Off the Beaten Track
Sandy Barker's Travel BlogA Guide to Staying at an All-inclusive Resort
I distinguish myself as a traveler, rather than a tourist. Ben has adopted this mantle too. The difference? How each handles differences. A traveler embraces, while the tourist compares. “This place/meal/person is amazing,” “Or, it is better back home.” So, does a traveler travel, while a tourist ‘vacations’? Not necessarily. Most of the time we travel, but on occasion we ‘vacation’, so what do we call ourselves when we stay at an all-inclusive resort? Lucky buggers.
We have now done two all-inclusive trips, both to Mexico. This past Christmas/New Year we went to the SolMar in Cabo, where we had a view of the Pacific and the pool. The weather just happened to be a prefect 78F every day, and we had a brilliant 8 days, 8 nights. So, how can one make the most of an all-inclusive resort, without becoming a whiny tourist? Read on…
One: Be nice to the staff.
You’re going to see a lot of them, especially because in Mexican resorts most of the staff work very long hours. The person who serves you your breakfast may also bring your your nightcap. So, smile. Learn names. Thank them. Ask for things politely. And tidy up your room before housekeeping comes. Your mum doesn’t work at the resort and no one wants to pick up your dirty knickers.
Two: Work your way through the menu.
On day one, the 12 choices on the breakfast menu will seem like a lot. By day 5 you will be missing your Cheerios. Variety is the key to enjoying a week of cooked resort breakfasts.
Three: Eat out.
Just because your stay includes 3 squares a day (plus snacks and drinks), it doesn’t mean you must eat every meal at the resort. You are on vacation, so don’t worry about getting your money’s worth by restricting yourself to the one menu. Find the little out-of-the-way cafe or restaurant where the locals eat. These places can be gems, especially in Mexico. We ate here on New Years’ Eve and it was amazing: Los Tres Gallos.
Four: Eat in.
Take advantage of the fact that you have already paid for your meals at the resort, so plan for some dinners in. And splurge for a nice bottle of wine, if only house wine is included with your dinner.
Five: Plan some adventures.
Step away from the cabana and the sun lounger and the all-you-can drink Margaritas, and plan a cool day trip or two. Ben and I decided the best way to do this, is have an adventure sandwich. relaxing morning, adventure activity in the afternoon, and back to the resort for a relaxing evening. And if you skip this step, you may get ‘resort fever’ which is very much like cabin fever, even if you are outside by the pool. Mix it up. Get out there, especially if you are somewhere you have never been before. A lot of people claim to have gone to Hawaii, or Mexico, or the Caribbean, or Fiji, when all they have really done is sit by a pool that happens to be in one of those places. This is the behavior of a tourist.
Six: Plan some lounging time.
You are on vacation. It cannot all be, ‘go, go, go.’ Plan some time to sit by the pool or beach and read, sip cocktails, and talk at length with your spouse, lover, or both. This part of the trip is muy, muy, importanto and part of the reason you booked a stay at a resort. Recharge. Relax.
Seven: Do not be the drunk, obnoxious asshole who talks too loudly and treats the staff like crap.
If this is you, do everyone else a favor and stay home.
Eight: Beware time share.
If you are offered an unbelievable deal on excursions with the proviso that you attend a meeting/breakfast/tour/party that is only 90 minutes, don’t do it. Time share sales people will suck your soul along with your time.
Nine: Learn the local language.
If you are leaving the country, at least learn the basics. Hello. Good bye. Please, thank you, and good night will get you a long way. People appreciate the effort even if your accent is atrocious.
Ten: Have a brilliant time.
We did.
Gap Year
There is an Aussie rite of passage that is not really part of American culture. This rite is also shared by the Kiwis, Brits, Irish and even the South Africans.
It is the ‘gap year’, where young adults leave their home country and go on grand adventures. They almost always end by moving back home with their parents, because the are spent – financially, often physically, and sometimes emotionally. For many (myself included) the only thing better than the gap year, is coming home from the gap year.
So, what are the Americans doing when the English, Irish, Kiwi and Aussie youth are gallivanting around the globe, tending bars in London, backpacking through Scandinavia, volunteering at refugee camps in Haiti or getting blindingly drunk with other intrepid gap yearers? Many of them go to college – an American rite of passage, some join the workforce, and some do take advantage of their youth, their savings account and the best wishes of their loved ones, and go on a gap year adventure.
When I left high school, I did not go to college – or uni, as we call it – right away. I had blown my final exams, because at seventeen I was essentially burnt out from 2 years of 4-6 hours a night of study. When I announced about 3 weeks before the final exams that I wouldn’t be sitting them, my parents informed me that I would. Fine, I thought, but I won’t study. And in a rare act of defiance, I didn’t. I did okay on these exams, and was accepted into the University of Western Australia. But I didn’t go. Instead, I lounged around on my dad’s couch with my unemployed best friend, cashing fortnightly dole checks.
My dad’s tolerance for this behavior wore thin after a surprising 8 months (I would have kicked me off the couch in 8 weeks!), and I went out and got a job. At a grocery store. As a ‘checkout chick’. I do not know how my parents felt about that at the time. I was a bright girl, and working in a supermarket wasn’t exactly my dream job, but, I was only 18. I didn’t know what my dream job was, and so I settled for something easy and close to home. I quickly rose through the ranks, and by my 19th birthday, I was the manager of the checkout chicks (and guys). It went to my head a little, but the power put shine on a job that was otherwise quite dull. By that time I had also locked onto the dream of going to college in the U.S. so, I was saving frantically to move there.
By the end of that year I was living in LA – with my aunt and uncle. And so began my gap year.
