Beach After Beach After Beach…and Still Going

In one of my favorite books, “In Search of Captain Zero,” author Allan Weisbecker explains how, for some people, there is nothing quite like being in the exact inexact spot (thanks to tides) where land meets sea. There’s the land, and there’s the sea, but where the two meet…well…what else is more haunting?

“Yeah,” I remember thinking as I read the passage. “Right on, man.”

If not already obvious, it’s a book that appeals to surfers, those who appreciate the surfer lifestyle (<– me), oceanographers/marine biologists or wannabes (yep, me)…and those who grew up on the beach, moved away from the beach, but try to get back often (<– si, si, yo)..

I’ve got lots purty beach photos — hundreds? — from my travels. And I’ve never met a beach I didn’t like, but I’ve grown to love the Pacific Coast the best. It’s the one I now dream about at night, in other words.

Let’s work our way up from the Southern coast of Mexico, all the way up to California, shall we?

Bahia de la Luna, Oaxaca

Mazunte, Oaxaca

Acapulco vista by day (photo by Betty)

Acapulco, later (photo by Dora).

Somewhere in Michoacan

Manzanillo, Colima (and a closed beach umbrella)

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

La Jolla, California, and its harbor seals (also beach lovers)

The long staircase to the lighthouse, Point Reyes, Calif.

Your host, happy to be here, roots and all, Point Reyes seashore

Just Call Me a Copper Snob

Before I visited the Mexican town of Santa Clara del Cobre in Michoacan a few weeks ago, I knew nada about copper (aka cobre en espanol). We didn’t own any copper – except for the cable that hooks the washer/dryer up to the gas lines.

Then, we visited. And went a little hog-wild, buying plates, dishware, jewelry (not enough – only two bracelets) and a serving bowl.

Copper cookware is supposed to be the chef's ultimate, because of how it conducts heat.

Copper comes in different colors, depending on the chemicals used in the finishing process. This serving bowl looks like wood.

These plates are ubiquitous in Patzcuaro restaurants; they sort of mimic placemats....

...when used like this. I didn't realize my serving bowl (above two photos) would match so well with the dishware, a gift from my mother-in-law.

This $2 bracelet really jazzes up an outfit.

This spree was helped by the fact that we eloped, and never got (nor wanted) any of the fancy wedding gifts most couples get. While in Mexico, we’ve managed to upgrade our home decor substantially from rickety Ikea furniture to, in some cases, original creations (or at least things you can’t find in the U.S.).

When I first moved here, I went a little crazy buying cute knickknacks you can find at most art-themed mercados. I was taken in by the bright colors of Mexico. With time, and lots of shopping experience, though, I’ve come to love the more muted art here (I think I need to do a separate blog post on those purchases), mostly made of dark wood. The copper matches perfectly.

So, we bought a lot, but not the pot.

In one of the stores we visited, Brendan and I both spotted a large copper pot from across the room; it seemed like a little beam of light was illuminating only it. We clustered around it, and spent several long minutes trying to decide if the price was worth it. After all, it was bedecked with a ribbon, indicating it had won an award in last year’s concurso, a copper artisans competition. (The category, we later found out, was for artists 15 and younger. Yes, a young joven designed the pot!)

Ultimately, we decided, no – we were just beginning our vacation across Michoacan, and the pot would seriously hinder the space in our rental car.

Then, we came home. And thought/chatted about the pot so much we went back to Santa Clara last weekend and bought it. It’s now sitting next to my desk, as we decide what to do with it (that’s the hard part).

I think it’s also time to name it, maybe Clara, para Sta. Clara.

Clara without sunshine shining down on her.

Clara in the sunshine, looking less moody.

[Friends Lesley/Crayton came with us the second time, and ended up buying a large, original artwork, too -- of a more modern sort ]

Why the Electricity Goes Out in Mexico, Frequently and Forcefully

This is the electrical pole immediately out my apartment window. I heard the commotion and looked out.

On one hand, I simply can’t believe that someone is adding another cable to this — how could this crewman possibly think this is safe? On the other, this is the sort of thing I’ve come to expect in Mexico — no official oversight, let’s just slap it up there as quickly as possible, no one could possibly notice yet another cable on this, right?

