Mexico!

Alex and I are off to Mexico today! We have a few different locations planned to stay– hotels mostly and then making a stop at an art residence in the jungle side of Tulum. I feel bad leaving Marlowe– the poor girl dreams and asks to visit Mexico so often! She says, “it would be so wonderful to live in Mexico, we could eat tacos everyday” and she would— she really would eat tacos everyday. We promise her over and over again, we will soon. We tell her the three of us will fly there, rent a car and drive everywhere— to the towns, the cities, the mayan temples and more. And we will eat tacos everyday— one day. One day soon. But today– on this trip— it’s me and Alex. It’s one of the few places that we always want to re-visit.  We assume the only places we’ll revisit are the ones where our family live. But in mexico, we have no family. It just has a special place in our hearts. I joke (though deep down I might be serious) that we might actually have to move there and eat tacos everyday depending on how this election goes. My dad asked “but when are you going? When will you be back? I heard there might be a wall going up.” He’s got jokes for sure. But anyway, I don’t want this post to focus on the elections or my fear of next year— for now, I’m excited to revisit mexico, with Alex.

These photos are from a post I wrote 3 years ago. (From our honeymoon).  Blurry photos from a disposable camera I brought. A post that sat in my draft box this entire time– something I could never bring myself to delete. And with these photos— a half written story. Part of me wonders if I should finish it— but I sort of like it how it is. Unfinished. Unedited.

Anyway, we’re off for the week! The blog will be up and running like normal! I have a bunch diys and a good amount of FOOD posts scheduled! And I’ll be on instagram too, I’m sure!

I hope you guys have a wonderful week! A three year old story below, if you care to read 🙂

oh, ps. Before you read the story— I have two goals for myself this trip. Both involving water. 1. I’d like to get myself to go in the ocean— maybe not for long, but enough to submerge myself underneath. 2. I’d like to get myself to go in a cenote. This might not be as easy, depending on our schedule, but if time allows, I want to make this happen too.







  Did I ever tell you I’m scared of the ocean? Like, I won’t go more than shin deep? Well, did I also tell you (I’m pretty sure I did), my major in college was Marine Affairs. I was accepted as a Marine Biology student and made a quick switch when I saw the price difference in majors. It was probably a good move, since I’m not sure how realistic it would be to be a marine biologist that is petrified of the ocean. I mean, either way, I’m not exactly doing anything with my Marine Affairs education either, but you get it. Oh wait, you’ve never heard of Marine Affairs? Most people haven’t. I like to describe it as “boat, port, fishing laws, and stuff”– the important part being “and stuff” (of course). The only courses I really enjoyed (relating to the major) were my sustainability and environmental classes. I can spit out a bit of information from the farming and agriculture class or the landscape architecture class I took, but besides that, the only information that really stuck with me was about protecting the earth. I mean, it makes sense since it’s the information that can be most applied to my daily life.

Only a few kilometers south from our jungle house was the entrance to the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve. I learned a lot about this place in college. I remember learning about mangroves, estuaries, clams, and coral reefs… and shortly after, I never thought about this place or it’s interiors and surroundings again. One partially sunny morning, we thought it would be nice to get an early start to check out the biosphere, take a tour, walk around, lay on the beach, and head back for an afternoon lunch. We made our way in through the Biosphere gate (this makes it sound like an enclosed space, like in Biodome– the movie, but it’s not. There’s a gate to track who goes in and who goes out), stopped at the entrance check point, put down our information, and in a terrible broken spanglish, tried to tell the man we were going to the tower. The question for the next few hours that we continued to ask ourselves was “what tower?” Our quick day trip turned out to be an all day excursion on a non paved, very… umm… interesting road. No, not road…. hardly a road, it was a path. We were warned by the man in the front, the roads were very washed and very dangerous and to take it slow. Well, we didn’t have any option but to take it slow. The non paved road— the ONLY road was not really designed for smaller cars to travel on— but we moved on anyway. We didn’t know where the “tower” we were supposed to be looking for was. We didn’t know how long the road was or exactly what was on the end, but we figured, we might as well keep going. Whats the point of traveling so far just to turn around and see nothing?  We drove between jungle, past hidden Mayan ruins, over bumps and bumps, passing by puddles, practically small lakes really, filled with water—  but how deep was the water? Well we didn’t know. And the trucks kept passing us by. One way in one way out. A whole excursion of trucks followed for a while until we waved them on to pass. Each time we questioned if we should turn around, another sign was put in front of us (literally and figuratively) that we should keep going. A bridge, a peek out onto the water, a biosphere sign or a mile marker telling us how many more miles to Punta Allen. I made up stories aloud and and in my head of what we could find at this town. The perfect village of restaurants and docks, mostly locals and a few boats bringing in far away travels to one of the most secluded and hard to reach places on earth— a place we would fall in love with and want to move to forever. Once the jungle road opened up into a view of blue and white— ocean to the left and bay to the right, I knew I wanted to keep moving forward.