My aunt and uncle are only 10 years older, so the living situation was actually much cooler than it first sounds. Even though I was under-aged, we would have fun nights out at bars and pubs. I never got carded like I do now; people cared less, or the laws were less stringent, but for whatever reason my 19-year old butt sat on many a bar-stool that year.
I got a job at the local AMC cinema, where I met my boyfriend and a gang of best friends. I added two other jobs to the mix, as I needed to save cash for tuition. I worked in an auto parts store and a Blockbuster. The worst of my jobs was Blockbuster. My manager was the same age as me and a complete tool. Had I known anything about karma at the time, I may have understood the irony of the situation.
My best job was at AMC – all the free movies, popcorn and diet Coke a girl could want! Plus, my boyfriend and best friends were there.
The auto parts store was kind of smelly and often boring, but I learned a shitload about cars. Men can be real assholes to a pretty girl who works behind the parts counter, so I learned my stuff fast. “You do not need new jets for your carburetor because your car is fuel injected. You’re just being a jerk and trying to trick me. Next!” Booyah!
I worked seven days a week, and took little time off. Amongst all the shifts – some of them back-to-back, I found time to go to Rosarito Beach, Mexico, Big Bear, and to Palm Springs. I was only 19 so I thought that these were exotic locations. Life was seriously fun.
I did eventually get to college after a year of working three jobs, and having fun with my friends and boyfriend. I did a semester at BYU (yes, that BYU) which was both amazingly great and completely depressing.
Amazingly great:
- My oldest friend, Jules, was also at BYU, and we have a lot of fun – even now
- I lived in the dorms and adored my roommate
- My girlfriends and I went dancing two or three times a week. (Provo is not like the town in Footloose, even though the original film was shot there.)
- I had French class 5 days a week and j’aime Francais!
- I got good grades with little effort
Completely depressing:
- My boyfriend lived in California
- I was very poor, so would accept dates just to go to a movie (see point #1)
- After three dates, most guys would propose
- It was cold and snowy (winter semester)
- I was so poor I would do my roommate’s laundry if she paid and I could throw my clothes in with hers
- My non-French classes were ridiculously boring
- Did I mention that I was poor?
The semester came to a close, and I was destitute. My time in the dorms had come to an end, I had no money and no job, and my boy in California broke things off. If I’d had a dog, he would have been hit by a car. Things were grim. I talked my way into a job – and an advance on my paycheck, and crashed at a friend’s place for about 6 weeks. Aside from the dancing, which continued 3 nights a week (the Ivy Tower: Wednesday, ladies night, free entry, Friday, free entry before 8, and Saturday, $1 entry), I was miserable.
It was time to admit to myself that my little adventure was over. Jules was heading home to Perth, Australia, and so would I.
I called my mum. Collect. “Hi mum!” “Hello, sweetheart.” “I want to come home.” “Oh that’s wonderful!” and then because she knew me well, “How much money do you have?” “$5.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Okay, well I will call your dad and we will work something out.”
And she did, and we did, and Jules and I flew home together in August 1990. She moved back in with her parents, and I moved back in with mine (my dad and step-mum’s place). And so ended my gap year.
Perhaps I was not as intrepid as today’s 19 year-olds. But in mine I went to two countries, learned French, lost the 30 pounds I had gained sitting on my dad’s couch, lost my virginity, learned to drive on the LA freeways, found out the difference between an alternator and a starter motor, refused several proposals, and survived being homeless and unemployed.
I did okay. ; )
In fact, I am proud of my 19-year-old self. She was gutsy and passionate. I remind myself to tap into her when I am feeling scared or indifferent.
And just because they make me giggle, have a look at this series of videos entitled “Gap Yah“.
Reading, Writing and Relatives
I am spending some time with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew in London. They live in the bustling borough of Teddington, where terraces houses are the norm and vehicles try to maneuver down narrow streets without taking off the side mirrors of parked cars.
I have spent most of my time here at home, or out and about the neighborhood with my sister and nephew.
I have visited with two long-time friends, and enjoyed outings to Kingston (shopping hub), Oxfordshire (to see our Great-aunt), and to Hampton Court Palace. I have seen and done some really cool stuff, and usually I would blog all about it.
But I have started this blog post seven times. Seven. My travel writing synapses appear to be broken. Unlike my sister, whose oven is steaming food rather than roasting it, I cannot call a handy-person to come fix my problem.
I wonder if it is because I am reading so much during this latest vacation. Sometimes I am in a writing phase, sometimes I am in a reading phase and sometimes I would rather just watch America’s Next Top Model. I would love for this writing issue to be sorted out, however, as I have made some fascinating observations during my stay, and I would like to get them down to share with my fans. Yes, I really wrote that. You know who you are.
And so I am left with one topic to use as fodder for my post: what I am reading.
Victoria and Mark (aforementioned sister and brother-in-law) love books and have an extensive library in their home. These three books caught my eye.
I love anything about Robin Hood (yes, even that silly film by Costner), so picked up the first book in the series, Hood. It re-imagines the tale, presenting Hood as a Welsh Prince in the 11th Century, whose kingdom is usurped by a French count, who has murdered his father. Loved it. Couldn’t put it down. Read it in three days. I did that thing where you stay up until midnight and you can’t keep your eyes open anymore, so have to put the book down. I can’t remember the last time I stayed up late to read a book.
I bought the other two books on Kindle.
A couple of weeks ago I finished The Art of Fielding. To say that it is a book about baseball is to over simplify a book that is indeed – a little – about baseball. It is a modern American piece about some well-drawn people with beautifully-crafted arcs. I loved it and I don’t mind baseball. The Costner films about baseball were both terrific, by the way.
I am also about 1/5 through Steve Jobs’ autobiography. I loved the start, but it has dissolved into a detailed history of Apple’s rise to infamy. I am not sure what I expected, but I am hoping to learn more about the man and less about the business.