Of course, in my own way, I have contributed to this problem. When we first moved here, I got yelled at (OK more like a shrill, stern tone) from a downstairs neighbor who was pissed about our cable installation. Apparently the Cablevision guy had made no effort to tuck the cables to the right (as seen in lower right-hand side of photo) and decided to string the cable up directly in front of her apartment. Through the help of my Spanish tutor, I had to ask Cablevision to come back and pay 400 pesos to have to them re-install the cable lines “correctly” (whatever that is, looking at the above photos, I have no idea).

I don’t know what company is doing this today — their truck is brilliantly unmarked — but I can’t wait for them to get to the last electrical pole on this street, the one that is made of concrete, splitting down the middle, and about to fall over. Two weeks ago there was a loud explosion from that pole, and the power was out for 5 hours. What today will bring, I have no idea.

Way Off the Beaten Path: The Coast of Michoacan, Mexico

House rental in Caleta de Campos, Michoacan

After our trip to Patzcuaro last weekend, we headed southwest to the Pacific Ocean. Sandwiched between the resort areas of Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco, the long, craggy coast of Michoacan is largely undeveloped. It was, so far, one of the most sparsely populated areas I’ve visited in Mexico, especially along the coastline. It is one of the many stretches of Highway 200.

There are a few really good surf spots here,  such as Nexpa, but otherwise the area gets few tourists passing through. Most guidebooks don’t even mention it — even though it consists of more than a hundred miles of beaches. Of course, this piqued my interest – what would it be like?

Turns out, when traveling with a Shih-tzu in a small rental car, this meant good things and bad things.

The beach at Nexpa, a popular "left" point break.

We were able to find a great surfer’s house to rent for a couple of nights in Caleta de Campos, a town big enough to have roasted chicken and cold beer, but not much else (the town, in all honesty, was horridly ugly but had incredible views of the ocean).

If there was one person I wished I could have traded places with during my trip, it was this girl.

Who needs whales when you have a rock with a blowhole? (OK, OK, I need whales...they arrive in the winter, so I always seem to miss them.)

The sun rises behind the lighthouse, Caleta de Campos.

Charlie and I try to cool off, but it was difficult.

The drive was espectactular (but often stomach-churning) and about as remote as it gets. Suddenly a pristine beach would come into view, and you’re several hundred feet above it, watching the waves roll in, and not sure if there’s any real path to the beach from the tiny, two-lane highway that has so little traffic. In the back of your mind, you’re thinking: my car could be robbed while I’m frolicking in the Pacific, unknowingly becoming the lead actress in an American Express Traveler’s Checks commercial. The area is still quite well-known as a drug smuggler’s paradise, mostly due to its remoteness, which is why this paranoid thought kept popping up: Would the smugglers turn Charlie into a mule?

We didn't really see a clear path down to this beach; there may not have been one.

Just a typical view from the road as you drive along Highway 200.

But, as with everywhere in Michoacan, the people were generally friendly. We’re also eternally grateful to two of the state’s residents, who got us out of a really bad scrape. Yep, turistas’ nightmare: We managed to get our car stuck in the shimmering white sand (we were aiming to park in a tiny spot of shade for just a few minutes so we could leave Charlie in the car, if needed, while we walked on a beach). We had a few initial moments of panic when we realized we had driven about 4km from the Highway 200, and hadn’t seen anyone in mucho tiempo.

After assessing that yes, we were indeed f’ing stuck in the sand, we grabbed some metal roofing sheets left on the beach and stuck them under the tires. Then watched them sink under the spinning tires. All while Charlie sat, head tilted, inside, perplexed.

Once this failed to work, my panic manifested as such: I threw all our valuables in the trunk, put Charlie in the front seat so he could be shaded, and forced us to spray down with sunscreen, in case we had to walk miles and miles to civilization. Of course, that was all incredibly unnecessary (whew, whew, sweat-wiping-away wheeeeeeew), as there were a few small houses off the tiny beach road, and two men chatting in the street — one was sitting in a truck, hallelujah!

As we walked up, he waved good-bye to his amigo and started to drive off, causing us to start running, screaming “Senor! senor!”  Once we reached the two men — looking I’m sure like the two goofiest gueros to ever drive through Michoacan — we mustered our best “please, for the love of Maria, help us!…” en espanol as we panted.

