Ecuador is that hairball that just can’t be thrown up.

They say that Santa Fe will take you in or throw you out. I think Ecuador is the same way. Some days I wish I could be thrown out, or rather thrown up, with more definitive force. Instead, it’s more like that hairball stuck in one’s throat that just won’t move—or so it’s felt like to me after almost two months in this country. I couldn’t possibly leave earlier because, well, I had already purchased a flight to Medellin, Colombia, for a great rate, and I’m nothing if not a sniffer of good deals. I didn’t want to lose that deal only to pay double to leave earlier. Not always smart when it comes to my own intuition, but definitely thrifty.

But here I was stuck in a country that did not like me. And the feeling was mutual. It might be that my expectations were too high. I had read all sorts of retirement articles that touted Ecuador as the Holy Grail of elder years and easy living options: great weather, medical care, low prices and safe streets. Plus, a couple friends from Santa Fe had already spent years there, and said it was awesome. So what could possibly go wrong?

Well, first off, Peru spoiled me immeasurably. Peru was so dramatic and fabulously beautiful, that the dusty hills of Ecuador just didn’t quite compare. Plus, and this is a big one cause I really shouldn’t fault Ecuador --I take all the blame myself, really --but it was the rainy season. And while I did expect a bit of rain, perhaps even a bit every day, I did not expect it to rain buckets on a regular basis every damn day. If I had wanted rain I would have gone to Seattle for a few months! Almost without exception, each person I spoke to said it was unlike any other year. There was more rain than they’d ever seen. It didn’t help that the apartment my friend Wanda and I were going to rent was no longer available. This, after already making a down payment and spending many an hour with the home’s owner (apparently this is not uncommon). And yes, of course, it’s all for the best; I was not meant to spend many months in Ecuador. But at the time, I just couldn’t understand why it was so HARD. I say this despite being taken in by a dear friend from Santa Fe who snagged a fly, sprawling penthouse apartment overlooking downtown Cuenca. It kept us high above the smog-spewing trucks and buses, but inspired more netflix viewing than city engagement.

Ecuador is also expensive. After Mexico and Peru, Ecuador, whose currency is based on the US dollar, was about double the price of other countries. And it only works in cash. If you want to pay for anything with a credit card, you have to fork over another 6-14% charge! So cash was king, and a lot of it was needed.

I decided to explore a bit and, as the Buddhists say, Change my Mind, in an effort to maintain my oh-so-optimistic disposition that was being frayed by the day. I went to Vilcabamaba, a small town in the mountains with spectacular views. My mountain nirvana was rudely disrupted when the owner of our hotel leaned over our dinner table on day one and began to spew pro-Trump, anti-Obama rhetoric for practically our entire meal! He literally did not leave our table for a good 40 minutes despite such comments by me as: “Well, one of the reasons I enjoy being out of the country now is not having to engage in this kind of conversation. Do you mind?” Indigestion ensued, helped by the fact that few people eat salads here, and I was on my umpteenth portion of fries, rice and greasy meat. (Restauranteurs say that salad ingredients purchased merely go to waste. Alas.)

Still, the mountains helped me. Exploring might be just the trick, I figured. So I made a plan to go to the Galapagos Islands for some immersion in nature, sun and sand. This was an exceptional if outrageously expensive option. It also was the basis for my decision to halt travels earlier than planned, skip my long awaited French family reunion, and return to Santa Fe for the summer. (See earlier blog post on Galapagos.) Empty pockets can change plans faster than gut feelings, apparently.

Next I went to Banos, known for its thermal baths and high–action sporting activities. The bus ride over was strewn with cracked pavement (a new highway, I was told), enormous sinkholes, and mudslides both massive and minor. Seems like roads were built here with little consideration of gravity. Curse of the weather is that when rain falls, the completely denuded sand and dirt hillsides simply slide into the roads (wait, was that huge boulder there when we drove by ten minutes ago???).

Luck must have been with us a bit as one fridge-sized boulder crashed to the ground and merely nicked the back of our van. Once in Banos, Aiden and I spent hours watching people throw themselves off a bridge attached to a not every flexible rope, a kind of bungee jumping without the bounce. And we found some thermal pools that were a bit less pee pee filled than others. So good times were had.