Also on the Kindle and already capturing my attention, is the new Stephen King novel, 11.22.63. This is about a man who travels back in time to stop Kennedy’s assassination. I am fascinated by Kennedy’s reign and time travel. I also like King’s writing, so I think I will enjoy getting stuck into this one. I should mention that Costner was also in a film about Kennedy’s assassination.
I didn’t read anything today, though. I was too busy out and about with my nephew and sister at Wisley Gardens.
I am glad to have finally finished an actual post. ‘Til next time…
New Year’s Absolutions
It is now 10 days into 2011 and I have nothing by the way of resolutions. Nada, rien, niente, zippo. And because, “Have you made any resolutions?” is usually the first thing that follows “Happy New Year”, the question has been posed a lot.
So I started to ponder “why?” - why haven’t I sworn to lose some pounds, to be better at the things I should be better at, or to finally begin that project/class/new venture I have been meaning to start?
I haven’t really got a decent answer to this epic question. Maybe that should be my resolution, “I resolve to determine why I have no New Year’s Resolutions (except this one).” How very meta.
I have, however, been mulling over some New Year’s Absolutions, things I can absolve myself from once and for all. So here they are.
I absolve myself from:
- Losing a few pounds. I can sprint upstairs and carry heavy boxes. I can walk 6 blocks uphill to the bus stop without puffing or sweating. I can give myself a break on the ‘couple of pounds’.
- Finishing the re-write of chapter seven. Chapter seven has haunted me for months from its prominent position on my desktop. I currently have no desire to finish chapter seven – perhaps I never will. One day I will gain world-wide notoriety for being the only author to publish without an end to chapter seven. I am moving chapter seven off my desktop immediately.
- Buying a bike. I prefer my cycling indoors, so if I thoroughly exhaust myself I do not then have to cycle all the way home. Plus, we live in Seattle. Where there are hills. Big ones. Oh, and did you know it rains a lot here?
- Reading Oprah book club selections. I have started four of these, and I put down three of them. I am sure that there must be some that aren’t trite and/or depressing, but I can’t be bothered weeding those ones out.
- Sneaking a peak at work email when I am home. This is very, very naughty. I get sucked in – and a quick peek becomes an hour, or three. I will cease it immediately – unless it is a snow day and I am working from home.
There, that’s five. A good number, five.
Happy New Year.
Mexico
The day we landed in paraíso
It was hot when we stepped off the plane onto the tarmac at Puerto Vallarta airport. A warm breeze blew across us, and despite my tetchy stomach, I smiled at Ben.
Immigration, customs, time-share hawkers, rental car shuttle, rental car, Walmart (for water and forgotten sunscreen), a lively drive through the city and then down a windy coastal road to the resort: Barcelo Mismaloya, a.k.a. “Paraíso”. We were given gold wristbands which we would wear for the duration of our stay. It was an all0inclusive package and that meant we had very few additional costs. Only the massages we’d have later in the week weren’t included.
You know that expression, “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven”? Well, we lived that as we walked into our suite. It was bigger than our apartment. A dining room, a living room, two bathrooms, a large bedroom and an enormous L-shaped balcony that overlooked both the beach and the pools.
Waiting for us was a bottle of (good) tequila, a bottle of champagne and a fruit platter. We changed into our swimsuits and headed down to the pool. As the sun got lower in the sky, we went upstairs to change for dinner. Dinner was at the buffet, which is where we would also be having breakfast for the next 7 mornings. The food was fresh, delicious and a good sampling of authentic Mexican food. After dinner we retired to our balcony where we watched wedding festivities and let it soak in that we were here for a whole week. In paraíso!
The day we did nada
Day two of our stay we did something we rarely do when we’re traveling: nothing. We ate, we lounged, we read, we chatted, we played table tennis (Ben retained his champion status), we drank cocktails and we walked down onto the beach at the front of the resort. Relaxed? Oh yeah.
The day I fed a giraffe and fell down in the dirt
After doing ‘nothing’ for a whole day, we were ready to venture further afield. We planned a hike up to a waterfall about 6km from the resort. On the way (or as we opted, the way back) we could visit the Puerto Vallarta Zoo and the place where they make tequila (the good stuff).
They day was hot and dry, and we slathered ourselves in sunscreen before the big hike up the canyon. The road we followed wound through the tiny town of Mismaloya, not surprisingly a stark contrast from the resort. We past the tequila place, we passed the zoo and still the road continued.
We started to see signs for visiting the set of Predator, the 80s film with Schwarzenegger. After more than an hour we reached gates that told us we were in Predator country, even though they looked more like the gates to Jurassic Park. This was apparently where the waterfall was too, and our visions of finding a secluded spot to swim under a waterfall disappeared. This place was geared completely towards tourists. There was the restaurant that looked like a giant hut Gilligan might have built and a zipline course. We sat for a little while, drank a couple of cold drinks and then decided to head back down the canyon. We didn’t swim, because the waterhole was set in the middle of all these activities and we would have had an audience.
As we left Jurassic Park/the Predator set/the zipline course and restaurant, buses full of tourists started arriving. We had decided to leave at the right time. And not long after that I fell on the gravel and scraped my shin. It stung – and would continue to sting for the next few days. My wound, I dubbed it.
We got to the zoo and at the entrance I debated about paying to hold one of their tiger cubs. $10 bought 5 minutes, $20 – 10 minutes and so on. I decided against it, because I felt funny about holding a baby animal that I felt should be with its mother and not sitting in an enclosure all day with other cubs waiting for someone to pay to hold them. We saw the cubs at the end of the zoo tour. There were 2 tigers, and 2 jaguars. They were super cute, but I still didn’t want to hold one.
