It’s noon and I’m standing on the pier at the AquaFun Marina. “Is it just me?” I ask the guy who’s been assigned to me as a sort of handler, as though I might go rogue. “No, no, these groups are about 20 people.” I point at the flat pontoon type boat. “So we go …
The sound of the surf. Hearing the drivers, bellboys, staffers here and there say “Mucho gusto” after we’ve been chatting for a while and they decide to introduce themselves. Charmers, everywhere. In the hotel lobby, the ten piece Latin band in matching shirts and the South Indian family dancing. Watching three huge dark birds — …
“Cancun? Really? That doesn’t seem like your kind of place.” I’ve heard that about sixty-three times, maybe more, since opportunities to go to the Mayan Riviera have shown up in my inbox. And yeah, looking at the massive developments along the strip in Cancun’s hotel zone, the critics have a point. I’m not a Vegas …
Six lane arterials lined with strip malls. Subdivisions bordered from each other with high concrete or brick walls. Huge swaths of asphalt in front of box stores. Few things make me feel more alienated than these cookie cutter American suburbs. Yesterday, we sat behind a big black Ford Explorer with a sticker in the window …
It’s Saturday night at Crossroads, a Mexican restaurant in Tucson. The mariachi band is starting their evening. There are four musicians — there’s trumpet, a violin, a little five string guitar (a vihuela) and guitarron — that big bass guitar. The guitarron player is a woman with a wide brown face and a body that …