Problem solved. They unstuck us, and I even chatted up one of the men about how beautiful the beach was, how badly I had wanted to see it, how Chilangos suck compare to Michoacanos, etc. Of course, once unstuck, we were in no mood to sightsee and we immediately got in the car and hauled ass north to the highway, and to the lovely beach city of Manzanillo, where we stayed two nights before heading home.

Best irony of the moment? It was Playa La Llorona — crying woman’s beach. What we missed. (And you may wonder: Why is it called this? Well, as it turns out, not because of some scary ghost story involving a dead crying woman rising out of the espuma, or a  pale turista lamenting her sand-sunk Dodge Attitude and sunburnt skin, but the cute noise the sand makes.)

Had we not had Charlie in tow with us, (and had we rented a 4×4) we perhaps would have stayed at least one night in one of the uber-rustic cabanas between Caleta de Campos and Manzanillo (perhaps here in Maruata, which I’m now kicking myself for not stopping and visiting), where I imagine we would have felt like the only souls on the planet, under very bright stars. But it would have been incredibly humid, mosquito-prone and we’d pine for cold beer — so we’d only stay for one night.

Manzanillo, where there are hotels, and air conditioning.

Overall, do I recommed this drive? Yes, but be prepared to fill up at every Pemex station you see — there aren’t many. Be prepared to stay in “one-star” lodging. Be prepared to see an extraordinary amount of poverty (wooden shacks, at best, for most people here).  Bring food and snacks for spontanous beach stops, especially if you’re traveling in the off-season when most places are closed. And  for the love of Maria, stay out of the loose sand.

(More on the hidden beaches of Michoacan, en espanol.)

Come With Me to Patzcuaro, Michoacan

So, I’ve got a new favorite place in Mexico: Patzcuaro, in the state of Michoacan. It’s about a 4 to 5 hour drive west of Mexico City, located just south of Morelia, the capital of Michoacan (which is supposed to be lovely, too, but we didn’t have time to visit).

Normally, I’m a beach girl and most of my favorite Mexican places involve the ocean and the creatures that inhabit within. But Patzcuaro takes the cake for:

1. Best little Mexican town, for architecture

I’ve been to a lot of “colonial era” cities in Mexico, meaning they were built soon after the conquest and still have a lot of traditional and very old Spanish architecture. They’re adorable, by and large, but after you’ve visited a few, they do start to look all the same (what’s that? Another Italian Coffee Company in a historic hacienda building? Great). Not with Patzcuaro, with its supremely maintained architecture. It’s also relatively flat, so it’s not a killer city to walk around, like equally cute but incredibly steep Taxco. We stayed at squee-worthy La Casa Encantada, which, btw, has half-off their room rates through July, so get it while it’s cheap.

Every street in Patzcuaro looks like this.

Our room at La Casa Encantada (included a kitchen).

2. Best little Mexican town, for arts and crafts

Patzcuaro and its nearby small towns operate under a unique system set up by a Spanish priest hundreds of years ago. He taught the local indigenous communities to individually specialize in specific trades, a practice that exists today. Many of these crafts are for sale in the stores that line Patzcuaro’s main plaza, but it’s also fun to get out and explore the actual towns where the products are made.

In Santa Clara del Cobre, as just one example, you can find copper galore:

At the National Copper Museum

More shopping:

Pottery for sale in Tzintzuntzan -- which means 'place of the hummingbirds' in Purepecha.

3. Best climate, ever?

Simply driving around the countryside is gorgeous. It’s hilly, green, and because of the elevation, not too hot, and not too cold. I’ve heard Michoacan contains many areas considered “most hospitable to human life” and you really feel it when you’re there, because you don’t want to leave.

Blue skies, green trees, the open road...

4. Fantastic bodies of water nearby!

Rare for Mexico, this is a lake-filled region. The most popular is Lago de Patzcuaro, which contains several islands, all swarmed by visitors come Day of the Dead, especially Isla Janitzio. Instead of visting it, we took an off-the-beaten-path tour of two other islands, Pacanda and Yunuen, where the indigenous Purepecha people live.

After spotting a sign for "eco-turistico" stuff, we turned left and headed to shore.

Gregorio talked us into a boat tour, and we visited two islands. We were the only people out.

It was so quiet here we almost heard our brains thinking.