We saw a lot of animals very close up. The lion enclosure for example, had thick wire mesh between us and the lions. The lioness was stalking up and down at the front of the cage and had I been stupid enough to, I could have scratched her on the nose.
Other animals were within touching distance too. Such an odd zoo. We saw the masturbating tortoise, the hippo lying in a pool of its own excrement and while looking at babies in the nursery a camel bit my hat.In this zoo they encouraged you to feed the animals, but only the stuff you bought from the zoo. I was naughty and fed an apple to the giraffe. I love giraffes and he had a sweet face.
Leaving the zoo, we headed straight for the tequila ‘factory’. I put that word in inverted commas because they still do everything by hand. It was there that I learned tequila is made from the agave plant (truly, I never knew this) and an assortment of other interesting facts about tequila. Most interesting to me is that the stuff I was drinking at the age of 20, the stuff that turned me off tequila for a couple of decades, the cheap stuff is made very differently to the authentic and good stuff. Needless to say after tasting the good stuff we bought some to bring home.
The rest of the day we spent recovering from our outing and sampling some more of the good stuff.
The day we held an iguana
Our 4th day in Mexico was focused on a day trip to Yelapa, a small seaside town that is only accessible by horse (or ATV) and boat. We opted for the latter, so drove about 15 minutes down the road to Bocca de Tomatlin where we hopped what he hoped was the water taxi to Yelapa. We had paid a man on the street for return tickets, yet no one on the boat asked to see them and we were not entirely convinced for the whole hour we were on the boat that it was actually going to stop at Yelapa. It stopped many times along the way, dropping off and picking one or two people and each time we wondered, “Is this Yelapa?” Finally, we pulled into a bay that looked like it could be Yelapa and I asked one of the locals, “What place is this?” She looked at me like I was an idiot, and replied curtly, “Yelapa!”
We got off the water taxi – and still no one asked to see our tickets.
We wandered up the beach and stopped at the first cafe we found. Ben for a beer and me for a coffee. A man approached us with an iguana, “You want a picture with my iguana?” I did, but not before we bargained him down in price. We took the pics and off he went. He would ask us about 5 more times throughout the day if we wanted a picture with his iguana. I guess he had a short memory, despite the fact that there were less than 50 tourists on the beach that day.
We wandered further down the beach and took up on two sun-loungers in front of a very basic cafe. We got to talking with an older gentleman who worked at the cafe, and he offered to show us the way to the river. We promised to come back for lunch – mainly because I liked him. He had a good outlook on life, but also because lunch sounded delicious.
He led us through the back ‘streets’ of the town and apparently offered Ben some ganja, which he politely refused. Our path led us through front gardens of homes and eventually to the one bridge that crossed the river. The path on the other side of the river was much the same, more houses, some small shops and cafes, and very much a place of the locals who eyed us warily.
We made it back to the beach, only we were now on the other side of the river, and the way to cross was to pay the ferryman. Apparently I overpaid him, but I thought 20 pesos (about $1.80) was a reasonable rpice to avoid having to walk all the way back to the bridge.
We found our friend again and settled in for lunch: camarones (like small crayfish), salad, salsa, guacamole and beers. Fabulous. Also one of the pricier meals we would have in Mexico at about $40.
We were told that the water taxi would be back around 2:30, and we moved to the middle of the beach where it seemed people were gathering. They weren’t, they were just chatting, but one of the locals came down to the water’s edge and asked us if we wanted the water taxi. He said it would be a few more minutes, and when a boat did show up, cruising across the bay, our local whistled loudly and signaled to the boat to come and get us. Had he not been there, we would have been left standing on the beach.
This was a slightly nicer boat than the one that delivered us and when we got back to Tomatlin, one of the crew asked to see the ticket – finally.
We had another lovely and relaxed dinner at the resort and decided we would watch one of the shows that played nightly.
It was 10 dancers, who each had about 15 costume changes as they ‘danced around the world’. While we could see how hard they were working, nothing could make up for cheesy costumes and choreography. When they asked for volunteers to get onstage for the final dance, we thought ‘what the hell’. It ended up that there were more people onstage than off, and we had a good time learning the dance. We didn’t go to any of the other shows that week.
The day that Ben did not go to jail
We wanted to head up into the mountains, so set a course for San Sebastian. It is a small town nestled in rocky mountains, that was once a bustling hub filled with thousands of gold miners and their families. It was 60 km away and took us 2 and a half hours to get there. Firstly, it took us an hour to get out of the city because traffic is crazy. Then, once out of the city the roads were potted and we were wary of speed bumps, which are placed (seemingly) randomly along roads where the speed limit is otherwise 760-80 k.p.h. This means that unless you are following someone and can see where they sloe down for speedbumps, you have to drive slowly and very cautiously, so that you don’t go flying off the road.
When we were close, we calculated the time back to the city. We were doing an excursion that night and would have to be back in time to get on a boat. We nearly turned back. We didn’t know how long it would take to get from where we were to the town, and the roads had turned into cobblestones. We decided to proceed.
We were rewarded with the welcome to San Sebastian signs not long afterwards, and parked our car at the town square. We saw a cafe that was open and climbed the steps where we were met with a smile. The patron offered us coffee, but I asked for beer. We sat and sipped and ate salsa, chips and guacamole (our now-standard snack), while we looked out over the very slow town life.
After lunch, we walked around the town – which took about 15 minutes – and then headed back to the car. Had we wanted, we could have stayed the night and done one of various tours on horseback further into the mountains and to see some of the mines. We had no plans to do this, however, but were pleased to see such a quintessentially Mexican place during our stay.
