Sunday, February 28, 2010

Travel Talk, Pillow Talk

Laying in bed this morning talking to Ev about Mexico.  Our friend, Buggs, runs a website called Borderland Beat focused on the politics, finances and violence surrounding the drug trafficking in Mexico.  I learned this morning Oaxaca is in a drug corridor and last week there was a mass killing in the area.  I asked Ev if this deterred him from wanting to go.  Answer I expected and got: nope.

Later, we read an article in the paper called The Joys of Traveling Without a Plan.  Steve Yoder says, "I found that, at age 52, my inner cheapskate wrestled mightily with my creature comfort urges." Ev and I agreed that we like the romance of traveling without a plan, but the reality of it is not as good as a semi-formed plan with room for impulsive stops.  "Over the years", says Yoder, "I've gotten more uncertainty averse"

We're good travel partners on many levels.  I take the lead in planning and researching before hand, and he is happy to go along with however I map it out.  I like to make little boxes on a legal pad, a trick I learned from uber-organized Christina.  Many of  the boxes are blank, leaving us days to do whatever we discover while we're there.  Neither of us are averse to moderate accommodations, and we like to experiment with food.  He likes to drive, I like to ride and he doesn't mind teaching me how to use a compass over and over again.  I try not to mind his intolerance for being lost.  "Making good time getting nowhere" I like to say.

Ten days to go.  This week will look at air temps in Oaxaca and water temps in the Pacific so we can figure out our gear.

I leave you now with some reading to do:    http://oaxacainsider.com/

Monday, February 22, 2010

Where we begin...


Planning a trip to Mexico always fills me with glee. This time we're headed to a place that half of us has never been before. The other half had to look at slides from the 1950's to refresh her memory that yes, indeedy Oaxaca is a place worth returning to. In true Sewellian vacation form, we're breaking the trip up so we won't have to change locations but every three days. Dragging shitcases in and out of the car makes me grumpy. The final destination will be to my home town of Jaltipan in the state of Veracruz.

Pre-trip jitters: For some odd reason, Ev thought it would be a good idea to google "rental car nightmares".