  I also took a day trip into the jungle and had a fabulous time. Jungle! That’s what I needed to turn the table on my Ecuador mindset. So I plotted to head up north for a “deep jungle” experience. I went with what I thought was a respectable outfit, one of only two agencies listed in the Lonely Planet Guide, and shelled out many hundreds of dollars for a 4-day jungle immersion. The overnight bus/disco/high fidelity violent movie house would not have been so dreadful had someone actually been at the station to pick us up at 5:30 am when we finally stumbled out the door and onto the dirty platform of the abandoned bus station. But no one was there, and the feeling of dread in my stomach started to rise. Was Ecuador once again kicking me in the proverbial groin? In a sense, yes it was. The tour I had paid for was not the tour I received, and while I tried to stay positive throughout the jungle journey, I couldn’t help wondering if I was trying to make something work that really was not supposed to be working. When you feel the gut talk to you, listen to it type thing?? Still, I had some amazing experiences in the jungle and wouldn’t trade them for the world. I had them in my mind as we left the jungle and headed toward the entry and exit town of Lago Agrio. But as I looked out the window, holding, white-knuckled, onto my seat so as not to fly into my neighbor’s seat while swinging side to side on the swerving road, I felt bombarded by imagery of oil pipelines. Pipes everywhere. Gas trucks and signs that read: “El Petroleo mejorera tu communidad”, basically, Oil and gas will make your community better. The Cuyabeno Reserve I had just come out of isn’t quite as famous as it’s southern neighbor the Yasuni National Park, but it’s just as popular with the eyeing, sucking, probing oil and gas companies trolling for new places to stick their pipes. In fact, one oil and gas exec I met from Brazil said it was “all in the jungle now”. Even if it is a national preserve? I felt sick. Not lost on me were the Big Science marches around the US. After spending time in the jungle one realizes how rich and diverse this land is: a medicine cabinet, a pair of lungs, and a home to millions of creatures and plant species.

I had in fact left my jungle tour early, completely broke (after purchasing one more day in a vain attempt to recover what I had initially been promised. but it rained – Amazonian Poured—all day, and I never left the lodge). And because I had been devoured by mosquitos. Somehow my ribs and groin area were of special interest (if anyone has seen my photos, you might not that I was always wearing long pants, long sleeves, hats and scarves for goddsake!!!). yes, I was ready to leave, but not before getting some money from an ATM. Well, seven attempts later I had $200 in my hand and $500 taken out of my account. The bank in question threw up its hands and handed me a list of bureaucratic paperwork by which I was to document their theft. The gut punch was getting stronger: Ecuador was trying to spit me up and just didn’t know how many ways to do it. Luckily, I had another 8 hours of swervy bus ride to contemplate it.

Amazingly, I loved Quito. Enormous and busy, dirty and crowded, I loved it. I loved its beautiful old neighborhood architecture, it’s energy and life, and it’s fantastic parks. Must be getting close to closing time, I thought. Things always look better just before I’m about to head out. Back in Cuenca, for the first time since I had arrived almost two months earlier, the sun was blazing and the sky clear. It, too, was beautiful. Hence, the hairball. Won’t cough me up yet. To make matters more interesting I met a couple who previously lived in Santa Fe and moved to Cuenca to remodel (apparently for a daughter who then changed her mind) a 13,000 square foot historic house where they now lived with their three cats, throwing lavish parties for local orphanages and well-heeled Cuencanians. Fate knows how much I love a good story, and this was a darn good one. But it wasn’t going to swallow me. Cough me up, I demanded! I’m heading out! Following the Sun! On Saturday we head to Colombia.

This is what conservation looks like: Galapagos 101

I didn’t know much about the Galapagos Islands. I had heard there were blue-footed boobies, iguanas and the giant tortoise, each living without predators. And that it was difficult and very expensive to get there. Still, people said to go. It’s like nothing else, they told me. You won’t regret it.

My experience in the remote Ecuadorian island chain went beyond incredible, sharp-edged lava landscapes, clear waters and rare and docile animals living in a protected environment. It took me several days to realize that I wasn’t just entering a unique ecosystem preserve; I was entering a conservation mindset like none I’d encountered.

Isla Isabela

Galapagos is made up of more than a dozen large islands and many more small islets. The largest of these include Isla Isabella, Santa Cruz, and San Cristobal. Other islands can be reached by boat, each offering a unique landscape or species. Isabella offers penguins; Seymour, the rare land iguana. Many visitors choose to visit each island by boat, some sleeping as their vessel move from island to island by night. This option was simply too expensive for us this time around. Instead, we based out of Santa Cruz and took days trips to nearby islands, spending much of our time in and then under the water.

