My boyfriend and I had reached that phase in a relationship when decisions were no longer solely your own. Since our current lives had come together, the next step was to see how our future might play out. But it had to involve work, and it had to include the world.
We had found a way to live between San Francisco and Idaho. With me, starring as the city girl for eleven years, and he, the mountain guy for thirteen. I was now working full-time on the second draft of my book, while he was doing AutoCAD design for the business that he owned. Armed with laptops and the internet, we could do our work anywhere in the world. The reality was that we weren’t trustfunders, we were now in our thirties, and we wanted to work while traveling. Travel just for the sake of travel had been abandoned when we drove for two weeks on the Big Island of Hawaii and boredom set in while lying on our eighth beach.
The country we would go to had to be interesting, and challenging. It also had to be close to home, and within the same time zone in regard to his work. So when a friend mentioned a part of Mexico’s coastline that was more developing than developed, we decided to drive south.
Driving in Mexico is fairly straightforward, but we took some friends’ advice and only drove during the day. At night, most highways were unlit, and you never knew when the occasional burro was going to stumble out onto the road. But for as tranquillo as Mexicans are, they drive like bats out of hell in their home country. Let’s just say that there is a reason they hang the Virgin Guadalupe from their rear view mirrors, it’s because they put God into their hands when playing frequent games of chicken.
As far as travel rumors go, driving through Mexico was free of hassle. When we crossed each state border, I’d slow down and assume the Mexican National Army would rummage through our van. Instead, I’d have to wave for their attention at checkpoints. They’d wave back, barely looking, with AK-47s over their shoulders while puffing cigarettes. Tranquillo, for sure.
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