Can polar bears tan?: Travel Reflection

I know everyone is curious about how the travels have been going. I’ve been lucky to be able to stay in Mexico and travel with friends that are in the same situation. I’m going to write a series of posts about the travels. I’ll put up pictures. I’ll spend more time with the experiences I think are unique and fun and probably less time on things that are more common or can be better described in picture. Writing about travel is supposed to be fun to write and fun to read. If it’s not fun to write, I won’t bother with it. At this point I’m starting to write about experiences happening a few weeks ago and I’ll just break posts up according to how I feel tells a good story. Anyway. that’s the mechanics. Enjoy!

Immediately after being laid off I booked a ticket back to Houston to see my family. Sometimes you just need some recovery time. I spent about 10 days in the US, traveled up to Arkansas to visit family there and then returned to Houston. I had the chance to make some decisions and get a rough plan together. I also brushed up my resume and applied to jobs, just as a long shot.

I was hoping to come back to Carmen and pack my things up right away. However, as you’ll read along, you will see that travel has been a study in making plans and immediately having them changed. I learned that I needed to get quotes from different companies and then it would take another week to make estimates and another week for big blue to decide which company would actually do the move. Drat. Two more weeks in Carmen was not what I was excepting. I discussed with HR and finally determined I didn’t actually need to be in Carmen. I left the next afternoon.

I drove out to Playa del Carmen, via Merida (I wasn’t sure about making the whole drive in one day, I didn’t know how good the roads were). I definitely felt a sense of needed to run away and escape as I left. It was a good decision. I spent a night in Merida at a hacienda that was gorgeous. I was less fond of the owner, a Canadian couple who after 15 years in Mexico could barely string a sentence together in Spanish (a HUGE pet-peeve of mine. If you live in a country you should at least make an effort to learn the language!).

I left the next morning for Playa. Playa del Carmen, or the ‘nice’ Carmen, is amazing. It’s about an hour down the coast from Cancun, but a whole other world. It’s touristy, but has a mix of locals and other expats from Italy and Argentina in particular. 5th street is full of restaurants and shops and the town itself is an easy jumping point to cenotes, beaches and islands in the area.

A friend of mine was already there, he had been laid off two weeks before me and another friend was flying in the next week, she was laid off about 3 weeks before me. I spent my time in Playa on the beach, eating good food, meeting new people and relaxing. We took a trip to Cozumel and Tulum and Akumal. We saw a few cenotes. I discovered this ‘life’ thing I’d been missing out on.

Every once in a while like sitting on the roof of the place we were staying at, watching the sun go down and drinking wine and eating hummus after a day on the beach, I’d look up and think, if I was still working, about right now I’d be…. And I’d think about how much better this moment was. How much of my life had been tied to work. How much I had given up to the company. And suddenly being laid off wouldn’t seem so bad. It would seem like a gift that I didn’t know I needed until I had it. And I couldn’t even fathom going back.