The Galapagos Islands’ growth plan is based on the idea and practice of sustainability and conservation. No animal is to be touched, and one always stays a meter’s distance from the variety of large, lounging creatures: marine iguanas, sea lions, tortoises and the like. It became famous largely through Charles Darwin’s, The Origin of Species, in which he wrote about the evolution of small finches on various islands, noting how these small birds had evolved to meet the conditions on various islands. The Theory of Natural Selection. And while the writing on Galapagos animals is only a very small part of his work, Darwin has become a kind of founding father to Galapagos mythology and renown.

At The Charles Darwin Research Station, based on the island of Santa Cruz, naturalists work to preserve and reproduce some of the last remaining Giant Tortoises. These gentle creatures were nabbed by pirates and early colonists as an easy food source as they could live on ships without food or water for up to six months or longer. Preservation and breeding efforts began after researchers realized the creatures were almost extinct.

At the Station, signs referring to Darwin’s work abound: “The only thing we can be sure of is change,” or “The most adaptable to change survive.” And yet the way I saw it, Galapagos is and works hard to remain, frozen in time. In so doing, it also has seen a way to create an economic return that few other National Parks or cities in Ecuador can claim.

In 1978 UNESCO designated Galapagos as the first World Heritage site. A variety of conservation efforts have forced locals to adapt. For example, because of lobster overfishing (and the illegal harvesting of lobsters with their eggs) restaurants are allowed to serve lobster only two months of the year. Restaurants comply, and fishermen were encouraged to convert their vessels to serve tourists.

From the moment you set foot on Galapagos, you are entering a conservation zone. No fruit or organic matter is allowed. Your bags are carefully checked before you enter the plane at your departing city, and your luggage is sprayed with disinfectant while in the overhead compartment. Once you’ve landed, you step through a disinfectant puddle before entering the small airport, which is built with sustainability and energy conservation in mind (with levers that open when the temperature becomes too high). Then trained dogs are let loose on your luggage to sniff out natural elements (like my all-natural hand lotion, apparently).

Signs everywhere remind visitors not to throw trash on roads or in the ocean. No one is to approach or touch any animals, and along the stretches of road, there are turtle crossing signs. In fact, when a tortoise stopped to drink in a puddle in front of our bus, we were not allowed to move it. It’s an illegal act, our driver said as we waited five very long minutes.

It’s not just about animals; it’s also about the environment generally. One restaurant featured a sign advising their patrons that they didn’t offer straws because the instruments polluted oceans and didn’t biodegrade.

Many snorkelers and divers would agree that Galapagos is not best for color or tropical fish as there is little intact coral reef, and the species found there are far fewer than the Caribbean or IndoPacific. It’s about the big animals: alongside the white and black tipped sharks, sea lions, and sea turtles, there are also eagle and manta rays, and at greater depths, schools of hammerhead sharks.

One of the joys of this adventure was introducing my 10-year-old son Aiden to the world of scuba. Only one adventure dive in, he’s ready to get his PADI license!

Galapagos is also about turtles: sea turtles at many of the islands and the giant land tortoises that wander many islands. We spent time visiting the rehabilitation centers of Isabella and Santa Cruz, as well as a private ranch on Santa Cruz that has tortoises of all sizes in their natural environment enjoying the rich vegetation of the rainy season. We sipped iced tea, as the bellows of mating turtles broke the calm. Unfortunately, the last giant Pinta tortoise, ‘Lonesome George’ died in 2012 having failed to produce offspring.

What continued to strike me was the level of consciousness about habitat. Each tour is required to have a knowledgeable naturalist. Beaches and streets are clean, and I saw many tourists inspired to pick up random bits of trash when encountered—rare indeed. The water is crystal clear, and animals show little fear. One afternoon, a large marine iguana swam up to me and my son as we sat on the beach. He stretched out alongside us to absorb the suns rays, completely indifferent to our presence.

Visitors be forewarned: the equatorial sun is brutal and despite wearing 30 sunblock, hats, glasses and long-sleeved shirts at all times (also in the water), I was burned within minutes of exposure. April is apparently the hottest month, with the sun directly overhead.