Our drive back to the city was more eventful than it should have been. As we came to the main highway, there was no signage and we ended up heading away from Puerto Vallarta rather than towards it. That would have been okay, but we had to cross a causeway, negotiate major roadworks and then head several kilometers up the road before we could turn around. We then had to go back through that same traffic. Once on the other side of Puerto Vallarta, we apparently did the wrong thing through a military checkpoint (on direction of the bored, young soldier at the start of the checkpoint) and about a kilometer down the road were pulled over by the police.
Then the shakedown began. He had been speeding. He had done the wrong thing at the checkpoint. He seemed drunk. All of this was bullshit. He had gone the way directed at the checkpoint, and we were doing the same speed as the local traffic who all ignored the 40 k.p.h. signs. And Ben was not drunk. He’d had a light beer three hours before.
The officer pretended not to speak much English and then he took Ben’s licence and said that the fine was 15 times 60 pesos and that we had to drive out of town the next day to collect the licence from police headquarters. Ben handled it well. He asked – innocently – if he could please pay the fine then and there so that he could get his licence back. They wold him to get out of the car and I begged him not to. I was terribly afraid by this time – and very angry. I had visions of having to contact the U.S. embassy to get him out of jail. Amazingly, the fine ended up being the exact amount of pesos he had in his pocket. he got his licence back, and we drove away at 40 k.p.h. Cars passed us, many of the drivers angry at us,. the whole way back to the resort.
Our evening plans were suddenly far from what I wanted to do. We were actually due at the marina an hour from then, and that meant driving back to town and through the same checkpoint. No thank you. We stayed in.
The day were we tourists
The next day we planned a whole day of touristy things. We drove into Puerto Vallarta late morning, parked up and walked through the markets, picking up a few presents for family. We bargained with the local vendors and managed to avoid buying any of the hundreds of cheap trinkets that each stall seems to sell. The markets are situated on the long island that sits in the middle of the river that bisects the town. It is achingly pretty, and we chose one of the waterfront cafes for lunch.
Quesadillas were the choice of the day – with mojitos. It was a delicious meal in a perfect location.
We left there and headed to the beackfront. This was a whole different side of the city. The beach is fronted by building after building of condos. The locals are outnumbered by the North Americans who vacation there. We were on a mission, though, to find parasailing, so were indifferent to the unappealing culture.
We saw the giant, colorful parachute just down the beach and after a quick negotiation, Ben was in the air. I have been parasailing before and it is a truly glorious experience. I was really glad that Ben finally go to do it. He has some great shots from the air.
Our day wound up with a cruise to one of the resorts south of ours, where we would have dinner on the beach and then see a show called “Rhythms of the Night”. This would be sort of like attending a luau in Hawaii – local food and local artists.
The boat was filled with retirees and I could tell that the crew was used to a more lively bunch. They could barely give away the included drinks.
The sun was setting as we sailed south – so beautiful – and then the boat docked at one of the places we’d seen and admired from the water taxi. It is a resort without electric lights, lit solely by torches, fire pits and candles. We were directed along a walkway to a group of beachside tables. A buffet was waiting for us and we were offered drinks by the staff who attended us. It was so peaceful and the food delicious. The sound of a conch shell called us from dinner to the show. It was a huge step up from the show at the resort, with highly skilled dancers performing traditionally-themed dances. Their work was athletic and artistic, and the show on the whole was a spectacular sight. It included live musicians, acrobats, dancers, singers and animals – the most striking of which was the albino python. The ride back to the marina was a little anti-climatic with the crew doing some odd drag/mime numbers that we could have done without, but all in all a very fun night out.
The day I saved a turtle (and Ben’s birthday)
The resort had a nursery for turtles. Essentially, every time they see a turtle lay its eggs on the beach, they retrieve the eggs and bury them in an enclosure until they hatch. When the turtles hatch, they are kept safe until that night when they are released into the sea.
That morning at breakfast I looked over the balcony of the restaurant and into the turtle nursery. There was a turtle! And he was nearly at the edge of the enclosure and about to crawl through the fence onto the beach. I alerted the waiter, who called security (oddly, the staff tasked with turtle rescue), and ran down to the beach. The security guard had retrieved the turtle and let me hold it. I was over the moon. How cool!
We headed out as we had planned a day full of adventure to celebrate Ben’s birthday. Our adventure started with a ride on an ATV up into the mountains. It was extremely dusty, because their wet season was very short this year, so our gear included a bandanna to wear over our mouths and noses. The ride was fun, and took us to some spectacular views.
When we got back to home base, we swapped the ATV for harnesses because we were then going to zipline down into the canyon we had just seen from on high. The zipline course was incredible and far more exhilarating than the first time we did it in Hawaii last year. The lines are long and fast, and a couple took us through the treetops. Ben even opted to do one run upside down (no, thank you!).
The last line was a very short one across a creek bed. I could have done that one upside down, as I was only a few feet off the ground, but chickened out of that one too. I had been thrilled enough and was looking forward to lunch.
Our way out of the canyon was by burro.
Mine was small and white. I called her “Eidelweiss”, but she didn’t get it. “Ben, does my ass look big on this ass?” It was slow, but steady going and I felt for the donkey, even though she was very naughty and would randomly stop to snack. Then she decided that she wanted to overtake the big one in front of us, only the path was very narrow and I had to work hard to convince her not to do that.
Back at home base again, we opted to stay for lunch, which as it was 7 hours since we’d eaten breakfast we devoured. There was just enough time to swing about in a hammock before our ride took us back to town.
We had booked a couple’s massage on our balcony – nice – and as the sun set we enjoyed a bottle of champagne – also on our balcony before we enjoyed another lovely dinner.
Happy birthday, my darling.
The day we packed and headed home
We were not flying out until that night, so we decided to squeeze as much resortness out of the resort as possible. After breakfast we headed poolside, and soaked up some more rays. We needed to check out by 12, and Ben was keen to go snorkeling, which we hadn’t done the whole time there. He headed down to the beach and managed to find a boat captain who was about to head out to a good spot and would have him back before checkout.