(If you’re interested in a very unique lodging experience on Pacanda, contact Gregorio Campos who operates tours of the island and has new cabanas on the island, too, at 43-4104-2511. He’s already booked for Day of the Dead but the rest of the year he’s less busy.)

Besides Patzcuaro, there are several other lakes that are supposed to be better for swimming — deeper, cleaner, etc.

All this, gleaned in just TWO DAYS I spent there! Suffice it to say, I’ll be back.

Only in Mexico, and Only Funny in Hindsight

So the other night I stumbled upon this note I wrote in December of 2007, about two months after we first moved to Mexico City. That night,  I wrote the note long after Brendan had gone to sleep, and I left it for him on the dining room table to read in the morning.

As I re-read it for the first time since writing it the other night, I started laughing hysterically, and ran out to show to Brendan.

“Remember this? Good times.” He started giggling, too.

If you can’t read my scrawl, it starts out romantically enough:

“Baby…”

But quickly goes downhill.

“I am very ill right now. Wednesday morning, can you please do me several favors?

1) Don’t wake me if I’m somehow asleep.

2) Plz get me several Gatorades.

3) Can you ask co-workers about a doctor I can see ASAP?

4) At this point, I am too sick — shitting water every 10 minutes — to travel.”

The note basically says it all, don’t it? It was my second bout of food poisoning, and since then, I’ve suffered about three more incidences of it, each of varying severity. The note I wrote above was during a bad incident, but not the worst. The worst involved projectile vomiting before I could make it to the toilet, an injection of medicine into my flanks to stop the nausea, and severe dehydration.

Of course, Montezuma’s revenge is a frequent topic of discussion of Americans living here, from the practical (how to live through it without breaking down, mentally) to the philosophical (should it be accepted a fact of life here, or do Mexicans deserve to live with clean water, too?) Let’s just say, while there are many things I love about Mexico, and many other things I’ve learned to accept (like those obnoxious men who sell propane gas by shouting “Hay GAS!!!!!” up and down the street at 7 in the morning, or even the frequent earthquakes), the constant threat of food poisoning is not something I’ll ever learn to live with. Although it does make for a good laugh to find a note chronicling my nights of hell – many months after it happened.

Delightful Isla Mujeres Mexico Rocked My Socks

So before my amiga Sue-Lyn moved back to Chicago this week, we took a quick trip to Isla Mujeres, in the Yucatan. I love spur-of-the-moment trips, especially when they involve perfect turquoise-water-and-white-sand beaches, swimming with whale sharks, and half-off the price of an incredibly fun bed-and-breakfast, Casa Sirena!

I’ve already blabbed about the awesomeness of whale sharks, now it’s time to blab about Isla Mujeres. The little island — only about 7km long — is located off the coast of Cancun, but has somehow escaped the predictable and aggressive tourism found on the mainland. Sure, there are overpriced trinkets and bad food for sale along the island’s most popular beach, Playa Norte, but there’s also a refreshing hippie vibe to the place. (This may have been helped by the fact that many tourists have been scared away from Mexico because of the swine flu, leaving behind people like me, who don’t give a damn. Also, a new pet peeve of mine: Locals who won’t talk in Spanish with me when I visit touristy areas.)

A few Isla Mujeres must-do’s:

1. Eat lunch (I recommend the sopa de lima and shrimp cocktail, with a limonada) and then soak in the pools at zen-inducing Zama Beach Club.

2. After watching a rainstorm roll by, walk to the end of the pier at Zama, and dive in.

3. Rent a golf cart — hands-down the best way to get around the island. The top speed of 20 mph means you’re forced to “take it slow” and take in the sights. Definitely do a loop across the entire island. The windward Caribbean side — with its higher cliffs and land stripped of trees, thanks to all those hurricanes — has a stark beauty all its own. And it’s just sorta absurd to cruise around in a golf cart.

4. If you don’t go visit the whale sharkies (which will probably include a coral reef visit after the swim), then schedule a snorkel trip. There are several options on the island, like the overpriced Garrafon park or the next-door and much cheaper Garrafon de Castilla beach club. It’s a little downtrodden, but for $50 pesos, the price can’t be beat. The reef is pretty beat up in this area, but I did see elk coral, a grouper, barracuda and a huge queen parrotfish.

5. Or, pay a little bit more and take a boat trip to the reef north of the island near Isla Contoy, which is protected and in much better shape.