So we hiked and swam, kayaked and snorkeled, watched amazing blue-footed boobies and red-breasted frigate birds fly overhead, and marveled at the gentle nature of the protected bays, which harbor dozens of baby sharks.

I leave these beautiful islands with a heavy heart, knowing I’ve witnessed something unique indeed. Not just protected species that exist nowhere else, but a way of thinking that is also endangered. One that informs and educates, teaches respect and responsibility and shows us circumstances where man and nature can coexist peacefully – and result in economic bounty for local communities. How different the world would be if people in other regions showed similar respect to the land and seas, and to the creature inhabitants of each. My comfort is in knowing that my young son now knows this is possible. He has seen it in action, has seen the economic and natural promise, and vows to   recreate it. It is the hope we should all share.

P.S. Here are a few more shots.

Hour 8 in a day

Blue footed Boobies

Playful friends off Isla Santa Fe

First time scuba diving. First of many!

Beach heading to Tortuga Bay

Diving companions

Giant tortoises out and about 

The dock at sunset

Fresh water pool

Sitting with a lazy friend. Isla Isabela

Preparing for a first dive

Kayaking at Tortuga Bay, Santa Cruz

So where's Fred?! And some photos of our journey in Mexico and Peru

I know I’ve left many of you on the edge of your seats wondering: What happened to Fred, and did those toxic meds fix what ailed me?!? Well, so as not to draw out the suspense, I do believe Fred is gone and my system seems to be back in regular working order. The altitude of Peru leaves me a bit shaky every morning and the new fauna and flora are surely getting adjusted. But in all I think whatever had its grip on me has left. For now. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

When we left you all, Aiden and I were learning to navigate Puerto Escondido, a town I may have judged too harshly at the outset. I realized by the end of our stay that as with any new town, it takes time to get a lay of the land and to become familiar. And without familiarity of any new place it’s hard to feel content and comfortable. So the longer we stayed in Puerto Escondido, the more lovely it became. With the help of many long time Canadian expats, we learned the best beaches and the best meals to order at which restaurant, where there was internet, and who had the best Oaxacan hot chocolate. And how easy it was to walk in our nearby surroundings to access whatever we needed. Suddenly an unfamiliar location, like any and all new places where we land -- became homey.  It’s a good reminder for me for those days entering new locales when the frustration heightens and there’s an urge to jump on yet another plane and retreat to something more familiar. So by the end of our stay Puerto Escondido was wonderful, and we’ll likely return.

From Puerto Escondido we returned to San Miguel de Allende in preparation for a visit to the Butterfly sanctuary, an experience I had been waiting for for years. Literally years. We went by van down past Mexico City and through several so called Magic Pueblos, beautiful small towns deemed by the government to be worthy of funding, preserving and thus visiting as a tourist. Apparently there are dozens of these villages, and from my experience of a few of them, I’d say all of them would be worth a visit!

 I’m not sure I understood just how much my body longed to be in nature but walking from the concrete and exhaust-filled streets of San Miguel into the soft forest, overflowing with yellow Monarch butterflies, filled me with a euphoria I hadn’t experienced in a long time. It was magical beyond words. Butterflies performed their dance all around us, filling the sky with orange flakes and leaving us giddy, a state of pure joy. A biopreserve called El Chalula was our first visit and by chance we were the only ones on the long winding forest trail. The next day at a separate preserve called El Rosario, it was a different experience: crowded walkways, with little walking at all. But the presence of so many Butterflies still made us feel as if we were walking into a different, light-filled and magical world. There aren’t enough words to describe how wonderful the experience, so I’ll just stop there and hope that anyone interested gets to experience this annual migration.

At the end of February we flew to Lima, Peru, a cultural stop I felt we should make before heading further inland to visit my dear childhood friend Sunday near Cusco. It was poor judgment, to be sure, as Lima is an enormous, dirty and hot city for which we had little patience. Luckily I had chosen a hotel in the Miraflores district, by far the nicest (and most expensive) part of Lima. Its cliffside, grassy park extends for miles, with climbing trees, green grass, quaint cafes and even a parachute lift off area where Aiden was able to entertain his daredevil self. It took me a good while to reconcile the idea I’d be sending my son over a cliff in a piece of flimsy parachute fabric, but seeing a shot of his enormous smiling face, followed by a dose of his growing confidence, made it worth the few years of my life I surely hacked off! Just an addition to my ever-growing challenge of letting go, and his efforts of spreading his wings wide.