We had already packed up most of our stuff, so I spent that time reading by the pool, a thing I have decided I enjoy very much.
After checkout, they let us hang around for a few hours more, which included lunch, another drink and some more poolside time. Then it was time to head to the airport. We repeated all of our first day actions, but in reverse, and before we knew it, we were in Arizona where it took me over an hour to get through immigration.
It was a wonderful trip. I would highly recommend the Barcelo resorts, and also opting for the premium packages which as I said, include almost everything.
It was my second trip to Mexico, but the first in 20 years, and we definitely would love to go back.
Writing with abandon
I have been writing a book for nearly a decade.
When I type out those words it seems impossible that it has been that long, but it is true. Nine years ago I started penning a travel biography about my time in the UK and Europe from ’96 to ’97. I began this project old-school; I literally wrote the first draft. By hand. Onto paper. With a pen.
I still have the first draft packed into a box in a friend’s attic in Sydney. In the book’s first incarnation, chapters either read like journal entries or as essays. It took about 2 months to get everything down on paper.
I then began systematically typing it into a borrowed laptop. Technology was relatively primitive back then so I backed-up my files onto floppies. As I re-drafted over the years, the thumb drive changed my life, and I put the floppies away with the first draft. Then came an external hard-drive, and now my book (a wholly different-looking beast than how it had began) lives in The Cloud.
But I digress…
Once it was input into electronic form, I worked away at my book in spits and spurts. I wrote about the process in a previous post (Write Now!), so I won’t bore you with it again. The last line of that post says, “Yes, I need to get back to my book.” And yet, here I sit some 6 months later, and I have managed to squeeze out a paltry 4 chapters.
To change the subject, I saw an old friend last weekend. Well, she is not old, but we have known each other for the better part of 20 years. She, too, loves an American and lives in the U.S. A work trip afforded me the chance to see her and meet her husband (lovely bloke). The fates smiled on me doubly, as I was able to take more away from the reunion than the simple pleasure of catching up.
Larissa (her real name) is a creative type too. We met studying for our respective Bachelor of Arts degrees, both with a major in Theater Arts. She has come full circle after some professional detours and is currently rehearsing a Sam Shepherd play, and is a voice over artist and teacher. I, too, have had some professional detours from the stage, which is why I know I love to write.
I moaned to Larissa that I have no motivation to write my book at the moment. Or any moment, really. I work at a computer eight hours a day, and while I mostly love my job, it does not inspire me to sit at a computer when I am not there. There are many things I would rather do when I am at not at work: reading (Oh, how I love other people’s books!), running, movies, conversation, cleaning, laundry, and a thousand other things that seem more appealing that the thing that I supposedly love to do most.
I also mention to Larissa that I am inspired by something else at the moment.
I want to write the story of how I met Ben, of how we fell in love while living a world apart, and how I ended up packing up my life and moving to another country to live with a man I had yet to spend more than 5 consecutive weeks with. I want to write about that.
But there’s The Book…
How do I abandon one book to start another? Will I ever finish it if I keep finding distractions – literary or otherwise?
Yes. No. Maybe.
Which brings me back to my conversation with Larissa. “You are not abandoning your book. You are putting it away so that you can follow inspiration. You can always come back to it later.”
She said this while we were walking through Whole Foods looking for the ingredients for my Quinoa/Wild Rice Salad. Suddenly, right there next to the bulk bins, it made sense. I needed to give myself permission to abandon my book, so that I can follow what inspires me now.
On the flight home I scribbled furiously into a scribbler pad. I filled 20 or so pages and there is (much) more to come. A lot of the content has already been written and will come from travel journals, emails,and accounts that I wrote for us after our trips together.
In the car on the way home from the airport, I recounted my epiphany (thanks, Larissa) to Ben. He recalled that a favorite author of his said, and I am paraphrasing, “Some of my best work happens when I am procrastinating from the work that I am supposed to be doing.”
I have asked Ben’s permission to be candid. He has given it. I think. For weeks now the first lines have been bouncing around inside my head. “It seems a little ‘hokey’ to say that I dreamed about Ben before I met him. But I did.” Since deciding to abandon my book, those words are on paper now.
Oh, and recipe for the salad to follow. It is incredible – no, really!
The Gray
You step out into it. It consumes you, touching you in ways that make you uncomfortable. It doesn’t have your permission, but you have no choice; it forces itself on you. Sometimes you can forget that it is there, but not today.
Its companions are damp, cold, and quite often, wind.
The damp seeps into your clothes, chilling you from the outside in, while cold nibbles at your extremities turning them blue and then white. When wind intrudes, it cuts through to your very bones. And yet this trinity of misery is not as powerful as their master, The Gray.
You have adopted a stoop: head down, shoulders rounded and protective. A frown has made its home on your face. Your curl into yourself, wishing away the pervading presence of The Gray.
It invades your every thought. It pushes you down from above and sits heavily on your shoulders, on the crown of your head, on your eyelids and the tip of your nose. You do not stand tall. You are never not cold.
Your mood is gray. You crave nothing, hate nothing. Everything is neutral. Extremes have no place in your existence. Your soul has been doused in peroxide. Sometimes, just there in the periphery, you see glimpses of passion, of disagreement and debate. Yet you have succumbed to the numbing, and do not participate.
You make jokes about it with friends and colleagues, trying in vain to lessen its hold on you. The jokes are stupid and only serve to highlight what you so desperately wish you could disguise: that you crave sunshine like a starving man craves a hot bowl of soup.
