* Relaxation: If you stay home, you'll do stuff. Really. You'll say that you are just going to take it easy and relax and before you know it, all contents of the linen closet are on the floor and you are organizing. Or something breaks and there is no concierge to call. And the phone rings and the cupboard is bare and you have to do stuff. That is not relaxing.
Instead, imagine this blissful routine:
- Roll out of bed and go get coffee, barefoot. On the way, admire the tropical garden (and many cats - but that's a different story).
- Enjoy coffee in hammock while listening to waves.
- Eventually eat a little breakfast in a palapa-roofed dining room without walls.
- Head to the beach chair you've staked out. Read, nap, watch waves.
- When you have the energy for it, walk on the beach, swim in the warm ocean, and poke around the tidepools.
- Return to beach chair. Rest up after all that exertion.
- At some point, rinse the sand off and go have lunch. Aguachile and a margarita. Or shrimp tacos and a bottle of Victoria, lime and salt on the side.
- Nap.
- Repeat steps 4, 5, 6, rinse again, meet your sweetie for sunset margaritas.
- Have dinner in a restaurant without walls but very possibly with children, dogs, lizards, and hammocks. Oh, and amazing food (chile rellenos, chicken mole, coconut shrimp, you get the picture).
- As you stagger home, consider stopping for gelato. FQ always orders lemon, Phrodaux knows better and gets coconut. FQ samples his and says, "Oh, that's better." Every time.
- Sprawl out on the bed, watch some old TV show, fall asleep full and calm and warm and peaceful.

That, my friends, is why you travel. You will never do so little at home.
But wait, there's more!
* Wildlife encounters: This trip alone, we saw whales and dolphins swimming by, a big iguana in the iguana tree and little ones munching on leaves next to our lunch table, a baby crocodile, a puffer fish, all sizes & shapes of crabs, urchins and anemones, pelicans, butterflies, an assortment of beach dogs, and an army of cats.
Some years the wildlife is even more exotic: an armadillo in our garden! |
Baby turtles are hatching! Good thing there are a lot of them...what with the gulls, the dogs, the waves, and the clueless people, it's hard to get on out to the ocean blue if you're a baby tortuga! |
So, tiny little sweet peas, the moral of this story is: Leave home once in a while. Pick a nice place. Go there and chill. Get some color in your cheeks (everyone will remark on it when you get back to normal life). Enjoy more than 7 hours of daylight at the turning of the year. Take a nap. Walk right out into the ocean. Eat one more taco than you think you should because the restaurant owner's abuela made those tortillas right there, over the fire. Send us a postcard.
I didn't know you are a misanthrope. Curious as to why that is...
ReplyDelete"L'enfer, c'est les autres" more or less... but not you, you are lovely.
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