6. Eat traditional Yucatecan food at El Charco’s, located in the neighborhood where most Isla residents live.

7. Or, if you’d rather just drink beers, swim in calm shallow water (that seems to stretch across all the way to Cancun) and take in a little sun, then head to Playa Norte and rent a couple of beach chairs and an umbrella for 80 pesos or so. You may have to fight off some annoying beach vendors, and the food will be mediocre, but one can’t deny how pretty it is.

Dream Fulfilled: Swimming with Whale Sharks

A whale shark fishing for plankton, near the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

You know how some kids plaster their bedroom walls with images of dinosaurs? Or cartoon characters? Or boy bands?

Me, it was whale and shark posters — I even owned a bumper sticker that said “I Love Whales” long before I could drive. I devoured every issue of Ranger Rick from front to back. I knew who Eugenie Clark was. I spent 5 years volunteering for the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

But as I got older, I got a little lost on my life path and switched college degrees from marine biology to nursing to journalism. Part of my problem was math — I made a D in pre-calculus my freshman year and couldn’t imagine sweating through calculus class (a requirement for biology majors, something I think is atrocious and really unnecessary) nor some of the more advanced chemistry classes. So I let myself be persuaded by comments I’d get on essay papers, such as “A+, please consider joining student publications.”

All told, I’ve so far had a great career, first as a journalist, now as an online editor and consultant. And while my career is not always so thrilling (countless hours in front of a computer is not as adrenaline inducing as scouting the Pacific Northwest for pods of killer whales) it does pay the bills pretty nicely (probably a lot better than a marine biology degree would have) and so, in some ways, it’s letting me fulfill those dreams I had as a kid.

Case in point: This weekend, when I swam with a whale shark in the Caribbean Sea, north of the Yucatan Peninsula.

The whale shark species is at least 60 million years old, and the world’s largest fish (and of course, the world’s largest shark). It grows as long as a school bus. It’s endangered, as many sharks increasingly are because of the ridiculous demand for shark fin soup. Unlike most of its brethren, the whale shark is docile and harmless to humans. It’s got a big, gaping mouth that it uses to suck in plankton, and it moves slowly and gracefully, unconcerned with everything around it, a luxury for most animals, but not the whale shark. Beyond that, not much is known, because no one started researching the whale shark intensely until the 1990s.

As with any blow-your-mind experience, it’s hard to describe what Saturday was like. First we went out in a group of boats with certified whale shark guides, rounding up and over the Yucatan Peninsula’s eastern corner, to a wide shallow area where whale sharks congregate each summer.

The guide then stands on the top of the boat, searching for the tell-tale brown shadow and scurry of smaller fish who hitch rides around the shark (their momentum could power a wind farm…). As the plankton rises to the surface around mid-day, so do the whale sharks…..you can spot them from the surface, their 6-foot-wide mouths gaping open:

How they look from the surface when they are eating. A snorkeler is on its right side.

Sue and I gearing up to “dive in.”

It all happens very fast. It’s suddenly your turn to go, and boom, you slide into the water, and start paddling hard.  Once you reach the shark, you’re captivated, if not hypnotized. Time stops, sounds go away, and there you are, moving slowly with a whale shark (he does all the work, you just go along for the ride).

When you swim next to them (or often, above them, since they like to swim downward after eating), their big gills puff in and out.

My friend Sue-Lyn and I each got to swim three times.  I was lucky enough to be on the last team to go out, and because the other boats in the area had left, it was even more peaceful. The shark did a looooong swim in one single direction, and I was sucked into his vortex, swimming along his right side, until the guide grabbed my flipper, signaled it was time to go back to the boat, and forced me to end my incredibly awesome day. (But then we went snorkeling at a nearby reef, so the awesomeness soon started all over again…)

Mexico, as far as I could tell, does an excellent job strictly regulating the tours — rules were enforced, and the shark spent most of his time with us eating plankton (he seemed a little oblivious of us, really) something a stressed shark won’t bother with. Our shark was tagged #827 as part of the research program.

To see the full fabulous slideshow (including coral reef photos), see Swimming With Whale Sharks on flickr.

A Toast to Jenny — and Her New Kidney

My oldest friend in the world is Jenny. I think we first had a class together in the third grade. Here’s us looking really dorky in the 5th grade, Mrs. Castro’s class. I am in the back row.

