Although the trip from Chico to Merida was long (26 hours) due to some long layovers made longer due to flight delays, as soon as I got here I was re-energized. For the first time ever, I got the green light at customs, In Mexico, there are several steps to clearing customs. First you submit the paperwork and they stamp your passport. Next, you claim any checked baggage after which it is X-rayed and then you press the magic button. It will be red (they search your belongings) or green (yay...you're free), In all of my trips through Mexican immigration, I have 100 % gotten the red light, until now. Could it be a sign that they might be willing to accept me as a resident one day? I certainly hope so.
I have to say that I have never encountered anyone who is rude here. Yucatecs are such positive and friendly people. My only bad customs experiences have been in the U.S. where they heard you like cattle and then bark orders at you. That's not the best way to end a blissful and relaxing vacation. Since I'm going through Houston this time, maybe the Texans will be kinder than Angelinos. Americans could learn a few lessons from the Latin Americans.
On the last leg of my trip (Houston to Merida), I met a lovely couple from Tampa. The woman was the daughter of some Yucatecs and her husband is Cuban born. She was so excited to visit because it had been 34 years when she was 17 that she last visited her grandparents who have since passed. It turns out she doesn't know much about the history of the area, but her cousin is writing a family history book and she's very interested. I was able to give her a lot of information about the history since my Latin American Studies minor focused on the Maya. Her grandmother was Mayan and the first Mayan public school teacher to be certified in Yucatan. She had gone against her father's wishes and attended college after which, she had to sneak out of the house to go to work until she married her Cuban husband. I had guessed that Linda's husband was Cubano because I recognized the accent (he doesn't speak English) and her beautiful sing-song Yucatec accent when she spoke in Spanish so I commented on it. Interestingly, she told me that she was always trying to lose it because she grew up in a city filled with Cubans and so it made her sound different from her friends. I told her how beautiful I find it and that she should be herself and be proud of her Yucatecan heritage.
I took a few photos of my little room at Casa Alvarez and will share more from the city each day.
