere – Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Brazil –
a process that required very little thought, very little advance planning, is now
Something Else.
Ours is the generation of Icelandic Air and Eurail Passes, of Peace Corps lives and
How to Live on $5 a day (I did, and so did so many of us). Traveling was something I
have always loved. One of my absolutely favorite things, along with books and movies
and any kind of chocolate. What I love hasn’t changed. But how I love it has.
Nothing is especially carefree or easy now.
We decided to go to Mexico because it isn’t a hard trip. Though it was hard enough
getting here. A morning flight, then four hours layover in Houston at the Alchemy
Bar, then three more hours to Oaxaca. Going anywhere takes some unaccustomed
effort now. Peter has a new hip so walking through the metal detector is more
exciting than it was before. And everything seems more of a general shlep. Packing,
for instance. I no longer take very little when I go anywhere. And no more carry on
luggage. No more lugging what I don’t need to lug.
We bought regular suitcases, and checked them straight through.
Although I was never the Be Prepared type, I’m more that way now. Skin cream and
chapstick and so many little things I packed just in case I needed them, just in case
my age and circumstance required Advil or band aids or pocket tissues.
So far though it all seems worth it.
Oaxaca is as beautiful as expected. And today we met friends of friends at an organic
market a few blocks from our hotel. We sat at a big table, waiting for them to appear,
and we met a man named Daniel, a 73 year old from Detroit who got his PhD in fruit
growing, especially pears, and spent his life with fruit in Oregon. His wife didn’t join
him because she got Mexican digestive issues. Daniel told us that people offered
many suggestions: activated charcoal, probiotics, Imodium. So far though her issues
persisted.
The friends of friends we met were wonderful company and we will see them
tomorrow. But he fell in Brooklyn recently and though he didn’t break his ribs, they
hurt. So he’s walking with a cane and told us that tomorrow he would be very slow.
He got a PT massage when he arrived.
We came back to our room and rested before dinner, a new and welcome activity for us
both. By nighttime though we were ready to walk to the zocalo, maybe a little slower
than we once did. But the margaritas in the Zocalo were still as good as they were
when we were young.
If by chance you too are in Oaxaca, let me know.
Esther
Love this!
I thank you for the vicarious pleasure Esther!
I miss feeling safe and free, I miss the joy and wonder of experiencing places unknown, stimulating surges in all my highly sensitive senses!
To newly see, hear, smell, taste and touch the elements of another environment & culture, ahhhhhhh, perhaps among the most distinctive and pleasure gifts we get to keep forever.