You ignore it, pretending that it is not just there on the other side of the window pane. You laugh so hard you made no sound. You scoff potato chips straight from the bag. You make lazy love on a Sunday morning. You read the latest best-seller, voraciously turning the pages. You meet friends in trendy coffee shops and drink $4 lattes. You pretend and pour yourself a gin and tonic, with fresh lime and extra ice. You drink it with the thermostat turned to 78. You pretend that it is light outside.
You seek camaraderie among fellow ex-pats. Californians become your closest allies. Those who are native to this place apologize. “It’s not usually like this”, they say. They are tired of The Gray too. Yet it continues to out-stay its welcome. You cannot remember last summer, except in snatches of blurry images, the colors fading each time you recall.
And sometimes, just when you think The Gray will always be there, it goes. Warm air floods your lungs, and you can feel the freckles forming on your nose as you tip your head to the sun.
You are forgiving in these moments, forgetful of the how much The Gray weighs, of how dense it is. You become lighter. Your exuberance is contagious and those who love you flood back, eager to bask in your joy, to share it, no longer having to pretend with you, but sharing an important truth: that light is life.
You start to forget The Gray.
And yet, it has not left, not for good. It has only waited in its own shadow, just long enough for the forgetting to begin. And then it returns.
You fight it. You are drowning and want to push through its viscous mass and break the surface into the light. You want a warm breeze to play with your hair, and trickles of sweat from your elbows and knees. You want the steering wheel to be too hot, and to sink your bare toes into the sand on a sun-soaked beach.
You hope. You know there will be an end to The Gray. But not today.
Photograph by Oliver Neilson
Heatwave in Seattle
by bangladeshihindu
I have a confession to make. I am one of those women you see at the gym who reads magazines on the cardio equipment. I have another confession. I feel superior to other women who read magazines on the cardio equipment, because I am working on level 20 while they are usually on level 4 or 7.
I don’t necessarily think that I am a better person, just that I am getting a better workout. And something I have discovered about reading while working out, is that once in a while I am endowed with a true ‘ah-hah’ moment.
These are rare while I am reading Hollywood gossip, and really I only read those magazines for the pictures, not the articles. Sometimes, though, someone leaves an Oprah, or a MORE magazine at the gym and I end up reading something that actually changes me a little. I return home with a renewed sense of purpose, an inspiration or a fresh perspective.
It was one of these moments that led me to hot yoga. I was deep in the heart of an Oprah magazine. “’Adventure’ doesn’t have to mean trekking through the jungle or bungee-jumping. Being adventurous is to deliberately move outside of your comfort zone,” I read, heart-pounding, face red, and sweat pouring.
That night my girlfriend, Carlie, sent me a text. The week before we had talked about how she did hot yoga, and how I wanted to try it. This was the moment of truth, my moment to be adventurous. “6 tomorrow morning. Meet you there?” I replied, “Sure!” before I could talk myself out of it.
So, I took my nearly 41-year-old tight hamstrings to hot yoga.
I loved it. I loved being hot. I loved stretching myself – both literally and figuratively. I enjoyed the low candle light and the relaxing, but very hip music (nary a whale call or a raindrop to be heard). I thoroughly enjoyed a rhythmic and strengthening hour of Vinyasa.
Allow me to interject with the brief (and sporadic) history of “Sandy and Yoga”.
- I can’t remember when I did my first class. It was the 90s.
- I had a crush on a beautiful, sexually-ambiguous Eurasian yoga instructor in Sydney, so I attended his classes each week for a whole month.
- I do a series of sun salutations before I fly.
- I lived with a yoga instructor, who chided me about doing weights and running, until I did a perfect jump-back from Crow to Plank, which finally shut her up.
- I fell in love with ‘Body Balance’ classes, which combined yoga, Tai Chi and Pilates choreographed to music. Those fed my body and my attention-span-of-a-two-year-old mind, but I moved to America where there are no Body Balance classes.
- I did no yoga for 18 months, and became stiff and sore more frequently than stretching at the gym could combat.
- I tried hot yoga and signed up for two months unlimited attendance.
- I go here three times a week and I feel great.
Thank you, Carlie, for leading me on a new adventure.
I do sometimes question if I love the yoga, or the fact that it is hot in the studio. Living in Seattle, I am rarely hot. Showers are hot, of course, but I mean with my clothes on. Most of the time I am focusing on ‘not being cold’, so the yoga studio offers welcome relief. Still, hot yoga is something I have always wanted to try, but never did ‘til now.
That makes it my adventure du jour. Next is participating in a flash mob…
Write now!
I want to get back to writing my book. Let me qualify that: I need to get back to writing my book.
My book starts as a series of journal entries (both personal and travel) and letters in 1996 and ‘97, long before I know I will write a book.
In 2001, I start writing chapters, by hand. The chapters flesh out story snippets and descriptions of people and places. The chapters expound on inner turmoil, extreme loneliness and a budding thirst for a less-ordinary life.
By the end of 2001, I am typing these chapters into a computer, adding more details, more perspective and more poetry to my word count.
I print out what I consider the second draft and edit onto the pages. Like the cliché that I am, I carry dog-eared pages with me everywhere, reading and re-reading the story of me. My book, a travel biography, begins to take shape and I move chapters, fool around with format and finally settle on a 3-part tome.
Part One. Narrative. Documenting the end of life as I know it. My alone-ness. My fear of drowning. My knowledge that doing something, anything, is better than doing nothing. Not knowing what ‘something’ to do.
Part Two. Narrative. A journey in a wide circle. Defeat. Triumph. Forging relationships. Learning that I don’t know everything. Learning that I know a lot. Drinking in facts and places and more people.
Part Three. Episodic. The circles continue, concentric, overlapping, my life a Venn diagram. Hating myself. Loving myself. Losing myself to excess and pretended celebrity. Stillness. Silence. Sleep and a momentum that ultimately forces a new trajectory.
Years pass.