Unfortunately, the heat left us uninspired to check out some of the other attractions in Lima, like the pre-Colombian museum, whose quasi pornographic artworks I had heard much about. Nor did we visit the old town Cathedral. Perhaps when we next pass through on our way to Ecuador.

Flying into Cusco, a town nestled among mountains as dramatic as they were welcoming, was almost as special as the Butterfly sanctuary. It was another reminder of my need for nature and expansiveness. My friend Sunday picked us up at the airport – always a gift if you have such a friend! -- and took us to her yoga farm an hour away in the Sacred Valley. If I thought Cusco was surrounded by welcoming mountains, those surrounding her property positively embraced us. The scene was right out of the postcard rack, with fresh mountain air and misty clouds overhead. It felt like the drama of nature was everything I needed to wash my mind of the US and all the toxic, negative antics going on there. Plus there’s no internet, so that helps a lot.

Cusco sits at eleven thousand feet above sea level, so it took some time to adjust. But it was a great excuse to hang out, find some good books and take in the scenery. Favorite book? Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams, a fabulous travel/historical journal the likes of which I aspire to write one day!

Next up is a view of our trip to the hot springs but I’m still simmering in the images of vistas it took to get there. In the meantime, some more shots from Puerto Escondido and now Peru...

Our last day in Puerto Escondido. Emperor of the Beach!

Sun, sand, sea and so much love.

Rock art

More rock art.

Rock art with boy and bird.

Crab hunting under the sun.

Took me a while to muster the courage to throw my son off a cliff in the hands of this parachutist.

Seeing Aiden's face as he flew made my fear dissolve. A little.

Last time I saw this ABQ girl was about 15 years ago! But I recognized her from this Lima coffee shop! 

My favorite ruin is Sacsayhauman, in Cusco.

Ancient Inca slides at Sacsayhuaman.

Yep, there's a lot of tourists in Cusco. Aiden was a prime target for this shop owner! And yes, we bought the guinea pig.

Hiking with new friends in the Sacred Valley.

Curious Llama friends.

Town of Pisac on Market Day.

Buying natural dyes in Pisac.

One worm too many

This post is about my intestines. I share this not to gross anyone out, but to cast light on some failures in our US diagnostic system. And, well, because I’m a traveler and that’s what we do. So if you can take it, or share frustration with our own health services in the US, then read on.

For a couple years now I’ve been struggling with some form of digestive trouble. It came on quite suddenly while I was traveling in France a couple years ago.  My bowel movements stopped. Entirely. For two weeks. I started experiencing a searing pain in the right arch of my foot that would come on with absolutely no warning and would paralyze me with pain. Though it would only last ten seconds at most, the pain was so intense I would often break into a sweat. It started randomly, and at long intervals, maybe once a day, then sped up, hitting more than half a dozen zings during our flight home. I was in agony.

Once home, the doctors ordered a stool sample to rule out parasites, then moved on to more frightening examinations and ultrasounds of my ovaries, my cervix and my entire abdomen. Nothing. I was sent to a podiatrist for the foot pain (no, not gout, or plantar fasciitis, or anything else anyone could identify). I became increasingly convinced that my foot pain had nothing to do with my feet, but moreso with my internal organs. More blood tests, more radiology. I was told I was simply getting older. I should drink more water, eat more yoghurt, buy some supportive, expensive tennis shoes, deal with it. Definitely not satisfying. Lessening my sugar intake helped my foot pain immensely. Still, I embraced suggestions: I ate more yoghurt, drank olive oil, chugged magnesium, ate apples by the pound, drank water and moved daily. Over the years, we stopped short of a colonoscopy, mostly because at the time, and just before leaving the country, I had to undergo unrelated surgery, and didn’t have it in me to add on a scope of my nether regions, as important as it surely is to reading my general health.

Over time, my foot pain mysteriously disappeared with only occasional flare-ups, and I had become almost accustomed to the other intestinal challenges. So I was pretty upset when, after several weeks in Mexico – and perhaps fed by the twice-daily ice cream binges –, my foot pain came back, with a vengeance. I needed to find someone who could look at my foot pain as being integral to the rest of my body, and not solely about my foot. I called on a doctor most often recommended in this Mexican town and told him my tale. He had no answers but said he too would start at the beginning: with a stool sample, three in fact, because “one sample is never enough. Any doctor who only performs one doesn’t understand parasites. Or stool samples.” Hmmm.

