The standard duration for a vehicle permit in Mexico is six months.  Much longer than any other country south of the border, it is both plenty of time and not near enough time at all, especially when you’re on a schedule.  I don’t very much like schedules.

    I entered Mexico at Tijuana on January 5 and a few friends were flying down to attend the wedding of two other friends in Playa del Carmen on February 20.  This would mean I only had 45 days to travel 2,700 miles - if I were to drive the shortest distance via a direct route.  But I was not in this for a direct route – not yet, at least.  I would pack much into those 45 days, covering more than 3,800 miles.  More miles – more Mexico.  Still, I wish I could have wandered more and lingered longer where I did.  I don’t very much like friends.  I made my first stand here never to backtrack, to always be heading (mostly) south, to somewhere new.

    Courtney was marrying Chas.  Zak and Wendy were attending on his side, as was I.  The four of us were members of a comedy troupe in Billings, Montana, which as I write that, I now feel the need to qualify because it does sound suspiciously bad.

    I had been a founding member of Projectile Comedy in 2004.  We designed, wrote, rehearsed, and performed a show that we took turns opening with 5-10 minutes of standup, then sprinkled in skeletoned improv that filled in between what was mostly sketch comedy.  There was a new 2-hour show most Thursdays for the next five years.  Objectively, it was an impressive feat with a staggering amount of output.  As everyone got older and busier, the shows shrunk to improv only.  As of this writing, there is still a weekly show every Thursday.  PCP!  I hadn’t seen them since my farewell show a few days before I left – ten weeks and a lifetime ago.

    My friends were staying at lberostar Paraíso Lindo, a 5-star, all-inclusive resort north of Playa del Carmen.  The cost was probably $150-$200 per night.  The amount they each paid for four nights of food/lodging was approximately what I had spent on the same during my entire 50 days thus far in Mexico.

    The road, the people, the places – all the things I had seen, heard, and done – flashed before my eyes as I drove up to this sprawling fortress.  My jaw dropped and my stomach turned, and I wondered what border I had crossed without knowing.  These fountains, these fancy drinks in fancy glasses, this marble, this all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink any time, all the time was not the Mexico I had come to know and love.

    I was held up by security at the entrance gate as they made a call.  How dare they?  Never mind that I had neither cut my hair nor shaved since leaving the U.S., that I must have looked like the crazed, scurvy-riddled captain of the S.S. Wackovan packed to the gills with, well, lots of stuff!  The guards were perhaps a little disappointed to hear, “Yes – he’s with us,” and were obligated to allow my passage.

    Chas was waiting for me in the giant entryway.  It was good to see familiar faces.  We chatted outside the Reception Office, then wandered out to the beach for a smoke beneath backlit white clouds, admiring too the Caribbean.

    Soon thereafter, a security guard pulled Chas aside and requested either payment for me to stay ($75 until 2am) or my departure.  It was an easy decision.

    I left the opulent compound and got two hot dogs at a convenience store.  Campsites were scarce, so I had to drive for a bit, finally finding a reasonable parking lot 15 km north for some rawdog camping.  I backed the van in, its tailgate obscured by bushes.  It was my first of four nights guerilla camping on the Yucatan.  

    The next day, Zak and Wendy became the first passengers in the van.  I picked them up and showed them a bit of my Mexico, and one of my favorite parts of it: cenotes, which are naturally existing sinkholes or caves that fill with water.  Many Mayan cultures believed that Xibalba was where humans went after their life on Earth, and that the entrance into this world was through these cenotes.  I can speak to the other-worldly nature of these splendid places.  I would visit eight of them during my time in the Yucatan.

    Zak, Wendy, and I visited Kin-Ha Cenote.  It was a beauty – above ground, a leap of faith into a hole in the earth, water 10-15 ft. below; below ground, a swing suspended high in the cave.  We swung and swam and giggled and reveled and shrieked and beheld.  It was a great, quiet drive before the highway that led back to the resort.  Dusty, dusky Mexico poured through the open windows.

    Zak spotted me $75 to hang out at the resort until 2am.  The loveliest shower in many moons was followed by a delicious dinner.

    Wendy led the drinking parade.  It was way too late in the game for those Sex on the Beaches, which sent her into another dimension.  She knocked over a candle on the bar table, then found her way to a theater (of course) and frolicked on the stage.  Bedtime!  Zak and I walked her back to the room whereupon she (1) demanded an assortment of food be delivered to the room and (2) got real sleepy soon after this demand and promptly went nigh-night.

    NOTE: Never, ever, under any circumstances, pass out in the company of members of a comedy troupe.  The chances of you appearing in photos – harmless and playful, but decidedly inappropriate ones – more than double.  Love you, Wendy.

    The next day, there was a lovely wedding on a lovely day in Mexico.  I was glad to pay my own way.  Until 2am, then it was back to my parking lot.