I occasionally dust off a printed copy. What draft is this? Eight? Eleven? I lose track.
“I am in love with this,” says a friend. “But it should be a novel. It should be in the third-person.” I disagree, and re-write chapter one for the fifty-millionth time. Each time I re-write it I love it more.
“It’s wonderful, Sweetie,” says my mother. “She has to say that,” I think. But she actually does love it.
I feed it in cruel increments to willing and select friends. I want critics, not sycophants to read it. Only that will make it better. I write in sporadic and manic phases. I accomplish much, then nothing for months, years.
In 2009, I sit in modest, yet well-decorated apartment in a foreign city, and I read chapter one. “This should be a novel, in the third-person,” I think and I smile. It has taken me years to get to this point. I tell my friend, herself a writer, a successful one. She is pleased.
I dig out the letters and journals from a decade before, all brought from my homeland for this very purpose, and I read. I remember a girl I once knew, one who loved passionately and had her hopes crippled. I think of her fondly as I might think of a distant relative I was once close to. She saddens and angers me, yet I know I will always be protective of her. She is, after all, me.
I return to the keyboard, and I start at the beginning, a very good place to start.
Chapter one.
I write the story of a young woman called Sarah. She has a whole life, most of which I have yet to discover and some of which echoes my own life. I love her, as fiercely as I love the girl in the journals and hand-written lengthy letters collected by loving parents and returned years afterwards.
I feed it to a new friend in meaty chunks. She wants more.
It flows out of me, like a mother’s milk. Chapter one. Two. Three. Six. And then, nothing.
Months later I return to the pages I wrote and do not recognize the words. “Who wrote this?” I wonder and then remind myself that I did. These words are mine. And they are good.
Yes, I need to get back to my book.
Excess packaging
February 3, 2010 at 3:33 am · Filed under Autobiography, Commentary, home and tagged: cleaning, clutter, home, organizing, packaging
I have a somewhat minor frustration that comes up on a daily basis. Packaging.
I realized the other day when I was unsuccessfully trying to open a cheese stick, that U.S. manufacturers do not seem to discriminate between things that can poison us if ingested, and actual food.
Trying to extrapolate the highly delicious and somewhat nutritious cheese stick from its extremely excessive packaging (a tough plastic bag that won’t open without scissors, and a shrunk-wrapped plastic ‘easy-to-peel’ tomb) resulted in so much contortion, a co-worker thought I was trying on a girdle.
My eye cream comes in an even more ridiculous array of packaging: inside a jar, inside a plastic shell, inside a box, inside shrunk-wrapped plastic. By the time I get the eye-cream out of its packaging, I have three more frown lines on which to put it.
My favorite example of excess packaging is anything that comes in a plastic bottle. From vitamins to ketchup, I must first contend with the shrunk-wrapped hard plastic seal that surrounds the lid. It has perforations so that I can do this easily, but for some reason (perhaps because they suck), these perforations do nothing. I have to get out the scissors.
At this point I can twist off the lid, but underneath the lid will be a foil covering stuck so tightly to the neck of the bottle, I have to dig under its edge with a fingernail. Even the ones with the handy pull tab cannot be pulled off. I invariably resort again to the scissors, which I wield with an agitated stabbing motion. I have missed a few times and stabbed myself, but this only provides another reason for expletives to pour from my mouth.
Once the foil lid is removed, I can usually access what is inside the bottle. If it is vitamins, I have one more gauntlet task: a wad of uncooperative cotton wool. Imagine the clown car at the circus. Pulling the wad of cotton wool out of a 5cm vitamin bottle is like watching the clowns get out of the car in a never-ending stream.
When I can finally reach the vitamins, I check the ‘use by” date to ensure that they haven’t expired while I was trying to open the bottle.
All of this may seem exaggerated, and as I tend towards the hyperbole, you will be forgiven for thinking so. However, long-suffering boyfriend can attest that these exact enactments are real.
This brings me (the very long way) to our giant clean out a few weeks back.
Our home is spacious for a one bedroom apartment, but it does have its spacial limitations and we were not optimizing the space that we do have.
It did not look like this
but it felt like it did.
I felt tightly bound by too much stuff, too much clutter, too much useless junk, too much excess packaging. I was starting to feel claustrophobic in my own home. I was freaking out.
I mentioned in passing to Ben that we should have a big clean out. He looked a little less than enthused. I tried talking it up.
“Yeah, it’ll be great. We’ll go through the whole house and open everything up, pull everything out and then throw away what we don’t need. Then we can organize all the cupboards and drawers!” The Virgo that rose in my Taurean chart when I was born was rising to the challenge. The Scorpio I live with was not.
I tried a different tack. “I hate my closet! I hate it. I hate that I can’t find anything and everything falls all over me and I hate it!” This tantrum went on for another 45 seconds until strong arms went around me, and I calmed down. I looked up at the owner of the arms (Ben). “I want to clean out our place and make it feel like home again.”
He responded in the only way a man can when he is faced with big hazel puppy dog eyes, “Okay, Babe.”
And that is how it came to pass that one Saturday we opened every cupboard, drawer and box in our apartment. We pulled out everything and only put back what we wanted and needed. The crap was thrown out, recycled, donated and given away. (It is only crap to those who don’t want it). I bought tubs and baskets to organize all our stuff.
We took a trip to the tip and visited Goodwill. We filled 8 bags for the garbage and recycling. It took 6 hours, including the time to thoroughly clean our apartment.
We stripped bare and reconstructed our home, ridding our selves of all the excess packaging. At the end of a long day, we sat sipping a much-deserved glass of wine and admired our handiwork.
Devoid of clutter, our apartment felt like home again I no longer felt suffocated.
I still have my daily battle with actual excess packaging, but I am slowly becoming more skilled with my scissors.
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