In high school, we didn’t hang out much. We attended the same college, though, and ended up taking inorganic chemistry together. For her, it became her future career. For me, I scraped by with a C, and the best thing to come out of my failed attempt at stoichiometry was our friendship.

Good times in college. Lori, me, Jenny in braces, Brent and my other close friend Kristie down in front. (The NyQuil was a joke, and I think those sunglasses were trendy at the time?)

About two years later, I transferred colleges out-of-state to try and pursue a nursing degree (and ended up switching to journalism). She was one of only two friends from “back home” who came to my graduation. She met all my new college friends, helped me pack, and rode with me in the moving van the entire 14-hour drive from Las Cruces, N.M. to Corpus Christi, Texas, where I had taken a job as a copy editor at the newspaper.

Yes, there are pictures of us not drinking, but they’re not as fun. Jenny is on the far left, I’m on the far right. This is “Y2K.”

Jenny’s always had a harder life than most of us. She was raised by her father, who was a good dad but was in a motorcycle gang and hung out with a really rough crowd. There was not much money to send her to college, but she did it.  After 7 years, she finally graduated. Like she did for me, I attended her graduation, along with our then-boyfriends, now-husbands.

I’ve since moved from Texas to New York to Mexico City, but Jenny and I have always been in touch. She got married, got a great job, bought a house, and is the proud mom to dogs Maggie and Annabel.

About a year and a half ago, during one of my trips home, Jenny pointed to her ankles, which were swollen. Her cholesterol and blood pressure were far beyond normal. A nephrologist diagnosed her with an autoimmune kidney disease known as IgA nephropathy. She started taking medicines and thought all would be well.

But each time I came home, Jenny seemed a bit more worse off. The swelling was expanding, moving upward, and hurting her. In September of last year, even her eyelids were swollen. She would press her puffy legs and it left lasting indentions in her flash. It meant two things: The medicine wasn’t working, and her kidneys were failing.

After finding a better doctor, she started more aggressive treatment in December, and promptly lost 40 pounds – all of it from fluid her kidneys were not flushing out. Since then, thrice-a-week dialysis has helped her stay healthy, but for a young woman who works a full-time job, it’s not a solution. A transplant is.

Jenny emailed me today: Her transplant is finally scheduled for June 26. A relative of hers is donating a kidney. I am ecstatic.

Through it all, she has been amazingly stoic. And optimistic. A few weeks ago, when I last visited, she even stayed up until past midnight with me, at a blues bar. As a group of us from high school caught up on recent goings-on, she shrugged off the murmurs of pity from us. But it was hard to deny: When she started sharing her struggle, I definitely felt a bit silly for whining about jet lag and traffic. As the night wore on, and we were the only two left from our group, an older woman came up to us at the bar and dragged us onto the dance floor.

Before we knew it, it was like old times again: we were dancing, in a bar. This time of age and far less reckless than our late teens/early 20s. Jenny may have been abstaining (no alcohol for her, of course), but it was as fun as it ever was.

(Yet Another) Fracking Earthquake in Mexico City

You know you live in a seismically psychotic area when this page from the U.S. Geological Survey is one of your more-visited bookmarks. Note the URL of the link — quakes_big.php.

So yeah, another month, another earthquake. Today’s was a 5.7 in the eastern state of Puebla, about two hours from here. (The temblor in April was to the west, and of a similar strength). It was deep down in the earth, which somehow lessens the damage potential of quakes, although things still sway like a drunkard at last call.

During today’s quake, it went something like this:

1. Me sitting at computer, editing an article on bipolar disorder. My 5th-floor apartment seemed to be moving — more than it usually does when heavy trucks go by. (Yes, they cause a vibrational swaying in my apartment, fun fun fun). I’m thinking: Quake, or truck? Quake, or truck? …..QUAKE.

2. I then hear a banging sound and I suddenly feel very dizzy — the world is moving. I yell “Pati?” — our housekeeper — and find her in the hallway. She takes off her headphones, stops walking, feels the more-than-usual swaying and hears the banging, and we look at each other. Sismo! our faces say. I immediately do a series of retarded things, since standing there feels useless:

• I get my dog, who is conveniently already ready for transport in his carrier (he goes there when Pati visits).
• I grab my purse. I put on shoes (so I can go outside, and also really bad earthquakes can cause a lot of broken glass).
• I open our front door (I have fears of quakes causing the earth to move and all the doors/windows in house jamming shut).

