Mexico-No Longer A Pain In The English
I Am an AmeriCAN, Not an AmeriCAN’T
Cozumel, Cabo, money, language, guacamole, jazz, and the recurring discovery that life gets better when you stop treating the border as the edge of the map.
And You Are MexiCANS
It is reassuring to know that I can still pay for things in a currency that sometimes feels as though it no longer exists: the U.S. dollar.
Cozumel is not as dramatic as Cabo San Lucas on the Pacific side of the Sea of Cortez, but it has its own Caribbean–Los Angeles rhythm. At moments it feels like passing through one of the barrios off the Harbor Freeway—without the traffic and without the Los Angry Cars.
Forget the expat mythology. Locals fill the tourism jobs here. The playing field feels more level, and the first language of the island is not English or Spanish. It is money.
Money may not be the key to happiness, but the happy-go-locals have figured out that with enough of it, somebody can make a key.
English comes second, and they understand the absurdity of the language: no egg in eggplant, no ham in hamburger, no pine or apple in pineapple. We park on driveways and drive on parkways. Double negatives are a no-no.
An endangered species: the expat.
Cabo: Afternoon Cowboy, Midnight Sailor
Life Is Good
I had gone native in a Colonel Kurtz sort of way: tequila, a Hecho en México straw cowboy hat, and complete surrender to the afternoon.
Food Is the New Adventure
If fifty is the youth of old age, food may be the romance of it. The guacamole-cheese-quesadilla was less lunch than a legally binding relationship.
Many Hats
If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed. A Brazilian flag and a straw hat were sufficient wardrobe for the day.
Open Deck Rules
Joe Bjornson, an Icelandic jazz musician and self-described Vincent van Gogh of trombone, was welcome company—provided the tobacco stayed beneath the salt-water air.
Cozumel and Cabo
Cozumel
An endangered species: the expat.
Cabo San Lucas
Afternoon cowboy, midnight sailor.
Boating Under the Influence
The Sea of Cortez changes the definition of a commute.
Man of Many Hats
If you are wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed.
The Vincent van Gogh of Trombone
Jazz, Iceland, and second-hand smoke on the open deck.
Continue Through Cabo
Cabo: A Suburb of Los Angeles
Another dispatch from the Mexican–Californian overlap, where geography, traffic, language, and familiarity begin to blur.
Read Cabo AgainMidnight Cabo
The happy-go-local version of Cabo after dark: less postcard, more lived-in rhythm, and proof that midnight has its own geography.
Read Midnight CaboIn Mexico, the answer was yes. The currency still worked, the food improved the economy of the soul, and the border turned out to be less a barrier than an invitation to reconsider what counted as home.