Well, you can guess what happens next, right? We were equally surprised when tests showed I had a rare parasite, one so rare that he had never treated this, and had no medication for it. It was so rare in humans, in fact, that treatment is to be reported to the CDC, one site informed me! The little fella may have been with me for years, and MAY be causing some of my distress. May be? We finally tracked down and ordered the meds from Guadalajara. I consulted with some Santa Fe doctors, one of whom said to go ahead, the other told me to run the other way fast as the side effects included suicidal depression. This doctor told me to keep the parasite, informing me that worms have been used to treat autoimmune diseases, decrease inflammation in the gut and that I should celebrate this infestation. Rejoice! She also insisted the parasite, otherwise known as a Rat Worm, couldn’t possibly have to do with my inability to go to the bathroom. But while researching, I learned that parasites very often cause constipation, which can’t be good for my body no matter how I looked at it. I mulled this decision over for weeks, but finally decided that if there was a chance this could help me in the long run, I couldn’t pass it up. So here goes, dosing on some of the strongest meds I’ve taken in a long, long time. Wish me luck.

As I write this post I am reeling from this powerful medication. I’m left to wonder at the costs of all the tests I have already undergone, and more importantly, at their accuracy. Do I actually know what’s wrong? Could this parasite be the cause of my internal distress? Were the docs and nurses who did previous examinations exhaustive? Or even precise at all? I can’t help but question. If only they had accurately done a stool sample several years ago, would I have suffered so long? Then again, no telling if this medication will treat all of my symptoms, or any of them.

The one message I’m left with is that I was right. Not that I know if this is the true cause of my distress; what I mean is that we so often know when something isn’t right in our bodies. And I definitely knew something wasn’t right, regardless of how many people told me I was just getting older, or wasn’t eating enough yoghurt. I had no idea it was a parasite, but I’ll take that any day over something more serious. And if this worm, which Aiden has affectionately named Fred, has helped me in keeping my, uh, girlish figure, then I thank him. More importantly, I hope that it has not been key in providing me with an incredibly strong immune system, from which I have benefitted for many years. Because by taking this drug, I’ve decided that Fred has been up to more nefarious dealings in my body. I am deciding to eliminate him with toxins I am not entirely comfortable with, all in the name of trying to answer questions about my health that have plagued me for several years now. So, Fred, be gone with you now. It is with much gratitude that I am asking you, telling you, and then letting you go. 

Leaving San Miguel and History as some know it.

Hierve de Agua with Zubin and Ciela

Hierve de Agua

Me and Captain Nibbles, my Xmas present

Mitla

Wall art, Oaxaca City

Hotel Delphinus seconds as a stray dog shelter.

Chahue Beach in Huatulco

My baby after a bath

Turtle release in Puerto Escondido

Textile Exhibit outside Oaxaca City

We left San Miguel de Allende in early December and en route to Oaxaca spent several days in the magical capital city of Mexico. With a population hovering around 21 million, it’s the fourth largest in the world, and the grayish stained skies remind us every day of the impact of growing populations everywhere. Yet Mexico seems to have an infrastructure that somewhat sustains the masses, and like New York, city segments are separated into boroughs or neighborhoods, where one can live in a small region with few reminders of the surrounding chaos.

Mexico City has beautiful architecture, and a main park several times the size of New York’s Central park. It has amazing food, museums, and dedicated art and creativity that extend through the city. It also has amazing wealth and poverty, and like so many big, metropolitan cities, a chasm between the classes that only grows.  We visited the murals of Diego Rivera at the Palacio de Bellas Artes depicting the history and struggle of Mexico through the ages. We visited the floating markets of Xochimilco, now a busy weekend draw for tourists and Mexican families out for a Sunday picnic. The miles of canals are bogged with brightly colored barges carrying families, young lovers, teenage drinkers, interested tourists, singings bards and vendors of random food items. Next day we made our way to the spectacular pyramids of Teotihuacan, whose fall is still little understood. Increasingly, our guide told us, its fall is thought to have been caused by internal conflict (and certainly not external domination by Spaniards) and climate disruption. Change of rainfall patterns certainly were impacted by cutting all the trees, but there’s more. Originally set near a lake controlled by smartly placed dykes that controlled annual flooding, the Spaniards didn’t understand the native system of flood control and nor did they like the floods. So with little foresight, they drained the lake. No water, no life.  Sound familiar? We’ve seen this evidence throughout Mexico.