3. Pati — who admittedly, as a local, is beyond acquainted with earthquakes — doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. I ask her what we should do. She says it’s safer to stay in here than go downstairs. We have this conversation while the building keeps moving. I realize she’s right, although many people go outside after a quake, for fear of buildings collapsing.

4. The quake stops and that’s when my adrenaline comes rushing. I can barely speak b/c I’m now really feeling scared, but I tell her to call her kids using our phone (cell phones weren’t working). They’re OK.

5. Assessing that we’re OK, her kids are OK, and the world basically seems OK, I get back online, and precede to freak out, shaking with adrenaline. About 10 minutes later, the USGS posts the data on the quake, and Pati and I discuss how “fuerte” the quake felt.

What I still don’t understand, after experiencing approximately 5 earthquakes in under two years in Mexico is: How is it that an earthquake can feel so vividly powerful, yet not cause one thing to fall in the entire apartment? This goes without saying, but I simply can’t imagine the cataclysmic earthquake of 1985. As my friend Jonathan reminded me today, if my building, which was built in 1960, withstood that quake, it’s pretty damn strong. All the sway means it’s actually well-built — it (probably) won’t snap during the whiplashing.

I wish that were more comforting.

Random Pretty Photo: Drinks at the Beach

Drinks at Diamante K

Originally uploaded by joy.victory

As I’ve grown increasingly addicted to Facebook (my parents are on it now — yay!) I’ve let my blog slide. It’s also because I’ve been in Mexico going on two years, and over time, it gets less novel and more normal. Well, OK, it will never feel normal.

But, a quick glance at my photo archive on Flickr reveals to me that I’ve been able to experience some of the most beautiful places in Mexico, and that’s no small achievement.

Here is a shot of Brendan, my sister-in-law Suzanne, and her bf Tom, as we sip drinks on the beach at Diamante K in Tulum, Mexico. We visited in February. It was my *third* trip to Tulum (como se dice “spoiled?”) and I took fewer photos this time around, but the ones I did take, of course, show how effortlessly gorgeous the place is. Click the photo to see it in larger format.

I Hate Hotels…So, We Rented a Houseboat

During our four-night stay in San Francisco, we spent our first two nights in the city proper, at the Parc 55 Hotel. They totally screwed us over and put us in a smoking room, which reeked, making us feel like we reeked, too. No fun, especially for the price we were paying per night.

It’s a humongous hotel, fulllllllllll of foreign tourists and people visiting the city for conferences. Each trip up/down the elevator was crowded and stuffy. OK, so the location was handy, but that’s about where the charm ended.

For our last two nights, we rented a houseboat in Sausalito, California — just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Fran. (Via VRBO.com — a brilliant site for hotel haters, along with homeaway.com).

The view from inside the houseboat. At night, we had a view of the the houselights twinkling across the bay in Tiburon.

While the weather was less-than-ideal — it was always too chilly/rainy to sit on the patio — but the complete privacy, the full kitchen, the gorgeous marina views (both day and night), and the four-minute walk to downtown Sausalito made for a perfect mini-vacation. I spent a lot of time mentally patting myself on the back for coming up with this idea (or for marrying the person who came up with the idea — I can’t remember who between us originally suggested the idea).

Plus, the Redwoods (see previous post) were about a 20-minute drive from the houseboat, and Napa is allegedly only about an hour (we ran out of time for that, as much as I like wine.)

This was the entrance, after you parked.

Even in crappy weather, Californians were out in their sailboats. Here's our view from the patio.

Sausalito is great for walking -- the drivers are gentle and yield to pedestrians, and we saw a seal lion swimming around each time we were out and about.

We also found a great dive bar — Smitty’s — which was a nice contrast to uber-wealthy Sausalito. We knew we had finally found “wacky California” when a guy started playing table shuffleboard with his feet. And wow, I love good California beers! (Food there is excellent, fresh, creative and always a bit overpriced, kinda like California in general.)

Just a cool photo of me taking a photo of Brendan inside the houseboat, reflected by the bedroom mirror and the sliding glass door.

