Mexican madness in Merida

As I type, I’m sitting at the gate waiting for my flight to be called. Send your spare good thoughts to Jamie and the kids; I’m headed to Ohio for a few days with Tata. More if I can.

Update on 25 June:

When my sister emailed me Monday night with the news about my Mom, I had an immediate urge to fly to Ohio and see her. This feeling stayed with me during the entire time we were emailing and when my Aunt Barbara (a nurse and my Mom’s sister) decided to fly to Ohio, I was decided. Unfortunately, here in Mexico, it is a bit more difficult to jump on a flight, especially when you don’t have a passport. A passport has never been a requirement for us to cross the border in our van; travel by land is not regulated like air travel. We never anticipated a need to fly so we never got passports. Fortunately, here in Mexico, it is incredibly easy to get passports. I emailed the consulate in Merida and then borrowed our Canadian neighbor’s magical phone; it works in Canada, the US and Mexico and is freaky for those of us low tech enough not to use cell phones. Merida was a mere 5 hours away, so we packed up the trailer, packed up the family for US travel (we wanted to pack for everyone in the event we all needed to come to the US) and headed out to Merida.

Dayum, it was good to get out! The abaniles were DYING for more material, so on the way to Merida (the world doesn’t stop even for mothers with blood clots) we stopped at the cajero (ATM, but also used for toll booth pay place; I’ve been informed that I use Too Damn Much Spanish and should STOP already, but honestly, aren’t these words universally understood?) and ordered materials to be sent the next day to the palapa. We found a quick route to Merida (via Cobá; the road is either built over an ancient Mayan road or next to it; there was a road leaving Chichen Itzá heading to Cobá that we saw in Chichen Itzá last time we were there) and were there right around o’dark thirty. Unfortunately, the hotel I’d booked was a long term residence and no longer did overnights. We had none of our tour books and were left to meander the city, stopping at hotel after hotel, looking for clima (A/C) and something that Pikey would accept. Finally, we ended up at the Hyatt, within walking distance to the consulate, and while my mind is still boggling, a week later, at the $144/night charge, they allowed all 4 kids in the room, gave us a roll-away, and we spent the entire afternoon after checkout at the incredible pool. I was astounded however, at the (recent?) trend in charging for anything possible at the high-rent hotels. The coffee pods were 11 pesos each (we ALWAYS bring our own). The litres of water in the bathroom were 38 pesos each (pay 10 pesos at the super). The mini-bar was beyond reason; 41 pesos for a BEER? We had an OXXO (think 7-11) across the street, so we had meals from there. Cold hot dogs really couldn’t hit the spot though.

The consulate was efficient beyond belief. I woke at 4:30, convinced the reason I’d awoken after so little sleep was due to something terribly wrong in Ohio, so I called the nurse (she was an a cardiac-ICU type of ward) and was immediately handed to my mom. We had a lovely chat and I felt completely comforted. I was at the consulate early, got the applications, arranged for photos and headed back to the hotel to wake the family and feed them before heading our for photos. It is with enormous difficulty that I admit to purchasing the photos at WalMart. I hate WalMart and boycott them, but the consulate highly recommended them and I had hopes of getting my passport that day. Due to the location of the hotel, we were able to walk everywhere; WalMart, the consulate, the hotel, the OXXO and we were back at the consulate by 11am with photos and applications. The staff reviewed the applications; gave mine the fast track approval (I can only assume it helped that I had an expired passport as extra ID) and told me mine would be ready in….Fifteen Minutes!!! The rest of the family’s would be sent to Cancun in a week and they arranged for a permanent passport for me to be sent at the same time as my emergency passport is only good for a year. Now the really weird thing about this whole passport deal is that when I finally used it in Houston to clear customs, the agent ran it a few times through his machine and kept getting a weird response (his face screwed up each time he tried to run it through). I told him that I’d just gotten the passport, in Merida, and perhaps it wasn’t yet in the system? That seemed to clear the issue for him; his face brightened and he waved me through. So, I guess, if you ever get stuck in customs, just tell them your ID is new and they’ll wave you on by.

We fell, head over heels, the children included, with Merida. Finally, after being in Quintana Roo for so long, it felt like we were back in Mexico. And Merida is honestly, The Most Beautiful Mexico we’ve seen in a long time. The cultural events we drove past, that one night, convinced us that we must find a way to spend a long period of time in that magical city.