The amazing Monte Alban

While we’re talking about history, here’s a brief aside: Outside San Miguel there are roughly 1400 archeological sites that have been registered but have yet to be excavated. There is no telling how many people once lived and flourished in this region but according to the new book “1491; New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus” by Charles Mann, there could have been more than 25 million people in the Central Mexican plateau alone, more populous than Spain and Portugal combined. Another way to look at it, writes Mann, is that by the time Columbus arrived, there were more people living in the Americas than in Europe, with epidemics wiping out a great majority. The book is amazing, by the way, and reminds how little we actually know about our own history, and how subjective (read: so very Eurocentric) that history is.

From there we flew down to Oaxaca city, very recently known more for teacher protests turned violent, including the death of a Mexican Journalist covering the protests. It’s also an extraordinary region divided into 7 different geographic regions with dozens of indigenous communities and languages. It’s know for food, traditional crafts and as far as I could tell, a deep sense of rebellion against authoritarian rule and corruption. It’s my kind of place. We spent a lot of time simply trying to connect with some other expat families, but mostly in vain, oddly enough. We befriended some Mexican families, but mostly wandered the streets of central Oaxaca trying to get a sense of what life might be like on a day to day basis. Despite it’s reputation as a food haven, I didn’t find a favorite spot, though we did find a great Italian ice cream stand where we spent many, many hours. But after a wonderful month, made far better by visiting friends from home, I left feeling isolated. I also felt that extended time there might increase that feeling of isolation, despite the warmth of the people we met. The high point was feeling clarity about my need for community and connection regardless the place. Anyone living abroad has to eventually form a community and has to feel confident that that community will be supportive and embracing. But I never fully felt that possibility. Despite it’s enriching culture and beauty, I’m not sure Oaxaca is for me long term.

Puerto Escondido

But perhaps its beaches are? We decided to actually take a “vacation” and head to the southern beaches of Mexico, along the Oaxacan coast. Highly recommended from our travel agent were the calm bays of Huatulco, known as a resort destination with some nods toward sustainability. I say nods because resort and sustainability do not mix. Ever. No matter how many little signs management puts up for guests to consider water usage before asking daily for fresh towels. That, while the gardener is pouring literally hundreds of gallons of water on a small patch of grass so guests can experience bright green upon entry. Sorry, but resort and sustainable do not go together.

I found our hotel by accident. I was surfing various option while discussing details with the agent. I tried to merely bookmark something that was remotely in my price range, and discovered the booking could not be cancelled. We were going to hotel Delphinus – wherever that was. It turned out Delphinus was a bit of both heaven and hell on the coast. Doubling as a dog sanctuary, we discovered a small room with 9 small but extraordinarily beautiful puppies set off the main entryway. We were indeed in heaven. Bless them for allowing dogs and for doing the work to help strays, but the owners had two devil dogs of their own who barked morning, noon and night. Every day. Every hour. Brutal. I changed rooms only once, and at least was able to partly sleep through the night before heading off. Still, it was worth it to be able to see those sweet little faces every day.  It also helped that the beach directly off our hotel was the finest, funnest beach around. In fact, had we not paid in full at our next hotel in Puerto Escondido, I would immediately head back for more. But alas, one decision always negates another. This, I learn every day. That darn road not taken… story of my life.

From Huatulco we took a taxi west. Aiden was feeling sick and I was feeling lazy and sick, so a taxi seemed a minor price to pay for comfort and speed.

Puerto Escondido is pretty much what I thought it would be – but bigger. I was hoping for a dusty, overrun surf town, where fruit smoothies and yoga studios dotted every corner. Instead, it’s a tourist-laden, messy place with lots of drinking and smoking and dangerous beaches. We’re set apart, having to walk or take a taxi to any restaurant, fruit stand or even swimmable beach. We’re blessed with a great hotel pool, but no internet access, and a growing feeling of being trapped. (How did we live before internet, I can’t recall?) Puerto Escondido, even moreso than Oaxaca City, is probably not for me. So process of elimination might be working well in terms of determining our next year.

But it’s all about decisions, and in this case, having too many. Choosing anywhere or anything possible—within financial reach, that is. And in the big scheme of things, considering the world’s poverty, our reach is far.  Which makes decisions all the more difficult.