Communing with Giant Trees, Other Tourists

It’s always been a dream of mine to see the redwood forests in California, and I finally got to do so yesterday. However, we chose to visit the forest closest to San Francisco — Muir Woods National Monument — which, even on a crappy weather day, was basically swamped with humans. It’s a mere 12 miles from the city, a fact both amazing — what a lovely treasure to have so nearby — and detracting — tour buses swarm the place by mid-morning.

So, in our effort to have a quiet moment with the trees, we rashly took a hike up and away from the main path, without a map, not much water, no food, and absolutely no rain gear. After several soggy miles (and constantly drenched eyeglasses), my love of the trees turned into grouchiness, and I demanded we go back, quickly.

So we did, but it was still worth it, and next time, I’d like to go back to the really big redwood forests on the Oregon border, and camp, well-prepared.

The trees are magical, and I couldn’t help but talk to them and even pet them. Yes, I’m crazy. Do I care? No.

The slugs are as surprisingly huge as the trees.

I couldn't help but think of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

I am relieved that we humans somehow managed to leave a few of these trees standing for future generations.

Combatting the Piggy Sniffle with a Bacon Birthday Party in Mexico City

In a few hours, I’ll be getting on a plane to embark on a mini-vacation to San Francisco with my husband. Yes, we’ll be wearing our N95 face masks the entire flight, and furiously wiping our hand with sanitizer every few nano-seconds. No, we won’t tell anyone in San Francisco we’re visiting from Mexico City. Take that, John MCcain and other crazy Arizona politicians who want to close the border. (I’m not sure he’s aware that there are more than 2 million Americans who live in Mexico for work and/or personal reasons? Is he going to quarantine us, his fellow countrymen?)

Anyhoodles, before I leave, I wanted to alert your attention to the highlight of my morning, this fantastic blog post from my fellow American-Mexican friend, Julie. She decided to throw a bacon-and-pork themed birthday party for her friend, Ben. (My only dismay about this post is that I wasn’t invited!) The post includes their journey to Costco, which was surprisingly calm, despite media reports that grocery stores have turned into a scene from Blackhawk Down.

Enjoy: Pig Flu Mexico City Day 6: in which we decide to eat lots of Bacon

I’m Fine in Mexico City — But Avoiding Information Overload Syndrome

Boring newsflash: I’m totally fine, Brendan is fine, Charlie is fine. Being in the middle of the swine flu epidemic is surreal, depressing and not exactly fun, but it’s not panic, it’s not pandemonium, it’s not chaos, it’s not scary. I love Mexico, and this latest drama won’t help it’s already tarnished public image. (For the record, I nor anyone I know was ever affected by the drug violence.)

In spite of how crazy the situation may seem according to American journalists (and bloggers), things here are pretty tranquilo, like when I’m out walking my dog, or picking up a panini with my friend Lesley.

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However, let me backtrack: when Lesley got to my house today, I was stressed, anxious, scared, wild-eyed, near panic. I opened the door to my apartment building, and said something like “oh my god!” She took one look at me and asked what’s wrong (as any normal sane person would do).

Nothing specific was wrong, so I didn’t have a good answer for her. “You know!” I stuttered, referring the world around us.

But later, it dawned on me: I had been online.

I should know better, since this whole thing began, I noticed right away that as soon as I break my self-imposed rule of avoiding information overload, it spirals into an anxiety-fueled clicking session, and before I know it, I’ve clicked my way through dozens of articles and blog posts and videos and panicky Facebook updates ….and I feel way worse than I did before. I feel terrible.

So, word to the wise: If this thing starts to spread to where you are, don’t make yourself miserable following every tiny internet update. In reality, you’ll probably be fine, even if you DO get sick. Yes, you may get sick. I might get sick. Someone you know may get sick. It’s always a possibility, flu outbreak or no flu outbreak. Not to mention the myriad other ways of getting sick, hurt or dead. In fact, when I read the cold hard facts about swine flu — the symptoms, the diagnosis, the treatment — I find it calming. It’s objective, useful; I feel better prepared if I do get any weird signs of disease.

As a sidenote, I’m so tired of the “should you panic?” journalism/blog headline. How — in any way, shape or form — would panicking be a useful thing, for anyone, at anytime? To me, the word panic, by definition, implies a useless human response that serves no real purpose. But that’s just me.  Still, I can’t help but wonder if people want to freak out? That they enjoy the drama?